Hello,
Thanks for opening this thread !
I'm a big reader of Heroic-fantasy and science-fiction books, I'm used to read 3 of them for 1 serious book.
I made a list of all my books on excel, for the Heroic Fantasy i have +/- 140 books and +/- 80 for sci-fi, all in french.
First, about the Wheel of time, for the french version, they divided all the books in 2, meaning that there are 28 books ! I read 8 of them between April and June this year but did not yet order the following ones. About this series ... yes, it's fine, but not wonderful, proof of that is that I did not yet bought the following ones ...
Yes about Brandon Sanderson who achieved the story as the original author died, and about him, i discovered this author end of previous year with the book "Elantris" and I liked his style, here's what i noted in the spreadsheet (translated to english) :
Quite a big book, but not bad at all. I liked it, I like the author.
From all the books I have, on the Heroic-Fantasy part, i have a draw for the first place :
It' of course the
Lord of the Rings of
Tolkien and the trilogy "
Demon Wars" of
R.A. Salvatore.
I won't describe LotR here as almos all knows about, but this other trilogy of R.A. Salvatore is simply wonderful, I read it 3x so far. There are visibly 3 other books that follows this series but they were not translated to french, and I can't help to read a book in english (i'm constantly missing some vocabulary and I know and observe that i do not grasp all the meanings when i read something in english, thus, it becomes more frustrating than pleasant).
About "Demon Wars", if you like the stones, or stone therapy and studied it, you'll even more enjoy this series because you'll read a lot about stones. I often wondered, while reading these books, if there was some truths in what the author says about being able to amplify the power of stones through magic (or willpower, knowledge, in relation to the teachings of the C's).
Just below this top position in my preferred book are the long series of the story of
Drizzt Do'Urden, the black elves, still from R.A. Salvatore, there are 13 books that I read 2x. He also wrote other series based on the same universe and he's one of the major author who participated in the popularity of the heroic-fantasy universes, the role-playing games ... Wizard of the Coast, etc ...
I quoted some response in order to comment them :
Anne McCaffrey has written quite a few good fantasy books as well as science fiction books. Her Dragon Riders of Pern series is very popular.
Ah, this book, it's a "brique" (meaning in french a big book) and it's the lone book i stopped to read because I found it annoying. Here's the comment I made about the book :
I don't think I finished it because I found it boring, which is rare.
As they say, there's no accounting for taste.
There is also Mercedes Lackey who has written a number of good fantasy books. Her Valdemar series are quite popular.
There it's the contrary to my previous comment : very good ones ! And for those who likes animals, and here who likes horses, these books will enjoy you much. Here's the comment i wrote about in my notes :
I really enjoyed it, with conscious horses, worth reading again.
... and yes, i plan to read them again.
Now, here are some other series and author with some comments, still about Heroic-Fantasy, I'll maybe re-post another day to speak about Sci-fi which i much like too :
1.
The long series (15 books, at least in the french version) "
The sword of truth" of
Terry Goodking is a good series, but from the middle to the end of the series drags on. My ex girlfriend also read them and had the same comment about. But the first books, at least until the middle of the series, are really excellent. Here are the 2 comments I made about in my notes :
For the first 7 books :
I really enjoyed it, great lessons, great moral.
For the folllowing ones to the end :
... then it starts to drag on, but it's still not bad.
2.
The series "
The Fey" from
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, very good lecture, 9 books. Just that the very last book was not translated to french, i even connected to the website of the author, posted about and she replied me. She's accessible to her readers and talks with them on her website which is a good point. No special comment about, just that bought the first tome a long time ago and remembered that i should buy the others, that I did in 2023 and I read the 8 books in 2 months.
3.
If you like pure Heroic-Fantasy then the books written by 2 authors are pretty good ones :
Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
I just noticed that i'm missing one book one 2 series of 3 books I have from these 2 authors -
The series named "
The Dragonlance Chronicles" is the one i'm missing the first volume, I have to find it and re-read the whole 3 books. Here's the comment i wrote about :
I like the author and the book because it's exactly the kind of Dungeons & Dragons novel you want to read again and again!
The second series i read is the one named "
Dragonlance Legends", same universe, very good too, the comment I wrote about is in relation with the previous comment, here it is :
Same here, it's good, it's great.
I will look into these authors more in the future and plan to buy more books written by them.
4.
Everybody knows
Conan (the barbarian). They visibly recently compiled all the writing of the original author of Conan ,
Robert E. Howard, in a series of 3 books (at least, for the french version of the books) and I can't help to recommend them, they are very very good and, on top of that, there is a short bibliography by the author that explains the context in which he found himself in the late 1920s, the difficulties and constraints he faced, then his illness (he died young), and... in short, it makes reading these reissued books even more interesting.
Here's the comment i wrote about, it's a straightforward one here :
Well, I really liked these original Conan stories!
There are other authors or series i could mention, about authors, all the books of
Raymond E. Feist are very good too, or here, a german author who visibly like the dwarves :
Markus Heitz, it's not as good as other i mentionned but still a good reading. And to come back to
Brandon Sanderson, he visibly wrote also some sci-fi books and as I liked the first book i read from him i think i'm going to purchase other of his books.
The books of
David Gemmel are also very good ones to read, his wife visibly started to writer after his death, I have 7 of his books and each time i opened one of them I was sure that it would be a good lecture to come. I wrote the following comment about this author :
Keep fond memories of this author's books.
At last but not least, for the french readers, there's a very good author in France who is a master of the french langage, and one of his book is +/- related to heroic-fantasy, but could be also classified a bit like sci-fi or fantastic, his name is
Alain Damasio, and the name of the book is "
La horde du contrevent", It's a book that leaves no one indifferent. My comment on it was:
Not bad, original, well written. ... but i would add now that I still remember it, this book made an impression on me, but I don't feel like reading it again just yet, which is a strange and unusual feeling.
Ok that was long enough for today
Enjoy reading !
strangehorizons.com
