The Sword and Laser discussion

My cousin recently re-read Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance Chronicles and Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy.
His question to me was “what other series do you like?”

The following is my response, and I’m curious what are your favorite series?
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Novel Series List

For my money right now anything written by Brandon Sanderson is “must read”: Mist born, storm light series, and any of his stand alone novels.

The rest is a review of series that I have enjoyed.
I’ll put a bunch of “***” next to series that I have really enjoyed
(note I didn’t list the ones that I didn’t like)

-Joe Ambercrombie is brutal and graphic fantasy with a no holds barred anti hero
-Peter v Brett Demon cycle is fantasy that has a nice story arch of friends, “frien-emy”, demons, politics and love
-I like the series/stand alone stuff Dan Brown does (Angels and Demons, da Vinci code, etc...
-*** If you want urban fantasy you can’t get any better than Jim Butcher and the Dresden files.
-Orson Scott Card and Enders Game is the beginning of some very compelling characters and story telling in science fiction
-Jacqueline Carey has a high fantasy series that starts with Kushiel’s dart that is a fun take on high fantasy meets romance
-James SA Cory and the series of the Expanse is some of the best hard science/science fiction I’ve read in a long time
-***I know it’s not a series (yet) but “Ready Player” one is amazing thank you Earnest Cline
-The RNC saga written by David Drake (a military history fan) it is a really fun science fiction military meets espionage series
-David Eddings was the first author/series (the Diamond throne and the pawn of prophecy are respectively the 1st books) that I read after I first started reading with Dragonlance and is forever in my heart
-Raymond E Feist started off a series with the “Magicians Apprentice” that I loved (at least until he couldn’t end the series)
-***CS Friedman wrote The Cold Fire series a high fantasy that has the best hero/anti-hero team up I’ve ever read
-***Neil Gaiman doesn’t write series but has written a lot of standalone that are absolutely great his top two are “good omens” as well as “American Gods”
-Terry goodkind wrote a high fantasy series that started with “ Wizards First Rule” that was amazing in the first five books but I despised the final five
-Ed Greenwood (another dungeons and dragons author) Wrote a series that began with the book “Spellfire” that I loved
-WEB griffin writes history fantasy where the events are real but the characters are a fictional (they are the movers and shakers of all these events). If you’re interested I would recommend starting with “the Lieutenants” or “ Semper Fi”
-Kevin Hearne has a wonderful urban fantasy series the Iron Druid
-Across the Nightingale Floor began a wonderful oriental fantasy written by Lian Hearn
-Frank Herbert and the dune series. It is deep and heavy that has a slower pace that pays off for me by the end of each novel in the series
-Jim Hines is another urban fantasy writer that writes some fun stories in the magic Ex Libra’s series
-***Robin Hobbs and the Assassins Apprentice line of novels are just grand
-Robert Jordan in the Wheel of Time series started off amazing, died toward the middle, then the author died, and was finished by Brandon Sanderson which I enjoyed
-Stephen King in the Dark Tower series are weird, lovely and long to get through but a nice opus to a creative author
-Mercedes Lackey has written numerous different fantasy series across an entire history of a nation and I have enjoyed all of them
-George RR Martin has written an amazing story and series but I don’t know he’ll ever end it
-Anne McCaffrey has a fine take on dragons that I’ve gone back to a couple times in the Dragon riders of Pern
-Melissa McPhail has a nice fantasy series with the Paths of Alir
-LE Modisette Jr is a prolific fantasy writer that I’ve picked up and dropped off throughout the years. Some of his novels are great others are OK
-Naomi Novik has written a great alternate history where she has put dragons into the Napoleonic wars, a superb series
-Melanie Rawn wrote the Dragon Star and the Dragon Prince series for fantasy which I liked. I really enjoyed her Exiles series which she never finished (sad face)
-***Mickey Zucker Reichardt (The Legend of Nightfall and the Return of Nightfall) wrote amazing Norse series, The Renshai trilogy the Renshai Chronicles
-*** Rick Riordan has written five or six amazing young adult novels series and I recommend all of them
-*** I love Patrick Rothfuss and “the name of the wind” and “a wise man’s fear,” but I am anxiously waiting for him to finish book 3
-*** JK Rowling and Harry Potter, nuff said
-Sean Russell wrote a two book oriental fantasy series (they are “the initiate brother” and “gatherer of clouds”) loved them
-Fred Saberhagen and the Book of Swords series is near and dear to my heart
-***RA Salvatori has the Drizzt series, The cleric quintet, as well as the Demon Awakens Saga
-***Military science fiction is best handled by John Scalzi and book one is “the old man’s war”.
Now Scalzi also has a standalone novel which is absolutely fantastic called ***”red shirts”, read it, it is awesome.
-Do you want science fiction football? Then Scott Sigler has a Galactic Football League series that is better then I ever expected
-Michael A Stackpole (The X-Wing Rogue squadron series) wrote in the Battle Tech universe and started with the Warrior series. He did a follow up to this one called the Blood of Krensky. Great writing
-SM Sterling has arc series set that I found very fun, A Novel of the Change. Two different storylines begin with the novels “Island in the Sea of Time” and “Dies the Fire”
-Matthew Stover wrote in the Caine series. Book one and two are Ding-Dang amazing! I enjoyed the following two well enough.
-Michael J Sullivan wrote the Riyria series that I recently really enjoyed
-J.R.R. Tolkien those books
-***David Weber has a science fiction series called the Honor Harrington novels (i’ve read about two to three dozen of these), but I can’t recommend enough the novels that start with ***Off Armageddon Reef*** It’s so good!
-***Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman also wrote the following series: Star of the Guardian, War of the Souls, the Dark Sword Trilogy, and ***The Death Gate Cycle***
-Tad Williams does deep long lasting high fantasy for the Memory Sorrow and Thorn trilogy.
-***If you want to see Timothy Zahns take super assassins then take a look at the Cobra series. Also the afore mentioned ***Star Wars Thrawn series

Also Added
Scott Lynch is series the gentleman bastards

So... all of them?

😆

Some of my favourites over the years:

The Belgariad by David & Leigh Eddings
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
Milkweed Triptych by Ian Tregillis
First Law World by Joe Abercrombie
The Gentlemen Bastards by Scott Lynch
Powder Mage series by Brian McClellan
Shannara series by Terry Brooks
Remembrance of Earth's Past by Liu Cixin
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
The Dark Tower by Stephen King
The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club by Theodora Goss
Bobiverse by Dennis E. Taylor
Lady Astronaut by Mary Robinette Kowal
Helliconia by Brian Aldiss
Saga of the Exiles by Julian May
Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer
Memory, Sorrow & Thorn by Tad Williams
Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien
Dune by Frank Herbert
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Lensman by E.E.Smith

Thanks Tassie

I'm about to finish the "Nexus" series by Ramez Naam and I like it a lot


Nexus


Crux


Apex

Well, one that hasn't been mentioned in a wall of text that I've enjoyed is The World of the Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold (not so much as a series as multiple books set in the same world), which starts with former S&L pick The Curse of Chalion. So far there are two timeline-consecutive novels, and then a stand-alone and a series of novellas set in earlier time periods.

I am dead keen to do some academic writing about The World of the Five Gods, tbh.

Others that have not been mentioned that I've enjoyed are-
The Rama Series by Arthur C Clarke with Gentry Lee
-The character work might be weak, but the big ideas presented here are what I came for.

The Silo Series by Hugh Howey

The Idlewild Trilogy by Nick Sagan
-An interesting trilogy about the survivors of an epidemic, from the son of Carl Sagan.

The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov
-While I do love the initial trilogy, Books 4 & 5 are probably my favorite, since they are directly connected, and are essentially a duolgy with in the larger series. And this is where Asimov decided to connect all of his series (Robot, Galactic Empire, Foundation) into one universe.

Honorable mentions to-
The Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
The I, Robot Trilogy by Mickey Zucker Reichert
Two series I did not exactly love, but enjoyed for the most part. I still need to read the last Long Earth book.

Ian Tregillis has another series the deserves attention, The Alchemy Wars.

Just picking some that haven't been named yet:

Raven's Mark Trilogy by Ed McDonald
Discworld by Terry Pratchett
Dark Profit Saga by J. Zachary Pike
Best Laid Plans by Rob J. Hayes
The Band by Nicholas Eames
The Space Merchants Series by Frederik Pohl
The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski
PC Peter Grant/Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott
Themis Files by Sylvain Neuvel

I loved The Belgariad in my mid-teens. It’s the series that got me into reading fantasy and also aspire me to become a writer.

I would like to re-read them but I’m worried that they won’t be as good now some twenty years later.

I am surprised nobody mentioned The Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemisin :)

Some other faves have not been mentioned:
Bel Dame Apocrypha by Kameron Hurley
Dunk and Egg by George RR Martin*
Locke and Key by Joe Hill
Divine Cities by Robert Jackson Bennett
Gods of Blood and Powder by Brian McClellan
Frontlines by Marko Kloos*
The Dagger and the Coin by Daniel Abraham
Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee
The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters
Tales of the Ketty Jay by Chris Wooding
Luna by Ian McDonald
New Crobuzon by China Mieville
Bartimaeus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud
Lockwood & Co by Jonathan Stroud
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*Not completed

Silvana wrote: "I am surprised nobody mentioned The Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemisin :)

Some other faves have not been mentioned:
Bel Dame Apocrypha by Kameron Hurley
Dunk and Egg by George RR Martin*
Locke and..."

Frontlines seemes to be completed. Points of Impact seems to be the last book in the series.

Viola wrote: "... Frontlines seemes to be completed. Points of Impact seems to be the last book in the series...."

I sure hope not. The Lankys aren't defeated yet, just stopped at one point. And, we still know almost nothing about Lanky history, motivation, biology, economy, etc.. Nada.

One of my favorites:
A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan