Any suggestions on who I should read next??

[The_Lopen]

Well I am currently reading Elantris and The Well of Ascension about halfway through each. I like to read two books at once and when I'm done with Elantris I'm thinking about trying out another author. Anybody have any suggestions on who it should be? BTW I really only read fantasy nothing against other genres just my preference.

[The Honor Spren she/her]

Two I would suggest are Written in Red  and  A Darker Shade of Magic.

[Mestiv he/him]

How old are you? I would suggest Peter V. Brett, his demonic cycle is very fun to read, however there are some explicit scenes not intended to be read by young readers.

 

EDIT: I've just read in another thread that you're 29, so you're fine to read anything Anyway, tell us what have you already read to we don't suggest something that you know.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Mestiv

[Zathoth]

What have you read?

 

A few suggestions then: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, The Black Prism by Brent Weeks, Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, Discworld by Terry Pratchett and Powder Mage by Brain McClellan.

 

If you are in the mood for something bizarre and/or horrifying Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, House of Leaves by Mark Z, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami and some short story collections by Edgar Allan Poe, HP Lovecraft and Thomas Ligotti is always healthy, probably.

[IndigoAjah he/him]

As Rothfuss has been taken, my next step is to suggest Gaiman (Anansi Boys is a good lead in) or Zelazny

[Left he/him]

Brent Weeks and Jim Butcher are very popular around here, and are very accesible and fun. I personally don't read them because I dislike the profanity that's scattered through their books, but I don't know if that's a problem for you.
Tad William's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy is very good, and he's written other series that are supposed to be good.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld is a must, try out Mort, Guards!Guards!, or Going Postal.

[Sunbird she/her]

I second the Dresden Files suggestion. Jim Butcher also came out with another book recently called The Aeronaut's Windlass, which I enjoyed even more than most of the individual Dresden Files books. I would also recommend the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne if you haven't tried those books already. The Magic Ex Libris series by Jim C Hines is excellent as well. It's every bookworm's dream come true: the magic system in the books, libriomancy, allows its practitioners to pull fictional objects out of the pages of books.

 

If you don't have an objection to reading fantasy targeted toward a YA audience, I highly recommended the Seven Realms series (first book is called The Demon King) by Cinda Williams Chima. It's an epic fantasy and a real emotional roller coaster, full of surprises and moments that had me trying not to crush my Kindle to death, they were so tense.

[Orlion Blight he/him]

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

[Delightful]

More YA, the Farsala Trilogy by Hilari Bell, and Laws of Magic series by Michael Pryor.

[Straw he/him]

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (fantasy crime on earth.), Lightbringer by Brent Weeks (Black prism, plenty of cool magic and well written characters.), The First Law by Joe Abercrombie (A barbarian, a wizard, a nobleman, a torturer, and a outlaw band together.)

Here's some YA: Seven realms, Legend, Clockwork angel, His dark materials, The testing, Toby alone (childish but good), I might post more later.

Edited April 7, 2016 by ThatTinyStrawMan

[DSC01 he/him]

I just finished The Moontide Quartet by David Hair and The Dagger and the Coin by Daniel Abraham. The mere fact that both series are complete is a decent recommendation in the world of fantasy (which is not to say that I don't constantly begin reading series that have no end in sight, but it's nice when I know that I can read the whole thing when I begin). Moontide is four volumes, and Dagger and Coin is five, but I'd say that they're roughly the same length, altogether, because the Moontide volumes are each somewhat longer.

 

The Dagger and the Coin is definitely a series in the vein of A Song of Ice and Fire. You could love it and hate ASoIaF and vice versa, but they share certain elements. For example, the fantasy elements are rarely central to the action, and when they are, they usually aren't big, bold, and extravagant. There are a whole bunch of fantasy races that long-gone dragons bred from humans thousands of years before, so the story is populated by a whole bunch of interesting looking characters. They are, however, all just basically people. There is some magic, but it's not emphasized much. None of the main characters can do magic, and its only real practical use is healing. The action is driven by bankers' economic schemes as much as war and intrigue, but it still manages to be an exciting, engaging series.

 

Now, The Moontide Quartet certainly has a lot more magic. It is its own fantasy world, but the cultures are very clearly based on existing ones on Earth. Magic has only been around for about 300 years, after what was more or less a hippie cult accidentally discovered it, and some of the first magi conquered an empire and started a religion around it. One of the magi who devoted himself to peace and learning instead of lording over everyone else built a bridge between two continents separated by a sea too rocky to cross by boat, but it only emerges from the tides every 12 years. So, of course, the religious magi use it wage "holy" wars against the other continent instead of for cultural exchange. 

[Iarwainiel I she/her]

I heartily agree with the recommendation for the Powdermage series by McClellan. He started in one of Brandon's classes at BYU (jokingly says he took it over and over as many times as the school would let him :-), and he writes solid characters in a well-constructed world. He also publishes e-book novellas and short stories independently - Orbit is letting him do it! - so that's a quick & low-cost way to check him out. "The Girl of Hrush Avenue" is a good place to start, or there are several stories collected in "In the Field Marshall's Shadow."

 

Peter Clines' series, Ex-Heroes, is fun: superheroes + zombie apocalypse. Good characters, light humor, and great action sequences.

 

The Silo series by Hugh Howey is really good. He started off publishing the first section of "Wool" as a free e-book (you can tell how green he was as a writer, but it's not annoying, and the story draws you in), then as the series grew in popularity, he got picked up by a publisher, etc. You can start with "Wool" - I think it's still free or maybe 99 cents - but keep in mind that Howey's writing skills get way better as he gains experience.

 

The Area X trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer is easily the weirdest thing I've ever read. In a way it's horrifying without being "horror," and even at the very end I wasn't sure I understood what was going on. Very much worth your time.

 

Finally, a good source for book ideas is the Big Idea posts on Scalzi's blog, whatever.com. In each post, an author explains the "big idea" that inspired a particular (new) book. Some are sci-fi but many are fantasy - you'll be able to tell from the author's description what it is.

 

Happy reading!

[Orlion Blight he/him]

Ford Maddox Ford's Parade's End.