Didn't see Goodkind on the list, The Sword of Truth series. (Although that is starting to lose it's luster, hopefully the next book will put it back on track.)

Also check out Elizabeth Haydon's Symphony of Ages and Sara Douglas' Wayfarer Redecption. Both are pretty tight in their plot and have a nice epic feel to them.

Anyone else have ideas?

Well - Have you done Gaiman? Pratchett? Disc world series is hilarious! Good Omens, American Gods, and NEverwhere are fantastic. Neal Stephenson is good. I've read his Diamond Age and it took a bit to get into, but was worth it. I hear Snow crash is better. I just recently finished two of Simon R. Green's Nightside books which are a hoot to read. Think Dashiell Hammett goes down the rabbit hole to solve cases in a world that is totally insane. Pretty funny, I think. You've probably done Mercedes Lackey if you've done McCaffrey, but she's good for a series. She has a husband who writes as well - Larry something and they do an Elf series together. Have you done the Marion Zimmer Bradley Darkover series? Also the Sword and Sorceress anthologies are a lot of fun, as are the Cat Fantastic ones (Andre Norton and Michael Greenburg). Charles Delint is good for urban fantasy, though he tends to repeat his stories. He has both novels and anthologies out. Kage Baker?

Okay - I'm out - if you want something that is surreal but more brain foody then I would suggest Italo Calvino or Umberto Eco.

Okay, I think that's it for now. If I think of others I"ll add them.
RO

Also, have you thoroughly read all of Douglas Adams? He did the Dirk Gently series after the Hitchhiker series as well as a good book called Last Chance to See.

Others I just remembered: Tim Powers, James P. Blaylock (Last Coin), Patricia McKillip (very elegant writer, imo), and Lord Dunsany is supposed to be the grandaddy of them all. George MacDonald, too.

Not necessarily always epic, but very enjoyable, in my opinion:
George RR Martin
Greg Keyes
Guy Gavriel Kay
Ursula K. LeGuin
Robin McKinley

Another strong recommendation for George R. R. Martin. The Song of Ice and Fire is as epic as anyone could hope for, and isn't falling into the "drags on" or "fuzzy plot" traps.

Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books are very enjoyable, and are about epic *events*... If not actually epic themselves. Heh.

Another recommendation for both Pratchett's Discworld and Haydon's Symphony of the Ages books. I've enjoyed both of these (though her most recent two Symphony books, Elegy for a Lost Star and Requiem for the Sun, I've found difficult to get into; Rhapsody/Prophecy/Destiny are extremely good regardless).

Epic urban fantasy that combines damn near all of the mythoi I've ever read about (For instance, in it, the Judeo-Christian archangel Uriel is the same entity sometimes known as Apollo or Hyperion, and is the ruler of the sun and the concept of day; I'd have been even more impressed if Wright had explicitly said that s/he was also Amaterasu Omikami): John C. Wright's Everness books: Last Guardian of Everness and Mists of Everness.

If you're willing to step outside fantasy slightly, I really enjoyed Thomas Harlan's newer alternate-future series: Wasteland of Flint and House of Reeds. It's sci-fi, but it's sci-fi in a universe where the Aztec/Mexica empire dominated Earth and its interstellar colonies.

C. J. Cherryh's Faded Sun series is very fantasy-like, for being sci-fi: The Faded Sun: Kesrith, The Faded Sun: Shon'jir, and The Faded Sun: Kutath, but they're also available in a single omnibus paperback these days.

I think that's probably all I can think of offhand.

two words DARK ELF, there is none better!

Erikson is amazing! Just read Kristen Britain's Green Rider and the follow up, they were light but enjoyable...

You know, sometimes you just need to follow your heart to the old classics for inspiration. Try Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. There's a new translation out there that is good. Tolkein's is good as well. Beowulf. Or go back and research different mythologies and/or legends and fairytales. Italo Calvino put together a great book of Italian Fairytales.

Just a thought.

Try the Thomas Covenant novels (two trilogies) by Stephen Donaldson. It's been 15-20 years since I read them but worth working through. Though he tends toward the school of "Don't use 10 words if 100 will do..." writing.

Also, I just picked up The Great Book of Amber: All 10 Amder novels by Roger Zalazny...the first couple chapters are interesting.

p c hodgell......godstalk....then dark of the moon....
maybe a bit hard to find....check the library and the used book stores....
you will not be sorry....
love fantasy but am super super picky and she is my absolute shero...

I loved "On a Pale Horse" by Peirs Anthony, and the books that followed. It is the chronicle of a man who becomes death, because death is simply an office. Each book in the series is written from the perspective of a different character: Fate, Time, Mother Nature, Satan, and yes ... God. The stories all intertwine. Very well written.


J. Michael Hileman
Author of VRIN: ten mortal gods

I have been re-reading the Heralds of Valdemar stuff by Mercedes Lackey. Good bunch of books, but I recomend reading them in chronological order rather than the order they are written. If you read them in the order written some of the topics discussed in earlier books will be spoilers for things you read later...

Anything by Lois Bujold, Dave Freer, Irene Radford, and Diane Wynne Jones "Deep Secret" counts as a good read.

I really like the Mercedes Lackey Valdemar and Dragon Riders series. Lackey's Valdemar series mixes a lot of factors into her plots, but also tries to give us a book or two to everyone's favorite characters. She also makes it well known that being female or queer doesn't affect the way one does their job. She and her husband are horse fanatics and rehabilitating falconers which lends credibility to the information she puts in her books (read them and you'll see).

For all that he gets bashed, I think Christopher Paolini's Inheiritance Trilogy. Eragon and Eldest are pretty well written given that he started writing when he was 15. The second in the series, Eldest is very well written with the story working to a convergence of two alternating storylines. Eragon will be in theaters in December, but I'm holding out on going to that just yet.

There is also the His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman (soon to made into a motion picture). I have only read the first book, The Golden Compass, so far, but it was very well written, if a bit predictable.

My final suggestion is to read the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane. Diane wrote this series starting in the 1980s and finished it just last year (2005). None of these are completely plausible, but they open your eyes to interesting possibilities. My favorite characters in the entire series are Ponch (the dog) and the Transcendental Pig.

That's my 4 bits (I gave way more than a quarter).

-M