[GeronL]

I wish the review was more detailed.

[piytar]

Read Zelazny and Eddings. Any. Avoid Donaldson unless you are looking for a dense and dark (but ultimately rewarding) slot.

[Hootowl]

Try Glen Cook’s Annals of the Black Company, one of the most excellent fantasy reads ever IMHO.

[RBK]

Check out “The Deed Of Paksenarrion” by Elizabeth Moon
and “Green Rider” by Kristen Britain
Both are the beginning of excelent fantasy series’s

[RBK]

Allso Terry Brooks “Shanara” series

[Nepeta]

Eddings is fun to read, but fluffy. The characters are memorable, but otherwise, there isn't much substance.

Goodkind is absurd. He's almost writing self-parody, taking himself Seriously, and insisting he isn't writing fantasy but a whole new genre. It's hard to believe he was ever published. What's bothering the chickens?

Jordan is just plain tiresome. ALL of his female characters are alike.

The Black Company novels are wonderful.

I've tried many times to read the Shannara novels, but I could never get more than 40 pages into the first one.

He never wrote a novel, but he was one of the best fantasy writers who ever lived--Clark Ashton Smith. He isn't always easy to find, but his stories are worth the search.

Paula Volsky wrote some good fantasy novels, including two I will never forget-Wolf of Winter and Illusion.

[Kartographer]

As for me I am a GREAT fan of Dennis McKiernan’ Mythgar series as well as his ‘Faery Series’ series.

Now many claim that his first book ‘The Iron Tower’is to ‘much’ like Tolkien’s work, but it must be understood that this book was actually his second book. McKeirnan had written a previous book, which he ended up titling ‘The Silver Call’ which was written as a sequel to ‘The Lord of the Rings’. Doubleday thought enough of ‘the Silver Call’ to peruse talk’s with Tolkien’s estate.

Failing in those negotiations Doubleday then went back to McKiernan and asked him to re-write ‘The Silver Call’ as well as a prequel making the series completely his own. I think that Doubleday’s interest to the work of a person who up to then had never written a published work and was not at that time even a professional writer, but a engineer speaks for itself.

Now many have see McKiernan’s ‘The Iron Tower’ as a ‘imitation’ of Tolkien’s work, but I myself found it to have more than enough differences to make it a good compelling tale own it’s own and it must be understood that McKiernan was in fact writing a ‘back Story’ for a book that was originally written as a sequel to ‘LOTR’ and so therefore some semblance was therefore unavoidable.

But isn’t most Fantasy more or less influenced on previous works, which which if you follow back far enough based on ancient myths and bards?

Once having established his world of Mythgar, McKiernan then continued to ‘flesh it out’ writing several very good books, which clearly stand on their own. Two of my favorites are ‘Eye of the Hunter’ and ‘Dragondoom’.

His ‘Faery Series’ is good reading as well and his retelling of familial childhood fairy tales make excellent reading.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

I might recommend Edmond Hamilton. Short stories. Early (1930's) Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

on Amazon here