Anyone recommend some ORIGINAL fantasy literature?

[PreciousGollum]

Dungeons and dragons,princes and princesses,evil plight threatens world,young upstart goes on a journey to discover great hidden powers,blah,blah,blah...!

Traditional fantasy is all very well,but I want a change-something different and fresh,got any suggestions?If you could name the author,book or series title,and the briefest of outlines telling me how it breaks the mould,I would be very greatful.

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"It hurts us,it hurts us.It freezes,it bites!"

[Lord of Alcohol]

See my recomendations, they arent the usual so far

[WOLFGIR]

Well, I don´t know if you can describe any fantasy not like this.. But usually it starts with an upstart who gets mightier..

Try Robin Hobs Assasin seriue, It is about a small kingdom and a boy who becomes an assasin to the king and is kind of the underdog through the whole serie, not as lame as the Dragonbone chair though, he do some cool stuff but he gets his ass whooped badly and the book is raher in a dark mood with brutality around every corner, inlikely alies and well, you wont get disapointed.

Another one you can try out is the Shadowrun books. The series there are good and quite a relief from the D O D inspired universe. Here you have shamans, elves, orcs trolls doing battles against each other, spirits and great Megacorps. Fast action and easy to read and get into.

If you want yet something else why not try to read the original Conan books? They´re are actually quite good and funny. THough you sometimes loose the nerve since , well it´s Conan...

If you want to stray abit from fantasy try the darker horrors out and in...
HP Lovecraft, Clive barker, Brian Lumley...
Try the different vampire books out there,there is one in special which i can´t rember now. That is really great..

[Throntar]

I highly recommend the Black Company series of books by Glen Cook. There's about a dozen short novels in the series. It follows the travels of a mercenary company that regularly kicks butt and takes names, but also gets it's collective butt kicked on occasion as well. Interesting stories because you're never really sure whether the Black Company is the "good guys" or the "bad guys".

[Erekose]

I would suggest trying one of the greatest 'sword and sorcery' writers (who actually came up with that term), Fritz Leiber. His Swords series is well crafted, witty and intelligent. The leading characters are quite endearing despite their comical faults.


PS. Also if you want to try Howard's books, try to read the few that he actually wrote and weren't 'edited' after his tragic death. Try visiting //pages.ripco.net/~bbb/Excerpts.html I think they have a reasonably good list with humourous and gory quotes.
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"You all wished me to arouse the blade and use it. Now, I think, we begin to understand the consequences. The Black Sword must be fed. It will feed on friends if it cannot feed on enemies......"

[This message has been edited by Erekose (edited 04-04-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Erekose (edited 04-04-2001).]

[Moiraine]

Avoiding mentioning the evident writers (Eddings, Jordan, Feist, ...) :

I howl with Wolfgir - Robin Hobb is one of the greatest Fantasy writer, and very original too (I won't say more, I don't want to spoil it for you).

Another one - I like very much Mercedes Lackey, and I haven't seen anybody here mentioning her. If you are disappointed by her first book, hang on, she gets better and better with every new book ! Not at all 'trumpeting' Fantasy, very enjoyable.

Weiss and Hickman can be great too - the Death Gates series is an absolute must !

Want more ?

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The world is my oyster !

[PreciousGollum]

Thank you for all your suggestions,I shall be getting some more Robin Hobb for sure,the LiveShip trilogy was awesome and would be top of MY recomendations list.Better hop alot to Amazon and type in some of these authors.Cheers!

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"It hurts us,it hurts us.It freezes,it bites!"

[Aurican]

Beowulf is the most original that I can think of, at least one of the oldest. I thought it was pretty good, maybe darker than most. If you like bad guys the book Grendel by John Gardner. It tells the epic from Grendel's point of view.

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Can an elf get a break anywhere these days?

[Halo]

You could also try George RR Martins A Song of Ice and Fire series , it's a very gritty medieval fantasy without too much emphasis on magic and pretty much steers clear of traditional fantasy storylines.

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"if you whistle while you’re pissing, you have two minds where one is quite sufficient.
If you have two minds, you are at war with yourself" (Illuminatus. 405).