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Discuss fantasy books, recommend them, ask about them, talk about your favourite and talk about fantasy books you didn't like.

I recommend that every person who likes fantasy reads the Inheritance series of books because they are my favourite books crying the next book comes out in september 2008 emo dramallama

I wouldn't recommend Eragon, personally speaking. There's a myriad of reasons... I'll just summarize by saying that you can honestly tell the author was inexperienced when he wrote it. The prose is simplistic and breaks the 'show, don't tell' rule over and over again, and the lead is pretty much a Gary-Stu. It's all right for a quick read if you've nothing better to do, but there are many more worthy books out there.

I also didn't get much into The Dark Tower. I finished Gunslinger yesterday, and it felt, in essence, like 200 pages of Stephen King complaining about a made-up world, with some metaphysical ruminations tacked on to the end. It probably gets better later on in the series, but I'm not sticking around to find out. Apart from the romance of the moral-less, personality-less main character, I really don't see what could spur me to pick up the next book.

Stuff I did like... hm. I'm a sucker for Narnia. Tamora Pierce and Philip Pullman are also good choices. I remember liking Garth Nix's The Seventh Tower series. Robin McKinley's stuff was entertaining... it's been a while since I've read any of her stuff. Ooh, and I have to mention Jonathan Stroud. The Bartimaeus Trilogy is awesomeness incarnate; Buried Fire, about a dragon that manipulates this family into turning against each other, is also amazing. And The Leap is cool - I had nightmares for weeks after reading it. Stephen R. Donaldson is next on my list - someone recommended The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant to me years ago, and I have yet to check them out. His short stories are amazing, though - really fluid prose, with this beautiful, spooky establishment of atmosphere throughout. Good stuff. ^^

I might add more to the list once I get back to college, where all the cool books are stranded on my shelf over break. ^^

I know what you mean. It's kind of scary, all this stuff that's getting old to me lately. o_o

I picked up Ferngully, which was one of my favorite books as a kid, for a quick read yesterday and I suddenly realized, "Oh my God... this book is really badly written." The characters are all flat and there's a million things that could be improved about it... I mean, it's a nice book, but it shocked me to find that out.

I feel old now... XD