I'm contemplating wading into either the Song of Fire and Ice or Wheel of Time series. Any comments pro or con for either of them?

Wheel of Time started off really strong for the first few books. After about book 6, you could tell that the author was really stretching out story lines to fill contracts to the publisher.

I've only read the Song of Ice and Fire series, but for that one you can see the author has a good grasp of where it is he wants to go and what he wants to point out in the remaining (as of yet unwritten) novels. They stand pretty well on their own as a series so far and do an admirable job of drawing you in, although the cast of characters list at the end of each novel is increasingly necessary the more characters he throws in. The one thing I like about the series in particular is that the author isn't afraid to kill off major characters if it means the plot will advance in some new and interesting direction.

The one thing I do find annoying is that he's got at least two or three more books to go to complete the series and, although it's been promised for years now, the next book in the series has yet to appear. On the plus side, at least GRRM is still alive so there's a chance the book will actually appear at some point in the future....

I was thinking about checking those out.

I read somewhere that the Wheel of time was supposed to end long before it did. The author had a definite end in mind the whole time but then the publishing company made him stretch it out to more books than he originally intended.

Part of me blames the author for singing the contract, but part of me wonders if it was a "deal he couldn't refuse" thing.

I've also only read the Song of Fire and Ice, and I really enjoyed them. Very indepth and long, and always taking the characters in new interesting directions. Characters you hate in the beginning you end up begrudgingly liking later on when you learn more about them, or they become a narrator. Song of Fire and Ice is what you WANT fantasy books to be, rich and indepth.
Although as Fren pointed out, myself and others have had the next book preordered for awhile and I know of the date being pushed back at least twice, each time almost a year back. It's taking forever to get the next book, so while they're great, you'll read to a point, stop... and then probably have to re-read them all over again when the next one comes out. The dude needs to get these out before he croaks!

Wheel of Time never interested me much because of how long the books and series seemed to go, and I heard it just wasn't good after the first couple of books.

Thanks for the advice. I think I will give the Song series a try, after I finish The Windup Girl (Hugo Award winner this year), which is excellent, by the way.

I liked this one a lot. It is a very different take on dragons and kept me well entertained.

http://www.amazon.com/His-Majestys-Dragon-Temeraire-Book/dp/0345481283/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288373069&sr=1-6

For a random sci-fi/fantasy, slightly steampunk-ish universe, I highly recommend China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. Definately different
http://www.amazon.com/Perdido-Street-Station-China-Mieville/dp/0345459407/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288389604&sr=8-1

I read all of both series. Te first three of Fire and Ice were great, the 4th is not worth reading. I liked the Wheel of Time through the first seven or eight, however there are a lot of books in the world and I am not cetain this is a series worth committing to. I am currently reading the Swan Thieves, which is very good.

I'm reading Game of Thrones and liking it a lot. But jeez, what a bunch of deushbags!

Does that mean they're german?

Here's my 2.6 cents. Wait on Song of Ice and Fire. Wait until all the books are out. The wait between book 4 and the still unreleased book 5 has been a very, very long wait (we're talking a time span approaching that of the wait between Dark Tower 4 and 5). I've read the first 4 books. They are fantastic books. But the wait between each volume has meant that I've forgotten what has happened because I've read so many other books, played other games, watched other movies in the meantime.

Wait until all 7 (is it still 7?) books are out, then read them in succession. I suspect it'll feel more complete that way.

In the meantime, if you're into science fiction, might I suggest Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space series. It's a group of novels all interconnected but where each book is a standalone story, effectively meaning you can read them in just about any order and get a sense of this future history Reynolds has created.

There's definitely an order to Revelation Space and its books, and some things in some of the books will make far less sense if you haven't read the previous ones. (Chasm City and Redemption Ark allude to events in Revelation Space, and Absolution Gap alludes to events in the previous three books.) There are also characters that persist from one novel to the next their evolving relationships make more sense if you've read the books in order. Not that they're not excellent books though. :) Also, they are a completely different genre from either of the ones mentioned at the start of the thread, and if we're just throwing out random book recommendations, well....

Iain Banks's Culture novels
Terry Pratchett's Discworld books
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series
Dan Simmons's Hyperion books (but only the Hyperion books!)
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series
Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (there are six other books in the series - resist the temptation)
And in case you've been hiding under a rock lately, Stieg Larsson's Millennium series

There's definitely an order to Revelation Space and its books, and some things in some of the books will make far less sense if you haven't read the previous ones. (Chasm City and Redemption Ark allude to events in Revelation Space, and Absolution Gap alludes to events in the previous three books.) There are also characters that persist from one novel to the next their evolving relationships make more sense if you've read the books in order. Not that they're not excellent books though. :) Also, they are a completely different genre from either of the ones mentioned at the start of the thread, and if we're just throwing out random book recommendations, well....


Yeah, there's technically a chronological order to the books (and, in fact, I am reading them in chronological order) but it's not necessary to read them in chronological order (how many times can I say chronological order in one comment) to get the gist of the series - aside from reading Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap in order. But Chasm City, The Prefect, the various short stories, etc. aren't necessary to read in chronological order to understand the universe.

And, well there has already been a fair amount of random book recommendations already. Go figure.

Also, Chronological order.

Iain Banks's Culture novels
Terry Pratchett's Discworld books
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series
Dan Simmons's Hyperion books (but only the Hyperion books!)
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series
Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (there are six other books in the series - resist the temptation)
And in case you've been hiding under a rock lately, Stieg Larsson's Millennium series

I second the Foundation series. Or the Robot series, or well... just about anything Asimov. Just the scope of worlds and ideas still blows me away sometimes. I do need to read through all those again soon

Orson Scott Card said he only wrote Ender's Game as a prequel to what he thought was the real book, Speaker of the Dead, which in my opinion was sloooow and boring, and just plain weird. Ender's Game ended up being SO much better.

Hyperion left me with a bad taste, I just didn't enjoy them. It was just strange and didn't make much sense to me - and this is reading the first book twice (I read it about 3/4th of the way, forgot, read it again). While I trudged on through, I can say I didn't really enjoy it.

I recommend most things Margaret Atwood. I enjoyed Handmaiden's Tale, and her Madd Adam trilogy (3rd coming out... one day) is also very intriguing - Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood.

For those of you who like the dystopian genre (aka 1984) I recomend "little brother" by Cory Doctorow. Its considered more Teen than adult, but the message is still there. I was reminded of it by reading this recent rolling stone article:

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/17389/238944

Orson Scott Card said he only wrote Ender's Game as a prequel to what he thought was the real book, Speaker of the Dead, which in my opinion was sloooow and boring, and just plain weird. Ender's Game ended up being SO much better.

Hyperion left me with a bad taste, I just didn't enjoy them. It was just strange and didn't make much sense to me - and this is reading the first book twice (I read it about 3/4th of the way, forgot, read it again). While I trudged on through, I can say I didn't really enjoy it.

I recommend most things Margaret Atwood. I enjoyed Handmaiden's Tale, and her Madd Adam trilogy (3rd coming out... one day) is also very intriguing - Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood.

I loved Ender's Game, read some of the follow-on books and kinda hated them. I think he's just milking the popularity of Ender's Game for all it's worth (which is a lot less than he thinks IMO).

I also really loved the two Hyperion books, but have heard from several people that the Endymion books are not worth it. So Fren is another confirmatory data point on that!

I thought Oryx and Crake was one of the best "end of the world" books I've ever read. Truly one of my favorite books. I found Year of the Flood disappointing, though; not as dark and stark and disturbing as Oryx and Crake.

I really loved Game of Thrones, so much that the moment I finished I d/l'ed Clash of Kings and dove right in. I suppose I should take a break from this series when I finish that. And I suppose I'll be playing more WoW again starting on Tuesday...