The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. JemisinI'm a bit amazed to look at the calendar and see that it's already been a year since I finished reading The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms for the second time within two months. I didn't continue with the Inheritance Trilogy at that time because I just wasn't ready for the emotional commitment. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was emotionally exhausting! But a year is ample time to get over that, so here we go...
The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny
This was a recommendation that spawned from a discussion about writing magic and mages. And while I'm impatiently awaiting Brandon Sanderson's Words of Radiance, I decided that the beginning of the year is an excellent time to start a new epic fantasy tome. This is a collection of 10 books within the series, but it's a pretty hefty book, so it still counts.
A few years ago, my parents took the kids for a week and I had myself a Legend of the Seeker marathon. I really enjoyed the show and have been meaning to read its source material, starting with The Wizard's First Rule. I mulled over this for a while, but decided to go with the newer book, The First Confessor, which is the beginning of a new series that predates The Sword of Truth timeline.
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
As far as gaming goes, I have determined that 2014 will the The Year of The Witcher. This game has been sitting in my Steam library for a while now as a result of the painful original Mass Effect 3 endings. I'm a fan of books based on my favourite video games, but I have not yet read a book that inspired a game.
Redemption in Indigo by Karen LordGoodreads recommended this book to me, but before I got around to reading it, Lord's second book, The Best of All Possible Worlds, popped up on NetGalley. I loved The Best of All Possible Worlds, and the sequel for it will be out in the spring from Jo Fletcher books, but it's about time I checked out Redemption in Indigo.
Miserere: An Autumn Tale by Teresa FrohockPronounced " mee-seh-reh-reh," this is a book that I've been meaning to read since Mogsy's glowing review, but more so now that I've unofficially become one of Ms. Frohock's twitter minions. One of the things I've come to appreciate about the book blogosphere is the opportunity to interact with the authors, and Ms. Frohock is absolutely one of the best of them. She is good, good peeps.
Wheel of the Infinite by Martha WellsThe moment I finished reading The Cloud Roads, I went and bought a whole bunch of Wells' other books, including this one. I ought to be reading the next book in The Books of the Raksura series, but this one caught my attention first. I really enjoy Wells' world building and, while I do plan to return to the Raksura, I'm curious about the other worlds she's created.



The Legend of the Seeker was tongue in cheek, snarky fun. Wizards First Rule, first of the series, was a decent fantasy novel, though very cliche even when released. From there the series became a preachy, repetitive series full of long speeches in which the main character shows with no subtly how right he always is. It is full of armies raping people, generals raping people, backwoods savages raping people....
ReplyDeleteYou got a great list there, but save the torture! Don't read Goodkind! Or do, I will enjoy the review!
Oh wow! Thanks for the warning! I am a bit wary of older fantasy epics, but I still wanted to give this one a chance. Perhaps part of me suspected things would not be so good, which must be why I opted for the newer book. We shall see how it goes! :-D
DeleteI have to agree with Nathan. I could barely get through Wizard's First Rule...and you know how loathe I am to drop books, or how rarely I give 1 stars for that matter. I just really did not like it. I added the second book to my to-read list just in case it gets better (and to be fair, I've heard the second book is pretty good) but three years later I still haven't mustered up the motivation to continue. The Last Confessor is more recent and it's possible his style may have changed since the early books, so maybe you'll luck out there. Good luck in any case!
DeleteThe Last Confessor was actually his attempt to step around the publishers, truly believing he was big enough to not need them. It failed, and I think he now has TWO more entries in the series traditionally published. I actually read the entire orginal 10 book arc, but to be fair it was before I had picked up much fantasy that showed me how it could be done better.
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