need something new

[Anonymous]

i need a new book to read and i prefer fantasy. i've read LOTR, His Dark Materials, Harry Potter, and others. i need a new thing to read.

[nycteris]

You might like Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy, or Patricia A. McKillip's "Riddlemaster of Hed" trilogy. Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence is quite good as well, as are Robin McKinley's "The Blue Sword" and The "Hero and the Crown".
Pat O Shea's "Hounds of the Mórrígan" is one i really enjoyed, but some people might find it too juvenile.

Good luck :]

[mazarane]

I've read quite a few of those and would tend to agree with the recommendations:D

Terry Pratchetts Discworld series is an excellent fantasy in a more comic vein, although to simplify it like that does it an injustice ;)

[mishka]

Katherine Kerr's Deverry/Westland sereies are worth a read. Also Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion series.

[Brent]

You might want to try Stephen King - The Dark Tower. The first book is slow in some places, and short. The second is the best book i've ever read (of any book). It doesent come close to anything else.. very original. It gets graphical in some places, and some people call it harsh.. But i love it.

[crepuscular shadow]

I would strongly reccomend the 'Farseer Trilogy' by Robin Hobb.

I finished the first book 'Assassin's Apprentice' a few weeks ago and I am now on the second (Royal Assassin).

The reader follows the story of Fitz a royal bastard who is trained as the king's assassin.

They are both original and very gripping and the books contain deep characters (good and bad) and despite the continual increase in the depressingness of the story they are very good.

They are certainly the kind of book that you cant put down after you have started, so you probably dont want to start reading them during exams etc.

[Anonymous]

Try Gormenghast, but only if you can handle lots of description about a dark dank castle, that is actaully more like a character in the book beucase it does strange things, it is a house of mazes.

[nycteris]

Try Gormenghast, but only if you can handle lots of description about a dark dank castle, that is actaully more like a character in the book beucase it does strange things, it is a house of mazes.
(hope the guest doesn't mind my adding to that: )

I'd agree with that; I liked Gormenghast a lot, but i confess i never finished the second book. It's an amazingly vivid, well-made world, but in the same way that a wonderfully well-taken picture of misty gray mountains is vivd: it's done so well that you get a really strong sense of the grayness, the mystery, gloom, and age of the place --a lot of atmosphere.
In a bizarre way very different from our own world in a lot of ways, interestingly so because there are, of course, similarities as well.
It has the air of a history but is strangely captivating.

If you think you might not like it, i'd suggest taking a look at Peake's Boy in Darkness; it's the same world, and same main character, but quite a bit shorter than the Gormenghast cycle itself.

[ender]

Ender's Game.

[Anonymous]

definately orson scott cards series on ender- which includes "Ender's Game" from above. they by far the best sci-fi books ever written. they are making films from them actualy. directed by wolfgang peterson with the boy who played anakin in "episode 1" playing ender.

[Simmy]

Seeing as though you enjoy Harry Potter, I'd recommend the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix ("Sabriel", "Lirael" and "Abhorsen")... they're gripping with a strong theme of fantasy throughout, and the characters are likeable.

I believe Jonathan Shroud and G.P. Taylor are two popular fantasy-authors you could try, although I've never read any of their work myself so I don't know what they're like.

Terry Brooks' "The Sword of Shannara" trilogy is worth a read, too. And you could always resort to the numerous legendary versions of Merlin and King Arthur--they're usually enjoyable. Try James Mallory's version of "Merlin"--it's my favourite yet!

[Jabberwock]

Based on the type of books you say you like, I'd add Loydd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. I would suggest, as one reader here has, trying to read Peake's Gormenghast books just for the pure magesty of his writing style. Its dense but so beautiful. You might also enjoy Tad Williams's Memory Sorrow and Thorn series, an amazingly well-written fantasy epic from a time before the monotonous epic epics of writers like Robert Jordan. And, for a different sort of fantasy read, I'd recommend Gregory Keyes's two-book series Waterborn and The Black God. I was very impressed with this short series in its originality. My two sense worth.