For those who haven't read fantasy or science fiction, or haven't read the these books, read some of them if you have time. Some of them have also been translated into Finnish, but if you can English well enough, read the original versions. Fantasy books particularly (The Lord of the Rings being the only exception) are a lot better in English, mainly due to the lack of vocabulary.
If you want to have a look at my complete list of books, here it is..
All these are listed in an alphabetical order. The best are Robert Jordan, Stephen R. Donaldson and George R.R. Martin.
- Stephen R. Donaldson
- The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, beginning with Lord Foul's Bane
The protagonist is an anti-hero - leper outcast unclean - and story tells about his (in)sanity- George R.R. Martin
- Song of Ice and Fire series, beginning with The Game of Thrones
Political fantasy, very enjoyable. Much like Jordan, but faster paced and way more realistic; if a main character gets into a situation he'd die in, he'll die.- Steven Erikson
- The Malazan Book of the Fallen, beginning with Gardens of the Moon
High-magical fantasy, even more gruesome than Marin. The "greater story" may be a bit difficult to follow at first, but you start figuring it out after 5000 pages :-)- Glen Cook
- The Black Company Series, beginning with The Black Company
An army company gets thrown into the middle of political struggles, and only a couple of persons survive past the first books.
- Robert Jordan
- The Wheel of Time series, beginning with The Eye of the World
A word of caution: the first 600(!) pages are not yet excellent, but it gets more and more interesting along the way. The quality of the series starts dropping after the sixth book.- Melanie Rawn
- The Dragon Prince series, beginning with The Dragon Prince
- R.A. Salvatore
- Dark-Elf trilogy and the se/pre-quels, beginning with Homeland
A word of caution: the originality disappears after 4-5 books- J.R.R Tolkien
- The Lord of the Rings, beginning with The Fellowship of the Ring.
Well, you have to mention it, right? :-)- Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
- Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends, beginning with Dragons of Autumn Twilight
- Death Gate novels, beginning with Dragon Wing
- Isaac Asimov
- Foundation-series, beginning with Foundation
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Rendezvous with Rama
- Space Odyssey 2001
The sequels are not worth much interest- Stephen R. Donaldson
- The Gap series, beginning with The Gap into Conflict: The True Story
Really nasty characters involved. A lot of scheming, but in the end they appear to be saving the humankind by accident.- Frank Herbert
- Dune
- Stephen King
- The Dark Tower-saga, beginning with The Gunslinger
The first good book is the second, The Draw of Three- Margaret Weis
- Star of the Guardian series, beginning with The Lost King.
The first book doesn't offer much new ideas or such, however.
- Authors
- The Melanie Rawn Home page
- The Tracy Hickman Home Page
- The Margaret Weis home page
- Authors' Works
- The Wheel of Time
- The Wheel of Time Index A very thorough page about The Wheel of Time
- The Path of Daggers Prologue
- The Strike at Shayol Ghul A short story by Jordan on the end of The War of the Shadow
- The Wheel of Time FAQ html'ed version - up to The Path of Daggers and New Spring
- Who killed Asmodean? Quite a good deduction on the Ultimate Question
- An analysis of LTT & Rand combining very good - if RJ has studied psychology, this might be possible. Else, it'd feel rather complicated.
- The Wheel of Time Point of View Compendium
- Some FUN criticism on Darrell K. Sweet's covers
- James F. Beveridge's Wheel of Time Sketches IMO, the best WOT art there is. Example 1, example 2
- The Boye Wheel of Time Gallery Different style, but still good.
- The Tel'aran'rhiod: Wheel of Time Illustrations by Dragonluv, very nice. Example 1, Example 2
- Min Farshaw's Wheel of Time Art Gallery many look like what I imagined. Example 1, Example 2
- Wheel of Time Picture Archive a compendium of art: one picture per chapter.
- Helena Zeegers's WoT Gallery Some really nice pictures. Example - I just *love* this!
- Publishers and Resellers
- Del Rey Home page
- Future Fantasy Bookstore I used to buy books from here before Amazon etc. got popular.
- Amazon Loads of all kinds of discounted books. Shipping to Finland is more expensive, though.
- Tor SF and Fantasy The publisher of Robert Jordan
- Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time Tor's "official" page
- Miscellaneous
- The Adventurers home page
- The prelude to the Adventurers saga by Thomas Miller
- The database of libraries in Helsinki area
If you have any suggestions about developing
these pages further or any other comments or questions, please contact me by email, by leaving a little note.