Hmm this is by no means an exhaustive list but those that come immediately to mind are:
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein
Enders Game Series by Orson Scott Card
Assasin’s Trilogy by Robin Hobb
Any/All stories by H.P. Lovecraft
All things by Ian Banks (especially the culture novels)
All Conan stories by Robert E Howard
Yeah that pretty much sums up my formative literary influences, undoubted many I have forgotten.
Edited to follow the Admiral’s fine formatting but I keep getting told that the body of the message is too similar to my previous post. Hopefully this full and unnecessary explanation will help in that regard.
I was up till 5am last night reading Enders Game, which we’ll toss to the number three spot, since one and two must go to my favorite author.
My favorite author for quite a while has been Brent Weeks, who wrote The Night Angel Trilogy and is currently writing the third book in the Lightbringer series.
We’ll give number four to Oliver North, for his trilogy of Mission Compromised, The Jericho Sanction, and The Assassins.
I think number five is going to have to go to Joelle Charbonneau for The Testing, greatly looking forward to the next book in that series.
So I guess that makes it:
Lightbringer Brent Weeks
The Night Angel Trilogy Brent Weeks
Enders Game Orson Scott
Mission Compromised, Jericho Sanction, The Assassins Oliver North
The Testing Joelle Charbonneau
But of course, a great amount of credit must go to The Hardy Boys, since they comprised nearly 90% of my reading from like 4yrs old up till I was probably 10 (Yes, I started reading pretty early, my parents saw to that. And I never had much interest in picture books, haha.)
Edit: Although I must say, I could quite easily do a top twenty list for my favorite books, and that might even just scratch the surface of literature I enjoy, there’s a reason I write like I do.
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” -Albert Einstein
The First Law (along with the spinoff Best Served Cold. Amazing books, one of the few series that doesn’t end on a happy note, and almost all of the characters get screwed over in the end, in a satisfying way that they normally deserve. Very little contrived topics within the books, if something bad is about to happen, it’ll probably happen without your hero bursting through the next door over. Only thing bad with these series (mostly Best Served Cold) is that Joe Abercombie focuses waaaaaaaay to much on some of the sex scenes, some just being there to… well, just be there. While they are more graphic, they are no where near as numerous as A Song of Ice and Fire’s scenes, and they normally serve a point (but, as I said, sometimes not).
Mmm, the classics. This is a great collection of favorites.
For me, in addition to the stuff listed above, anything by Lois McMaster Bujold, but especially her Vorkosigan Saga and her Curse of Chalion and its 2 sequels.
Likewise, most things by Jim Butcher: Harry Dresden starting at book 3 and Codex Alera starting at book 2.
It’s things like this that make me realise how guilty I am of not reading enough fiction over the last few years …don’t worry I’m looking to rectify that! I’ll stick with a top 3 for now!
If you’re going to read the whole series, you should probably start with book 1, but Butcher’s writing really shines up as the series progresses. It’s like watching a webcomic transform from (expressive!) stick figures to digital paintings.
It sure will, you driving the wrong way down the motorway at 70, cars skidding in all directions trying to avoid you as you drive blissfully along, eyes transfixed to the screen.
thankfully, Houston provides for some wonderful mass transit… i take the metro from my subdivision to downtown, and then hop on the metro from downtown to the medical center…
I absolutely love the inheritance cycle (eragon/eldest/brisngr/inheritance)
Also amongst my favorites are both of conn gulden’s series (both “emperor” and “conqueror)
and the paladin prophecy (mark frost)