Favorite Fantasy Reading Series

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LOTR, HP, and Narnia are my favorites on the list. But* The Enchanted Forest Series* is also great!
 
Well i have to say that LOTR was and still is a wonderful read. Some of the battle sceenes and the many names were hard for me to keep track of in the Return of the King, but the movie streightened that out for me. Simply stunning work!

As for a follow-up…playing D&D with my son for 4 years (weekly) had me so into wanting to find a character that i wanted to role play. I found that Elizabeth Haydon had a wonderful 4 book series with a female role model named Rhapsody(A Namer). She also gets to talk to and befriend a Dragon…that part was one of my favorite parts. Getting to know the dragon…soooo cool!
 
Dj Roy Albert:
You forgot to add the King James Version of the Bible to your list. 😉
Dude, while I consider many parts of the Bible to be fantastical (not necessarily in a bad way!), I’ve gotta tell you that the KJV version is my absolute favorite… I love the language, phrasing, etc., I think it’s easily the most beautiful and noble version out there… Okay, now everybody get mad at me!..

Peace,
 
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ktm:
I’m on my second run through the current books in the Song of Fire and Ice series. Great stuff.

The only thing stopping me from recommending them to others is the sex that appears from time to time. It’s the only thing that hurts the books IMHO.
Yep, I love the “Song of Fire and Ice” series, and just about anything by George R.R. Martin. Personally, I like the sex parts, but I’m a bit of a lecherous old (well, 44 old) fart anyway!

Peace.
 
C.S. Lewis sci-fi trilogy: *Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, *and That Hideous Strength.
Excellent. Tough reading because it is such a drastically different reality. Getting meaning out of it is rewarding.

For recreation, Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series IS EXCELLENT. Only one book (I think the final one) of the series was a disappointment.
 
Having read Katherine Kurtz as a college student / young adult, I loved her writing. . . but now I’m not so sure – the stories and style are great, but the mixture of Catholicism and magic I find distressing. If Harry Potter – obviously just a fun fantasy romp with zero to say about the Church – is problematic in the Catholic Church, then Katherine Kurtz is more insideous, for she mixes the truths of the church with magic so that the border is muddied. I’ve met too many Protestants who could say, “There, see, the Catholic Church is just magical thinking and supersitition.” LOTR, Lewis’ Space Trilogy and, yes, the Half Blood Prince are on my nightstand (which is after all the true test of what I really read!!!)
 
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kaygee:
Having read Katherine Kurtz as a college student / young adult, I loved her writing. . . but now I’m not so sure – the stories and style are great, but the mixture of Catholicism and magic I find distressing. If Harry Potter – obviously just a fun fantasy romp with zero to say about the Church – is problematic in the Catholic Church, then Katherine Kurtz is more insideous, for she mixes the truths of the church with magic so that the border is muddied. I’ve met too many Protestants who could say, “There, see, the Catholic Church is just magical thinking and supersitition.” LOTR, Lewis’ Space Trilogy and, yes, the Half Blood Prince are on my nightstand (which is after all the true test of what I really read!!!)
…Spare me, now Kathy Kurtz is preaching the “gospel of the devil”? How about this… who in the hell cares what the Protestants and/or Baptists have to say? I certainly don’t!!!

Peace.
 
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kaygee:
Having read Katherine Kurtz as a college student / young adult, I loved her writing. . . but now I’m not so sure – the stories and style are great, but the mixture of Catholicism and magic I find distressing. If Harry Potter – obviously just a fun fantasy romp with zero to say about the Church – is problematic in the Catholic Church, then Katherine Kurtz is more insideous, for she mixes the truths of the church with magic so that the border is muddied. I’ve met too many Protestants who could say, “There, see, the Catholic Church is just magical thinking and supersitition.” LOTR, Lewis’ Space Trilogy and, yes, the Half Blood Prince are on my nightstand (which is after all the true test of what I really read!!!)
Kaygee, I rather doubt that a protestant of any stripe would recognize that the “magic” incantations in the Deryni series are Latin. Dogma in fantasy is rather an oxymoron, don’t you think? I really do not think that Ms. Kurtz is deliberately trying to do anything other than write novels and sell them. When I read fantasy, I recognize it for what it is - fantasy. It has absolutely no bearing on my Catholic faith. On the other hand, that great fantasy - the Left Behind series left me speechless. I read the first book and the first book only - it was that offensive to me. If a protestant finds the Deryni books offensive, fine. Don’t read anymore. We all have that option.
 
It’s been ages since I’ve read a Derini novel – but, on the basis of the name Kurtz, I picked up her Lammas Night and the others of that series and was dismayed at the pagan and occult reading of British history, the sacrifical motif, the links to Masonry, pagan religion, wicca, etc. etc. and believe that a Catholic picking up those novels needs to be very careful.

I’m going to have to search through the attic for the Derini books and take another look at them before I rush to recommend them to anyone, as fun as they were to read – I read them in my long-ago, protestant days – long before my conversion to Orthodoxy and my final conversion to Catholicism.
 
Kaygee: If our faith cannot be challenged then is it really faith? I have read all of her books and a) I have absolutely no desire to be a mason; b)nor will I ever become a wiccan; or c)do I have any problem reading about occult British history (of which there is lots). She is a novelist. She writes decent stories - good always triumphs over evil. I don’t expect her writing to be 100% orthodox Catholic. If I wanted 100% orthodox Catholic, I would read JP or Benedict or any other orthodox Catholic writer. It’s fantasy. It’s supposed to be fantastic (in that sense of the word). If we only read Catholic writers according to how their scripts accurately reflected Catholic dogma, we’d be up a creek without a paddle and we would be in the same boat as the “Left Behind” people. Let’s not reinvent the past here. People have been burned for what they put in books.
 
I read these books while a very young protestant, brought up by parents who were at the time fans of Lindsay’s “Late Great Planet Earth” (the premise of the “Left Behind” series.) The Derini Chronicles illustrated to me the myths with which I’d been brought up – that Catholicism is just archaic superstition, if not, in fact, magical thinking. They had a small part in innoculating me against the Catholic Church – to the point that, when I came to a more mature look at Scripture and the Church Fathers, I chose to embrace Eastern Orthodoxy. It took 15 years from there to come to embrace the truth of Catholicism.

Again, their world view is suspect and could be dangerous for a young seeker. Recommend them with caution. They are well written and a fun read, but use caution.
 
I have always enjoyed the Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. Nobody else has mentioned them.
 
I love LOTR and HP and Narnia. I just finished HP 6 and it was great untill the end. But a good book.
 
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jimmy:
I said Lord of The Rings, because it is best. But I would have to agree with the Harry Potter fans that it is pretty good. It is a second placer.
I’m 100% with this one, but that’s partly because those are the only two on the list I’ve read.

:o
 
LoTR, definitely. But I love Narnia & Harry Potter, too. (Can’t wait for HP7!)

Years ago, I read a series of books by Susan Cooper called The Dark is Rising. Interesting modern-day Aurthurian re-telling. Haven’t read them for a long time but I remember them being pretty scary. There might have been some pagan stuff in there, too.

Also, I really liked the Mythago Wood series by Robert Holdstock. Creepy, modern British fantasy about a surviving primeval forest.

I loved Michael Chabon’s Summerland. And everybody needs to get their hands on a copy of Preussler’s The Satanic Mill. No, really. Great stuff!

Gotta read some Gene Wolfe - too many folks have recommended him to me.
 
Another series I enjoyed, though not at the quality of these, was Peter Hamilton’s Reality Dysfunction series. It’s another excellent good vs evil series, although the ending got a little contrived for my taste.

Peace,
John
 
I don’t know if I’d call Hamilton’s series anything but Science Fiction. I have just finished his Ilium which is something like SF and Fantasy. On the other hand, my son just gave me Robert Jordan’s 1980s Conan series. Reminded me alot of Oliver Stone’s Alexander - very overwrought.
 
Has anyone ever read any of Charle deLint’s novels? Very, very good stuff.
 
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