Need an excellent Fantasy Book to read

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Wow!! Thanks everyone. This should give me a few ideas! What do you do if you have trouble making decisions, though? Maybe I’ll just write them all down, and put them into a hat. 🙂

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Speaking of…Did anyone mention Watership Down, or is that non-fiction?
 
I think I will start with Eifelhelm on Audible, and possibly switch to the book or do both. I feel drawn towards it.

There have been so many good ideas, and I heartily thank everyone. All these suggestions should keep us busy for some time, at least most of us…

:knight2: :harp: :knight1: :gopray: :heaven: :highprayer: :ehh:
 
Fantasy is not my preferred genre and I haven’t read much but I absolutely love *The Chronicles of Amber *by Roger Zelazny.

It is clever, full of unexpected twists and turns, characters are very credible and the story is a page turner. 👍
 
One last recommendation: “A Case of Conscience” (1958) by James Blish - SF instead of fantasy, but a classic Hugo-award winner that mostly focuses on the theological themes behind the plot: A Chilean Jesuit on a planetary contact mission begins to believe that the gentle, intelligent aliens he has met (who show every human virtue but have no concept of God) may be a creation of Satan, sent to undermine mankind’s last tottering faith in the Church. The priest has to simultaneously deal with what he perceives as the alien threat (a young member of which is brought to Earth and who may be the antichrist), Earth’s plan to exploit the planet for it’s nuclear bomb component resources, and his excommunication as a heretic, as he has willfully accepted the Manichaean schism into his soul by believing that Satan is capable of creation. Really interesting novel informed by an understanding of Catholic doctrine, mostly advanced through dialogue. Fascinating solution to the novel, too.

Blish, who was an Anglican, wrote two other novels based around Catholic themes - the historical novel “Dr. Mirabilis,” based on the life of Francis Bacon, and the two-part “Black Easter / The Day After Judgement,” in which an anarchist billionaire pays a black magician to unleash all the legions of Hell loose on Earth.
 
JamalChristophr said:
…Did anyone mention Watership Down, or is that non-fiction?
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I LOVE Watership Down. I’m not sure that’d be classified as fantasy though. Hmmm.

I read the Belgariad series (5 books?) by David Eddings many moons ago and remember really enjoying them. Don’t recall any sex in them but that was 20+ years ago.

The Shannara series by Terry Brooks is another that I really enjoyed. There isn’t any sex in them either (although in one book it’s hinted at). Some of them have a ‘horror’ tinge to them (the later ones). Make sure you read them in his suggested order which is I believe the published order - otherwise there will be spoilers.

Since there are so many other suggestions and the two I’ve mentioned are series, a single book I’d recommend is *Enchantment *by Orson Scott Card. It’s kind of a take on Sleeping Beauty. Wiki gives away too much of the plot and twists and turns, but the below is safe to quote:
The protagonist and narrator is Ivan Smetski, a young Ukrainian-American linguist who specializes in Old Church Slavonic, a language from 10th-century Russia. In 1992, Ivan returns to his native town of Kiev to pursue additional graduate studies. While there he re-discovers the body of a woman that he had seen as a child, apparently sleeping in the woods. He awakens her with a kiss, and she tells him, in Old Church Slavonic, that she is Katerina, a princess of the kingdom of Taina.
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Strongly recommend Brandon Sanderson. He has a number of different fantasy worlds with their own series, all of which are meant to fit together in one universe.
 
I would like to recommend Elizabeth Moon’s Deed of Paksenarrion series. Paksenarrion, a simple sheepfarmer’s daughter, yearns for a life of adventure and glory, such as was known to heroes in songs and story. At age seventeen she runs away from home to join a mercenary company and begins her epic life . . . Book One: Paks is trained as a mercenary, blooded, and introduced to the life of a soldier . . . and to the followers of Gird, the soldier’s god. Book Two: Paks leaves the Duke’s company to follow the path of Gird alone—and on her lonely quests encounters the other sentient races of her world. Book Three: Paks the warrior must learn to live with Paks the human. She undertakes a holy quest for a lost elven prince that brings the gods’ wrath down on her and tests her very limits.
 
Harry Potter (hopefully won’t start any debates;))
Anyway, no sex, and in my opinion very moral.
There’s a lot of social/political satire in them, which I enjoyed.

I’ll try to check out some of the recommendations, always looking for fantasy/scifi books that are moral and not trashy.
 
Anna_jane said:
Strongly recommend Brandon Sanderson. He has a number of different fantasy worlds with their own series, all of which are meant to fit together in one universe.
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I have read and enjoyed a number of his books, and I think my favourites so far are *Elantris *and The Way of Kings.

Many of his books are a bit on the ‘dark’ side, though (at least to me), so I’m not sure if the OP would enjoy them based on his description. Even though they are definitely page-turners that keep one’s attention, I have never felt pulled to re-read any of them, except Elantris, just because of that ‘dark’ element.

Just my :twocents: 🙂
 
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