Science Fiction and Fantasy - what is hot, what is good?

Other lists:

http://www.locusmag.com/2003/News/11_BFA.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/509539/102-2518087-8265759

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/509486/102-2518087-8265759

Anything to do with vampires (Ann Rice for instance) is very popular.

Bless you! Now all I need is the time to explore them!

I'm rather fond of L.E. Modesitt Jr. He does both Fantasy and SciFi. I prefer the SciFi myself, as his Chaos War books are all the same book, one right after the other.

Don't like Robert Jordan. I went through Eight of the World Of Time books, and got tired of not having any closure in the series. It was the frickin' energizer bunny. . .

Also check out Jack McDevitt (The Herculese text, if you can find it. Any other is good, too.), Allan Steele, Walter Jon Williams, Christopher Sheffield, Robert Forward.

Thankee!

Agree with Turner on Jordan. I only made it to book five before I said to myself: When will this guy get another idea and stop mining the one single annoying and extended one he had several years ago?
THe saem with Terry Brooks and Shannara. The first three or four books were okay, but by the time you get to the "last Ohmsford heir, with 1/128th Elven blood..."
Hellooooooo!

I have a weakness for many-volumed Robert Jordan. From my childhood, I've made a habit of escaping from unpleasant reality into alternative universes. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time provides a complex (although not necessarily deep) world with convincing detail.

I'll admit to a certain amount of outrage when I found that the book scheduled for 1/04 would be a prequel rather than a conclusion. Furthermore, if I ran that corner of the universe Mr. Jordan would be chained to his word processor until he delivered the final volume/s.

Thanks to devoted fans with a bent for indexing and the resources of the internet, the vast population of Jordan's imagination can be documented and defined on at least three websites. Being able to refresh my fallible memory for "Who's Who in WoT" enhances the charm of a new release.

I've noticed over the years that fandom enthusiasm seems in inverse ratio to volumes published. The appropriate cliche might be, "Too Much of a Good Thing".

I'm not too hot on Terry Brooks for exactly the same reason. The Belgariad and another one, which escapes me, didn't seem to have any conclusion. It went on and on and on. . .

However, his book The Redemption of Althalus was a one-shot book at getting the story done. And I enjoyed it! However, I find myself wanting another Althalus story.

I have found out that my best run seems to be trilogies, where it's long enough to get detailed and follow the character awhile, but short enough to not lose interest in it. Another thing I like is 'shared universes', such as the Midkemia books by Raymond Fiest. He puts out three or four books with the same characters, kills most of them off, and moves on to the next generation. He does have something like twelve or fourteen books all in the same world, but with the exception of one character, none that are in the first are in the last. But it is the same world with the same history. Now those I like.

Also check out Robin Hobb's The Liveship trader series and the Assassin series. Both share the same world, but are two different trilogies.

I like Hobb. I also like Tanya Huff's Vicky Nelson stories, and her Keeper stories. They do seem to stay within the range of three or four books, though!

I didn't like Hobb at first because she really beats up on Fitz in the Assassin series. But after reading it again, it didn't seem as bad.

Same thing happened with HP:OOTP. Seemed to me in the first book she really beat up on Harry, but after reading it again months later, it wasn't as bad.

David Brin's Uplift saga is okay. . . it was hard for me to get into it. Another hard one for me has been the LOTR. . . I just can't get past the first chapter.

Is Uplift the one with the Dolphins? I read the first one, and had no desire to read further.

Yeah, it is. Dolphins and Chimps. Was it Startide Rising you tried to read? That one was a bit difficult, as I recall. The Uplift War happens at the same time, and there's more of a Human-Chimp focus than Human-Dolphin. He has a trilogy later on about a bunch of them that get stuck way out of nowhere. . . that was pretty good. I found those a lot easier to read than the others.

Great! Good to see the debate - as I said, I know nothing.

Jack Chalker has a well-turned, throwaway line in the first volume of one of his sagas. One character proclaims to another: "You are doomed to commit trilogy."

In the trade, multi-volume efforts are known as "fat fantasy".

I supposed, having invented a universe a loyal author is unwilling to abandon his creation.

From a readers perspective, it can be better than learning a new world. Take for instance, the books by Raymond Fiest. He has new characters every few books, and he doesn't always go the same direction. But it's consistent. You know the history, you know the lay of the land. It's familiar territory.

Now, something like the Belgariad where they trapaise all over the place. . . well to me I don't get a sense of the sameness by it. Eddings did that in Althalus, too. They went from spot to spot, rarely in the same place twice. Oh, it happened, but the areas weren't as familiar as what Fiest did in Midekmia.

But you're probably more right than not.