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Archgoat posted...

Tad Williams - Memory Sorrow Thorn

I've always heard about this series from other people, but I never really got around to reading it myself. Even though it seems like something I might like.

Which reminds me of a few more recommendations. L. E. Modesitt Jr. is a writer a friend of mine used to be really into (mainly the Recluce series and the Spellsong books), though I've never read them myself. But there's a LOT of them, so it might be worth a look just to see if they look interesting (and it's worth noting at this point that most of these writers have bibliographies on Wikipedia if you want to look up a specific series, what books are in it, and what order to read them in).

On the subject of recommendations from people I've never read, I know an ex-girlfriend of mine used to be really into C. J. Cherryh, but I never really looked into her because sci-fi has never really appealed to me that much (and eventually because the recommendations of ex-girlfriends don't really feel all that compelling once they're an ex).

Back onto books I've actually read - there's Terry Brooks. The Shannara series is pretty well known (and has gotten adapted into TV shows before), but it's worth mentioning (because you never know what authors newer/younger readers have actually heard of). The first few books feel like fairly derivative Tolkien-clone stuff, and the later books feel like the series has spiraled out of control from the desire to keep publishing popular books until he can retire a multi-millionaire, but there's definitely a sweet spot in the series where it's very good. So it might be worth a look (and then just drop out if the books start feeling dull later - I think I dropped out somewhere around book 8).

Speaking of series that sort of spiraled out of control - Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. It kind of feels almost pointless to recommend because most people probably already know about it, and because it's uneven as hell (the first few books are kind of weak, the second half of the series is padded all to hell and gets boring, the ending is pretty good but can feel really rushed in some ways and anticlimactic in others). But it might be worth a look to someone who's never really read it.

Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is another popular one, though some people might want to pass on it because they don't like his personal politics (the same reason why people might be hesitant to get into Orson Scott Card's work).

The Susan Cooper Dark is Rising books are pretty good, though might feel unsatisfying to some adult readers because they were originally aimed more at a young adult audience (though I don't think they feel "childish", except maybe the first one, a bit). This probably would have been one of my stronger recommendations because I loved it as a kid, but the movie they made was so utterly terrible I think it has retroactively caused me to block the entire series out of my mind so I didn't think of it before now. Seriously, that movie was quite possibly the worst atrocity ever committed by Hollywood.

I suppose I could recommend the TimeWars books by Simon Hawke (if you're into time travel fiction partially based around the idea that famous novels like Ivanhoe were based on actual history), but those would probably be an absolute bitch to find these days (I had trouble finding used copies on Amazon years ago).

I feel like Gregory Keyes was a writer worth reading, but it might also be telling that I can't remember a single thing about his Age of Unreason series in spite of reading it back when it came out (and I seem to remember liking it).

That's probably all I'm going to come up with. I can't justify spending the next day or so just obsessively trying to remember every book I've ever read. Because I've read way, way too many.