"Favorite fantasy novel that is not Lord of the Rings?" Topic

I suspect that Lord of the Rings would win this going away, so I am asking for second place.
Let's drop The Hobbit, too?

My two favorites are some pretty grim ones by Poul Anderson.
The Broken Sword
Hrolf Kraki's Saga

Remember to nominate now, so you will not have to complain that your choice was left off in the final Poll!

lyonesse, by Jack Vance
tales of the bard
magician et al by feist

Theresa Edgerton's Green Lion and/or Celydon trilogies. (Hey, a trilogy is just one long novel, right?)

The Black Company series: Glen Cook
The Jhereg Series: Stephen Brust

Not LotR or one of the more blatant "homages" to it?
Novels only?

Fantasy potentially includes a lot of borderline stuff. So…
Modern Fantasy (like Jim Butcher's stuff)?
Lost Worlds (Barsoom, Gor, Antares, Gandalara)?
"But the last book was fantasy!" (Pern, quite a lot of Darkover)?

Note that these are questions of inclusion, not nominations.

When I was a kid, I discovered reading by devouring the Dragonlance Chronicles/Legends, LotR, and the Sword of Shanarra. Of those, only one is not hackery IMHO! But all have a special place in my heart.

But I absolutely loved Kay's Tigana when I read it for the first time. I still buy his books whenever I can.

Damon.

- Legend by David Gemmell (most of the Drenai books were good)
- DragonLance Chronicles by Weis and Hickman
- The Death Gate Cycle also by Weis and Hickman (though it was hit or miss at points)
- The various Medkemia books by Feist, the Magician series and the Merchant Prince series in particular.

Second Broken Sword.

Fafhrd and Grey Mouser tales by Fritz Leiber are probably my favourite.

Also an honourable mention for Wirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner.

Robert E. Howard's Conan stories. (Beyond the Black River is my favorite of those.)

Good Omens.

Bored of the Rings!

Game of Thrones (George RR Martin) which I don't think counts as a Tolkien Homage, but since it's not really a stand-alone novel maybe it doesn't count?

Gotta nominate "Elric of Melnebone", just for ol' times sake. :)

The "Chosen of the Changeling" series (two books, The Waterborn/The Blackgod, by J Gregory Keyes). Nice original setting and worth your time to read.

I also enjoyed the first few "Sum of All Men" books, but then I lost touch with them. Some relatively novel concepts in there.

The Briar King, etc., while fun enough, was too fond of its own cleverness. Does anyone seriously not guess what the name "Erden Geboren" means? It's like the old Speed Racer trope – "Hey, that Racer-X guy is pretty cool. I wonder what ever happened to my brother Rex Racer?". Sorry if that's a spoiler for anyone, but c'mon.

The Chronicles of Narnia series
The Harry Potter series
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (and its sequels)
The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory
Mary Stewart's Arthurian cycle
The Once and Future King and The Book of Merlin by T.H. White
The Wind in the Willows, unabridged edition, by Kenneth Grahame
(The fools who removed the chapter "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" should be horsewhipped.)
The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame
The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall
The Arabian Nights
Almost any Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, but my favorite is Night Watch.
Watership Down by Richard Adams (is this fantasy?)
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
Anything by Edward Eager, but particularly Half Magic
The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers

So, how much more do you want me to add?

Nobody else is sticking to one response so I won't either:

The Black Company or Dread Empire by Glen Cook, but you knew I would say that.

After that as already mentioned, Brust's Draegaerean works are pretty great, both the Vlad Taltos books and the Three Musketeers tributes. If I ever turned into a successful fiction writer, I'd hope I'd write like Brust: spare, economical, witty, and never slow nor ponderous (except when doing a clever homage to Dumas with the reader in on the joke).

Very hard to leave out Moorcock's Elric books, although the original stories have seemed more memorable too me than the ones he's added since the 80s, and that's not just a nostalgia thing because I've re-read them in the decades since I was 14. But if Tolkien is one pole of what the fantasy marketplace is about, Moorcock is the other (and admits this was deliberate if you've read his essays).

Jack Vance deserves promotion for his fabulous baroque witty ironic prose style, like no one else, and his Lyonesse books were possibly the pinnacle of a fabulous career. Like with Cook, his science fiction is even better than his fantasy, but he's a great writer regardless. If you couldn't handle Lyonesse, his Dying Earth books are rightful classics and had a strong inspiration on D&D along with Tolkien and Howard.

Robert E. Howard's Conan books get overlooked nowadays because their popularity generated so many imitators and after the fact collaborators that it waters public perception of the original material. But that work deserves its popularity and rightfully inspired those imitators.

Robert E. Howard is going to get a second mention for his Solomon Kane books.

Maybe there are three poles to modern fantasy: Tolkien, Moorcock, and Howard, with Glen Cook balancing all of them.

Lieber's Lankhmar books were, even more than Moorcock, the first grown-up works in fantasy.

Oh, and of those which are series mentioned above, my favorites within the series are:
Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The first book in the series, and don't let HarperCollins tell you any different.)
Mary Stewart: The Wicked Day (Mordred's story)

The others I already specified.

Mine of course!

And followed very closely by Glory Road by Robert Heinlein.

Oh, and the Dying Earth by Jack Vance.

Tad Williams, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Trilogy

(My real favorite is GRR Martin's Game of Thrones, but that's already been nominated!)

I guess Bill should decided (if he runs this poll) whether each book in a series or trilogy should be a separate entry, or whether a series/trilogy is a single entry. I think it's better to do each series as a single entry. Many of them (particularly LOTR, the inspiration for this poll) were written as very long novels, simply published in three chunks. And it reduces the "poll with 1 million choices" effect that everyone hates.

S.M. Stirling's "Dies the fire" and it's follow-ups. No, it is *not* science fiction.

Sadly, I don't think Clarke-Ashton Smith every wrote a novel.

All right -- I'll play: Favorites from my youth --

Ursula Leguin, _Wizard of Earthsea_.
Jack Vance, _The Dying Earth_.
Roger Zelazny, _Creatures of Light and Darkness_.

More recently,
Susanna Clarke, _Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

Cheers! -- Hans

The one I really liked had an M113 and crew transported to a fantasy setting to fight a dragon. Oh, I think it was The Doomfarers of Coramande (or some such).

Another vote for these

Dragonlance Chronicles
Deathgate Cycle
The Chronicles of Narnia

Shadows of the Apt series, by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
The First Law series by Joe abercrombie.
"Best Served Cold", set in the same world as the First Law series.
Karl Edward Wagner's Kane series.

And further votes for Cook's Black Company and Dread Empire, Howard's Conan, Soloman Kane, Kull, Bran mak Morn and Cormac mac Art stories

Conan the Conqueror (Hour of the Dragon) a full length novel as opposed to short stories by REH.

I always thought it would make a great movie.

Some that I've enjoyed:-
Barry Hughart "The Bridge of Birds"
Poul Anderson "The Broken Sword", "Three Hearts & Three Lions", "Merman's Children"
Elizabeth Boyer "The Wizard's War"
Lord Dunsany "The King of Elfland's Daughter"
Gillian Bradshaw "Hawk of May"
Lois McMaster Bujold "Curse of Chalion"
C J Cherryh "Morgaine Quartet", "Dreamstone", etc
Brian Daley "A Tapestry of Magics"
Dave Duncan "The King's Blades"
Phyllis Eisenstein "Sorceror's Son"
David Gemmell, well just about anything really.
Simon Green "Blood and Honour"
Tanith Lee "Death's Master"
Scott Lynch "Lies of Locke Lamora"
George MacDonald "Phantastes"
George RR Martin "Song of Ice & Fire"
Patricia McKillip "Forgotten Beasts of Eld"
Abraham Merritt "The Moon Pool" & others
Criag Mills "Bane of Lord Caladon"
C L Moore "jirel of Joiry"
Andre Norton "Witch World"
Tim Powers "On Stranger Tides"
Keith Roberts "The Boat of Fate"
Martin Scott "Thraxas"
Michael Scott "Irish Folk & Fairy Tales"
Clifford D Simak "Enchanted Pilgrimage"
Karl Edward Wagner "Kane"
Christopher Stasheff "A Wizard in Bedlam"
Keith Taylor "Bard"
Paula Volsky "Curse of the Witch Queen", "Luck of Relian Kru",
Lawrence Watt-Evans "Lords of Dus", etc
David Weber "The War God's Own"
Paul Edwin Zimmer "The Dark Border"

I will throw in Robert Jordans "Wheel of Time" series.

While I class the Conan and Elric stories amongst my favorites, very few of either are "novels".

A few I happily re-read:
Andre Norton: Huon of the Horn, Merlin's Mirror, Year of the Unicorn
Poul Anderson: Three Hearts and Three Lions, Broken Sword.
Roger Zelazny: Chronicles of Amber, Shadowjack, Changeling, Dilvish the Damned.
Greg Bear: Infinity Concerto
Robert Holdstock: Mythago Wood

Huscarle has hit a few others, including Hughart's "Bridge of Birds".

Another vote for either:

The Black Company series – Glen Cook
The Jhereg novels – Steven Brust
plus
The Drenai saga by David Gemmell

If you ask me those are the holy trinity of fantasy literature.

Game of Thrones (George RR Martin) and it's sequels all beat everything else out there hands down. And it isn't a Tolkien rip off, homage, or anything even remotely similar.

Morigu: The Desecration
Morigu: The Dead
Both by Mark C. Perry.

The only books I have read where elves weren't 5' and delicate.

Bellair's THE FACE IN THE FROST

Anything by Zelazny.

Brust's Viscount of Adrilanka books – the spin-offs of the serious Vlad Taltos books.

RE Howard's Conan books as compiled by Ace and then Zebra books, back in the day.

Wagner's Kane books.

Keyes' Age of Unreason and Kingdom of Bone and Thorn series.

My 'favourites' seem to change over time and are generally influenced but what am reading at the moment, as I have an annoying tendency to completely forget about some books until I read something similar, which means I have to dig them out and read them again – not that I'm complaining.

So flavour of the month leads to another vote for Scott Lynche, "The Lies of Locke Lamora"; I also really enjoyed Joe Abercrombie's trilogy starting with "The Blade Itself" and Alan Campbell's "Scar Night", which are in a similar vein.

George RR Martin's Fire and Ice Books
Elric
Fafred and the Grey Mouser
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time
Conan

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson.

Guardians of the Flame series by
Joel Rosenberg

Not yet mentioned:

Michael Moorcock – Stormbringer, Gloriana, The War Hound and the World's Pain

Mary Gentle – Grunts!, Ash A Secret History

John Crowley – Little, Big

Avram Davidson – Peregrine Primus

Gene Wolfe – Soldier in the Mist and Soldier of Arete

The Phoniex Guard by Brust, and pretty much anything by Sir Terry Pratchett. I've seen lots of other books I've enjoyed on this list as well.

David S.

Another vote for George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire

I also liked the Saga of the Exiles series by Julian May

The "Kane" series by Karl Edward Wagner
The "Conan" Series by Robert E. Howard

I haven't read all of the posts, my nominees:

The Chronicles of Amber Roger Zelzany(sp)

Nine Princes in Amber was my favorite, but each bool in the series has its points.

I'm just going to second Richard Humm,

Avram Davidson, Peregrine Primus, et Secundus.

Also, The Phoenix and the Mirror and The Enquiries of Dr. Esterhazy are way up there.

Conan and the Mouser are about it.

Book of the Swords series
Drizzt Do'Urden R A Salvatore

The Earthsea Trilogy (I am deliberately excluding the short story collection and fourth novel) are the finest fantasy reading ever for me, eclipsing even Tolkien ;)

I would like to un-nominate Mary Gentle's "Grunts!" please.

Elric saga
Corum
a wizard of Earthsea

My two favorites are at opposite ends of the world

Piers Anthony Xanth series and…

Please don't hate me…..

Stephen R Donaldson Thomas Convenant series. I actually cried at the scene with the Giants.

Sword of Shanara, the first book.

The series of books on buddy with leperosy – Maybe that's the Covenant books Waco Joe mentioned. I don't think I finished them all.

Oh and the Phillip PUllman Dark MAterials books were really good.
--
Tim

Heinlein – _Glory Road_

Anderson – _Three Hearts and Three Lions_; _A Midsummer
Tempest_; _The High Crusade_

Myers-Myers – _Silverlock_

Farmer – 'Riverworld' series

Unk. – _The Armies of Elfland_

Pratchett – ANYTHING !

Wishstones of Shanara – love the Reaper and the Border Legion!

The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Another book in the same world

The Unwilling Warlord by Lawrence Watt-Evans,