Favorite book series?

What set of books can you never get enough of?

Sherlock Holmes.

I've read everything at least two dozen times, and I'm not nearly finished with them.

The Kingkiller Chronicle

The wait for The Doors of Stone is putting me through severe mood swings and withdrawals.

It may not be "hipster approved" but "A Song of Ice and Fire" really does it for me.

Discworld! Anything by Terry Pratchett, really.

enders game series

@xaLieNxGrEyx said:

It may not be "hipster approved" but "A Song of Ice and Fire" really does it for me.

Yep this right here. I also love the Lord of the Rings books.

I haven't actually read many cycles, which is puzzling, because I read a fucking ton of books.

I guess Harry Potter. I grew up with those books so it's definitely my favorite YA book series, though going to college and reading a wider variety of stuff has definitely put it in perspective.

I haven't read very many whole series, but I did read all of the Sword of Truth books. They progressively got worse and worse. I'm currently on book 3 of the Wheel of Time series, and it's pretty awesome so far. But as for my favourite series, I'd have to go with Redwall.

@Denric said:

I haven't read very many whole series, but I did read all of the Sword of Truth books. They progressively got worse and worse. I'm currently on book 3 of the Wheel of Time series, and it's pretty awesome so far. But as for my favourite series, I'd have to go with Redwall.

Wheel of time is amazing save for one or two books around the end which don't progress the plot at all or very little, but Brendan Sanderson has picked it up and did a great job with the last few books. thats definetly my favourite series and like you I read through the Sword of Truth books, picked up Wizards First Rule at a book fare for a steal and it blew me away, went out and bought the rest of the series which was up to chainfire at that point and while I agree they do progressively get worse I still think its a great series.

Just to mention as well the Trudi Canavan Black Magician Series and to a lesser extent The Age of the Five books are really great reads and almost came top for me so i figured they are worth an honorable mention in my post.

@buft: I did enjoy the Sword of Truth books quite a bit, except for the one that didn't focus on Richard and crew at all until the very end. Have you read The Omen Machine? I thought it was an interesting entry in the series, and I'm interested to see where Terry Goodkind is going to go with it.

@Ezakael said:

@xaLieNxGrEyx said:

It may not be "hipster approved" but "A Song of Ice and Fire" really does it for me.

Yep this right here. I also love the Lord of the Rings novel.

Thats better.

I notice the OP has a Mass Effect avatar. You should go read the Revelation Space trilogy. My favorite scifi trilogy and the one that Bioware ripped off when making the story of Mass Effect.

Read that.

@IAmADwagon said:

The Kingkiller Chronicle

The wait for The Doors of Stone is putting me through severe mood swings and withdrawals.

This person has the right idea, no series has dominated my consciousness like Kingkiller. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll swear out loud on more than one occasion.

@Denric said:

@buft: I did enjoy the Sword of Truth books quite a bit, except for the one that didn't focus on Richard and crew at all until the very end. Have you read The Omen Machine? I thought it was an interesting entry in the series, and I'm interested to see where Terry Goodkind is going to go with it.

Actually I haven't, in fact the last one I bought was Phantom which was back in 2006, I recall waiting fairly impatiently for Confessor to come out and when it did i refused to buy the hard back version since its inconvenient to read on a train and the paper back was so long in coming that I moved on to other books and although i always intended to go back i never did and now since i bought my kindle i have bought the series but again that doesnt include the omen machine. Will definitely give it a look

The Bourne Identity books are the best spy novels ever. Seriously, some great stuff.

Goosebumps.

Harry Potter was pretty great been awhile though.

The Dark Tower Not many people liked the ending but I loved it

One of two: Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber or Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen. Both are fantasy and ten books long, and the similarities end there. Amber books are short, to the point and a good time from beginning to end. Malazan books are all over 1000 pages, contain an absurd number of interwoven plot threads, require multiple readings to understand and are a slow burn - building to the some of the most epic of climaxes imaginable. That said, I prefer science-fiction to fantasy, but none of the bigger sci-fi series are as consistently good or coherent as either of these.

@thabigred I read most of the Revelation Space books and I don't really see any parallels to Mass Effect, short of the ancient galactic evil coming to wipe us all out, but that's hardly unique to either series.

a la recherche du temps perdu

Discworld, especially everything including the city watch.

Discworld is great, but I don't know if I'd call it a series since the books are all self-contained and have little to do with each other.

commonwealth saga by Peter F Hamilton!

Most of the books I read are stand alone so it's a tough question. I guess I have say Lord of the Rings by default.

I've also read The Kingkiller Chronicles and Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, in the fantasy genre, but those didn't really grab me at all.

The 20-volume Aubrey-Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. The books are set in the early 19th century and describe the life and careers of Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend, naval surgeon Dr. Stephen Maturin. While they are considered fiction teh author employees an adaptation of actual historical events, either integrating his protagonists in the action without changing the outcome, or using adapted historical events as templates. On the nerdy side the books are deeply steeped intechnical sailing terminology and 19th century speech.

I have only finished the first 14 books, but I cannot imagine a better series of books. Good reads, fun & funny, and the description of 19th sailing ships is technically interesting.

Runner Ups

- The Merchant Princes is a series, by Charles Stross, in which some humans have an ability to travel between parallel Earths, which have differing levels of technology.

- The Destroyermen series is a series of alternate history books, written by American writer and historian Taylor Anderson. The books chronicle the adventures of the crews of the destroyer USS Walker (DD-163) and the Japanese battle cruiser Amagi, in the early stages of the War in the Pacific during World War II, being transported to an alternate Earth.

Robert Rankin's Brentford "Trilogy" of 9 books. If you aren't familiar with Rankin, he does humorous books sci-fi & fantasy stuff that contain lots of running gags, such as wanton abuse of footnotes. The Brentford Trilogy follow the adventures of a couple of dossers, John Omally & Jim Pooley. The first book, The Antipope deals with Pope Alexander VI being resurrected (you know, the bad guy in Assassins Creed 2), The Brentford Triangle features an alien invasion & a Space Invaders cabinet, & so forth. Lots & lots of fun, the sort of books I can't read in public because I start laughing like a mental patient & so get funny looks.

Also another Rankin, Ian & his Detective Rebus books about the slightly maverick, troubled Lothian & Borders CID officer John Rebus, featuring the City of Edinburgh as one of its most vibrant characters.

Toss-up between Discworld and The Dresden Files.

Thrawn

I dunno if you count Lovecraft's works as a set, or more accurately three sets, but if you do then either the Cthulhu or Dreamlands cycles. Depends on my mood, but a good re-read of The Shadow Over Innsmouth or The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is warranted at least once a year. Not to mention The Case of Charles Dexter-Ward or The Haunter of the Dark... oh fuck, man those are such good books (they're technically novellas).

Then there's the Hitchhiker's series, Lord of the Rings, and the Harry Potter books. You could probably throw in some Dragonlance and Redwall too. I can't think of any sci-fi series that I love - for the most part those come down to novels rather than series.

I'm not a huge fan of series, but I'm always down for a Discworld novel.

The Alex Cross novels are a guilty pleasure. They are basically disposable trash. But, I really enjoy them.

Ambergris Cycle.

The Dark Tower was my entire life for a few months.

Also Mistborn is amazing.

@Sursh said:

commonwealth saga by Peter F Hamilton!

I liked that one a lot. I liked his The Night's Dawn Trilogy too, but maybe not as much...nights dawn was always a bit creepy.

@xaLieNxGrEyx said:

It may not be "hipster approved" but "A Song of Ice and Fire" really does it for me.

I don't know, the fourth and fifth books were pretty mediocre and felt like GRRM needed an better editor. The first three though... so great.

Metro series, made famous by Metro 2033 are really great books if you can read Russian, I'm not sure if they've been translated they may have(atleast the first one) because of Metro-2033's popularity.

Old Man's War.

It's hard to top Lord of the Rings, because that series got me into reading fantasy.

I'm currently reading Robin Hobb and she's amazing. I read the Farseer trilogy first and thought it was one of the best series I've ever read. Now I'm reading the Liveship Traders trilogy, the second series she's written under that name, and it's even better than Farseer.

Also love Raymond E. Feist's whole multiverse. I haven't kept up with his books. I think the last I read of his was Honoured Enemy which is about 10 years old now? I think he's been churning out a book a year ever since. Should probably see about closing that gap sometime.

Also currently reading the Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch. Excellent series about a London police officer who find himself involved with magicians and gods and demons and all that. A bit like an adult version of Harry Potter, to make an overused comparison.

Not sure if I have a favorite. I have read most of the series posted in this thread. I'll say, most involving to me in the past was Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books 1-6. Those first six books are great.

@Kerned said:

@xaLieNxGrEyx said:

It may not be "hipster approved" but "A Song of Ice and Fire" really does it for me.

I don't know, the fourth and fifth books were pretty mediocre and felt like GRRM needed an better editor. The first three though... so great.

Books 4 and 5 are Martin freaking out about the sudden success of his series. That's my theory. The combined narrative of those two books was originally intended to only be a single book. Martin ran long on the release window, his publisher pushed him for being so slow, book 4 is released as "half" of the intended complete book with the promise of book 5 within about a year. Then that didn't happen. Martin took six years, book 5 as release had similar issues as book 4; heavy on filler, light on significant narrative changing events.

@HerbieBug said:

Not sure if I have a favorite. I have read most of the series posted in this thread. I'll say, most involving to me in the past was Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books 1-6. Those first six books are great.

@Kerned said:

@xaLieNxGrEyx said:

It may not be "hipster approved" but "A Song of Ice and Fire" really does it for me.

I don't know, the fourth and fifth books were pretty mediocre and felt like GRRM needed an better editor. The first three though... so great.

Books 4 and 5 are Martin freaking out about the sudden success of his series. That's my theory. The combined narrative of those two books was originally intended to only be a single book. Martin ran long on the release window, his publisher pushed him for being so slow, book 4 is released as "half" of the intended complete book with the promise of book 5 within about a year. Then that didn't happen. Martin took six years, book 5 as release had similar issues as book 4; heavy on filler, light on significant narrative changing events.

I really never felt like the 4th and 5th books have as much filler as people say. Plenty of shit happened in that book that is very important to the story and the main plot thread of who will get the iron throne.

@Kerned said:

@xaLieNxGrEyx said:

It may not be "hipster approved" but "A Song of Ice and Fire" really does it for me.

I don't know, the fourth and fifth books were pretty mediocre and felt like GRRM needed an better editor. The first three though... so great.

I would choose the GRRM books also, although @Kerned is right, Feast for Crows was hard for me to get through, I will say Dance with Dragons had a strong ending imo and I'm excited to see where the story goes from there.

@MikeJFlick said:

Metro series, made famous by Metro 2033 are really great books if you can read Russian, I'm not sure if they've been translated they may have(atleast the first one) because of Metro-2033's popularity.

I wish I could read Russian now. :'( That game was really awesome, it was a cool take on post-apocalyptic fiction.

Altered Carbon --> Broken Angels --> Woken Furies.

The followups don't come close Altered Carbon, which is unfortunate. I have no idea why a movie or game hasn't been based on it, because it seems perfect for both.

ALTERED CARBON is set in a future where consciousness is digitized and stored in cortical stacks implanted in the spine, allowing humans to survive physical death by having their memories and consciousness "re-sleeved" into new bodies. The story follows specially trained "Envoy" soldier Takeshi Kovacs, who is downloaded from an off-world prison and into the body of a disgraced cop at the behest of Laurens Bancroft, a highly influential aristocrat. Bancroft was killed, and the last automatic backup of his stack was made hours before his death, leaving him with no memory of who killed him and why. While police ruled it a suicide, Bancroft is convinced he was murdered and wants Kovacs to find out the truth.

I left this saying 'Altered Caron' for over a day. What a grave error on my part. I simply must apologize to each and every one of you who read that.

@MonkeyKing1969 said:

@Sursh said:

commonwealth saga by Peter F Hamilton!

I liked that one a lot. I liked his The Night's Dawn Trilogy too, but maybe not as much...nights dawn was always a bit creepy.

woo! someone here has actually read it! yeah, peter turned me into a sci fi nut.

@Sinusoidal: You are coming across a planet sized artifact in both that alerts an ancient race of robots that a new race has reached sentience and it's now time to fuck their shit up. The plagiarism goes much deeper than this but I'm keeping it simple for dramatic effect.

 A Song of Ice and Fire.  
 
  

@drowsap said:

The Dark Tower Not many people liked the ending but I loved it

I pick up Stephen King stuff anytime I can find it. I love finding old well loved paperbacks of his people just get rid of for like 0.25. I haven't read the Dark Tower series yet. I just got a boost to my S.K. collection when I bought about 20 'King titles off someone who didn't want them anymore. Paid -$30- and among the titles... THE COMPLETE Dark Tower series. Just finished The Tommyknockers about 4 days ago. My favorite so far has actually been Skeleton Crew. Love his short stories!

Dragon Prince and Dragon Star.

The Corps by W.E.B Griffin is amazing!