The Pern series by Anne McCaffrey

wtfbbq!  this is pretty awesome.  

Raymond E Feist's Riftwar cycle...
Robin Hobb's Farseer Triology
David Eddings' Elenium and Tamuli, as well as the Belgariad and Mallorean series

And I'll third?  I think the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

The ghost of Anne McCaffrey will haunt you if you call them fantasy...



 

I'm reading the Books of the South right now.

Which is a damned shame - they were fantastic when they were fantasy and got progressively more horriblererer when they jumped to sci-fi.



Melanie Rawn - Dragon Prince/Sunrunner Trilogies (more so the former)

Tad Williams - Dragonbone Chair "Trilogy" (derivative, but extremely well written if you like Tolkienesque world-building)

Steven Brust - Anything, really, although the earlier Taltos stuff is better before he went full-bore socialist and neutered Vlad. The Khavvren saga is fantastic if you enjoy archaic syntax and structure - think Dumas meets Shakespeare with a comedic twist. These I will read over and over just because they are so well done and hold up well over several readings.

CJ Cherryh - Morgaine Cycle - not everyone's bag of tea but I really enjoyed them.

Barbara Hambly - Silicon Mage Trilogy and Dragonsbane (stop with the first book - trust me).

Jennifer Roberson - Tiger and Del Series and the Chronicles of the Cheysuli

To Reign in Hell was one of the first fantasy novels I ever read.  Telling the revolt of the angels from Satan's point of view was mind-blowing to an 18 year old.  I still have my paperpack edition from 1985 on the bookshelf.

One of his friends was assassinated and it changed his view of assassins.  He's always been a communist.  Second generation; his parents were Wobblies.

gonna throw some authors in here, I have been reading paranormal romance series for a while now and some of the wimminz can throw good stories BUT real heavy on romance and some of them are straight up pornographic.

Rachel Caine- weather warden great stuff
lilitth St crow-----read everything she has in print
Yasmine Galenorn---writes really good porn
laurel k hamilton
Sherrilyn Kenyon--Ash is the boss
i have over 2400 ebooks in my calibre library so this is just a slice

Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher

Don't forget the prequels and sequels to the Paksenarrion story.

Right now there's two prequels and 4 published sequels and a fifth on the way.

Robert Jordan ran into the same problem that George R. R. Martin ran into with his series deconstructing The Wheel of Time: too many characters and factions to have good stopping points or a satisfying resolution of the parallel plots.  I get the idea that the reason Martin kills off so many characters is probably just to avoid having to figure out what the hell they're ultimately going to do.  Robert Jordan just quit writing about his extra characters, probably hoping the audience would forget about them.  They're both really good writers, but the genre is very hard to write.

 

Why??? I read, and enjoyed, those years ago. I read quite a bit of Piers Anthony too.  Incarnations of Immortality I believe.

That actually sounds familiar - I knew he was bent that way (communist) but it really didn't come through in his earlier writing. Luckily the rest of his Dragaera work holds together pretty well even with the recent personality changes. I believe he divorced during that period as well so I guess Cawti gets to play both conscience and catharsis. While I may find his politics reprehensible, I enjoy the way he spins a tale.

I was checking to see if anyone mentioned this series. I couldn't decided if they were to girl centered for Arf. I really enjoyed the books.

Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings was pretty pretty good. I just got the sequel, Words of Radiance, which I'm going to read after I finish "Caliban's War" by James S.A. Corey.

+1 on the Patrick Rothfuss Kingkiller Chronicles, Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, R.A Salvatore's Drizzt novels andTerry Pratchett's Discworld

This

+1  -- one of my favorite series of books of all time.

Click To View Spoiler

Avid fantasy reader here.
+87 to Kingkiller Chronicles by Rothfuss, Mistborn and Way of Kings by Sanderson, Malazan by Erikson, and Wheel of Time by Jordan.
Those should keep you busy for awhile.

Isn't the rothfuss series the kvoth ones?

Way of kings was outstanding IMO, probably one of the best I've read ever.. I really enjoyed it

Gordon R. Dickson  The Dragon and the George

Stephen R. Donaldson  The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

I recently read all the ember verse series. It is a "post apocalyptic" world where things like gunpowder and electricity stop working. It plunges the world into a medieval world
 

I would say Martin is one of the best of this day and age (due to the fact his writing isn't your typical Tolkien rip-off), but he's lost alot of his narrative pacing after Storm of Swords was published back in 01, and EVERYONE who read that book hated him so much that he lost a good chunk of his fanbase. (If you do try to write a novel, do not kill off the main protagonist/ a fan favorite just cause you want to do something different. As stated before, it bit ol' GRRM in the ass quite hard.)

I loved "Dies the Fire"...



Then sequels just kept coming out and it seems like it started to do the whole Shannara thing... same story, different generation...



 

Yeah, it was its own stand alone and it did nothing to move the story forward.  I had the same feeling, almost like a break in the books that Goodkind had discovered something he was trying to say.  In that book Rahl was a Galt character...hell, he sacrifices himself until the deaus ex machina fixes the problem.  I almost stopped after that novel.  They even had some throw away prophecy that Richard mentions in the beginning but is never mentioned again...Nathan never mentions it, the sisters never mention it...something about "The leader can't lead until the people see the true path."

The only thing that novel gave was a reason the journeybooks don't work and a reason to interrupt Jagang's supply chain.

After that I kept one eye open.  I was waiting for Richard and Nikki to marry during the 2-3 books when the Chainfire event took place.  I almost thought that Goodkind was going to pull a Weber and explain how polygamy is okay.

Glory Road

Here's some off the top of my head.
The Chronicles of Thomas CovenantThe best story I've read next to LoTr
The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone
The Morgaine Stories
The Chronicles of Amber
The Death Gate Cycle
The Kingkiller Chronicle

Oh, hell yes. I feel bad I forgot it.

A very loud +1!

Read the first one and bought everything else in the series through fool's fate.

Did not like or finish dragonkeeper s stop before that.

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New Companions of the Hall (Drizzit) book out tomorrow.



Night of the Hunter: Companions Codex 1



http://www.amazon.com/Night-Hunter-Companions-Codex-I-ebook/dp/B00F1W08CC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1394509541&sr=1-1&keywords=ra+salvatore

       
 

Terry Goodkind - as some have here have said he does have a somewhat repetitive plot in his books, but it is definitely worth reading the first one in the series. I also have a fondness for Faith of the Fallen as it does a very good job of laying out how communism is bad and capitalism/individual exceptionalism is good.

The Stormlight Archive, book 1, is awesome. Haven't had a chance to start on book 2 yet.

The first chapter is kinda wonky, but it gets good.

Book 1: http://www.amazon.com/Way-Kings-Stormlight-Archive-ebook/dp/B003P2WO5E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1394510951&sr=8-2&keywords=Stormlight+Archive

Book 2: http://www.amazon.com/Words-Radiance-Stormlight-Archive-Book-ebook/dp/B00DA6YEKS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394510951&sr=8-1&keywords=Stormlight+Archive

pretty much everything i read has already been mentioned.

ok ill give you this.



wizards first rule was good, pretend the series ends there.



 

I agree with folks suggesting RA Salvatore, Dresden Files, as well as everything Terry Pratchett has touched.

I would also suggest the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss.  A friend recommended it to me, after we were talking about A Song of Ice and Fire.  Also worth checking out, is the Otherland series by Tad Williams.  They are sci-fi, but in my eyes so much of the stuff that happens is so fantastical it might as well be fantasy.  Think along the lines of insanely good immersion for virtual reality.

If you do end up looking into the Gor books by John Norman... as a head's up his books have spawned a whole sub-culture (not sure what else to call it) within BDSM based on his take on slavery and gender roles.

I'm here because I have to be.  And as posted above, R. A. Salavatore and Terry Brooks

Will Wight's 'house of blades'  is an excellent novel until the last few pages. He's a new guy in the genre, so he rushed it. The Crimson Vault, his follow up novel, is much better in that regard.

Jo Clayton's Soul Drinker trilogy
   Drinker of Souls
   Blue Magic
   A Gathering of Stones

Another vote for Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books
Also Terry Brooks Sword / Elfstones of Shannara books.

Elizabeth Boyer:

   World of the Alfar
       The Sword and the Satchel (1980)
       The Elves and the Otterskin (1981)
       The Thrall and the Dragon's Heart (1982)
       The Wizard and the Warlord (1983)

   Wizard's War
       The Troll's Grindstone (1986)
       The Curse of Slagfid (1989)
       The Dragon's Carbuncle (1990)
       The Lord of Chaos (1991)

Barbara Hambly:

Sun Wolf and Starhawk

   The Ladies of Mandrigyn (1984; Locus award nominee, 1985)
   The Witches of Wenshar (1987; Locus award nominee, 1988)
   The Dark Hand of Magic (1990)
 
The Windrose Chronicles

   The Silent Tower (1986)
   The Silicon Mage (1988)
   Darkmage (1988, omnibus of The Silent Tower and The Silicon Mage)
   Dog Wizard (1993; Locus Award nominee, 1994)
   Stranger at the Wedding (also published as Sorcerer's Ward) (1994)

Darwarth
The Darwath Trilogy

   The Time of the Dark (1982)
   The Walls of Air (1983)
   The Armies of Daylight (1983)

Darwath novels

   Mother of Winter (1996; Locus award nominee 1997)
   Icefalcon's Quest (1998)

Sun-Cross

   The Rainbow Abyss (1991; Locus Award nominee, 1992)
   The Magicians of Night (1992; Locus Award nominee, 1993)

Andre Norton:

Witch World
- Estcarp Cycle

   Witch World (1963)
   Web of the Witch World (1964)
   Three Against the Witch World (1965)
   Warlock of the Witch World (1967)
   Sorceress of the Witch World (1968)
   Trey of Swords (1977)
   Ware Hawk (1983)
   The Gate of the Cat (1987)
   Ciara's Song (1998), with Lyn McConchie
   The Dukes Ballad (2005), with Lyn McConchie

- High Hallack Cycle

   Year of the Unicorn (1965)
   The Crystal Gryphon (1972) – first book of Gryphon trilogy
   Spell of the Witch World (1972), collection
   The Jargoon Pard (1974)
   Zarsthor's Bane (1978)
   Lore of the Witch World (1980), collection
   Gryphon in Glory (1981) – second book of Gryphon trilogy
   Horn Crown (1981)
   Gryphon's Eyrie (1984), with A. C. Crispin – third book of Gryphon trilogy
   Were-Wrath (Cheap Street, 1984), chapterbook, illus. Judy King-Rieniets – limited edition of 177 copies, very rare; reissued 1989 in Wizards' Worlds
   Songsmith (1992), with A. C. Crispin
   Silver May Tarnish (2005), with Lyn McConchie

- The Turning

   Storms of Victory (omnibus) (1991) contains Port of Dead Ships by Andre Norton & Seakeep by P. M. Griffin
   Flight of Vengeance (omnibus) (1992) contains Exile by Mary H. Schaub & Falcon Hope by P. M. Griffin
   On Wings of Magic (omnibus) (1994) contains We the Women by Patricia Mathews & Falcon Magic by Sasha Miller

- Secrets of the Witch World

(also part of The Turning)

   The Key of the Keplian (1995) with Lyn McConchie
   The Magestone (1996) with Mary H. Schaub
   The Warding of Witch World (1996)

David Eddings The Belgariad series

The Drizz't books by RA Salvatore.

A series I really liked when I was younger was the Gord the Rogue series by Gary Gygax one of the creators of D&D.

As stated earlier the Jim Butcher Dresden books are good.
I also like P.I. Garrett series by Glenn Cook.

ETA: Nick Pollotta: Bureau 13 (series) and Illegal Aliens

+1. I really enjoyed reading these.

Definitely! A friend of my dad loaned me the first one when I was about 12. I loved that series. Might have to see about finding them.

Yeah its probably not on easy to find because Gary passed away in 2008.

Its very interesting that he actually destroyed his fantasy world because of a disagreement with TSR.


Publication history

One of the factors that contributed to the success of the Dragonlance setting when it was published in 1984 was a popular series of concurrent novels by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. Gary Gygax, the developer of the World of Greyhawk campaign setting, realized that novels set in Greyhawk could have a similar benefit for his recently published World of Greyhawk boxed set, so he wrote Saga of Old City, the first in a series of novels that would be published under the banner Greyhawk Adventures. The protagonist was Gord the Rogue, and this first novel told of his rise from the Slum Quarters of the city of Greyhawk to become world traveller and thief extraordinaire. The novel was designed to promote sales of the boxed set by providing colourful details about the social customs and peoples of various cities and countries around the Flanaess.
Even before Saga of Old City rolled off the presses in November 1985, Gygax wrote a sequel, Artifact of Evil. He also wrote a short story, At Moonset Blackcat Comes, that appeared in the special 100th issue of Dragon magazine in August 1985. This introduced Gord the Rogue to gamers just before Saga of Old City was scheduled to be released.[1]
However, at the same time, various factions within TSR with different visions of the company's future caused a power struggle, and Gygax was forced out on December 31, 1985. By the terms of his settlement with TSR, Gygax kept the rights to Gord the Rogue as well as all D&D characters whose names were anagrams or plays on his own name (for example, Yrag and Zagyg).[2]
After Gygax left TSR in 1985, he continued to write a few more Gord the Rogue novels, which were published by New Infinities Productions: Sea of Death (1987), City of Hawks (1987), and Come Endless Darkness (1988). In Gygax's absence, however, TSR moved the Greyhawk storyline in new directions that Gygax didn't appreciate, and the line of Greyhawk Adventures novels (without Gord the Rogue) continued to be written by Rose Estes. In a literary declaration that his old world of Oerth was dead, and wanting to make a clean break with all things Greyhawk and D&D, Gygax destroyed his version of Oerth in the final Gord the Rogue novel, Dance of Demons.

tons of great suggestions in this thread, I think im gonna reorganize the op to include everyone's contributions and make it the official arf.com fantasy book must read list.. what do you guys think?

You're being too harsh.  

The rest of the books were good...the story was a grand story.  The Galt book, I'll admit I almost stopped reading on that one.

There are things I didn't like about the series but it's probably still a must read for any Sci-Fantasy fan.

As long as we are recommending books... Weber wrote a series "The War God's Own".