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Comment by legohead | Hacker News Reader

There are so many amazing fantasy novels that need movies or TV shows. Tolkien was good, and for his time, amazing. But compared to what we have available today, I wouldn't even put him in the top 10.

sigh

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Care to offer any recommendations? I'm in the market for new sci-fi / fantasy lit.

r scott bakker; brandon sanderson; steven brust; alastair reynolds; max gladstone; neal asher; harry connolly; joel shepherd.

    Wheel of Time (Robert Jordan)
    Stormlight Archive; Mistborn (Brandon Sanderson)
    Belgariad and Malloreon (David Eddings)
    Discworld (Terry Pratchett)
    Sword of Shannara (Terry Brooks)

I found the Runelords series by David Farland really enjoyable and cinematic. Great exploration of a fascinating magic system, with some very memorable characters to boot.

For Sci Fi, Netflix is currently making a series based on Altered Carbon which I'm very excited for - I love that series to death (Richard K Morgan, author).

Try Sapkowski if you didn't read The Witcher yet.

    The Liveship Traders trilogy (Robin Hobb)
    The Earthsea tri(penta)logy (Ursula LeGuin)
    Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay)
    Gentlemen Bastards (aka Locke Lamora) series (Scott Lynch)
    Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Susanna Clarke)

If you're in the mood for something more modern, I'm highly recommending the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch.

I've been digging the Frontiers Saga.

http://www.frontierssaga.com

Too many of the books/episodes had me going: well i can start reading the first chapter of the next book and it'll be fine at 1am.

I tend to disagree. Very few live up to Tolkien's level. And it's not about the brand, it's about the depth of the settings he created.

Actually, there is a lot of amazingly detailed settings in fantasy novels -- much more than really good stories set in them. Heck, some fantasy series read like tourist guides through the world with little to no plot and original character development (I'm looking at you, David Eddings).

One advantage of worlds like Westeros and Middle-earth is that they're pretty much immediately familiar to most Western readers: they're basically just a condensed version of Europe and its immediate vicinity -- geography, history and all. There are some amazingly detailed settings which are more difficult to feel immediately connected with, and some of them also feature amazing stories with great characters -- Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea is a prime example (yes, there was a TV series based on it, but we should collectively forget about it; it got wrong everything it could).

As I've said elsewhere, one of the best fantasy series I've recently encountered -- and IMO ideally suited for TV treatment -- is the Liveship Traders trilogy by Robin Hobb. While technically set in the same world as the much better known Farseer Trilogy (and its sequels) it is a completely separate, and IMO much better written story.

I like The Witcher by Sapkoswki personally, but he also draws on familiar material.

Now I'm curious: Who would be in your top ten?

For my money, it would include Orson Scott Card, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Isaac Asimov.

How can there not be a Snowcrash movie, right?

Maybe its because of the cell phone problem.

I have no faith that a Snow Crash movie would live up to the novel, as much as I want it to exist anyway. A series would be better, especially one with a planned ending.

My #1 for a movie/tv show would be The Blade Itself series by Joe Abercrombie. The thought of seeing Glokta and Ninefingers portrayed on screen gives me chills.

Even today, he's the obvious standard for what a great high fantasy novel is as well as the standard every other fantasy author will be and is compared to.

Would be interesting for someone to make series out of Silmarillion. It would probably work better than a regular film medium.

This is a brand recognition play, and LotR has huge (general audience) brand recognition.

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