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[Aldaris]

I have read the Dark Materials trilogy, and I have enjoyed it, but it feels really child oriented in retrospect. I'll read anything good, but I'm not too sure about others and their take on that.

Really? I thought it was one of those series that focused on ages dynamicly, the older you are, the more you think about it, the more you get it, it's self correcting. Up to a certain point, granted, but it's pretty damn well written.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Has anyone read The City of The Singing Flame?

Wow, Clark Ashton Smith? I'm impressed, inaluct! 

http://www.eldritchdark.com/ <---great site, where inaluct's link comes from.

If you like Smith, here are a few other links:

Here's H.P. Lovecraft on the internet:

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/

Here's Robert E Howard:

http://www.thecimmerian.com/?p=166

And William Hope Hodgeson (another favorite of mine from the same time period)

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/h/hodgson/william_hope/

And last but not least, Lord Dunsany:

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/d#a2685

[Micro102]

i like books with tons of fantasy and a better if it has a large army fight where i can picture the war in great detail.

[Flaede]

Then forget the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander and skip straight to his really good stuff - the Westmark Trilogy. It's basically about a - musket & cannon level - civil war. It's Fantasy insomuch and the places never existed. No magic, at least none overtly.

Much as I like Prydain, Lloyd Alexander has even better stuff out there, and they just reprinted them a while back.

[inaluct]

(erudite reading matter)

I'm glad to see that someone else here likes that type of literature. I'll have to check out William H. Hodgeson; a lot of the stories listed on that link look interesting.

[SirHoneyBadger]

He's really one of my favorites.

Some of it's a little like Gormenghast, a little like Moorcock's Eternal Warrior, and a little like Jack Vance's Dying Earth, with a lot of Lovecraft thrown into the mix--as written by a weird combination of Robert E Howard and Lord Byron. 

I've never heard of anything quite like some of the things he came up with, though.

It's a tragedy he died so young and unnecessarily--he was wounded in WW1, while serving in the Royal Artillery, and sent home, but returned to the front lines while still on sick leave, and died there. Quite brave, and ofcourse crazy.

He was also an avid weightlifter, unusual for the time, and a photographer.

Reminds me a bit of Bromor, actually. 

Those links are nice, because they'll also link to other authors/subjects that might be interesting. I was quite happy to find them.

[Dwarf]

I have read the Dark Materials trilogy, and I have enjoyed it, but it feels really child oriented in retrospect. I'll read anything good, but I'm not too sure about others and their take on that.

Ohhh... did you cry in the end?
I would be lying if I said I didn't. Crying is not unmanly, mind you.

[Bromor Neckbeard]

In the vein of SHB's contributions, here's a site with links to links to online versions of thousands of authors whose copyright has run out, as well as piles of other goodies:

http://www.litgothic.com/index_fl.html

[Tormy]

I read this book not so long ago, and I've found it pretty interesting:
Chopper. This book tells the story of Mark Brandon Read, an Australian criminal.
PS..
[The 2000 film Chopper, starring Eric Bana as Read, was based on stories from Read's books and independent research.]

[mendonca]

Anything by Haruki Murakami.

Have read a few of his english translations, and they really are very good, if you ask me.

A bit more away from 'high fantasy' (sorry for lazy definition) as seems to be favoured by a lot in here, but very much in the realms of fantasy. The dream-like worlds he evokes in his writing are long lasting in there effect.

Try Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the end of the World or Kafka on the Shore also The Elephant Vanishes for some truly entertaining short stories (i think thats what they are called ...)

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

I have read the Dark Materials trilogy, and I have enjoyed it, but it feels really child oriented in retrospect. I'll read anything good, but I'm not too sure about others and their take on that.

Ohhh... did you cry in the end?
I would be lying if I said I didn't. Crying is not unmanly, mind you.

I... did...

Well, I (am) was a kid. So it didn't matter... much, I think.

Seriously, you people here are really good at suggesting books. I think I'll have my (few) freetimes eaten by the books..

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

I have to second the earlier recommendation of Gene Wolfe, fantastic stuff.

I have really burnt out on fantasy now mostly, except for foe Stephen Erickson's Tales of the Malazan.  That stuff is unbelievable, probably from him being a RL archeologist/anthropologist in the Med/Middle East for 30 plus years.

Now I am deep into Sci-Fi mostly Space Opera, which of course, David Weber rules. I think the Honor Harrington series is the best reading i have done in many years.  If your a fan of Horatio Hornblower or of the series that produced "Master and Commander" (i cant remember the authors name, i think its O'brien tho) then you will love the Honor Harrington series.

Other pulp fiction is fun, like the Starfist books etc.

Oh, if you love combat, any kind, read John Ringo.  That dude rocks.  Eat anti-matter Posleen Boy!

I could prolly list books forever.

Last notion:  The Silmarillion was by far my favorite Tolkien book, so take that into account with my recomendations.  Also, any book less than 500 pages really isnt worth reading IMHO.

GMcG

[SirHoneyBadger]

"I have to second the earlier recommendation of Gene Wolfe, fantastic stuff."

Hooray!

I like John Ringo. I really do. Absolute crap writer, honestly, if you're talking technical aspects (enough so that it can at times make his books physically painful to read), but he's creative, he's got decent style, and his writing can be quite entertaining, in short bursts, if you can get past the Larry Sue, and the frequent, broad forays into psychopathic adolescence and kink.

In other words, the guy needs to be chained to an extremely competent editor, 24 hours a day, but the same can be said of a lot of best-selling authors.

[chaoticag]

Damn, my sister has those books. We are a family of book worms aren't we

As for world literature, Welcome To The NHK was an entertaining novel, and even if you read the manga and saw the anime it is so much more different from the both of them.