What other fantasy books do YOU read?

[elvet]

I'm a big time fantasy reader, and have just lately been branching out into SF. I used to read mysteries when I was younger and still enjoy the odd one. For those of you on http://www.goodreads.com/ my user name is the same as here.
Favorite Fantasy authors:
Joe Abercrombie
Steven Erikson
G.R.R. Martin
Guy Gavriel Kay
Michelle Sagara West

My 2012 five star books on Goodreads:
Hydrogen Sonata by Ian M. Banks
The Forge of Darkness by Steven Erikson
Sharps by K.J. Parker
Skirmish by Michelle Sagara West
King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
Caliban's War by James Corey
Long Price Quartet (4 book series) by Daniel Abraham

[Sapphire_Flame]

Emerging from a lengthy absence to splutter indignantly over the lack of Brandon Sanderson in this thread. (What, three mentions so far?) His books are amazing! They're wonderfully thought-out and don't just "rearrange the furniture in Tolkien's attic," to quote Mr. Gaiman. The characters are well-rounded, the settings are unique and intriguing, and the magic systems are just short of jaw-dropping. Come on, guys, please go check out Mr. Sanderson's work! One of his novels is even readable for free on his website!

*sigh*

Well, since there's been a call for end of the year recommendations, I'll go ahead and list my top five (aside from Tolkien, which I'll assume we've all read. )

1) Brandon Sanderson - Just...everything he's written. I'm not joking.

2) David Eddings - The Elenium trilogy is the best, but I'll always love the Belgariad too.

3) Brandon Mull - The Fablehaven series. Yes, it's for 10-12-year-olds, but it's clever, fun writing, and I'm always in favor of clever, fun writing.

4) H.P. Lovecraft - Pretty much everything here, too, but I'll give a particular nod for "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "Pickman's Model".

5) Howard Andrew Jones - The Desert of Souls, which is a great Arabian Nights-esque sword-and-sorcery novel. The sequel's just come out too, and I'm hoping it will be just as good.

Good reading, everyone!

[Galadriel55]

My sister and I have a system of book exchange. I read history fiction and pass it down to her. She reads fantasy and passes it down to me.

So the last book that she passed down is Plain Kate by Erin Bow. It is about a girl who has to sell her shadow to a witch in exchange for her heart's wish, but then she realizes that there's more to it... and on it goes.

Plot-wise, very interesting and moving tale. Makes you think. And it's very, what's the word, sincere. The only part that I'm picky about is the last sentence, but then I'm always picky about that and this one is actually not so bad.

Language-wise, though, it's a bit plain. More of a children's book. I think it would have been better if it was more complex in terms of language.

Also, I dislike the author's use of Russian names. But that's a touchy subject for me, and I won't get deeper into it, since other than "no, that's not how it's supposed to be!" it's not a big deal. After all, it's a fantasy novel and it doesn't really matter what language names are taken from.

I think it's still an interesting book, the awesomeness of the plot and the concept just outweighs the rest of it.

[Zigûr]

I read a lot of Fantasy growing up (due to wanting "more like Tolkien"), especially (gasp) David Eddings and Terry Pratchett (although I'm not sure if he counts) but these days I read very little in the genre. I've invested so much time and effort into The Wheel of Time that I intend to read the recently-published final instalment at some point but really the only currently ongoing/modern Fantasy which interests me is Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle, which is interesting enough. I found Brandon Sanderson's much-lauded The Way of Kings to be very boring and after reading A Game of Thrones I had no interest in continuing the series any further. I found myself unable to complete Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora.
That being said I grew up as part of the original Harry Potter generation and those books will always be extremely dear to my heart. I also quite enjoyed Titus Groan if that counts. I'm also quite keen on classic science-fiction such as Asimov, Clarke and Philip K. Dick. Otherwise I'm pretty dispirited by modern Fantasy, and mostly read "literature" for desperate want of a better word (what is Fantasy but "literature" set in imaginary worlds?) - I'm currently awash in Moby-Dick. I'm particularly fond of Modernism, Hemingway especially. I'm afraid personally for me in terms of Fantasy that Professor Tolkien's work sets the bar much too high - his timeless and elegant prose style, his level of detail and invention and his enormous thematic applicability give something to me that other Fantasy authors never have. There's something I find intensely satisfying about old-fashioned prose in particular, which I think is one of the reasons I enjoy, along with Professor Tolkien, authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

[Thinlómien]

Has anyone read the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind? I'm about 150 pages to the first pages and enjoying it tremenduously taking into account that it is a story of a guy called Richard who gets a magic sword and has to save the world...