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I've been wanting to get into the fantasy genre for awhile. Only problem is that the genre is such a hit or miss. I wouldn't mind wasting a bunch of time on a big series either. Whatever fantasy books you got, throw them at me!

Obvious answer is the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy if you haven't read those already. (Somehow I keep encountering people who claim to be into fantasy but never have...)

Read some Conan books too. @ISentinelPenguinI would be the guy to recommend specific ones.

Most modern fantasy descends from one or the other of those, and you want to have a solid foundation to judge the pretenders from.

I am very much into fantasy of all kinds, yet for whatever reason I could never get into Lotr. Didn't even try the hobbit. I just get bored out of my damn mind. Skipped all the songs even, they were pretty pointless to me.

Ended up trying to finish the story with movies...multiple times. Literally fell asleep during #2 like 3-4 times, and had to watch it together with my ex so she could keep poking me awake. With her help I was able to finish #3, but I still can't remember the story very well.

This is just to say that if you do not like lotr, you still may like other fantasy books.

I like to think of myself as an open minded person. I know that everyone has their own personal preferences and everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but... Not you. Your opinion is wrong. LOTR is the best thing to ever exist ever. End of story... I'm actually kind of worried about you. Like, genuinely concerned that there is something fundamentally wrong with you. Maybe you should see a doctor?

Thank you, Avery.  I wasn't going to say it, but you said pretty much exactly what I was thinking.

hmmm but what do y'all think about this new lotr show coming out?

Can't judge yet. Apparently a lot of people have already written it off since it has pretty much nothing to do with anything Tolkien has written and is essentially just some Middle Earth fanfiction... But I think I'll give it a go. It might be a decent story on it's own merit. Will have to wait and see.

So the rings of power series is supposed to take place in the second age. The second age is described within 20 pages of the silmarillion(great read by the way. Highly recommend, though not for people who don't enjoy complex wording.) The first season, implying that they plan to make more than one, spans 8 episodes of unknown length. I look forward to this releasing so I can either watch it bomb for writing lore that the original author didn't even bother to world build, or to enjoy something that surprisingly fits well. I hope dearly that it ends up being the second option. 

The Second Age of Middle-Earth is a pretty open playground for fiction.  We'll see.  I'll be optimistic for now and then judge it later.

Have you tried looking at the Silmarillion, Gower? Great read, highly recommend, though not for people who don't enjoy complex wording.

This wording looks vaguely familiar. I can't put my finger on it.

I'd like to chime in that I borrowed the Silmarillion from some chick on the beach one day, and read about...50 pages? Was honestly way more entertained than during lotr, but then I had to give the book back and never sought it out again.

Weird. I would have never expected to find any Tolkien book on a beach.

They wash up on shore occasionally, or a friendly dolphin will attempt to give them to passing surfers. ^_^

Yeah, Lord of the Rings is pretty boring and shit. This is a sublime take to have.

No.

Yes.

And the new show looks like shit. 

Yes.

If anyone has ever wondered why God would make a man be born in Serbia, take away his very imagination, and then hit him with a car--well, feast your eyes on the reason.

Imma do you one better my man (or uh...woman?). My back was actually feeling a bit better these days, I've been doing some "corrective" exercises the past few weeks and the pain has lessened substantially.

Then today I wanted to see just how much progress I've made and decided to squat...45KG (yes, bitch weight, cause I didn't want what happened next to happen). Did three sets of 15, in the middle of the fourth my lower back just popped and now it's hurting worse than ever. Another 6 months of pain ahead for me I guess.

Already booked an appointment at some clinic cause fuck going through that shit again.

SAME! Finally, someone who agrees!

AWESOME! Look Thara, someone agrees with your insightful opinions on LOTR! Isn't it great when you find a like minded individual? ^_^

Which one of you aren't in threaded view?

I am in threaded view, but I think I just miscalculated which thread she was replying to... Still, looks like you, Celicni and SexySilver are all kindred spirits when it comes to your literary preferences. Perhaps Twilight might be more up your ally? ^_^

A studded spiked dildo up your anal cavity would be more up your alley.

*alley

I can't believe Briar made such an embarrassing mistake. But not me. I had it spelled right since the beginning.

Up my back alley ^_^

"A Song of Ice and Fire", George Martin

If you want to start with something small, there are a lot of good story collections you can peruse. Maybe The October Country by Ray Bradbury or Shatterday by Harlan Ellison. The Narnia Books by C. S. Lewis read fast-- even if they come of preachy in places and have a few unfortunate sexist and racist elements. If you don't mind a novel with a Dickensian style, Titus Groan by Mervyn Peak is a great introduction to (and an early example of)  the Fantasy subgenre known as "Mannerpunk". As for Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Cimmerian and allegedly the inventor of the Sword & Sorcery subgenre, I'd actually recommend his Kull of Atlantis stories, which predate the Conan stuff and have fewer racist elements. Also, the Oz books by L. Frank Baum have a surprising amount of world-building in them since in the later books Baum concentrates on a lot of the neighboring countries to Oz. If you want to read a good Fantasy novel of Time Travel, I'd recommend The Door into Washington Square by Elaine Bergstrom.

 

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

... Tehehe... Gaiman. ^_^

"Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo

The Dwarves series by Markus Heitz

This one's free to read! It's a webnovel called "the wandering inn", a litRPG about an innkeeper. Lots of slice-of-life elements with some dark fantasy part sprinkled through it. The beginning parts are a bit rough to read, but it quickly becomes a really engaging time sinker. 

Well, or you can just pick up any Brandon Sanderson novel/wheel of time/G.R.R.Martin novel/Tolkien works. Lots of people got into fantasy because of them, might want to check them out.

If you don't mind the rather childish writing and weebness, you can also try out "ascendance of a bookworm", it's one of the few light novels that doesn't want to make me roll my eyes out of exasperation. The plot: A bibliophile is reincarnated into the body of a sickly girl in a medieval fantasy world (Without books!), hijinks ensue. It has surprisingly intricate worldbuilding with tons of quite informative tidbits. I literally learnt how to bind paper through this novel series!

 

Discworld

Yes. ^_^

As far as massive series go stormlight archive is my favorite book series but while I recommend it it is quite an undertaking that I'm not sure is the best idea for someone knew to the genre. Also a bit slower pace, at least at first. By the same author the misborn books are solid and the first one can be read as a standalone even though it is a series.

If your looking for a lighter undertaking the ranger apprentice books are realy nice, light reads. I read part of the series when I was in elementary school, and I started reading them again recently and they hold up really well.

I agree with the Ranger's Apprentice series. I would also like to recommend a series by the same author The Brotherband Chronicles. Both of these series take place in the same universe and are written by John Flanagan.

I'm not sure if they're considered Fantasy, but I really like the Percy Jackson books (and the spin-offs too)
Artemis Fowl is also pretty good.
I really like Fablehaven too.
I would also recommend The Dragon With A Chocolate Heart
Magic Tree House and Whatever After are children's books, but still super good.
another series I liked was The Sisters Grimm

@Gower wants to recommend Beren and Luthien, The Children of Hurin, and The Fall of Gondolin, but he's too shy.

They were made by Christopher Tolkien using his daddy's extensive notes and revisions expanding on the mentions of these events in the Silmarillion.

When I have a big stack of essays to grade on my desk, I get really, really shy and also irritable and sort of violent.  It's a very specific bashfulness.

But yeah.  Read those books.  You may need to keep a cheat sheet handy to figure out who the various elf-lords and what the various elf stronghold are, but there's not that many of them.  Beren and Luthien and the Fall of Gondolin are great, but The Children of Hurin, especially once you get about halfway in, is primo Tolkien.