Fantasy book recommendations?

The best book I've read in the past couple years (by a large margin) is "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. I haven't ready book 2 in the series yet (stubbornly waiting for paperback), so I don't know if the quality is maintained, but book 1 was just wonderful. Probably not going to get much love from English Literature majors looking for books that can be read on 7 levels of symbolism, but a completely enjoyable read from start to finish.

I'm gonna second this one wholeheartedly. "The Name of the Wind" was an excellent work of Fantasy literature. And I'm actually halfway through the second book in the series "The Wise Man's Fear" (The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day Two) - and it's still very good. It's basically just like the first book would've just went on and continued.
 
I'll put a 4th page shout out for Wheel of Time since the final book (finally!) came out.

GG says some people think its slow but I'll go one further and say that Robert Jordan, the author, was deliberately trying to drag it out and at times let it get away from him. Put it this way, the first 450 pages of book 10 is a repeat of book 9. It was only supposed to be a 6 book series but there were 15 books and a short story.

Book 2-5 are really, really good and book 5 is the best. Book 14 follows this group as being great!
 
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I thought the prince of thorns / king of thorns books were pretty good. Main recommendation would be China Mieville's New Crobuzon books, more in the darker fantasy / new weird genre though.
 
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I didn't read through all 4 pages so apologize in advance if these have been mentioned.

First I really liked this series. I based my second Skyrim character (Varg the Reluctant Orc Paladin) off the main character in this book.

Oath of Swords trilogy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Swords
Oath of Swords is the first novel in the War God fantasy series by American author David Weber. It follows the adventures of Bahzell Bahnakson and his friend Brandark; the format is a swords-and-sorcery land with dwarves, elves, humans, hradani—the Four Races. There is a pantheon of Gods, some good—the Gods of Light—and some vile—the Dark Gods.

More traditional fantasy but I so enjoyed it. Currently reading the series a second time. This was another series I had bypassed thinking it might be to cliche. But a friend convinced me to try it and now its one of my favorites.

The next two are series currently being written but well worth getting into IMO.

Spellwright (two books written so far): http://www.blakecharlton.com/ficton/spellwright/

In Brief

Imagine a world in which you could peel written words off a page and make them physically real. You might pick your teeth with a sentence fragment, protect yourself with defensive paragraphs, or thrust a sharply-worded sentence at an enemy’s throat.

Such a world is home to Nicodemus Weal, an apprentice at the wizardly academy of Starhaven. Because of how fast he can forge the magical runes that create spells, Nicodemus was thought to be the Halcyon, a powerful spellwright prophesied to prevent an event called the War of Disjunction, which would destroy all human language. There was only one problem: Nicodemus couldn’t spell.

Runes must be placed in the correct order to create a spell. Deviation results in a “misspell”—a flawed text that behaves in an erratic, sometimes lethal, manner. And Nicodemus has a disability, called cacography, that causes him to misspell texts simply by touching them.

Now twenty-five, Nicodemus lives in the aftermath of failing to fulfill prophecy. He finds solace only in reading knightly romances and in the teachings of Magister Shannon, an old blind wizard who’s left academic politics to care for Starhaven’s disabled students.

But when a powerful wizard is murdered with a misspell, Shannon and Nicodemus becomes the primary suspects. Proving their innocence becomes harder when the murderer begins killing male cacographers one by one…and all evidence suggests that Nicodemus will be next. Hunted by both investigators and a hidden killer, Shannon and Nicodemus must race to discover the truth about the murders, the nature of magic, and themselves.

I skipped this book a few times because I thought it would be to odd (not sure what word to use). So glad I gave it a try. The author is amazing with a nice mix of humor and grit with interesting characters and lots of twists.

The last one is probably my most current "favorite" fantasy series. From the UK it was published as the Painted Man but here in the US is called the Warded Man. The author is amazing and really connected with the characters.

The Warded (Painted) Man - third book comes out this month and will be a 5 book series total: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Painted_Man

The novel follows three POV characters in their passage from childhood to maturity. They are inhabitants of a world plagued by the attacks of demons known as corelings, which rise from the planet's core each night to feast upon humans. The ongoing attrition of these attacks have reduced humanity from an advanced state of technology to a 'dark age'. The only defense against the corelings are wards (magical runes) that can be drawn, painted, or inscribed to form protective barriers around human settlements. These are, however, fragile and prone to failure unless properly maintained.

As the novel progresses, the protagonists each embark upon their own "hero's journey" in an effort to save humanity.

In writing the tale, Brett was keen to move beyond a simple adventure story, to present a fantasy novel about fear and its impact. He was particularly interested in the effect of fear "causing some to freeze up and others to leap into action".
 
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How bout the Riftwar Saga by Raymond Feist?

It's a great tale about a Kingdom, an alternate plane, and forces that go beyond the realm of life. I'm not sure when it went out but it was great.
 
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Joe Abercrombie trilogy "the first law". Amazing books.

"The name of the wind" is also great, but to be honest i liked the second more( "The wise man's fear) . So check both of them.
 
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