Your favorite saga?

[Fango]

I'm asking that because I'm so sick of those illicit romance... The last three books I read were all about it. Two lovers whose love is foiled by their environment... yea, history was not appeasing to women - I get it!

Now looking back I remember how I missed epic sagas like the Lord of the Rings. I'd appreciate if you could list your favorite or recommend me some. :)



Fango, Paradox-free since 2005.

[mono]

Hmmm, a few of my favorites that come to mind:
John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained,
Dante Alighier's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso of The Divine Comedy,
The Oedipus trilogy of Sophocles,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll,
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.

I know I have more in this weary brain of mine, but cannot think of them presently; I will come back when I regain my thinking. :p
Good luck!

[Jabberwocky]

I quite enjoyed First Test, Page, Squire, and Lady Knight (also known as the Protector of the Small Quartet) by Tamora Pierce. Her most recent duo, Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen were very good as well.

[Mark F.]

The Silmarillion, The Hobit, The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien.
Discworld series by T. Pratchett.
The Hitchhiker's "trilogy"

[Nightshade]

If your going to read Tamora Pierce then start with the firts Quartete in that world "Lioness rampant" Although I think neither the Lioness or the Protector sagas were half as good as "The immortals" quartet.
I didnt like LOTR much so I dont know if this will do but it is quite epic
The War of The Flowers by Ted Williams ( I think but could be mistaken about his first name:))
Patricia A Mckillips Riddle master trilogy is very LOTR-ey which is why I never fininshed it but it supposedly her best book -- Personaly I prefered the Forgotten beasts of eld.
Oh and the Magician by Raymond E. Feist (again not quite sure if this is his exact name) fantastic book.
Well I hope that helps and happy reading.

[Beaumains]

Hmmm, a few of my favorites that come to mind:
John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained,
Dante Alighier's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso of The Divine Comedy,
The Oedipus trilogy of Sophocles,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll,
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.

I know I have more in this weary brain of mine, but cannot think of them presently; I will come back when I regain my thinking. :p
Good luck!

All of those are good and to that I will add The Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Nibunglied, and The Tale of Genji. I'm sure that there are a few more I'm leaving out...

[strategos]

The Complete Sherlock Holmes "aka The Canon" (56 short stories, 4 novels) by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Empire Trilogy (3 volumes) by Raymond E. Feist & Janny Wurts
The Sarantine Mosaic (2 Volumes) by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Farseer Trilogy (3 Volumes) by Robin Hobb
A Song of Ice and Fire (currently 3 volumes, projected 7 volumes) by George R.R. Martin
Hyperion (2 Volumes) by Dan Simmons
The Baroque Cycle (3 Volumes) by Neal Stephenson
Otherland (4 volumes) by Tad Williams
The Book of the New Sun (4 Volumes) by Gene Wolfe

[rodanho]

oh i like the lord of the rings most. you have only to read the vivid the descriptions of the landscape in the book to comprehend my partiality. the story itself is fantastic, and i really admire the imaginative quality of the author. just think of creating an entirely fictious land, an non-existent people and then tell a story about them in a way as if they really had happened! but there still is a drawback in the book, as all the sagas have. and that is, unsurpringly, there are too many names in it!

[Fango]

For me the descriptions were the boring parts. I mean, the story can be immensely entertaining through some passages (My favorite was "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit", but it's hard to pick since there are so many good ones), although some passages were, for me, burdensome.

Anyway, I'm currently after "A Song of Ice and Fire". It's, by all account, the most recommended saga.

[PeterL]

The Boat of a Milllion Years by Poul Anderson

[shortysweetp]

The Earth Children Series Jean Auel

[mister_noel_y2k]

im reading the dark tower series by stephen king and despite not liking the first book, im now reading the second one and enjoying that. looking forward to reading the other 5 in the series.

:banana:

[scruffy_danny]

The best Saga I've ever read has to be Mervyn Peake's: Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone. Though the last book isnt as good as the first two, they really are amazing. Even though the TV series is good, it really doesn't give much justice to the books. Amazing stuff...

[Rachy]

The Lord of the Rings without a doubt!

[mono]

Not necessarily fiction, but I forgot to mention the Cosmic Trigger Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson - somewhat difficult to read, especially that the third of the series seems so hard to find, but enlightening. :)

[Vampire Kari]

The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. Hands down.

[Mistress Babs]

The Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, Chronicles of Narnia.

[ArcherSnake]

Stephen King's The Stand is technically a saga, since it's split into four parts. Chronicles Of Narnia are also good, with all the interesting religious refrences.

[Mary Sue]

Any saga/series is potentially interesting, because you get to know the characters so well. You can watch them grow and evolve and learn from their mistakes and, sometimes, age and die. In that way the saga mirrors reality.

What's your preferred type of reading? If you like fantasy, you might enjoy the 10 Amber books by Roger Zelazny. This series is about a royal family with magical powers, who travel from one parallel universe to another via a pack opf cards. And on a creepier note, there's the Blackwater series by Michael McDowell: a quasi-Lovecraftian story, spanning 40 years, about a strange water creature called Miss Elinor, who marries into a human family down in Alabama!

Do you prefer realism? If so, then you might like John Galsworthy's 3 trilogies----The Forsyte Saga, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter---about the very British, middle-class Forsyte family. And similarly, there's Mazo de la Roche's Jalna series ( 16 books in all) about the earthy, horse-loving and adulterous Whiteoaks of Ontario. Both series are well done, though I personally think Galsworthy the better writer.

Do you like whodunits? There's the "Sub Rosa" series by Steven Saylor, about an ancient Roman detective. A great read, and often praised for its historical accuracy. And Ruth Rendell did an equally good job with her contemporary "Inspector Wexford". I mention these two series because they aren't well known to everyone but really deserve to be!

And my own favorite saga? The Jeeves books by P.G. Wodehouse. Fourteen titles in all. They're about a clever, Machiavellian servant named Jeeves, who manipulates events in the life of his sweet, bumbling employer. Hilarious, and very, VERY well-done. If you've never read Wodehouse before, you're in for a treat. The time period is 1920's-30's, though some of the books were published as late as the 1970's.

[EAP]

^

Nice name.

A Song of Ice and Fire Saga - George R. R. Martin

[Kameo]

A Song of Ice and Fire Saga by George Martin and Orson Scott Card's Saga about Andrew "Ender" Wiggin are really the most honorable romance i`v ever read.

[facultease_dept]

Dark Materials mentioned! woo!
thanks

was a bit lost with some of the symbolism but those three books are great
I think the best book is the second one

Vampire Chronicles are (is?) good too. next one on my list is Queen of the Damned

[Idril]

Vampire Chronicles are (is?) good too. next one on my list is Queen of the Damned

I think that one is the best of the lot, I hope you'll enjoy it.

As for my favorite sagas, I'd have to say Lord of the Rings and would include The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales in that since they're also part of the Middle-earth saga but I didn't include The Hobbit because I never could get excited about that one. The Forsyte Saga would also be at the top of my list, I've always been a sucker for Victorian literature and Soames is one of the greatest characters in that genre. Another Victorian series I've been enjoying is the Palliser series by Anthony Trollope. I'm on book 4 now and I love them all. And I'm very into the Discworld series by Pratchett...but would that be considered a saga?

[mtpspur]

The word saga brought to mind the Horatio Hornblower series by Cecil Scott Forester. Don't know if he's read much anymore but watching Hornblower grow in rank and stature and the ups and down of a British naval officer was fascinating to follow.

[Behemoth]

If you're into SciFi/Fantasy, one of the best sagas i've read is Julian May's Trillium Series - Black Trillium, Blood Trillium, Lady of the Trillium, Sky Trillium. Great characters, great plot - they've been so well-read that I think they might fall apart next time :D

[Thorwench]

If you are interested in psychological and socially descriptive stuff I recommend Mann's "Buddenbrooks" (which must exist in an English version). It explores the rise and fall of a Hanseatic family in northern Germany during the last emperor's rule and is full of adorable characters, especially proud and cheerful Toni Buddenbrook who fails all her marriages (one is to a Bavarian beer brewer) in a rather interesting way. It is somehow a pendant to the Forsytes and deals with the artist vs. businessman (reason vs. emotion) issue but is funnier, although equally sad in the end, than the Forsyte Saga. The best bit however is that you can still visit their so-called family home in the Mengstrasse in Lübeck/Germany, since Thomas Mann's story is highly autobiographic.
"The Baroque Trilogy" is also pretty good stuff (someone said this before)
and, if you feel really adventurous and want to read something quite different, try the
"Silent Don" by a Soviet writer called Sholokov, it is about a Cossack family (and about one of the sons especially) dealing with WWI, the revolution and the civil war. It is a more difficult read than the others cos it is more gruesome and violent and it all happened in some similar way as well. But it is really good stuff and gives you a pretty good image of events and eras you probably wouldn't have heard of otherwise.

[stlukesguild]

Thorwench;

I do like Mann, but haven't read Buddenbrooks as of yet (which does indeed exist in English). Doctor Faustus is brilliant, however. An epic surely, if not a saga. On the other hand... have you read Mann's Joseph and his Brothers saga?

[Woland]

For fantasy The Deed of Paksenarion is good as is The Silmarillion

I would suggest the icelandic sagas, the Eddas or even
the finnish epic, The Kalevala

[Thorwench]

Hi Stlukesguild

Haven't read Joseph yet but Dr Faustus ages ago. However, I only remember that it was about a composer and that a child had meningitis (did it die? Do you recall?) I don't remember Faustus that well because it wasn't as lively as the Buddenbrooks, Faustus is one of Mann's more intellectual works. Many people love Death in Venice but it didn't mean that much to me either. However, I liked the "Zauberberg" a lot (what is its English title, do you know?) It is about this guy with respiratory problem, i.e. having been infected with tuberculosis, coming to the "Bergfried" hospital where he meets a lot of fellow sufferers. It is a book about inactivity and weak-spirited contemplation. Really good when you feel a bit down-trodden and world weary. I have to admit that I mimick behaviour of Mann's characters quite intentionally, and I am not the only one here. It is somehow soothing to get yourself in their states of mind. When I don't like people I have to spend time with and longingly wait for what really counts, I "sit on the stones" like Toni Buddenbrook. Or when I feel strengthless and indifferent to everything, I sit down on a garden chair outside, preferably in winter, wrap myself into a big blanket, and just think of nothing but being at "Bergfried" where the world doesn't matter and life is nothing like a steady unexciting stream going past me.
Anyway, have you tried any books by Heinrich Mann (Thomas' brother) or Mephisto by his son (either Klaus or Golo, I always mix them up). Heinrich is even funnier than Thomas, where T. is ironic, H. is sarcastic. But Heinrich's works do more focus on politcs than Thomas' stuff.