The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. Hands down.
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The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. Hands down.
The Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, Chronicles of Narnia.
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.
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.
^
Nice name.
A Song of Ice and Fire Saga - George R. R. Martin
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.
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
I think that one is the best of the lot, I hope you'll enjoy it.Quote:
Originally Posted by facultease_dept
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?
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.
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
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.
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?
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
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.