I have not read all the annoying epic fantasy series.

[snarp]

I'm trying to educate myself culturally. What are the classic annoying fantasy series that I need to have read, as a nerd?

Notice that I'm talking about annoying fantasy series - like, stuff where every single book has the same plot, or the cast of characters grows by six or seven people every book and every book gets longer because they all need to have stuff to do, or the last eight books have pretty much just been about the author's hat bondage fetish, or whatever.

I have read Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books and Raymond Feist's Magician books.

Comments

[jetsam]

David Eddings' Belgariad and Piers Anthony's Xanth series are the two that leap immediately to mind.

[branchandroot]

+1 on Belgariad and Xanth. Both annoying and repetitive. And Xanth scores double for being about the author's hat bondage fetish, though not /quite/ as overtly so as some of his other stuff.

Dune and at least the first subsequent trilogy, depending on whether you consider it sf or fantasy.

I think you must have /something/ D&D related. The Dragonlance trilogy, for preference, but you could probably get away with RA Salvatore's first two Drizzt trilogies which are a /tiny/ bit less Tolkien Cliff Notes.

Probably good to get in the Dragonriders of Pern books, at least the first three. For, you know, annoying-fantasty-epic values of good.

Hmmm. *goes out to look at the Shelf of Shame* Ah, of course, how could I forget! Robert Lynn Asprin's MythAdventures series!

[nagaina]

The Sword of Truth series. Eventually devolves into pure Objectivist porn with a cast of thousands.

[havocthecat]

It's like you've encapsulated the entire Wheel of Time series into one paragraph. Without even reading it.

Also, anything David and Leigh Eddings have ever written after the Belgariad. But I should warn you that it feels to me like everything they've ever written is also a little, um, racefail-y too.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

David Eddings. Every series has the same plot, which is pretty boring in the first place, suffers greatly from one characterisation by nationality + offensive implication from the fantasy nationalities counterpart.

Shannarah. Not only is it a ripp off of Tolkien, but it's a bad rip off.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Seconding Terry Brooks for the most egregious "this is blurry Xerox of Tolkien, just like all my previous dozen blurry Xeroxes of Tolkien!" I've ever seen. Blatantly unoriginal and his prose causes me ACTUAL PHYSICAL PAIN.

And has nobody mentioned Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books yet? Must be a lot of repression of traumatic memories going on...

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Oh, one more I forgot earlier, if we're including "looks like fantasy at first but is technically SF because all the *MAGIC* is really just non-supernaturally-explained psionic stuff, also we have spaceships and computers": Christopher Stasheff's various "Warlock" series, which I gave up on at some point in the 1980s for getting too dull and repetitive, and a quick glance on Wikipedia says he's STILL cranking them out. o_O

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

I put forth the Drizzt books, because while I love them, with a love that is sick and filled with shame, they need to be made fun of more often.

[hollyxu.livejournal.com]

Does Anne Bishop count as 'epic'? Because it sure was annoying.