Amph The Favorite SFF Book Tournament Nominations Thread- help checking for duplicates, please!

Welcome to the nomination thread for our favorite Science Fiction/Fantasy Book Tournament!

The field size will be determined by how many nominations there are, so don't feel like you can't post more nominations because of however many there have been previously. The plan is to format the tournament so that all nominations are included, without cutting any out before voting begins.

The guidelines for posting nominations are as follows:

No more than four nominations per post, and no back to back posting of nominations. Feel free to nominate more books after someone else has had a turn, though. In other words, you can post four books in one post, let someone else post, and then post four more.

Nominations will be strictly by book, regardless of series. Hence, as an example, Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and Return of the King would be three separate nominations.

When nominating a book, include both title and author, so "Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien", not merely "Return of the King"

If possible, include a link to some site identifying the book (such as wikipedia or Amazon)

Star Wars books may NOT be included in nominations. Any other Science Fiction or Fantasy books, however, are fair game

Remember that this is a favorite book tournament, not necessarily greatest or best. The only criteria is how much you like the book, not whether it was successful or anything else. Feel free to nominate any books you enjoyed, even if there are others you enjoy more - thats how the tournament becomes fun.

I'm not going to put a definite time limit on nominations, but it will probably be at least two weeks. The end of nominations will be when nominations have slowed down significantly and we have a decent number for a tournament.

Have fun, and start nominating!

Locked since the tournament voting thread has been created

 

RJ, this looks fabulous!! Thank you so much for the idea and for hosting

And looks like I get to start off the nominations

Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
Sebastian by Anne Bishop
Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder

 

Excellent thread!

The Two Towers* by JRR Tolkien
The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
A Storm of Swords by GRR Martin

*I feel I must express my objection to the artificiality of dividing the singular novel Lord of the Rings into three parts, which was a publishers' conceit at the time of publication, and not the author's intention nor method of creation. There, I've said my peace!

 

The Icarus Hunt, by Timothy Zahn
The Crystal Shard, by R.A. Salvatore

I'll just have to second a mention for Two Towers and refrain from linking to more Drizzt stuff. Zahn and Salvatore are my cup o' tea, obviously.

 

I'll add some.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch; book one of The Gentleman Bastard's Sequence: It's got action, revenge, fantastic protagonists, amorality and sneaky morality, and a primary protagonist whose strength isn't sword or magic. Definitely one of my favorite SFF books ever written.

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson; book one of Mistborn: With apologies to books of the Gentleman Bastard's Sequence, this is my favorite ?heist? book in the fantasy genre. Brandon Sanderson's story initially is somewhat like an Oceans 11 or Italian Job set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, before turning into an action movie that'd make the Matrix cry with envy, and finishing with a final confrontation to put Star Wars to shame. And it does it without ever feeling like a junk-food book.

Dead Beat by Jim Butcher; book seven of the Dresden Files: Jim Butcher's books are a mix of action, tragedy, humor, and long term character development. Page for page, in my opinion, there is no better entertainment in the SFF genre. Dead Beat is quite possibly the best of them. Butcher packs a lot into each book, and Dead Beat is no exception: he covers zombies, necromancers, polka, magical enforcer wizards, a valkyrie, a fallen angel or two, faeries, ghosts, a couple of vampires, a pack of werewolves, and quite possibly the greatest use of magic in any book, comic, movie, or video game EVER (the raising of Sue).

 

Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
Magic of Recluce by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
The Magic Engineer by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
Fortress Draconis by Michael Stackpole

 

Resenting the Hero by Moira J. Moore
Another Fine Myth by Robert Aspirin
Reader and Raelynx by Sharon Shinn
The Towers of the Sunset by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

 

Heroes Die by Matthew Stover
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

 

Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson
Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
Watchmen by Alan Moore if it counts; otherwise
Magician by Raymond Feist

 

Here are four more greats in my humble opinion:

The Once and Future King by TH White
Night Mare by Piers Anthony
Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander
The Silmarillion by JRR [and Christopher] Tolkien

 

Dune by Frank Herbert
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
and I don't know if it counts as sci-fi, but I have to at least mention Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell

Hard to choose from so many, so I just went with the classics.

 

Oh no! How could I have forgotten Earthsea? I have the covers of the original paperback printing hanging on my wall (since they fell off my copies about 15 years ago from over-reading!). I should revise my first list by removing the Potter book (excellent, but perhaps belonging to a lower echelon in my own personal canon) and replacing it with A Wizard of Earthsea.

Thanks for the reminder, Sauntaero!

 

Remember, theres no limit to how many books you can nominate in total- just 4 at a time. So feel free to keep nominating more after other people post.

Also, there's no benefit to multiple people nominating the same book - they all go into the same list.

 

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
The Adversary by Julian May

 

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
Princeps' Fury by Jim Butcher

 

Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier
Mystic and Rider by Sharon Shinn
Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
The Pillars of the World by Anne Bishop

 

Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

 

The Condition of Muzak by Michael Moorcock
Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Stover
The One Tree by Stephen R. Donaldson
Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake

 

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson


Everyone already said the other things I would have

 

What about The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde?

 

Well I didn't wanna pick one out of the series specifically, but yeah, sure.

 

Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
Daggerspell by Katharine Kerr
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
Stardust by Neil Gaiman

I would have nominated one of the LOTR books, but lots of other people already have !

 

The Scar by China Mieville
Wizard and Glass by Stephen King
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Wizard by Gene Wolfe

 

Dragons of Autumn Twilight/ Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Dragons of Winter Night/ Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Dragons of Spring Dawning/ Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe / C. S. Lewis

Edited as per post below.

 

Chronicles of Narnia would be broken up into its respective books; so you can pick one to nominate there, and nominate more later if you wish.

EDIT: and Horse and His Boy has already been nominated