[Jenab]

My first really great fantasy reading was L.E. Modesitt's Saga of Recluce. I've heard a few people say that this series is prosaically mediocre because the same themes keep repeating. They are...

1. Boy grows up to be Somebody Important.

2. Man does well in spite of women being, in general, men's betters.
And...

3. Do well whatever it is you do. Quality is better than quantity.

4. The best things in life are simple.

Jerry Abbott

[Khallandra]

I tried reading the Spellsinger books and I can say they didn't grab me. But a friend of mine who has similar tastes but liked David Gemmel where I don't enjoyed them. So maybe the correlation is a valid author comparision. I haven't read the other series though.

[cgw]

Hammer of Darkness is an old favorite of mine.
I've read a few others which were pretty good. I started reading the Recluse stories. They were OK untill I started reading a detailed description of wood working and that was that.