What was the first epic fantasy you read?

Memory stutters and mumbles.

The earliest I remember right off hand was Fritz Leiber's Two Sought Adventure, read at around its time of first book publication. But I suspect there were others before it that have now receded from memory.
 
Phew...a couple of titles and authors pop up, but not exactly sure in what order I read them. These were among the first ones anyway, around when i was 12 or so:

- Jack Vance, Dying Earth
- Wim Gijsen, Rissan / Iskander
- Brian Aldiss, Helliconia
- LeGuin, Earthsea

Quite a few of the 'well-known epic fantasies' (WoT, SoT, MST, Magician, Covenant, Farseer etc. etc.) came much later; late teens / early twenties.

Cheers,

Sfinx.
 
My memories of reading order aren't what they should be. But I am quite certain I've read epic historical and epic SF (both by Thea Beckman) before epic fantasy.

The first 'epic' series I can identify was by Doris Heinemann, who does not seem to warrant any wiki page anywhere.

After that it is probably Tolkien, LeGuin, Tanith Lee, McKillip, Leiber, and I assume the death gate cycle by Weis and Hickman.

I only picked up Jordan at University.
 
Seli said:
My memories of reading order aren't what they should be. But I am quite certain I've read epic historical and epic SF (both by Thea Beckman) before epic fantasy.

The first 'epic' series I can identify was by Doris Heinemann, who does not seem to warrant any wiki page anywhere.

After that it is probably Tolkien, LeGuin, Tanith Lee, McKillip, Leiber, and I assume the death gate cycle by Weis and Hickman.
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Sounds like the typical fantasy collection of a Dutch library in the eighties :)

Nice to see Thea Beckman there, I devoured her and Jan Terlouw's books as soon as I was able (and allowed) to read them...come to think of it, first fantasy I read was Wipneus & Pim! First SF: 'Puk and Muk to the moon'...

Cheers,

Sfinx.
 
DailyRich said:
rings.jpg


That exact edition. Those old Ballantine covers will always hold a certain mystique for me.
Click to expand...

This is where I started my epic journey as well. Just seeing those covers brings back a host of good memories...
 
Sfinx said:
Sounds like the typical fantasy collection of a Dutch library in the eighties :)

Nice to see Thea Beckman there, I devoured her and Jan Terlouw's books as soon as I was able (and allowed) to read them...come to think of it, first fantasy I read was Wipneus & Pim! First SF: 'Puk and Muk to the moon'...

Cheers,

Sfinx.
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Which of course was my main source of reading.
So much of the childrens/YA books available at the time could be considered genre (Biegel, Terlouw, Dragt, Dahl, Verne...), not to mention all of the comic books. Another big one where the historical adventure books (Verne, Beckman, Nowe, Sutclif, Kievit, May...) which transition into genre so easily.

Slowly discovering what people in the English language world read was a bit weird, because what was available in Dutch translation at the libraries was such a strange selection.
 
Seli said:
Which of course was my main source of reading.
So much of the childrens/YA books available at the time could be considered genre (Biegel, Terlouw, Dragt, Dahl, Verne...), not to mention all of the comic books. Another big one where the historical adventure books (Verne, Beckman, Nowe, Sutclif, Kievit, May...) which transition into genre so easily.

Slowly discovering what people in the English language world read was a bit weird, because what was available in Dutch translation at the libraries was such a strange selection.
Click to expand...

Biegel, Terlouw, Dragt, Dahl, Verne, Beckman, Nowee, Kievit, May - this brings back memories! And Walter Scott, Preusling, Stevenson, Fabricius...(Sutclif doesn't a ring bell though btw - could you give me a title?)

Was indeed a bit of a surprise later on what the English speaking part of the world was reading - I had Jack Vance, Tanith Lee, Brian Aldiss, Asimov, Tolkien ofc, LeGuin, van Vogt, Heinlein...they were on Jordan, Brooks, Eddings and Feist...(still later i happily discovered 'they' also had Donaldson, Wolfe, Banks, Leiber...)

have you perhaps read Wim Gijsen by the way? Only Dutch fantasy author i know of - and well worth the read (at least, I thought so at the time :))

Cheers,

Sfinx
 
Definitely Sword of Shannara for me. Well, if you count Alexander's Prydain Chonricles, then those.
 
Michael A. Stackpole's Talion: Revenant. Definitely was an epic experience to my younger self. Also interesting to me that my gateway to the subgenre was a relatively slim standalone.
 
The Barsoom series by Burroughs, at about 12 years old.

Then The Hobbit and LOTR. And then The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

And then 35 years of science fiction.

And then WOT. Twice.

And this month- I really tried to finish Gardens of the Moon. I know it's supposed to be great, but I just had to force myself to read it and I finally just gave up.
 
Sfinx said:
Biegel, Terlouw, Dragt, Dahl, Verne, Beckman, Nowee, Kievit, May - this brings back memories! And Walter Scott, Preusling, Stevenson, Fabricius...(Sutclif doesn't a ring bell though btw - could you give me a title?)

Was indeed a bit of a surprise later on what the English speaking part of the world was reading - I had Jack Vance, Tanith Lee, Brian Aldiss, Asimov, Tolkien ofc, LeGuin, van Vogt, Heinlein...they were on Jordan, Brooks, Eddings and Feist...(still later i happily discovered 'they' also had Donaldson, Wolfe, Banks, Leiber...)

have you perhaps read Wim Gijsen by the way? Only Dutch fantasy author i know of - and well worth the read (at least, I thought so at the time :))

Cheers,

Sfinx
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I have read some Gijsen, but the I vaguely remember that the library never had some of the books. But those I read were quite good. Another Dutch fantasy writer I liked is Peter Schaap.

Rosemary Sutcliff (I always have problems spelling her last name) mainly wrote historical novels. Books about the last Roman legions in Britain (Eagle of the Ninth/De adelaar van het negende), connecting it to the Arthurian myths. She also wrote about the origin of the Uffington Horse, and did retellings of Irish mythology.

What always surprises me most about the English/American/Australian etc. readers is the prevalence of tie-in novels (dragonlance) and Heinlein.
 
I guess for me it was Narnia, then LOTR (though really it was the HBO Animated Hobbit and RotK that hooked me).

And then a bunch of Arthurian YA stuff when I was a kid, though never any of the major ones like OaFK or Mists. I still haven't read those. I honestly don't even know which book I read, though I read the crap out of it.

I think King's Eyes of the Dragon deserves a mention as well for getting me interested in the genre.

Then, as a teen it was WoT that really turned me into a fanatic. And of course i tore through Feist and Redwall, etc. Oh and I think the Left Behind series can pretty safely be lumped in with Epic fantasy as well (though it's not really that great and i never finished it), which was also a big part of that era for me.

And now here I am years later, jaded and practically unable to start something new without immediately criticizing it as I go along. I've started two epics recently and quit them both (Malazan, after 4 books and Crown of Stars after one).

So now I'm reading Memory, Sorrow, Thorn and actually enjoying it, despite the writing being weak and the plot generic. Maybe it's easier to accept generic when you know it really wasn't so generic at the time it was written? Who knows, but it's kind of nice.

Hm. Kind of spiraled off topic there :rolleyes:
 
Madeleine Lengle's "A wrinkle in time" and the books that succeeded it. ( I consider them to be pretty epic)

Chronicles of Narnia (Silver Chair is my favorite)
 
first epic

For me, it was the Dragonlance Chronicles books. Then I moved onto some of the Forgotten Realms stories, particularly getting caught up in an R.A. Salvatore phase during my teenage years.

After that, I gave up reading fantasy for nearly a decade...my interest was re-kindled after reading A Game of Thrones a couple years ago. Since then, I've been working on getting through all the classics I've missed!
 
Song of Ice and Fire. There was alot of buzz about it on a comic site I used to go on. This was before A Feast for Crows came out. I havent looked back since.
 
I read the Hobbit first, followed by LOTR - was really quite young though, seem to remember alot of page skimming around the council of elrond chapter ;x
 
Like so many others the first fantasy epic to really hook me was The Lord of the Rings. Afterwards, I went through The Once and Future King and the Narnian Series.
 
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