Post your obscure Sci-Fi/Fantasy series that you loved.

[Puffnstuff]

The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle has always been my favorite childhood scifi fantasy book. To me it was an epic journey for mankind and I'll always remember it.

 

[Worthington]

A big fan of Steven Brust and his Taltos series.

 

[Iron Woode]

Bolo series by Keith Laumer and others.

 

[TheAdvocate]

The Dragon Prince series by Melanie Rawn
Dragon Prince, Book 1
The Star Scroll, Book 2
Sun-Runner's Fire, Book 3

The Dragon Star series by Melanie Rawn
Stronghold, Book 1
The Dragon Token, Book 2
Skybowl, Book 3

These books were each quite thick. I remember reading these thinking they were written for women, but I liked them (a lot) anyway. Had a lot of friends that read fantasy but skipped these to read Robert Jordan. I wonder how they would hold up?

And The Death Gate Cycle

ZIFNAB!

Both of those series came out around the same time (late 80s early 90s). If you weren't reading them and all of David Eddings' books you would have been lost in most my friends' conversations.

Ohh and in the 80s... this shit was FIRE:

Cutter, Skywise, sex, violence, and OMFG ALIENS. As a preteen this was amazing.

Hard to find the graphic novels anymore - but I have all of them.


The sad part is that I still have all of these 20-30 yr old paperbacks in a closet. Have a lot of other mainstream (Feist, Anthony, Eddings, etc) and some more obscure stuff that is probably total dreck but I didn't realize it at the time. Wife thinks I am nuts for keeping any of it.

Great thread!

 

[Tormac]

I am glad that Fritz Leiber's Fahfard and Gray Mouser series has been decided to not be obscure. Those are still my all time favorite fantasy series. Even though I'm old now I still love reading those novels.

One that I have not seen mentioned yet, but was very influential back in the day is Jack Vance's Dying Earth series.

I am sure that much of the original "Dungeons and Dragons" magic system was cribbed from the that series.

 

[IronWing]

Glen Cook's Dread Empire series is pretty good.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

These books were each quite thick. I remember reading these thinking they were written for women, but I liked them (a lot) anyway. Had a lot of friends that read fantasy but skipped these to read Robert Jordan. I wonder how they would hold up?

And The Death Gate Cycle

ZIFNAB!

Both of those series came out around the same time (late 80s early 90s). If you weren't reading them and all of David Eddings' books you would have been lost in most my friends' conversations.

Ohh and in the 80s... this shit was<script id="gpt-impl-0.4662237370119286" src="http://partner.googleadservices.com/gpt/pubads_impl_92.js"></script> FIRE:

Cutter, Skywise, sex, violence, and OMFG ALIENS. As a preteen this was amazing.

Hard to find the graphic novels anymore - but I have all of them.


The sad part is that I still have all of these 20-30 yr old paperbacks in a closet. Have a lot of other mainstream (Feist, Anthony, Eddings, etc) and some more obscure stuff that is probably total dreck but I didn't realize it at the time. Wife thinks I am nuts for keeping any of it.

Great thread!

OMG I forgot about Elf Quest it was cool.
Now the one I can't remember.
A friend had comics of a super hero future but all of them were screwed up and greatly flawed. The "Hero" wore barbed wire around his arm. Everything was really dark. All their powers were from genetic engineering to make super soldiers to fight. I remember one comic about a Mr. Fantastic guy and his henchmen who were of course all completely insane sex feinds. Johnny flame was in it but instead he was locked up in a fireproof case because he could never turn his fire off and he was tormented by the pain of constantly being on fire because the scientists that made his powers forgot to turn the nerves off.
Somebody help me on the title please.

Its not the watchman

 

[HumblePie]

The Takeshi Kovacs series isn't particularly well known, Altered Carbon is outside the top 1,000 Sci-Fi books on Amazon best seller rank.

Yah, liked Takeshi series a lot. Was trying to remember the name of that series when looking at my ebook list the other day quickly for the list I put up. Definitely an obscure gem of a book series.

Still, lots others in this thread keep listing highly celebrated, highly awarded, and works of authors that have made major best selling lists. those aren't exactly obscure works or authors at all.

Side note, my current boss used to be Tad Williams boss back when they both worked at Apple. He brought in his personalized copy of the Dragonbone chair into the office after we were talking about it the other day. That was pretty cool.

 

[Markbnj]

Lots of great memories in this thread. Wait, I actually liked a Mayne thread.

I'll toss in "The Complete Venus Equilateral."

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Venus-Equilateral-George-Smith/dp/0345289536

 

[JSt0rm]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathworld

My dad had boxes of this old scifi stuff. I would read through it when I was a kid and these trilogy stuck out to my 12 year old brain.

 

[Muse]

Not terribly obscure, I suppose, but it was cancelled after one season:

Firefly

 

[Sonikku]

One of my favorite books is "Spinter of the mind's eye" by Allen Dean Foster. When Empire Strikes Back was about to come out in the movie theaters I had an argument with some "experts" in my 3rd grade class about the book. None of them knew about the book until I brought it o school the next day. I am glad that some parts of the book were used in episode 3.

I keep telling myself I need to get around to reading that sometime. I hear Luke's skill with a lightsaber becomes comparable to Vader's in the book.

 

[Number1]

Bob Morane was a great read back when I was a kid in the early 70s.

It's french of course so probably none of you have heard of it.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Morane

 

[blert]

2nd on the Gap Series

The Gap series was amazing Will put on my list to read again.

 

[piasabird]

Darkover series

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkover_series

This is a series of sience fiction novels written by Marrion Zimmer Bradly.
It follows a group of people from Earth or Terrans that crash land on a planet and develop a civilization based on the development of their psychic abilities. It starts with the novel Landfall when the ship crashes on a planet and they are all forced to stay. Pollen from the flowers of the hills drives some people to lunacy. It awakens their mental powers but it is very difficult to control.

The author was working on multiple books all at once at the time of her death. She must have been good at multi-tasking. However, she left a lot of books unfinished. Some of her work was finished by others that she knew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Darkover_books

 

[blankslate]

David Gemmell. The man was a true genius.

Draenai? is that a Warcraft book?


___________

 

[blankslate]

I keep telling myself I need to get around to reading that sometime. I hear Luke's skill with a lightsaber becomes comparable to Vader's in the book.

Just remember that book was written before Return of the Jedi and Luke and Leia are stranded on a planet so unless you get a recent print that has hopefully been edited you might find cringeworthy elements in it.

though....


_______________

 

[sandorski]

Not terribly obscure, I suppose, but it was cancelled after one season:

Firefly

Indeed.

Invasion/[some other show with almost the exact same Plot that was released the same year on another network]
Jeremiah
Dollhouse(at least this one cobbled together an ending before being prematurely dumped)

 

[PianoMan]

Lots of good memories - GREAT thread!

Not obscure, but a fave of mine while growing up was the Dreamstone and the Tree of Swords and Jewels by C J Cherryh.

Thread bookmarked!

 

[cbrunny]

Last year I read quite a few Scalzi, including Redshirts, which is a great book for any star trek fans. Don't think he's obscure though. Working through the Three Body Problem series, which is outrageously phenomenal, and not obscure. Also read Seveneves which I thoroughly enjoyed.Once I'm done Three Body, I'll probably start Cryptonomicon or Anathema.

 

[zinfamous]

Lol I used to love all Piers Anthony's books when I was a kid. Looking back they're mostly terrible.

I read all of those Xanth novels. I loved those things, and they were absolutely wretched, lol.

 

[zinfamous]

And in the same vein, but even funnier .. Another Fine Myth, by Robert Asprin. This is actually a cycle, but only the first 3-4 books were funny, it kinda got forced and repetitive after that.

I loved those books, too. I recall waiting and waiting and waiting for whatever the new release was at the time...maybe the 4th or 5th one? I dunno, but the original releases for these came out in a larger format with pencil illustrations. I must have called the bookstore every other day asking when it would be out...you know, before the internet and when I was too young to understand that stores had weekly shipments on the same day. They must have hated that 10 year-old asshole calling them all the time

 

[zinfamous]

One of my favorite books is "Spinter of the mind's eye" by Allen Dean Foster. When Empire Strikes Back was about to come out in the movie theaters I had an argument with some "experts" in my 3rd grade class about the book. None of them knew about the book until I brought it o school the next day. I am glad that some parts of the book were used in episode 3.

My dad had this book on the bookshelf. I never read it, and I have no idea why.
Though, I was probably 7 the last time I saw it.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathworld

My dad had boxes of this old scifi stuff. I would read through it when I was a kid and these trilogy stuck out to my 12 year old brain.

I enjoyed it too. It had that star trek episode feel to it imo. No really deep hard sci-fi concepts being explored, but great action, a cool concept, and humans always over performing.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Fritz Leibers "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" series.

No idea if it's obscure or not. Friend gave it to me in high school.

They were probably the greatest swordsmen in the genre growing up. They were better than John Carter or Elric of Melnibone, or should I say Stormbringer, since the sword did most the heavy lifting in that series.