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Monkeyhouse Ranking System:  - Worthless
- Library rental at best
- Wait until paperback
- Worth the hardback
- Kill for it
Fantasy: George R. R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire series.
Probably the best fantasy series going, period. Violence, politics, and more plot twists than you could shake a very twisty plot at. It'll wrench you back and forth and up and down and shows no signs of dropping into crappyness as it goes on, unlike some *other* series. 
A Song of Ice and Fire: it's been said already. Makes tWoT look like a two year old's wall scrawling. 
Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time series.
The WoT series is nice if you enjoy long, drawn out stories and literally thousands of characters you'll need to remember just to keep up with the plot lines. While the series is still an ongoing juggernaut, RJ has promised us it will end with Book 13 or Book 14. 'Crossroads of Twilight' (Book 10) is the latest installment in this series. 
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
If you're going to read fantasy, you're going to wind up reading these. You may as well get it over with. Fact: The Lord of the Rings movies are much better and won't waste as much of your time. This fact has been disputed, but only by morons.
Margaret Weis/Tracy Hickman - Dragonlance: The Annotated Chronicles.
How could you not read this?
Tad Williams - The Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series.
Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is a great series if you want to get your feet wet in epic fantasy. The trilogy is actually spread out through four large paperbacks, with the third book being split into two volumes. Simon is a great character and I think a better version of Harry Potter, while being darker and more interesting.
John Marco - The Tyrants and Kings series.
A newcomer in the field of Fantasy, John Marco delivers a new spin on technology and how good fights evil. A great read if you're in the hunt for a trilogy and not 8-10 books in a series. Fact: Marco will take the time to answer each email you send him, sometimes within the hour!
Good, dense-ish military-kinda fantasy with some of the best characters out there. Even the bad guys are nuanced and interesting.
R. A. Salvatore - The Dark Elf Trilogy and The Cleric Quintet.
Salvatore's prose is workmanlike, but his storytelling is very good. Not the best fantasy you're gonna read, but well worth the money. "Cleric" is especially good.
David Gemmell - The Drenai Tales.
I haven't read his Rigante series or some of his one-offs, but Drenai has two of THE most memorable characters in fantasy in Druss and Waylander. The John Shannow/Stones of Power books are amazing as well, with some pretty cool twists. "Echoes of the Great Song" is my favorite book, it just awed me in every way. Gemmell does some amazing stuff with history.
Terry Goodkind - The Sword of Truth series.
The first four books are so are actually pretty good and worth reading. Afterwards, it became one of the few series I've ever quit reading, because it got so awful.
Raymond E. Feist - The Riftwar Saga and The Empire Series.
The Riftwar Saga is the story of a young boy who is thrown into the world of magic and politics. After you get over the fact that his name is "Pug", the story is quite entertaining and you're hoping for more after you finish the trilogy. The follow up books should be read in a particular order so you do not ruin future storylines. The chronological order to read these books are on his web site.
Ann Marston - The Rune Blade Trilogy.
I think this was a Sats reccomendation, and the Rune Blade trilogy is very cool Celtic fantasy stuff. I haven't read the other two trilogies, they're in my big "To Read" pile.
Terry Pratchett - The Discworld series .
If you don't like Discword, do yourself a favor and just jump off a bridge or something. Discworld is probably the funniest series ever written. "Good Omens" with Gaiman is also a roaring good time.
C. S. Friedman - The Coldfire Trilogy.
Read 'Coldfire' for the absolute best bad guy in the world.
David Eddings - Belgariad and Malloreon series.
Farmboy has magical powers, gathers companions and beats the bad guy, eventually becoming king and marrying the princess. Classic fantasy tale. What makes David Eddings stand apart is his characterization. Their hopes, their fears and their hilarious conversations make you read the books again and again. Plus, Eddings is excellent at the running joke. Garion and water, Silk and caves - these things make me laugh every time. 
J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter series.
And fuck you if you don't like it.
Mary Gentle - Grunts!: A Fantasy With Attitude.
Orcs find Marine machine guns and equipment. Chaos ensues.
Michael Moorcock - Elric series.
The first five are good. And then they get weird and non-sensical and crappy. Just stick with the first five.
William Goldman - The Princess Bride.
Classic. Just classic.
C. J. Cherryh - The Faded Sun Trilogy.
Ninjas and big fat guys star. A very cool trilogy.
Spider Robinson - The Callahan Chronicals.
The stories in here vary from very good to utter crap, but still an incredible selection of short stories and a nice change from the usual SF/F reading and Spider has a way with words and memorable characters. Make your life easier and buy "The Callahan Chronicals" rather than all the seperate books.
Anne Bishop - The Black Jewels Trilogy.
Abused, yet highly magical Jaenelle is taken in by the less normal inhabitants of her world - including the undead King of Hell, Saetan, the winged Eyrien, Lucifer, and his half-brother Daemon the Sadist. And these are the good guys. This is the land where dark magic rules and people make offerings to the Darkness. Oh and half the male characters are controlled by cock-rings. Seriously. Cock-rings. But not all cock-rings are bad... Entertaining, lacks substance (or possibly has storylines cut out of it) at times, but an interesting premise.
Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders of Pern series.
I believe this one is up to approximately 7,000 books, short stories, video games, and so forth. And it's still hella cool. Telepathic dragons, what more could you want?
Stephen King and Peter Straub - The Talisman and Black House novels.
Surprisingly good writing from these two. The Talisman is fairly straightforward, while Black House starts out normal and slowly turns up the Insane Weirdness levels.
Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials Trilogy.
Tragically overlooked amongst all the fuss over that Potter nonsense, this will probably also be found in the kid's section but is far far superior. A retelling of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' spanning parallel universes, it deals with love, death and god far more intelligently than most "adult" novels would. A must read. 
Anne Rice - The Vampire Chronicles series.
The first five or so are pretty good, then go downhill. I haven't read anything after Merrick, so I can't speak for the new ones.
J.V. Jones - The Book of Words series.
Robin Hobb - The Farseer Trilogy and the Liveship Traders series.
I haven't read her new stuff, I have too many books to read, but these two series are very, very different and both incredibly good reading. Only big fat dummies like Chucky don't like Robin Hobb.
Read this, and suddenly your own crappy hopeless life won't seem so bad. You'll wake up with a whistle and go to sleep with a little tap of your heels as you realise you are not that poor motherfucking Farseer guy. If you do buy this series, flip through the pages a few hundred times until they are nice and dogeared and soft, so at least you can wipe your ass on them.  
Katherine Kerr - The Deverry series.
Harry Turtledove - The Guns of the South.
Turtledove's done a lot of stuff I haven't read yet, but his alternative history Civil War storylines are fascinating.
Harry Harrison - Stars and Stripes in Peril.
The "other Harry" of alternate history, the Stars and Stripes ("..Forever", "..In Peril", and "..Triumphant") books detail a British attack on the U.S. during the Civil War, resulting in Robert E. Lee and Sherman and Grant kicking the shit out of the Brits.
Steven Pressfield - Gates of Fire.
Don't let "The Legend of Bagger Vance" sway you, "Gates of Fire" is historical fiction at its best and it covers some truly manly men in the Spartans. The battle scenes are gut wrenching.
Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club.
I know it's all cool to hate Palahniuk, but I don't care. "Fight Club" rocks.
Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo.
I liked "Count" best, but it's been a while since I read the Musketeers. Either way, it's impossible to go wrong.
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Experience Neil Gaiman before you die, and all will be well.
Sci-Fi: Arthur C. Clarke - Songs of Distant Earth.
I'm not much for hard SF, but this is a pretty good story without too much science.
Grant Naylor - Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers
Not as good as the show, but a Sweet-N-Low is nice when you can't have the tasty sugar that is Red Dwarf.
Jack McKinney - Robotech novels.
John Ringo and David Weber - March series.
The covers on these look stupid--not RJ bad, but bad--but the story within it is your very good war movie plot, though it takes place on another planet. If you like war movies, it's a damn fine read.
Robert A. Heinlein - Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land.
Though he could be a right-wing nutball, Heinlein wrote good SF.
Richard Matheson - I Am Legend.
This is usually found with a bunch of short stories and is a very, very cool read.
Douglas Coupland - Girlfriend In A Coma and Microserfs.
'Microserfs' for anyone with an interest in the IT industry (but may be incomprehensible to anyone else). 'Girlfriend In A Coma' is for everyone - zeitgeisty and an apocalyptic look at the end of the twentieth century. Not afraid to ask the big questions. Maybe my favourite novel ever.
Horror: H.P. Lovecraft - The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft.
Lovecraft is one of the godfathers of horror. Read in small doses, else the eldritch horrors of the elaborate wording carry you away.
Non Fiction: Michael Moore - Stupid White Men.
If you live in the States, you owe it to yourself to read this.
Joe Queenan - Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler.
Queenan is the funniest movie mocker, next to Jay Sherman.
Tom Wolfe - The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
They say if you remember the '60s, you weren't there. But, fortunately, Tom Wolfe was there, notebook in hand, politely declining LSD while Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters fomented a revolution (Amazon.com)
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