I like Fel's main characters, what other books have similar?

[michaelsuave]

Ok, so from Jason to Tarrin and the other two side projects (yes I've read them but its been a while so I don't remember their names) Fel's main characters are incredibly powerful. I don't know about everybody else, but when I want to read an enjoyable fantasy or Scifi book that just takes me to a different world and makes me go "wow," the book has to have a main character that, for lack of a better phrase, kicks ass.

So my question is, which other books out there have similar characters who just keep getting more powerful, or who are strong enough to fight on their own? Which of these books (online or print) are your favorite? Yes I like the books who's lead character's have a party who comes around and helps, but its the main character and their strength that always draws me into a story. So I appreciate any and all suggestions and books conversations about characters who just plain rock.

~Michael

[bbobb]

I hadn't really thought about it in these terms before, but there are some similarities between Tarrin and Steven Brust's character Vlad Taltos. Vlad doesn't quite fit in because he is a human in a world dominated by a race that is sort of a cross between reptiles and humans. Over time he becomes an assassin, learns two different schools of magic, and acquires a band of friends that includes the most powerful sorceress in the world and a goddess. He has a flying, poisonous reptile (that looks like a miniature dragon) for a familiar and as of the most recent book one of the very few Great Weapons in the world. If memory serves, three of the remaining Great Weapons are in the hands of his friends. While he does work with his friends from time to time, the series really is about Vlad and often it is just him and Loish - his familiar.

If you like fantasy and characters that grow and you haven't read Brust, touch type - don't hunt and peck over to your favorite online purveyor of dead trees. The tenth book in the series will be released next week, so you'll need to get moving to be ready. The first three books are collected together in The Book of Jhereg so that's the best place to start.

bbobb

[J-Man5]

Of course one of the classic comparisons of Fel's works is Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. Also the Wizards Apprentice series by Raymond Feist. And the classics of Terry Brooks of the Shannarna series.

I also have enjoyed the Xanth series by Piers Anthony - you have to enjoy puns and pun-ishing yourself to have fun with them.

Online the colaboration project of Metamor Keep is good. Also the several series by Sir Winston on ewpub.org.

On that site there are numerous good authors. Try CAMP by Net Wolf and anything by Warlord.

Don't forget there is a topic called links to good reading in this forum.

J-Man5

[Mark_Reed]

Really powerful characters? I've got one for you if you can stomach the early writing.

Enterprise1701 D writes the phalanx series, about a teenager named Fred who does the impossible at least once a day before breakfast. Saving earth from an alien invasion, fighting off evil gods, telling off the good ones, beating up on alternate evil versions of himself (most of the later villains of the series are Evil Fred with a different name), having children who invent superweapons as a form of recreation, and hardest task of all: being married. (Though true to form, he doesn't seem to have much trouble with it.)

It's actually rather entertaining in a man overboard sort of way. His later chapters are pretty well written, so it's easy reading if you can keep suspension of disbelief. The downside is that Enterprise improved as he wrote; the early chapters are just stuff you gotta read through to get to the good stuff. The series begins with "Stone of the Phalanx" though (for plot spoilage just in case) you can skip it entirely and move onto Stone of the Phalanx 2. That's where the series really starts.

I should mention that Stones 1 and 2 contain sex (Stone 1 was intended as an erotic story before he started on Fred as a serious character). The rest of the series is G rated. Also I should mention that the whole series is packed to the point of explosion with crossover material. Especially Buffy and (in the early storyline with occasional reoccurances) Startrek.

I should also mention that I can't remember any story that Enterprise has actually *finished,* though there may be a few. Regardless, check out his other stuff. The writing's decent and the plots are generally fun.

I tried googling for his site and came up blank. Does anyone have his current link or did he shut everything down? Haven't checked in a while.

Hey Jman- I've recently read Spell for Chameleon and thought it was kind of boring. I've actually got Source of Magic and Centaur Isle at home ready to read, but is it worth it? Does he gain in magical power or does he just go through the entire series getting in trouble and unconsciously using his magic to bail himself out?

On the subject of Piers Anthony, his Phaze series (beginning with Split Infinity) is excellent for fantasy lovers, and his Incarnations of Immortality series was equally cool if you enjoy reading about the reponsibilities of having godlike powers as well as having them in general. No massive uses of magic, but entertaining nonetheless. The author notes can be pretty cool to read too.

[Laganima]

http://www.maddmansrealm.com/Enterprise1701_d/
thats the website addy for enterprise1701_D . his stuff is good but like you said he hardly ever finishes a story.

[michaelsuave]

his stuff is good but like you said he hardly ever finishes a story.

Yeah, thats the problem with a lot of internet writers. Even the good ones take a long time to finish, if ever. Example: Warlord's stories. Thats the mixed blessing of the net, you get more material more frequently (hopefully) but the completion of a work takes a long time to come about.

[Laganima]

it's been so long since i read atlantis that if warlord ever does put out another chapter i'll have to reread it all. another like that is razor on ewpub. did the Godslayer prophecy great story but only does 1 chapter every 4-6months.

[Mark_Reed]

Actually, writing pace isn't what bothers me about Warlord. It's part of his style that always gets to me.

Has anyone ever noticed that he loads his main characters down with huge armories worth of weapons, and only uses certain ones? Does the same thing with women. Surrounds the character with a bevy of attractive and very willing females, but the character plays favorites and only sleeps with a few of them a couple times. If I were hot on a guy and he was sleeping with others in the harem and leaving me out in the cold, I'd be pissed. But these women are always quite happy to be waiting in the wings...

I understand the ego-boost of surrounding yourself with hot women and hot guns (or swords, crossbows, whatever), but if you're going to collect them, use them.

Make no mistake, I read and will keep reading Warlord's stuff. His stories are fun, inventive, decently written. The women and weapon thing is my one complaint. And if you're readers only have one complaint about you, you're doing a good job.

[michaelsuave]

So I picked up The Book of Jhereg yesterday and read it. Yeah, the main character was good, not nearly as overwhelmingly powerful or smart as Jason or Tarrin, but good none the less. My only complaint is that the book kind of ends on a downer, but I don't want to ruin the book for anybody else who reads it.

I like piers anthony, and have read through pretty much every xanth book and blue adept series book that I could get my hand on. I think I liked his main characters in the blue adept series better than the xanth one, but one can't fault the punny text of xanth.

Terry brooks, well what can I say, you may dissagree with me, maybe even disagree with my strongly. But I found the young heros in the shannara series to be whiny and shallow and couldn't get through the first couple chapters without it driving me up the wall. The druid character is definitely nice, but I couldn't stand the other ones.

Raymond Fiest has some pretty good books, and I love the characters of pug and thomas in the rift war saga.

The Wheel of Time with Robert Jordan used to be one of my favorite series, but then he went around book seven and started to get greedy. It seemed like he was just trying to drag out the books and not go any place with them, and it was my opinion that he was just drawing it out for money purposes. When he went through a whole book without talking about matt, well I set the series down and haven't picked it up since then. I don't know if it has gotten any better, and the one time I thought about picking up the next book in the series I found out that he had gone and left the series behind and wrote a book of background stories.

A series that I haven't read in a long time but that I enjoyed was the Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. And I would highly suggest reading that series, and to start with the book, "the dark is rising" rather than "under sea over stone."

Shadowhawk suggested that I read the series about the character "cat" (psion, catspaw, and dreamfall). And I ordered the first one in the series, so will see what that book is like.

I wanted to thank everybody who is giving out suggestions of strong character books and series. Please keep them coming.
~Michael

[bbobb]

So I picked up The Book of Jhereg yesterday and read it. Yeah, the main character was good, not nearly as overwhelmingly powerful or smart as Jason or Tarrin, but good none the less. My only complaint is that the book kind of ends on a downer, but I don't want to ruin the book for anybody else who reads it.

~Michael

Book of Jhereg ends with Teckla, right? I've found that to be the most difficult book in the whole series. Within the context of the whole series it fits and it helps explain some things, but it is very depressing. As to the power of Vlad, it grows over the course of the books. By the ninth book, Issola, he becomes pretty formidable. Book ten, Dzur (set to be released next Tuesday - Yippee!) is supposed to start up where Issola leaves off, so it should see even more development of his abilities. If you liked the first ones at all, I'd at least give The Book of Taltos a try. It contains the next two books in the series and the rest of the series is far more upbeat than Teckla.

Personally, I really like the fact that Vlad isn't too powerful or too smart. It makes him much easier to relate too. My all time favorite fantasy writer is Zelazny and as much as I like just about everything he wrote, I never liked the second set of Amber books as much as most of the rest of his stuff because Merlin was just too powerful. Merlin never grabbed me in quite the same way that Corwin did, because it never seemed that he really had to struggle much to solve his problems.

bbobb