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My favourite books:
Daughter of the Empire
Servant of the Empire
Mistress of the Empire
A superlative fantasy trilogy by Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts.
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I don't read anything like as much as I would like to, mainly through business/laziness/the internet. I tend to go for the fantasy genre when I do though.
At the moment I am trudging through Michael Moorcock's Corum: The Prince in the Scarlet Robe, having already read a collection of his Elric stories (incidentally, the character who appears on every Cirith Ungol album cover). However, I have to say that I find these books totally unsatisfying, and I am only continuing to read this Corum thing because there is no alternative on my bedside table.
For me, his books fail in the three most important categories of a great novel: i) characters, ii) plot, iii) writing style. The characters are not delved into much at all, the plots are extremely linear, based on a "quest" like journey from place to place and artefact to artefact, and his writing style just generally strikes me as rushed and uninspiring - probably the reason why he's shitted out over 100 books.
Totally overrated.
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What I've read by Feist however has been fantastic. The Magician trilogy is also excellent (Magician, Silverthorn, A Darkness At Sethanon), and sensible to read before the ..Empire trilogy, but I far prefer the latter works. Can't recommend enough.
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