I find my favourite fantasy setting is A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin. I really loved the characters and the whole magic system. I highly recommend it!
Classic fantasy rpg setting with Dragons, orcs, goblins, elves, kobolds etc. With a long list of friendlies and enemies the capacity for story writing is never ending. Limited only by the storyteller.
My favorite fantasy settings are actually urban fantasy, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files and Seaman McGuire's Encryptid worlds.
My favorite olde time fantasy setting is, with a strange ambivalence in my part, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I either read or listened to every one of those over-written, under-edited books because the first installment, The Eye of the World, made me so interested in the world and the outcome.
i can totally relate to that. I never articulated it to myself as well as you did, but I was absolutely taken in by the setting and concept but didn't make it to the end of the saga. That first book is still an all time favorite...
Definitely the world Steven Erikson built in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. Huge and full of death.
Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series.
GRRM A Song of Ice and Fire.
Miles Cameron, The Traitor Son Cycle. Just started this one and loving it. Highly recommend the first book in the series The Red Knight, especially if you dig ASOIAF and are looking for something new to read.
I like the world in "The Witcher" games there very gritty and dark and dirty. The people are in such poverty because of the Lord's taking taxes. Something to ready you for a revolution per say
Since my last post I started reading the Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone. Its a fantasy world driven by laws of magic (you can literally make a contract with a God). Lawyers are everything from terrifying Psionics to Necromancers. Its really interesting. I'm only on book 3, and each one has featured a different set of characters, problems, and locations. Though I'm about halfway through and beginning to meet some familiar faces in some unfamiliar circumstances. The first published book is "Three Parts Dead" and it is really good.
The Black Company. Battlefield magic, complex rivalries among the bad guys, sorcerers who are terrifying like sorcerers should be, just the dark feeling of it all compared to standard high fantasy. I like elves and orcs as much as the next guy, but it was great to see a fully-realized fantasy world without 'em.
The Norrell/Strange world has some of the same things, though set in our world. Best faeries ever.
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I'll SMITE you
My favorite olde time fantasy setting is, with a strange ambivalence in my part, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I either read or listened to every one of those over-written, under-edited books because the first installment, The Eye of the World, made me so interested in the world and the outcome.
I'll SMITE you
Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series.
GRRM A Song of Ice and Fire.
Miles Cameron, The Traitor Son Cycle. Just started this one and loving it. Highly recommend the first book in the series The Red Knight, especially if you dig ASOIAF and are looking for something new to read.
I'll SMITE you
I'll SMITE you
The Norrell/Strange world has some of the same things, though set in our world. Best faeries ever.