OK, OK. since y'all insist.x100 - Please post! No need for this to be an echo chamber of recommending books everyone else already likes.
My favorites are not really individual books but series of interconnected ones; like the Harry Potter novels (which I also like, BTW), that together make up a much larger story. In other words, 'epics'. So these are the popular names for the collections, the full stories, not individual novels. I hope that isn't cheating.
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant ~ Stephan R. Donaldson.
A dark story in which the main character is what is known in the literary world as an 'anti-hero'. A once successful, celebrated author who by no fault of his own has become a bitter, spiteful pariah. Until one fateful day when an accident inexplicably casts him into another world, a strange and incredibly beautiful one that defies everything he knows to be true. And where everyone believes him to be the incarnation of an ancient legend who is supposed to save them all from an incredibly powerful evil.
The problem is, he refuses to believe it is anything but a dream.
The problem is, he refuses to believe it is anything but a dream.
The Dragonriders Of PERN ~ Anne McCaffrey
Don't let the name fool you, this is not a fantasy, but science fiction. However, read in the order the author recommends you don't find this out until after three or four novels. It tells of a world which every 250 years is 'attacked' by deadly spores that fall from the sky, disolving and digesting anything organic they touch, living or not. It's only defense is a group of brave solders who, for the next fifty years must defend their land astride gigantic, flying, fire breathing dragons. Each pair telepathically linked for life from early childhood.
Rarely do I consider the movie "as good" as the book, not because of mismatched mental images, but because the movie must, because of time and budget restraints, leave out so much, which in many cases can be critical to the story. So what I do is if I know the movie was made from a book I will watch the movie first. That way if I like it then most likely the book will be even better.
