Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but Stephen Donaldson is great, first series is great, second series is first series reprised and i haven't had a look at the third series yet. also his Gap into series is good train fodder.

I liked Terry Brook's Knight of the Word series before he melded it into the Shanarra series, was a good alternative 'fallen knight' scenario.

L. E. Modessit's Cyador series is an interesting read, writes the tale from the perspective from both sides who believe they are the good.

Grunts by mary Gentle is a must, it tells the tale of the 'last battle' from the perspective of the Orcs, absolute pisser, and well written, such classic quotes as 'pass me another elf this one is split'

I love discworld books have read most.

Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion are among my favourites.

new favourite is 'American Gods' by Neil Gaimon (look up the books of magic, a graphic novel/comic series from the late 80s featuring a boy wizard with dark hair, a scar on his forehead and a pet owl, who is the next great magician), also wrote coralyne. absolute genius IMO.

the Abhorson series is dark and hard to get into but once in, you are caught, but Garth Nix.

Reimond Feist's series is a lot of fun, and a whole world to contemplate, although he did the dirty on his partner in crime from a spin off series

Fritz Libres Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser is a lot of fun.

the vast collection by Michael Moorcock is both simplistic and complex and can be fun, i loved them.

Philip Pullmans 'his dark materials' starts of well, but tries to capture too much laterly i thought, but still a ripper read.

Julian May's many coloured land and the prequel series is fantastic and I loved it, wish she wrote more but its a closed series now i believe

I too am a fan of asimov and less so clarke.

the Illuminatus trilogy is a great read, especially if you like books that are written by people on speed who take valium to slow down and then hallucinogenics to stretch out again, Robert shea and Robert Wilson.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournole the Mote in God's eye is a fine two part series.

Anything by David Brinn is worth a read, earth, the postman etc, i love his staff, and writes too slowly for me

Yeah Modesitt and Neil Gaiman were two I forgot in my list. Very good.

If she wants to break into sci-fi...
Peter Hamilton
Iain M. Banks
Alistair Reynolds
Mike Carey
Mickey Zucker Reichart's Renshai series (fantasy, not sci-fi)

I know this is a bit late, but other great authors include Terry Brooks with his shannara books, also one that is pretty good is the drizzt stuff by R.A. Salvatore. Melanie Rawn and Tracy Hickman combine to do some fantastic sagas. Who else?There's so many, though it's hard not knowing what gets you motivated (especially since you find wheel of time tough - that series just is the best piece of fiction I have ever read, so expansive and encompassing, one of the only ones I could not predict). Gah I had another on the tip of my tongue but it's gone.

Oh yeah, Stephen Lawhead does a great Arthurian series worth a look at.

ROFL thanks Stir - Terry Brook's Shannara was good, bit undecided about this new merged worlds series though. Melanie Rawn was kind of hit and miss, while ironically I read more of Tracy Hickman's done as comics than the novels :\

Picking up Sara Douglass' new book sometime soon I hope - the library keeps telling me I'm first in the queue, then drops me to second, then back to first... gimme!

rofl, i used to use the library all the time, but found id read everything id liked the look of, then when all the new books to series id already read started coming out i couldnt wait for them to be ready on reserve so just went out and bought them.

The libraries in Brissy have really improved in the last few years tho - like The Inifinity Gate, they bought about 100 copies, so I didn't have to wait long. They also give me my manga and comics fixes too XD For zilch, well, except when I forget to return a book on time...

Rofl. I never could get into comics and manga, the extent of my relationship with that sort of stuff is asterix and obelix and the adventure of tin tin lol.

Oooo, I used to love Tin Tin!

i went through the asterix and tintin stuff again, i bought the reprint mini asterix and obelix when it came out in mini format.

ALso i have about 1200 comics of the X-men variety from the mid to late 80s through to the mid 90s.

xmen, uncanny xmen, xforce, xcalibur etc etc etc.

throw in a few graphic novels and a few thor's Punishers and the like.

Rage quit minotaur when a comic I'd pre-ordered was sold to somoene else and cancelled my order, that really showed them.

I think minotaur went on to a bigger shop with a larger offering as a consequence of my disdain for them!