What Next To Read . . .?

[radagastly]

Originally posted by Mansun:

The thread you speak of, What other Fantasy books do YOU read, just talks about fantasy novels people like. It does not distinguish between those novels which can genuinely be likened to the LOTR in terms of characters, literacy, intellect etc. This thread demands these to a far higher order.

And then you said this:

Personally, I liked the Lone Wolf adventures by Joe Dever, which had some excellent characters within Good & Evil.

I guess I'm not sure what you're asking for. You have eschewed a tested and (somewhat) respected novelist (Zelazny) in favor of a gaming manual? Maybe if you made more clear exactly what kind of literature you prefer. If you want a repeat of Tolkien, The Sword of Shannara did that two decades before the LOTR movies. Or you could try Spencers The Faerie Queene:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/fqintro.html
It's loaded with incredible imagery, but it is very allegorical, virtually a literary morality play. Maybe this is more your taste? I'd actually like to know. Are you after something more contemporary? Or more difficult? I'm up for both, but I'm a little confused where you want this thread to go.