This Post is just EPIC

As you know, my hobby of choice is reading.  Usually, my tastes in literature are pretty eclectic, so I tend to jump from genre to genre often.  I would say the past two years have been a bit different.  There are a lot of exciting things happening in the young adult world, as well as the urban fantasy department, that have kept me shopping in that one corner of Barnes and Noble.  That's not to say there aren't exciting new authors and books elsewhere, but the talent and stories in YA and UF right now are just phenomenal! 

With that being said, I don't think we should forget some of the older works that have really laid the groundwork for these genres.  I recently checked out from the library The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan.  If you haven't read anything by Jordan, know this: he is an absolute master in the world of epic fantasy.  This may be me being biased, but the worlds he created and the characters he introduced have such depth and imagination, it's almost unreal.  I've heard a lot of people say that they can't "get into" epic fantasies because there's too much going on in the book, i.e. too many characters, made up worlds, magic, etc.  Jordan grabs you from the beginning and gives you characters that are courageous and stubborn, yet flawed and all together human.  I can't rave enough about his writing. Honestly.

Another wonderful writer of epic fantasy would be Margaret Weis, as well as Tracy Hickman.  You may recognize those names from the Dragonlance Chronicles.  Another set of incredible worlds and characters.  If you want a quick read, none of the aforementioned authors are for you.  However, if you want to lose yourself in fantastic worlds where magic bubbles up from the ground (sometimes literally) and heroes are the not just the stuff of legend, you should try out an epic fantasy.