UKH

I loved reading books like LOTR, and A Wizard of Earthsea, and The Wierdstone of Brisingamen but havn' t been able to get away with  newer stuff by the likes of Neil Gaiman , Patrick Rothfuss etc. Has anyone any recommendations for books similar to the ones mentioned? I know its a very subjective thing.

Not fantasy, but magical realism which might suit and absolutely fantastic with it.

Beside the Ocean of Time - George Mackay Brown 

The first two books of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy are good value. Tolkien meets Dickens, at a stretch.

Barry Hughart, bridge of birds

Patricia McKillip, In the forests of Serre

Thankyou

I tried them when I was young. Time to try them again. Thanks

This is great. Thanks so much.

My headmistress at our local village school read us The Weirdstone when I was about eight. The image of the wolf cloud lived with me for years after, even though I didn't know what the book was.

Years later I came across the book by accident and the whole thing still has a massive significance to me sixty years later.

I have a little hay meadow on the slopes above Oldham with a caravan and shed and the views are spectacular but the one thing your eyes are drawn to again and again is Shutlingslow. Sometimes through the binoculars on a less than perfect day I fancy I can see a grey shape arching over the shoulder of the peak.........

Magician by Raymond Feist

😊

Thanks. I will check it out .☺

The chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson. I read them after lotr, although never got round to finishing the last one as I'd forgotten lots of the detail by the time I got round to it. 

Yes I remember them. Think I may have read some. Thanks for replying.

Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock

Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock

The Cats of Seroster by Robert Westall

The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

The Many Coloured Land by Julian May

Fionavar Tapestry trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay

All '80's fantasy that's stood up well I think. Mythago Wood won all the awards and is still unlike anything else. 

Chris Wooding just wrote an old school style book called the Ember Blade which I didn't love but a lot did so you might like that.

How about 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' by Susanna Clarke? 

David

Have you tried "In Your Dreams" by Tom Holt? Set in modern London about the misadventures of the junior employee of a firm of magicians. 

You could try David Gemmell Drenai series. I really enjoyed them when I read them years ago. A  bit more violent than LoTR, less orcs..

Thankyou I will check them all out☺

Thankyou it sounds fun ☺

Thats great. Thanks. If its more violent with less orcs there must be some nasties in it.☺

When I was in my teens/early 20s I read lots of classic (and some not-so-classic) science fiction but just couldn't really get into fantasy. I tried both LoTR and Gormenghast but gave up almost straight away and couldn't see what the fuss was all about. Now it's some decades since but I do remember reading and enjoying 'The Dying Earth' by Jack Vance which is a kind of meld of sci-fi/fantasy short stories set in the far future. I'm sure if I read it now I'd think it was a load of old bolleaux.

For a few years i have been wondering what the name of that excellent book was that I read in the autumn of 1987. As soon as I seen the title you posted I knew it was it, thanks I can now buy a copy. 

I am currently rereading early Michael Moorcock, just read the first couple of Corum's first trilogy (Knight of the Swords, Queen of the Swords) and they surprised me in that I still enjoyed reading them. I can't say that of many things I read back in the 70s/80s. Good solid celtic and chaos influenced fantasy adventures.

I would thoroughly recommend the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Stephen Erikson. They are excellent! They are quite detailed and build a lot of history but a lot of background comes to you eventually, the books don't spoon feed you the set up so it can take some getting in to but once you do they are worth it....certainly a little different to your usual fantasy stuff. Also, one book to the next can seem unconnected at first but they do usually tie together (at least so far....not finished the series myself yet).

Thank you to all for recommendations. ☺

You may well like the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

Absolutely second anything by Guy Gavriel Kay. 

Also, you should give Brandon Sanderson's Storm Light Archive a go - his scale is like nothing else. Can't recommend it enough