Thanks again for all the comments and recs. I guess i will start with the list i posted and then try some classics (if i can get through my list, that is...as i said, so far all my efforts to get into Sci Fi were failures. But it looks good this time or at least Hamilton and Reynolds have not lost me on the first 100 pages ).

@ Madness - I am always a bit leery about such titles as "classics" and other pompous words. Sure, there are certainly a lot of people who like those books, but...you know how it goes...if you want to have a big portion of the readers behind your book, you have to find the least common denominator....and, well .... that's most often not a real quality attribute I mean, just as an example, i always have to (almost) hurl when media talk about one of the best fantasy novels when referring to Harry Potter     
On a more serious note, i will certainly try some of the classics. I was just a bit "afraid" that, especially in the technological department, they might not have aged that well. I'm sure that a lot of them are top notch writing-style wise. Although to be honest, SR's comment about the worldbuilding IS indeed an un-sell for me.

Hi everyone,

So, after a long period of "fantasy-only" reading, i decided it is time for some sci fi. To be totally honest, i tried to get into Sci Fi more than once but somehow it never clicked with me so far.

As a reader and big fan of epic multi-volumed fantasy series with deep worldbuilding and above average prose (i know, good prose is a very subjective matter, but just use your own "grading system", so to speak), i am wondering - is there something equivalent in Sci Fi? Epic proportions sci fi with deep worldbuilding and good prose? If so, please recommend it to me.

So far i have on the list:

Hamilton - Night's Dawn Trilogy
Reynolds - Revelation Space
Simmons - Hyperion cantos (tetralogy)
Herbert - Dune

There are a lot of different subgenres...i am not sure which one is "best" for me...if i had to guess, Space Opera (it seems the genre with the most multi-volume content ). But i don't know for sure.

Ok, enough rambling from me...let me see your suggestions and/or lists.

Addendum - I am no fan of first-person narratives, so please keep that in mind for your recommendations. Thanks

I want to add this : Erikson himself said that you can easily read his books before you dive into the Esslemont books. I myself think that reading them in the "right" order (aka in-world chronologically) is better...BUT...the styles of the two have some differences. So it might be indeed better to just stick to Erikson and finish his series first (which is, for most of the fans that always read the books right when they came out, the order in which we have read it ... we had no choices back then ^^ ).

Btw, I know Wert is a real big-shot in the blogger-scene...but to be honest he also has very strange ideas sometimes. I guess his "fame" went a bit to his head. So don't take what he says as gospel...he's not that good.

Francis, keep in mind that GotM was written long before the other books. His writing style "develops" quite a bit during the following books. Maybe just pick up the second book or even the third and read a bit into it and see what you think. And he gets "better" * with every book.
* better in quotation marks because, well, better is kind of subjective. I, for example, loved his early books a lot. His latter books are sometimes too cluttered up with introspection and philosophise-ing.

Btw, the man is named Erikson, not Erickson. And this is not only smartass-ing from my side but it's also important because there is an Erickson author (i think he even writes fantasy-ish stuff).

As to Tolkien's work: i am totally in love with the Silmarillion. Such an awesome story and so...beautifully written. Sure, it's not everyone's thing...it has kind of an archaic style...but it's just epic. The Silmarillion is Tolkien's best work, period. Hobbit and LotR is nothing against the big S.

If the books keep getting better, I'm going to be sorely pressed to pick a favorite author.

Glad to hear that, Wil

For myself, i still count MoI as the best book of the series. Erikson still develops as a writer in the later books, but MoI had just so much in it ... and the cast was very to my liking.

And just in case: yes, book 4 will be with a new set of plotlines BUT there will also be some familiar faces. It is set on the same continent as book 1 and 3.

Cool! Good to see you get some recognition for this work of love, Somna.

Oh and i found the one commenter hilarious that thinks that a reread would not be as good....especially since he read Scott the first time when he was in highschool...lol. I'm sure he would be able to see so much more now (apparently 10 years later).

Doing the forests I'm sure is quite the task. Lots of vague references to get through, and then you've got all the different types of forests, and densities. Evergreens in the north, redwoods in the Mop, some other kinds in other places... what a pain.

Not necessarily. On maps one does abstract often. So if the mapper does not feel like doing a dozen different treeforms, he can also just go with one treeform and anyone looking at the map will understand that it just signifies "there is a forest".

But true, if you want to distinguish between coniferous forests and deciduous forest and maybe even also rain/tropical forests, than you have a bit more to do