Apologies if this is a repost, I promise I did a search.

For some reason, this year my family's normally busy vacation schedule has transformed into "sit on a beach, far away from other humans, and read a good book." So I'm wondering what book series others consider good.

I lean towards Fantasy and Science Fiction, so I've read a bunch of the classic series in those genres (Lord of the Rings, Dune, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, to name some favorites). I love Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, though I'm not sure if I'll dive back into it even if he does ever finish writing it. I've read everything Neil Gaiman and some things Terry Pratchett. In my teens I was obsessed with horror, so I've read all the classic Stephen King and Clive Barker stuff. Also enjoy a good historical novel (Jeff and Michael Shaara's Civil War Trilogy).

I recently finished the first triad of Wild Cards. It was fantastic and I could probably read the series for the rest of my natural life considering how many there are, but reviews seem to drop off after the first three so I'm not sure if I want to continue down that path. So before I write a novel of my own here, what are some of your favorite book series?

I agree re: the show, guess I should've read the books first!

Now that's something I never would have stumbled across on my own, but it sounds terribly interesting. Hmm, am I up for a thousand-page book?

Oh yeah, read The Dark Tower a couple times. I tried Harry Potter when my daughter was younger but we just couldn't get into it. I found it to be very derivative and not particularly well written.

I know, I just made a bajillion Harry Potter fans shoot death lasers out of their eyeballs.

I'm gonna need a bigger bookshelf.

Why does your recommendation make my teeth hurt?

Hey, 13-year-old me thought Tommyknockers was pretty okay.

Dreamcatcher, though... That was probably the beginning of the end of me reading his every word. So bad.

Love them both. Come to think of it, I may still have some unread PKD books stashed away. Dude was prolific!

You got me, I've never read R. A. Salvatore. I'll turn in my nerd card on the way out.

Robert Jordan was amazing. Have you ever read his Conan novels? I may need to revisit those someday.

I read the first several Sword of Truth books, but it got sort of ridiculous after a while. My most vivid memory of those is arguing with some guy at a yard sale about how little he wanted to pay for them.

Big Star Wars fan (see my avatar?), but I've never been able to get into the books for some reason. I don't know, I guess Star Wars is more of a visual thing for me.

My wife and daughter absolutely devoured Timothy Zahn's new Thrawn series, so I can give those a secondhand recommendation.

Not to derail the thread, but that made me wonder: How many of you are "alternative" readers?

I've had multiple e-readers, from the old RCA ebook to a Kindle Paperwhite. They're so convenient for traveling, yet I always end up going back to good old-fashioned paper. Not sure why that is.

Oh yeah, didn't mean to imply that I only read series. But there's something satisfying about finishing a good book and knowing you can spend x more books with that world/characters.

Weird, this was published during the period when I was grabbing all the fantasy I could get my grubby little hands on, but I've never heard of it. I consider this a failure of that F&SF book club I unintentionally joined (the one that mailed you books you didn't ask for each month).

If anyone's feeling ambitious, Gormenghast seems to be the most influential fantasy trilogy that no one's read. I've seen it described as "if Dickens wrote fantasy" and I think that's pretty accurate. The third one sort of goes off the rails IMO, but the first two are worth a read of you enjoy incredibly crafted characters and settings.