Technically speaking, although that's very theoretical, Star Wars is fantasy, albeit in a futuristic setting. Science Fiction would require a stronger focus on the pretense that the universe is science-driven instead of being, as it's presented, magic (force)-driven.Fantasy does not necessarily mean "medieval fantasy", imho.

But back to topic: I'd go with A Song of Ice and Fire on all counts.

For the wheel of Time series, i think if one looks at all the 11 books together as a whole, then it feels epic, but from one novel to another, no, the epicness doesn't come in.  I think after the 6th book, everything afterwareds just builts up towards the last book,which i think people can skip a lot of it and would nto lose much.

Let's ignore the massive invasion by the Seanchan, the whole good and evil thing, the bloody (literally more often than not) politics, the general mind-crushing despair that accompanies most characters. It has more than enough wholescale war, and the evolution of many of the characters. Infact, I don't know wtf your complaining about, because he writes from so many different PoVs that you almost never see each individual character, he went an entire book without writing anything from the main protagonist, etc.

Neg.

Farseer Trilogy for me...damn those 3 books are incredible. Though maybe more gritty than epic.

As for WOT...I'd have to say he completely lost the plot post Lord of Chaos. I'll never forget him starting book 9 with 4 new characters, nor the wholescale cut and paste of Dune that was book 4. People of the dragon...lol...People of the Kwisatz Haderach.

Hey man, calm down! He was just stating his oppinion and not attacking you... IMHO the beginning of WOT is very cool, the middle is very weak (even boring to me...) and the last published book is very good again. Looking forward to the conclusion although the author has died in the meantime... I think his son is finishing it, is that right?

Lord of the rings and The Darkover cycle from Marion Zimmer Bradley are way over the top me thinks.

Well I must confess I got bogged down at book 8 and eventually stopped. So, book 1 was good enough to make me want to attempt to read the series to it's conclusion, despite the blatant Lord of the Rings parallels. I obviously don't know if the conclusion is any good or not, but the bulk of the series is pretty dire. He does keep introducing new ideas, but spreads them too thin, in some cases embarrassingly repeating himself verbatim. The characters are also thin: they level up too fast, and, as I mentioned before, are distinguished by each having a special power and an annoying habit or catch phrase. *LOLCHRIST smoothes clothing*

And yeah, the Dune thing, let's call it a reference. The Aes Sedai are to Wise Women as the Bene Gessariat are to Reverend Mothers.

Although I would argue that Dune is also a series that starts very well and degenerates into self-indulgent tosh.

I tried reading a bunch of the fantasy staples like Shanarra, Dragonlance, etc. but didn't get very far because they all seemed way to derivative.  I did get totally hooked by R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt serious, especially the Icewind Dale Trilogy.  I wound up reading a dozen Drizzt books before I tired of them, and I actually want to grab the last few books here soon.  You could probably say that the Drizzt books are derivative too, but they're really fun reads and less of an attempt to create some whole massive universe a la Toliken and more an attempt to play around in an established one.  Highly recommended!

Don't you mean 'BGs are to Honored Matres'?

I don't like rank-ordered lists, but I love hearing a few favorites named now and then. I've enjoyed many of the titles folks mentioned above, and a couple are on my list but not in my local library yet.

I'm kind of surprised no one's mentioned Zelazny's Amber novels yet. But then I hadn't thought about them in a good while myself. Back when the series was just the Corwin books, I saw a few different variations on a deck of Trumps for D&D-type games. I wonder how hard teleportation magic will be in Elemental, or if it'll even be possible.

My bad, I ment Martin's Song of ICe and Fire. Though I like the Dragonbone chair too.

I don't know. I read a (probably the) French translation in a library in Paris, so I'm not sure. There are two excellent books, 'The Book of conquests' and 'The Silver Arm' by Jim Fitzpatrick at Paper Tigers (first issued in 1981), which are not translations but very good and beautiful (particularly The Book of conquests).

I enjoy the Drizzt books as well, with one exception.  No one ever dies.  You think they die, but they don't.  He makes someone die, only to bring then back again.  Killed in battle?  No you aren't.  Banished to another Plane of existence?  Just for lunch, then you can come back.  Stabbed in the liver with a spear?  Sure, rub some dirt on it, you're ok.

I still enjoy the later books, like the one that just came out last month, but the tiny thrill of someone actually dying isn't there anymore, which takes away some of the suspense of reading it.  So when I read them now, I replace that loss of excitement with a new form.  I just try to figure out how he is gonna make them live 20 pages from now.

(puts on WoT nerd hat)  The final volume of WoT, which will probably be called A Memory of Light, is being finished by Brandon Sanderson, best known for the Mistborn series (though I've not read it).  To my knowledge he's of no relation to Robert Jordan, though Jordan's widow (who is also his editor) was responsible for making the choice.  If Wikipedia is to be believed (I don't have the time or patience to sift through the numerous blogs), Jordan finished about 50,000 words of what could be as many as 600,000, but had extensive notes that detailed what he wanted to happen to each character, secret, etc.  The book is supposed to come out sometime next fall (2009).

I am a huge Wheel of Time fan, although I completely understand, and in some cases share, the views of those who say it drags in the middle of the series.  Nothing ever happens fast, and most books follow a fairly predictable pattern of foreshadowing, slow progress, and then a large conflict or battle that changes the overarching situation (capture of a city, death of a Forsaken, etc.).  The endless bickering of the Aes Sedai does get boring at times, but most of the central core characters have enough depth to stay interesting... saying more would do those who have not read and plan to a disservice.

Tolkien is obviously the first modern high fantasy epic, but LotR is really showing its age, and is just not accessible to a lot of contemporary readers because of his preoccupation with the very rich, but sometimes very dry, history of his world.  One of the neat things about WoT is that the world is very rich, has a very deep history full of proper nouns, but Jordan never deluges you with it, and you learn about it slowly over time rather than in great swaths of pages while you're waiting for something like the siege of Helm's Deep (I apologize if I've misrepresented the series at all... it's been *quite* some time).

Also, it's hardly high fantasy but anyone who enjoys the genre and sarcasm should check out Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books... because who doesn't love a wisecracking assassin with a pet miniature dragon?

I'd go with Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series.   I would also rank George RR Martin A Song of Ice and Fire series as well, but who knows if it will ever be completed.

Damn, you must be some kind of masochist then.  I can't stand Robin Hobb. 

Don't get me wrong:  Her overall storylines are interesting enough.  However, she makes her characters so damn unlikable, I find myself literally wishing they would die and/or receive the comeuppance they so richly deserve. 

I was somehow able to force myself to read the first Farseer trilogy (how I made it through without killing myself I'll never know).  I also tried the Liveship Traders trilogy, but I gave up in disgust less than halfway through the first book.  I didn't even bother with the second Farseer/Fool trilogy. 

Ah, thanks for the information.  Great!