The opinion of Harry Potter here is lukewarm at best, but I have to ask...

Oh man, His Dark Materials rocked.

These, the Hobbit, Redwall, Watership Down (RIP), Discworld, Coraline, The Last Unicorn, Un Lun Dun, Series of Unfortunate Events, and Earthsea which Rowling ripped off huge chunks of.

>what's your idea of a better work of literature that does something similar? What outdoes it in the field?
The problem isn't the books it's the field itself. Pure fantasy is escapist garbage. Literature must be moored in some reality and must reflect the material world. The satisfaction of the dialectic is the true measure of value.

Serious answer:

A Wizard of Earthsea

>Literature must be moored in some reality and must reflect the material world

>septology
Close, but not quite. Heptalogy.

Harry Potter is absolutely not "pure fantasy."

Yea, it's pure garbage.

Your mother is pure garbage.

The Last Unicorn was based.

Anything by Peter S. Beagle is fucking based.

> /r*ddit/

That's all you can come up with? Let me guess, your main board is /pol/?

this desu

wow you waste a lot of time reading fantasy

>Twilight for Men

Disregard this OP, if you're going to read self-insert fanfiction you don't have to pay for it

Sorcerer's Stone? OP are you a fag?

It sometimes takes a huge amount of gumption and bravery and boldness to honestly like the books that you actually honestly like, OP. Meaning, if you allow yourself to be swayed by the shit-talking creeps on Veeky Forums, their negativity might discourage you and derail you from diving into what you're actually fond of. Don't let anyone do that to you. If you loved the Harry Potter books, maybe try exploring fantasy books and/or fairy tales and/or classical mythology. Go to a library or bookstore, and start reading the first page of different books that seem like they might be calling to you. If something seems captivating or brilliant to you, then go for it and see how it turns out. You don't have to allow yourself to be bullied into reading what others consider hip or sophisticated, because quite often those books are shitty and horrible. It's best, I've found, to keep one's reading material to oneself, because that way you have the inner freedom to fly whereever you want to. It's best to ignore the shit-talkers, because most of them have a stick up their ass.

A few random books you might want to check out and evaluate on your own would be, Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles, Talbot Mundy's Tros of Smaothrace series of novels, the works of Angela Carter, The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington, and an excellent non-fiction work titled Morning of the Magicians, by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. Maybe you'd like them, maybe you wouldn't. They're books I fell in love with, is all I can honestly say.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Prydain

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tros_of_Samothrace

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Carter

amazon.com/Hearing-Trumpet-Leonora-Carrington/dp/1878972197

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morning_of_the_Magicians

>paying for books
Where do you think we are?

Tell me more about this Twilight for Men. Is it about a sparkly girl? I like those.

This is a really good post and I appreciate seeing your advice here. It's not just books really, more and more I've found that it's best to enjoy my hobbies privately, because whenever I go out and try and discuss them the negativity I come across is simply depressing. Like, I'm not trying to suggest I don't ever want to hear criticism, which is a common response to this sentiment. It's just that the majority of "criticism" is amateurish, perhaps frustratingly pedantic. I particularly can't stand the kind of criticism that is the fault of a reader holding a poor understanding of the work.

Like you said, it's fun to just try out random stuff and find something appealing to you that you may not have heard of otherwise. Years ago, I discovered Redwall this way without even realizing that it is actually quite well known.

Thanks for your specific recommendations as well. I'm unfamiliar with most of them, but I'll see if any tickle my fancy. I do remember I came across a Prydain book by chance multiple decades ago in my elementary school's library - another I just happened to discover by browsing. It was The High King and I read it without realizing it was part of a greater series at the time, but I still enjoyed it. Thankfully I've long since forgotten what happened in it, so I'll be able to go into it unspoiled.

>genre fiction

It's all shit. Read actual literature.

Will Veeky Forums ever be able to have a thread about a fantasy novel without some shithead coming in and whining about genre fiction?

Yeah, in your designated ghetto

One can only hope. But that would would necessitate that those people understand and appreciate fantasy as a genre of pure imagination. I guess if things aren't laden with historical, cultural or political undertones reflective of the real world, it just isn't good enough?

It's not as if fantasy isn't used to make points relevant to the real world either.

I can only assume it's mere shitposting.

Yeah heavy handed, austistically simple allusions

Did someone tell you you're shit at DnD or something?

In all fairness, it is kinda spot on.
The whole time Kvothe was at the University I couldn't help think that it's a bit like Hogwarts, but with a more structured magic system, more interesting characters, and taverns (I love taverns).
Then Kvothe goes out and becomes an angsty sex god and the story goes down the shitter.

Is that a spoiler behind that spoiler text, or just "surprise text"?

>this is considered an insult by genre dorks

Why is escapism considered wrong or bad?

No, it was just a test to see if you were willing to respond to literally anything. This confirms my suspicions that you only do it to shitpost.