General Discussion

@metalgingersolid
I love the Clockwork Century series! I picked up Boneshaker first of course but was sort of dreading (haha) Dreadnaught because it sounded so boring compared to any of the others. It turned out to be one of my favorites in the series. Go figure.

I don't do a huge deal of reading to be honest. Assigned books in school killed the fun for me. But as far as scifi/fantasy goes that I've enjoyed I can recommend:

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer (and the rest of the Southern Reach trilogy but Annihilation has a movie coming out next year; be prepared to possibly be unsatisfied)
The Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop (which actually has well more than three books set in its universe/using its characters but the trilogy is of course what started it; not exactly for the faint of heart as there is some graphic material; it's good if you also kind of like cheesy romance or paranormal romance books)
Gil's All Fright Diner by A Lee Martinez (a comedy, more urban fantasy than high fantasy or scifi; all of Martinez's works are genre comedy and good though so I recommend them all)

Seconding Discworld and Hitchhiker's Guide!

But I have to suggest the Young Wizards series! It's really good and it's got well developed magic and it has aliens and really good sci-fi stuff as well and it will give you Feelings about so many things, I can't recommend this series enough. Plus there's a spinoff about a group of cat wizards who run a portal network, so that's pretty neat.

And anything by Catherynne M. Valente is absolutely fantastic! My favorite book of hers is The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, but I also really like her Orphan's Tales duology. She just has this beautiful, poetic writing style that gets me every time.

The Missing series by Margaret Peterson Haddix is also really great, it's a fantastic time travel story that gets a bit confusing, to be perfectly honest, but I am a time travel nerd so it was the sort of thing that I personally loved.

I can probably think of more (and probably more on the fantasy end of things), but I am tired and should probably go to sleep soon.

Got to agree on Discworld, though if you read them, probably ignore the first six or so books. They're a bit of a slog if you aren't already invested and they put a lot of people off. My favourites in that are definitely the Watch series (the police of Ankh Morpork), and I'm really beginning to appreciate the Tiffany Aching (an apprentice witch) one, too. It's nice. My favourite standalone book is definitely Monstrous Regiment, however. It has a troll, a vampire, a werewolf and supernatural themes as well as a fun commentary on the ol' cross-dressing-to-get-into-somewhere trope, both ways.

A Song of Ice and Fire isn't too bad, depending on your tolerance for massive books. Even if you watch the show it's not the same, so there's still plenty to look at that hasn't been put to film.

Rivers of London is a nice sort of real-world fantasy about supernatural crimes set in England, and for America, you can always go for the Dresden Files. The main difference is it's a policeman (and small department of ... two) in Rivers of London and a Private Investigator in the Dresden Files.

Another, also set in London, that I love, is Neil Gaiman (of Coraline, American Gods and Stardust fame)'s Neverwhere. It's set in London, but ... in the background. People fall through the cracks, and this is the world they live in, above and below the normal one. A lot of the side characters in it are named after places in London, but if you think Shepherd's Bush or Knight's Bridge sound nice, you're very wrong.

Both Rivers of London and Neverwhere have very diverse casts, which is nice.

For Science Fiction, I like the Alliance/Union and Compact Space series by CJ Cherryh. These are slightly dated hard science fiction, and whether you'll enjoy them depends on whether you prefer nuanced character development over straight up action.

For the Alliance/Union series, Cyteen is a good one, as is its sequel (Regenesis) and Downbelow Station is considered a classic. Of the less well known books, I like Rimrunners.

The Compact Space series is more about humans as aliens..? The main characters aren't human, and it's set in a bit of space where humans haven't reached, but there's already a system in place for other species. A human gets in, as cargo after a chance meeting, and it's pretty interesting to see what happens regarding his former captors and saviours.

Red Rising is a mix of both and is a fantastic trilogy.

Fantasy is my favorite genre too!!!!

My favorite author by far is Gene Wolfe. His "Solar Cycle" is his best known for a reason but also don't start it unless you're willing to be sucked in deep because it's 12 books and you really have to read them more than once. I've read 20+ of his books so far and I loved them all though, his writing tone is equalled only by O'Connor and Chesterton imo and his books are always pleasantly unusual and make most fantasy books seem dull in comparison

Jack Vance is way up there with Gene Wolfe, his Dying Earth books (especially the Cugel ones) are the perfect mix of hilarious and grotesque

My favorite "epic fantasy" series is Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny, I just love the campiness and the genre ambiguity and everything about Zelazny's writing. I want to hate him for putting me through the strain of those last 5 books but he's the kind of guy you just gotta love

My other favorite series is The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski (it inspired the video games, which I've never played ha) which has a lot of cleverly employed fantasy tropes and also a distinctly Eastern European approach

And I recently re-read the science-fiction book Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm which is now officially a favorite. It's three interwoven novellas about a family who tries to weather environmental worldwide cataclysm by establishing a self-sufficient society of clones

Aaaaand this year I read 2/3 books of the Well-Built City trilogy by Jeffrey Ford which is probably gonna be with my all-time favorites. It reminds me of Jack Vance for grotesqueness and economy and also Gene Wolfe thematically and structurally (a lot about memory, storytelling, stories-within-stories, allegory, etc). If The Physiognomy was a person instead of a book I'd want to kiss it

Maybe Stephen King's The Dark Tower series might interest you? It's not a horror story like his other stuff- it's a good mix of fantasy (but not traditional) with some hints of scifi/other genres.

The Uploaded by Ferret Steinmetz and also his 'Mancer series. I'd say the first is scifi and the second kinda urban fantasy?

For comfort reading though, I always end up going back to Tamora Pierce (Beka Cooper trilogy is a fav) and Mercedes Lackey (valdemar).

Maybe not the best pieces of literature, but good for relaxing :)

Eragon series, if no one has suggested it yet. I haven't read it in years but I remember it being my favorite fantasy series yet.