My top three is Elric of Melnibone, Sailor on the Seas of Fate and Stormbringer. Stormbringer is absolute peak

There are! Here's mine.

IIRC there are some nice collected versions as well:

"The Great Book of Amber", all 10 books in 1,200 pages(!)

https://agreenmanreview.com/books/roger-zelaznys-the-great-book-of-amber/

Have you read the book Piranesi? Main character is trapped in a thought construct.

Think Allegory of the Cave:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

I think Malazan is pretty spectacular

The Green Brain was... weird, even for Herbert: humans attempt to eradicate all insect life on earth, insect life fights back and evolves a super hive mind.

Xanth. I mean the puns alone. Seriously though. Tolkein wrote languages and the mythology of his world without real intent for readers to read it. Just to flesh out how people thought and how the world worked.

I think that's also the best world building. I just want to read the story, I don't need or want to read some nerd's Wikipedia article about the story!

I think the only other Herbert novel I've read is The Green Brain which I can't even remember to comment on though.

I agree with so many of the comments, but I gotta include Sanderson, especially the world Roshar in his Stormlight books. Multiple cultures spanning 10,000 years with cool plants, animals, weather, and magic that are all connected. Say what you want about his writing or books 4/5 (I don't have issue with either but lots of people do), I think the worldbuilding is top-notch.

Robert Jordan wheel of time?

I was thinking of his other works like BuSab, Void.

For Dune, there is a very complex world, but the reader only gets the minimum necessary exposure to it. There's no explanation for how the major powers came about, they just are, ditto for what the Holtzman filed/effect is, how a no-ship works, etc. There's no history/explanation of what the Butlerian Jihad was, just it's long term effects.

Don't get me wrong, I love his style of storytelling, Dune is my all time favorite series of books. That why I listed him in a list of the best.

Dune has loads of world building, what are you talking about? Do you not know anything of Fremen culture? Anything of the structure of the empire? The guild and its navigators?

I wonder if it was written by AI like this article.

That headline alone makes me want to avoid it

Adrian Tchaikovsky does a fantastic job of world building.

He has several different series going, and each one is unique.

The Tyrant Philosophers books are completely different than the Children of Time.

Tolkien's going to be near the top of this list: his stories were essentially a side effect of his world building, itself a side effect of his language building.

Eddings' Belgariad (etc) had a brilliant world, the story came naturally out of the world, rather than merely being situated in it.

Herbert, Frank: none of his stories do any world building. You're just supposed to get a glimpse of it from the stories.

J.R.R. Tolkien by a furlong

Lemmy and Piefed users are screaming, wondering why Yahoo has decided to market this one specific book.

I remember enjoying them but not sure if I read them all honestly if the last was in 91.

Children of Time is how a multitude of people discovered AT and I’m stoked for that. He deserves the praise and accolades without question. I read it after Final Architecture and just kept going, looking for the next book by him. It can be a multi year endeavor to read his entire catalogue.

The only one that didn’t grab me was the first book of Tyrant Philosopher series so I dnf’d. I’ll comeback to it one day.

The other novellas I adore are The Hungry Gods and Elder Race.

Good reading and chatting my friend. Oh and my absolute favorite thing about e-books is being able to peruse the library and finding something instantaneously to read. Amazing.

I think Children of time was the first thing of his that I read. I had fleshed out my reading list by adding all of the Hugo and Nebula nominees that sounded interesting to me, but I didn't know anything else about it. I was blown away and devoured the series. I think it's one of the all-time great SF series. I read Dogs of War recently, and liked it very well. Shroud is amazing. His fantasy stuff is pretty great, too.

Yep both of those great reasons for e-books. And yes AT has been my favorite contemporary author for the last few years, just discovered Mielville in 2025 and been absolutely blown away by the prose and scope of his works. Embassytown still impacts my thinking and haunts me daily.

I started reading AT’s Final Architecture after I read The Expanse for the second time about 5 years ago and that was my first foray into his work. He’s so damn prolific and wide ranging. I still prefer FA and Dogs of War series to Children of Time, but that may be me pushing against the popularity of it.

Shroud, Cage of Souls, Doors of Eden are my favorite novels and novellas Ogres..spacing out the 2 or 3 that really stand out. He’s an international treasure for sure.

Yeah, I was at 71 or 72 books in 2025. 16 books so far this year.

I like the Mielville books, but I have to space them out because they're often kind of soul crushing. Tchaikovsky is my favorite contemporary for sure. I made a post about him a while back. I haven't read Strife yet, but I've read an awful lot of his other works. He's honestly brilliant, though some of his books seem like he spent a lot more energy on them than others.

I used to prefer physical books, but started with ebooks when I was traveling for work and didn't want to deal with the weight and mass. Two things have made me a convert. One is that I love, love, love being able to long-press on a word and have the dictionary come up. The other is that I like reading in bed before sleeping with the lights off and the screen in dark mode. With physical books I have to have a light on, and it's much less conducive to sleeping.

I hear that..I started using the library last year and read over 50 books in 2025. I was searching for a new career and took full advantage of my time. Started a new gig a few months ago and went from a book a week to one every few months.

Just finished Perdido Street Station by China Mielville who’s my new favorite contemporary author, right up there w Adrian Tchaikovsky and JSAC. Just starting Children of Strife today and have Faith of Beasts on deck.

I much prefer old school analog printed books, e-books are okay and audiobooks don’t work for me.

I just checked and almost none of Zelazny's stuff is available in ebook format, which is mostly what I read. My son gave me a cool leatherbound version of The Great Book of Amber, which is how I read those. I read so much that I mostly go through the library for my books, and do it digital. I'll see though. It's even possible I have the paperback in the garage.