Top 5 Journeys in fiction

Watership Down, by Richard Adams.

The actual distance traveled was probably only a few miles, but for rabbits not used to a steady pace of travel, it was an epic journey. They left a doomed home, crossed an unfamiliar land, and found a safe place for generations to come.

I cannot recommend this novel enough.

Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard.

Wonderful, wonderful book about a physical and spiritual journey.

I have to agree with Watership Down - it was the first book I'd ever read that I would consider a great epic journey. And I loved it ! I still do.

for me it's not LOTR, but The Hobbit. For me it was a much more personal trip, Bilbo was truly a fish out of water, than the travel of the fellowship of the ring. Maybe it's because I was a year or two younger when I read the Hobbit than LOTR, but for some reason everything in the Hobbit seemed more grand and larger than life. Bilbo didn't cover as much ground as Frodo and Sam, geographically or internally, but for me I guess the first adventure is always the grandest.

I absolutely love Waterhip Down. I need to read it every couple of years. It is simply wonderful.

Little House on the Prairie series.

Laura Ingalls and her family travelled from Wisconsin to Kansas some places between to end up in De Smet South Dakota. She grew up with America.

The only fantasy I've ever read...


The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan.

So far, an 11 book journey zig zaggin aaaaaaaaaall over the place.

Lord of the Rings (I don't have to explain this one)
David Copperfield (a journey from birth to old man, as well as some actual physical travelling)
Slaughter-House Five (a journey through time)
The first Wheel of Time book (so much promise...shame)
Either Jingo or the Fifth Elephant

Alan Dean Foster's Ice Rigger. An epic journey on a frozen planet.

Tri

His Dark materials: journey through countless worlds, including the land of the dead and back home again, whilst bringing down organised religion along the way. A good days work in my book.

Dune
Treasure Island
The Hobbit
The Stand
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Let's not forget our roots, classic to pulp (pick your own five):

The Odyssey, by Homer
The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Don Quixote, by Cervantes
The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, by Jules Verne
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
A Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, by Edgar Allan Poe
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
A High Wind in Jamaica, by Richard Hughes
Out of the Silent Planet, by C. S. Lewis
Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift
The Covered Wagon, by Emerson Hough
Pellucidar, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
At the Mountains of Madness, by H. P. Lovecraft
King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard
King--of the Khyber Rifles, by Talbot Mundy

That's enough for this week.

caw.

Dragonworld by Byron Priess and Michael Reaves

Children in two countries are killed and each blames the other for it. One man on one of the countries is thought to be a spy from the other land because of his many "wizardy" inventions. The man flees to the other country to try to prevent a war. Then, he embarks on a journey another land that was once the home of great dragons to learn the truth about the children deaths.


Phylogenesis by Alan Dean Foster

Two anti-socials--one Human, one of the insect-like Thranx--journey around the Amazon and get captured by a couple of Poachers


Dragon Companion by Don Callander

A librarian teams up with a dragon to save a kingdom from dividing in a family feud.

I absolutely loved The Wild Road by Gabriel King. If you're a cat lover, it's an amazing and wonderful story not to miss.

Godfather said:

The only fantasy I've ever read...


The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan.

So far, an 11 book journey zig zaggin aaaaaaaaaall over the place.

Click to expand...

Fantastic series, and the best ive read yet.

Favorite: possibly the Hitchhiker's Guide 'trilogy' (kind of an easy choice)

Disappointment: Soul Mountain, by Gao Xingjian. It won the Nobel Prize for Literature, so it must be me. But I found it to be a pointless ramble. It didn't even leave me unsatisfied; it just made me want those hours back.

The first one to come to mind for me is Jean M Auel's 'Earth's Children' series.
Someone above me mentioned Little House on the Prairie, probably the one that first piqued my interest in that type of story.

I'd say, the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy series.

I also think the Journey (Physical journey, there was barely an emotional journey) in The Descent by Jeff Long is good. It may just seem like that because the rest of the book was so thoroughly mediocre.

The Odyssey.

Blacbird mentioned most of mine, except for:

Around the World in 80 Days

Lonesome Dove

Canterbury Tales

Bayou Bill

Star Wars is the most epic thing that i have ever read, watched, or .... ate?

Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber

Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

Pete Tzinski's From Gray Mists, Returned

Neil Gaiman's Stardust and/or Neverwhere and/or American Gods and/or Sandman.

I'll think of a few more modern day classics shortly, no doubt.

Dr. Zhivago -- both physical and personal journeys; both epics.

The Incredible Journey
Watership Down AND Maia (by the same author)
The Hobbit
Lord Foul's Bane (Thomas Covenant series)
On The Road

anything by Roger Zelazny, Chronicles of Amber especially. (that's seven, sorry)

(edit) How could I forget my two favorite novels-- Finnegans Wake and Ulysses, both by the same screwed up alcoholic weirdo...?

(I originally typed "Odysseus", boy am I, um, dumb!)