Phoo-ee! A lot of fun to read the entire thread, and while I don't know many of the abominations that show up here, I can honestly say I understand your pain.
I disagree on David Eddings writing nothing but bad books. I find the
Belgariad a very intriguing tale, lots of humorous situations in there that crack me up a good many times. I don't know about his later works (except the successor of the
Belgariad, but I trust your opinion
Dreamer: It's nice to see you mention
Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. Some seven years ago, when I did my best to read all fantasy novels in the local library, I stumbled across
Sword of Shannara. I hadn't read
Lord of the Rings back then so I thought the story was pretty stupid. Suffice to say, the book is on the shelf as I'm typing this. I reread it a year or so ago, and was astonished by how many the man had stolen from
Lord of the Rings!

Not only is Shea small (*cough*hobbit*cough*) he also basically travels the exact same path as Frodo does; cut off from the party, struggling with his burden blah blah.
His later works DO improve, though. In the follow-up for
Sword of Shannara, entitled
The Elfstones of Shannara, Terry Brooks heads in a total different direction. He actually comes up with a decent storyline (about a tree called the Ellcrys which supposedly protects the Elven nation from utter destruction by a demon army), with nice plot twists and suspense because of chasing demons. And in my opinion it only gets better with the invention of his 'Wishsong', especially the
Heritage of Shannara. I can recommend that, honestly! [img]smile.gif[/img]
What I like about Brooks as well is the large scale battles he tells about (main reason for me liking
The Elfstones. Raymond E. Feist did that too with
A Darkness over Sethanon but I'm not an overly fan of that series. Pug has become a munchkin and sometimes I don't understand what happened (like the ending in the Riftwar saga).
Sooo on to the book that I think was utter crap. I think my vote has to go to
Sword of Shannara. I can't think of anything else really. Most books on my shelf are things I've bought myself because I liked it already. Nothing sensationally bad (except for Brooks [img]smile.gif[/img] )
I advise you to read Philip Pullman's
His Dark Materials if you're open minded to fantasy. It's not your average tale about elves and dwarves, totally different. And it's one of best book series I've ever read. There's three books in the series;
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- The Golden Compass (also known as Northern Lights)</font>
- The Subtle Knife</font>
- The Amber Spyglass</font>