It's Tsuranuani.
To be technical.

Did someone just claim discworld... no, I won't go there, people are entitled to their opinions.

And if you think Salvatore or even Jordan is the best author alive, I have two words and some titles for you;

George Martin

-A Game of thrones
-A Clash of Kings
-A Storm of Swords

(and of course, let us not forget the writer the effectively created the genre: tolkien)

Who is this "Tolkien" You speak of? I am sure he can not match up to the man who wrote books such as the Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

*hiss* I hate Tolkien with a passion, if only because everyone seems to think he is some fantasy literature GOD, when he isn't. His books are good, but he is hardly THAT good.

There's a difference between deep and psychedelic. I read the first few pages of discworld and from the description of the world being on the back of a giant turtle, I dismissed it as the work of a crack smoker and put it on the hippy pile, in between Alice in Wonderland and the first Wheel of Time.

Since Forgotten Realms was one of the first mediaeval fantasy worlds, and doesn't involve giant turtles and what was the other one, treasure chests with legs, obviously it will be 'bland' to your tastes.

If Faerun is 'bland', Middle Earth is surely the blandest of the bland, and yet even with the noticeable lack of characterisation, it's considered a timeless masterpiece. Everyone is entitled to their tastes. Marcalo, Revan and I clearly prefer classical fantasy genres, and you prefer reading about giant turtles and walking chests.

Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - nuff said

Another good series is the Sword of Truth, by Terry Goodkind. It has it's flaws (Khalan is a depressingly weak character, in my eyes), but it's very entertaining and a must read for fantasy fans. No twelve legged suitcases or giant turtles

OI, Don't knock Alive in Wonderland.
That's the best drugtrip I've ever ha.... nevermind.

I'm not sure I would say Salvatore is the 'best,' but I will certainly say he has these two things going for him:

1. Incorporating issues like racism, sexism, and moral/ethical differences in a way that is particularly accessible to younger audiences, but still interesting to everyone.
2. Best. Combat. Writer. Ever. Seriously, the Artemis/Drizzt fights are the best written fight scenes, and every fight is a great, great read. Period. F'ing brilliant.

I wouldn't classify Discworld as a deep and involving fantasy world, especially since it's really humorous on most levels and draw the majority of its contents from myths. I doubt Terry Brachett would argue against that.

Currently reading the Wayward Redemption by Sarah Douglas though, pretty good book with some unique twists. My favorite fantasy trilogy has to be His Dark Materials though.

Spot on about the combat. It's almost impossible to write such detailed combat scenes without becoming confused or tedious. He also has an admirable understanding for Forgotten Realms, and a few of his scenes are poignant enough to really leave an imprint of Faerun in your mind.

Unfortunately I think Salvatore's MAIN characters are all a little too underdeveloped in the Drizzt series, though with the Cleric Quintet he manages to develop the central characters, especially the bad guys.

Cleric Quintet was an amazing series, and I believe that several factors led into this: 1) It says in the forward that Salvatore WANTED to write a series about a cleric instead of his Drizzt works. 2) It gave him a chance to experiment beyond the boundaries of his previous writings. 3) It gave him more room to bash wizards (for some reason, I think Salvatore has an innate hatred for wizards).

As for his Drizzt books, they've always been marvelous. His newest compositions show that he's growing stronger as a writer too, if you compare, say... Two Swords to Icewind Dale.

Never read it. I'm interested now though.

He left the disastrous attempt which was Drizzt (in the later books, the mystery was good to start with) and excelled himself utterly with Cadderly. The best part of the series (beside Allibaster in the first book) was seeing the transition of Cadderly from peaceful, FRUSTRATINGLY NAIVE and dull as hell guy to the priest who kicked everyone around.

Hmm... Doodad

And that was just lame. I got bored of it after ten minutes. If I wanted Redwall, I'd be 8 years old again and reading Redwall.

Caddery was overpowered at the end flat out. I think it was an awsome series and is what got me into his writing(Artemis all the way mind you!) and opened up alot of parts for other books to add in and gave room for nice plots that intergrated the changes into their books. His combat is great but the odd time it confuses me and I have to re-read it.

I actually thought his attempt at bringing Drizzt halfway across the world to Cadderly was ridiculously forced and fake, not suiting the plotline in the slightest.

I think it was more to unify the realms so to speak. It was good because it showed how events in one book and characters affected the flow of other adventurers, but maybe too lengthy of a distance to be realistic.

Amaru doesn't even like anime!