Fishing around for some new reading material, and remember that a RAFO Top ## list had been discussed, figured I'd do two for one.

For my part I don't like stand-alone too much, one book and it is done, and even a trilogy doesn't always get a very flushed out universe so I'll specify some conditions:

1. Must be composed of at least 4 books, and a trilogy plus an anthology or lone prequel should be avoided.

2. Is not the novelization of some movie, TV series, or video game like Star Trek or Star Wars or Star Craft, or for that matter a RPG like Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Warhammer 40k, etc.

I'm also going to disqualify a handful for just being so common on these sorts of lists or conversation that they're redundant to talk about, and aim for lesser known ones.

Disqualified
Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide
Anthony - Xanth, Incarnations, Mode
Asimov - Foundation/Robot Series
Banks - Culture
Butcher - Dresden Files and Codex Alera
Burroughs - Barsoom
Card - Ender's Game
Clarke - 2001 and Rama
Cook - Black Company
Donaldson - Thomas Covenant and Gap
Eddings - Belgariad and Sparhawk
Erikson - Malazan
Feist - Riftwar
Goodkind - Sword of Truth
Heinlein - Future History and Lazarus Long
Herbert - Dune
Jordan - Wheel of Time
Le Guin - Earthsea
King - Dark Tower
Martin - aSoIaF
McCaffrey - Pern
Niven - Known Space
Pratchett - Discworld
Rice - Interview with a Vampire, etc
Simmons - Hyperion
Smith - Lensmen
Tolkien - LotR
Weber - Honor Harrington
Wolfe - Book of the New sun
Zelazny - Chronicles of Amber

I'm doubtless leaving off some there, feel free to add them, and obviously your mileage may vary on those. Certainly mine does, I've either read all those, tried reading and didn't get into it, or tried it and hated it. I'll include my own lesser known ones with why I liked them in a follow up, what can you add and why would you add it?