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 try to list off all the really common ones on these sorts of lists or conversations as well as few others that come to mind, and add them in as people think of them.

The List So Far
Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide
Anderson - Saga of the Seven Suns
Anthony - Xanth, Incarnations, Mode
Asimov - Foundation/Robot Series
Banks - Culture
Butcher - Dresden Files and Codex Alera
Burroughs - Barsoom
Bradley - Avalon and Darkover
Brooks - Shannara
Card - Ender's Game
Cherryh - Foriegn and Alliance-Union
Clarke - 2001 and Rama
Cook - Black Company
Donaldson - Thomas Covenant and Gap
Drake - Hammer Salmmers and Lord of the Isles
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
Reynolds - Revelation Sapce
Rice - Interview with a Vampire, etc
Sanderson - Mistborn/Cosmere
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, and added a few of my own that probably don't parallel most of the entries, 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, for instance, am a Dune fan and thus not terribly fond of Kevin Anderson, but he does sell a lot of books.