Yes, there is that, I have always felt the site could use a recommendation list - Edit 1
Before modification by Isaac at 17/02/2013 02:49:43 AM
List of best this and that and the reviews by members. If I were less lazy I might even compile a linked list of the existing reviews
I suppose it's eye of the beholder, one of the problems that series have is that the sheer detail of the setting and length of the plot removes the ability to have as much unexpected plot twists or awe people with a new setting. On the other hand you can really focus down on characters, not that this is always a good idea.
Same, I rather enjoyed Coldfire's magical system, although I think the cover art sold me originally, Michael Whelan (did the cover for aMoL and Green Angel Tower) did a great job on Black Sun Rising. Robinson I just can't get into, a lot of the twenty minutes into the future solar system colonization books kind of fall flat for me, not sure why. If it were a trilogy list I'd definitely put both on there though.
I'm not really all that puritanical and I'm perfectly fine with the protagonist who sleeps in more beds than a hotel reviewer, I just find most romance sub-plots contrived and unrealistic and the graphic sex scenes always seem about as appropriate as it would be to have a ten-minute porn scene between Scarlett and Rhett embedded into Gone with the Wind, except that would actually be a bit more justified by plot then a lot of the fan-service scenes in some books.
Fishing for series I feel like reading and figured I'd save people time by listing all the ones I'd tried, love, hate, or meh, and that meshes nicely with keeping an actual list. Maybe if it gets to a good size we can split into chunks for quickpoll and develop a site list. Though my own motives are purely selfish, I want something to read and the nice thing about long series is that if you don't like it you don't like it but if you do you will generally find the next ones good, something that's a bit less true of unrelated books by the same author.
Thinking about that last bit, I'm actually not sure if I agree... for the big fantasy series of the past decades, fans have spent impressive amounts of energy debating the merits of the various books in each series, complaining about new books in a series, and so on. In a series stretching beyond a certain amount of books, you're almost guaranteed to have weaker books in some places, that annoy the fans (though they generally don't keep most fans from reading on anyway, that much is true). Whereas there are enough authors, in SF/F or elsewhere, who can be relied upon to deliver a good book with every stand-alone effort they publish.
I suppose it's eye of the beholder, one of the problems that series have is that the sheer detail of the setting and length of the plot removes the ability to have as much unexpected plot twists or awe people with a new setting. On the other hand you can really focus down on characters, not that this is always a good idea.
But anyway, yeah, can be helpful to have an extensive list of series, although your exclusion of trilogies still seems a bit odd to me, since it excludes renowned works like e.g. C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy (which I've read) and Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy (which I haven't), both of which are probably rather more fleshed out than several longer series on your list.
Same, I rather enjoyed Coldfire's magical system, although I think the cover art sold me originally, Michael Whelan (did the cover for aMoL and Green Angel Tower) did a great job on Black Sun Rising. Robinson I just can't get into, a lot of the twenty minutes into the future solar system colonization books kind of fall flat for me, not sure why. If it were a trilogy list I'd definitely put both on there though.
I'm usually bored by the romantic subplots of most books, and I usually find any scene more descriptive then 'and they embraced and shared a deep kiss [end chapter]... the next morning' unnecessary.
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is the only one I've read by him and I tend to think of that as a trilogy. I don't know why I've never gotten around to reading Otherland, I do remember the prologue tohugh, probably worht another try.
Well, okay, I guess it was a trilogy, originally, with To Green Angel Tower being split into two books only for the paperback version. Being concise was never one of Williams' strengths, and in Otherland he isn't either, but I loved it. That series also has an amazing heroine, incidentally, this one perhaps more puritan and more to your taste. 
I'm not really all that puritanical and I'm perfectly fine with the protagonist who sleeps in more beds than a hotel reviewer, I just find most romance sub-plots contrived and unrealistic and the graphic sex scenes always seem about as appropriate as it would be to have a ten-minute porn scene between Scarlett and Rhett embedded into Gone with the Wind, except that would actually be a bit more justified by plot then a lot of the fan-service scenes in some books.