Ok, three book series that I found on my own, without being recommended by anyone? I can't go contemporary or modern as movies have really wrecked reading books for me - I'm tired of reading something and trying to hold a conversation about it only to have someone say "Did you see the movie?". But my list, and I'm surprised none of these has been mentioned yet:

Guardians of the Flame, Joel Rosenberg. Wonderful series of books, and I found them at a library when I was really young and just starting to discover role-playing. This is literally every gamer's dream - group of gamers, in the middle of an adventure, get transported to the actual world as their characters. First book is amazing, 2-4 are good, 5-7 suck.

Incarnations of Immortality, Piers Anthony. Read On a Pale Horse completely by accident, thinking it would be more about the implications of death and dying than a sci-fi tale about how people start to become the different immortals. Every book in the series is a must-read.

The Gandalara Cycle, Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron. Another one of those books where some normal person here on Earth ends up finding themselves on an alternate world of fantasy and magic, and having to fight someone else's battles. Really strange series of books, and I had to read them a few times to understand everything. But fantastic, nonetheless.

C.G. Jung's Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity, by Robert Aziz (sounds a little dry, I know, but it absolutely blew my mind.)
Frank, by Jim Woodring (imagine a sort of wordless Mickey Mouse comic done by William S. Burroughs)
Tales of Three Hemispheres, by Lord Dunsany (sort of like the best of Tolkien and Lovecraft combined, and written before either)

Faded sun trilogy. Awesome space story by C. J. Cherryh

the godslayer series. It is such an interesting take on how gods work by James Clemens

The belgariad. by david eddings. No idea where I first found it but hot damn I loved that book series so goddamn much. Ancient prophecy, kid realizing destiny in a big way, killing a god. it is a five part book series and includes 2 distinct 5 book chains to end up with the realization of a prophecy that had existed for billions of years

Here are mine:

• Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
• A Song of Ice and Fire by G.R.R Martin
• Sandman by Neil Gaiman

1. The Godspeaker Trilogy: 'Empress of Mijak, The Riven Kingdom and Hammer of the God' by Karen Millar. Adult fantasy, like pretty much all the books I've read... found it in the adult fantasy book section in Waterstones!

2. Mistborn Trilogy: 'The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages' by Brandon Sanderson. Again Adult Fantasy, I found them in Waterstones again after looking at stuff for the Black Magician Trilogy. I did not find them through Wheel of Time Series because I still haven't started reading them yet (XD)

3. Pegasus in Flight by Anne McCaffrey. Found this hidden among the Dragonriders of Pern on my family bookshelf and just had to read it... Brilliant Sci-fi book...

The first one is definetely a less well known fantasy book. There's numerous more which I found in Waterstones Fantasy Section (I spend a lot of time looking there) and many more I found while scanning through my school fiction library...

1.Alan Lewrie by Dewey Lambdin

Napoleonic naval fiction.

2.Tales of the Ketty Jay by Chris Wooding

Airships, diesel punk, sky pirates and the occasional demon. Surprisingly deep characters.

3.Singularity Sky by Charles Stross

Very hard Scifi.

Love Charlie Stross ( I'm reading the laundry series presently), and I need to know more of this diesel punk book. . . . Google fu time.

(working on a diesel punk/ Raygun gothic game presently)

I've only read Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise. I really liked the setting but as far as I know he hasn't written any more books about it, which is a shame since it's got so much potential.

No 1. Necroscope series, by Brian Lumley
All about a boy who learns he can speak to the dead. How Vampires TRULY came to earth and their origins, and about Soviet Super Spies.

Harry Keogh is a necroscope – he knows the thoughts of corpses in their graves. Unfortunately for Harry, his talent works both ways. The outer limits of horror are unleashed when Harry Keogh is recruited by the E-Branch (E for ESP) of the British Secret Service to combat his own evil counterpart, the deadly Romanian Boris Dragosani.

Long buried in hallowed ground, bound by earth and silver, the master vampire schemes and plots. Trapped in unlife, neither dead nor living, Thibor Ferenczy hungers for freedom and revenge.

The vampire's human tool is Boris Dragosani, part of a super-secret Soviet spy agency. Dragosani is an avid pupil, eager to plumb the depthless evil of the vampire's mind. Ferenczy teaches Dragosani the awful skills of the necromancer, gives him the ability to rip secrets from the mind and bodies of the dead.

Dragosani works not for Ferenczy's freedom but is in the pay of an ultra-secret Soviet paranormal agency over which he means to gain power for himself with knowledge raped from the dead. His speciality is tearing secrets from the souls of newly dead traitors.

His only opponent: Harry Koegh. Like Dragosani, Harry is a necroscope who can speak with the dead. But Harry is a champion of the dead – and the living.

From the Romanian mausoleum where the undead vampire tests the limits of his bonds, the stage is set for the most horrifying, violent supernatural confrontation ever when Harry Keogh is recruited by the British Secret Service to take on Dragosani.

To protect Harry, the dead will do anything – even rise from their graves!

Still one of the best series of Fantasy / Sci-Fi I have read (and I've been reading that genre for about 30 years) 5 Books in the first Series, 5 Books in the Second Series (Vampire World)

No 2. Magician series, by Raymond E. Fiest I know peeps go on about Jordan's Wheel of Time series, but a lot of it was really a yawn (and it became quite predictable). Feist created lovable characters in a world where Lesser and Greater magic were sort after. I mean Jimmy the Hand, Polgara, Belgarath (and of course Balgarian) are characters which will live forever in your memory after reading these books ... and yes there are still books being written about Feist's world now (The Riftwar Saga 2)

No 3. Apprentice Adept series, by Piers Anthoney. A 7 book series about the character named Stile and a Juxtaposition between a science fiction world and a fantasy world (complete with Unicorns and fey creatures). Absolutely awesome.

I've given you a Fantasy / Horror, a pure Fantasy and a Sci-Fi / Fantasy, all of these books were written before quite a few peeps on here were even born, but they are all amazing

I take it no one is mentioning Lord of the Rings ??? When I was 9, I hated reading, I wouldn't read anything so my English Teacher made me a deal. If i read the book she gave me, she would write a note that I would never have to read another book again ... (of course she couldn't do that, but at 9, I didn't know that) ... and she handed me the Hobbit ... hence started my love for Fantasy (and from there Sci-Fi). After the Hobbit, I read Ursula Le Quinn's The Earthsea Trilogy, LLoyd Alexander's The Black Cauldron and of course ...
... Lord of the Rings

I've been an avid reader ever since ... that was near on 30 years ago ...

Now this is interesting. I have to spread across a couple of genres though.

1) Bernard Cromwell's Richard Sharpe series - I found these books before learning about all those kick ass Brit films.

2) Warhammer 40K's Ciaphas Cain the greatest anti-hero ever.

3)Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Darksword books. Anything from these two is typically good, but this series was outstanding to me. They even tried to make their own RPG for it.