Good science fiction and fantasy books?

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What are your favorites? I'm always looking for stories that are fun, etc, but have a bare minimum of drama (which just makes me ill or wears me out). Like currently I'm reading The White Road by Flewelling, but too much drama. I can't stop reading because I want to see what happens, but its wearying, too. I wouldn't read another like it.

^^Greetings GumbyLives. I have included a little list below of fantasy and science fiction novels that I enjoy. I am very sorry however as I believe that I have not read a very large number of bookies (my poor concentration often enjoyed taking walkies within the past however not so much as of late).

The Gunslinger by Stephen King (I believe this is one of my favourite bookies I believe however is very dark in theme)
Running with the Demon by Terry Brooks
Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett
Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien

Stranger in a Strange Land
Dune
Ringworld

Cryptonomicon By Neal Stephenson is one of my favorites.

Almost anything by Terry Pratchett, provided you have a high tolerance for dry humor and British colloquialisms. ("I expect they'll get on like a house afire." "Ah, lots of running and screaming, and a building destroyed?")

James White's Sector General stories are pretty good - most of the stories revolve around medical struggles, although there are occasional personal issues as well (like the time Dr. Conway had to take a Melfan educator tape, imprinting the knowledge of a Melfan master surgeon into his mind, in order to teach some Melfans a new surgical technique - only to find himself falling in love with one of his students, a creature resembling a giant crab).

Spider Robinson's Callahan's Place stories (start with Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, if you can) are good; they kind of tread the fine line between SF and fantasy, and Spider thinks outside the box (the second story caused someone to cancel his Analog subscription, just because the Time Traveler of the title did it the hard way - got locked up in a prison in a banana republic in 1961, and freed in 1973 without having heard anything at all about the outside world in 12 years). They're also short stories, at least until after the gang moves to Florida (for good story reasons), when Spider started writing actual novels about them.

Discworld series. I'm now in Making Money and it's funny.

1984 by george orwel.
artemis fowl all of them though there realy childrens stories.
the hobbit and lord of the rings.

srry saw the post on the front page didn't realize it was womans discusion

Here are some good authors:

J.G. Ballard
Phillip K. Dick
William Gibson
Bruce Sterling
Neal Stephenson
Clive Barker
Neil Gaiman especially American Gods
The Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
the Temeraire series by Naomi Novic - a sci-fi set in Napoleonic Britain; Napoleon has control of most of the European continent and the only thing defending Britain's shores is its flying corps: Aviators upon great dragons. The series is based around Captain Will Laurance and his dragon, Temeraire.
The Abhorsen Trilogy and The Gatekeepers series both by Garth Nix
The Inheritance series (aka the Eragon series) by Christopher Paolini

Gatekeepers is more of a teen/young adult series, but the books are very good anyway.

Anything by Isaac Asimov (my fav), particularly his foundation series starting with I robot all the way through Foundations Edge (which I think was his last). I love this because it starts with the year 2000 and goes all the way into the future where Earth was just a myth and nobody knows for sure if it exists. Excellent series.

Walden Two by B.F. Skinner

Stranger in a strange land and 1984 were really good too.

I like many of Marion Zimmer Bradley's works. They're VERY long, but the following are worth getting through:

I recently bought THE FIREBRAND (reading it now) and THE MISTS OF AVALON from Amazon.com--I'd read them both years earlier (library copies). The first is a retelling of the Trojan War from the perspective of the princess/prophetess Cassandra (spelled Kassandra in the book). The second is a retelling of the Arthurian legend from Morgan le Fay's perspective.

I also read THE FOREST HOUSE (Roman invasion of the British Isles) and THE FALL OF ATLANTIS.

Other authors: Jim Butcher's DRESDEN FILES series, Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett's GOOD OMENS, Douglas Adams' HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE series.
I read SINGULARITY by William Sleator in middle school. Definitely a YA book, but still very good.

I also liked STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, DUNE, 1984, BRAVE NEW WORLD, FAHRENHEIT 451, SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE...what else...I read PODKAYNE OF MARS (I think that's by Heinlein) once, but don't remember it very well.

Oh, and finally (though this is technically horror), anything by H.P. Lovecraft.

I forgot about good omens. That's good too. I have not read anything else by that author but I know someone who loves him.

Waiting for the Galactic Bus is pretty good too.

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card.

recently i discovered charles stross. i am hard sf fan (don't like fantasy except maybe amber series from zelazny) and really liked Accelerando.
also liked Rainbows End by vernon vinge.

GumbyLives, I would actually recommend that you not read 1984 or Ender's Game - they are both excellent works, but from your first post, they're a bit too dramatic for you to properly enjoy them. I think the same may go for King's Dark Tower series (which begins with The Gunslinger), but I wasn't able to get all the way through the first volume - the writing was far too affected for my tastes - so I can't speak to the "drama" aspect.

You guys are awesome!