Recent Fantasy Book Recommendations

[Yora]

I love fantasy, I love reading. I really love some fantasy writers from half a century ago, but I actually have not found any newly written and released books that look appealing in decades.

The big problem I always have is that its very difficult to actually learn about the existence of books that might appeal to me. When you go looking for book recommendations and best fantasy books of the past years, you get a lot of results, but almost universally you only get a title and "ohmygosh ermahgerd I love this so much! Best thing ever! Everyone has to read it!" That only tells me that someone liked it, but nothing about what the book is about.

I think it would be great to have people make recommendations for fantasy books from the past few year (post-2000?) that they come across and liked, with maybe a paragraph of description what the book is about, and a paragraph of what makes it interesting.

I do have my own preferences of what I would like to read, but I don't think those fantasy books have been written in the past 30 years, so I'm not asking for that specifically. I'd like to know what's out there and what qualities make the books interesting for readers who are into those kinds of things.

[Eldan]

Some preferences would still help, though... those preferences are enormously broad. Subgenre at least, maybe? Urban, Heroic, Epic? Weird fiction?

I'm going to assume you're at least familiar with the big big names, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, George Martin?

My favourite underdiscussed modern fantasy author is China Miéville. Even though I like less than half the books of his I've read and he has only written a few. Anyway. Miéville has two things that I think make him an interesting author: first, he is a very educated and very outspoken socialist, members of the worker's party, PhD on marxism and international law and second he kind of hates a lot of traditional fantasy clichés. He has written some essays on authors like Tolkien that I strongly disagree with, but they are at least interesting.

Anyway, his most recommendable (and I'd say more or less second best) work is Perdido Street Station. A short summary is that it's about a group of normal-ish people (an artist, a scientist, a journalist, a petty criminal), who get accidentally involved in a shady deal between the fascist city government and organized crime. From there on, things go out of control, involving drugs, nightmare-inducing monsters, weapons of mass destruction, an eldritch creature from a paralell dimension, an almost-perpetuum mobile and a socialist revolution which is brutally crushed by the secret police. It's all set in a world that looks a lot like a classical D&D world, with 1930s technology, including various nonhuman humanoid races and magic. It's overall quite brutal and dark in places and it's been called "oppressive" in atmosphere, though I've also heard it called too long, too wordy and too much in love with its authors own cleverness. I like it a lot.

I you haven't read that one, Jonathan Strange & Mister Norell, which is another huge doorstopper, but otherwise extremely different. Except maybe for, again, wordiness. It's basically what happens if you take several Victorian novels (maybe something written by a soldier about the Napoleonic Wars, several Jane Austen Novels and a bit of Dickens), but set them all in a world that assumes that magic exists or once existed and is treated as a historical fact. Britain has a paralell world of Faerie (Heaven and Hell also exist, but play less of a role), and occasionally promising individuals make pacts with various elf lords for magical power, most prominent of which is the Raven King, who ruled the Northern half of England for several centuries, starting at just after William the Conqueror's time. The story follows the two titular gentlemen Strange and Norell, who, independently of each other, bring magic back to Britain after it was lost for a few centuries, and then offer their magical powers to the British Government (because they are proper patriots) to fight Napoleon. Apart from the politics and the drawing room banter, it has a lot of pseudohistorical digressions (including one famous footnote on a page that goes on for several pages itself), aand a lot of very nicely written poetic faerie tales and legends.

[JeenLeen]

I'm a big fan of Brandon Sanderson. He's a decent-to-good writer, but I really enjoy the setting and magic systems in his books. (Though I can see why some wouldn't.) In most of his books, there is a pretty hard 'science' to how the magic works, even if it's not known to most or all of the magic-users. Part of the fun of reading is figuring out, and following the characters as they figure out, the nuances of the system; or the surprise and neatness of seeing someone really adept at the system pull off something you didn't anticipate.

Of his recent books, Warbreaker is pretty good. Medieval-esque setting. The first three Mistborn books are also good (though maybe not within the 2000 cutoff for the first one, not sure); the world sorta ended a few centuries/millennia ago and now a totalitarian, immortal Lord Ruler governs what's left of humanity with an iron fist, and you read from the perspective of some rebels. (The later ones are also good, but set in a Western-like time frame later in the same planet.)
For a more epic (and longer) feel, he's been working on a series of books that start with The Way of Kings.

[Eldan]

I wouldn't recommend the Way of Kings, currently. I thought the first one was excellent, but the second and third sort of became rambling and unfocused to me, introducing too many new elements at once and kinda destroying what made the first one interesting to me (politics and worldbuilding. It shifted from there to superpowers and the apocalypse, with more and more ever extreme dangers thrown in.)

Warbreaker is the one I'd most recommend to a newcomer, it's one of his shorter works and it is relatively closed off and knows where it's going. There's a few sequel hooks, but it has a clear ending.

[JoshL]

Akata Witch - Nnedi Okorafor
Best described as if Harry Potter was in Africa. Young girl gets a magical education, but based on African traditions rather than European. It is brilliant, fun and different.

Everything by NK Jemisin.
The Inheritance series is about a society that has grown to power by trapping the gods in flesh, and what happens when an heir to the throne who had grown up in a remote village is brought to the capital city. The Broken Earth series is post-apocalyptic science fantasy about earth mages, and knowing as little as possible before reading it is good here. All three books won a Hugo, and it is well deserved.

Archivist Wasp - Nicole Kornher-Stace
Post-apocalyptic YA book with ghosts. If "post-apocalyptic ghostbuster" sounds remotely appealing, you'll love this. The sequel is great too.

Most of his books are a little older, but Charles de Lint put out a lot in the 2000s, and I never pass up an opportunity to recommend his Newford books. Urban fantasy, fairies and native American spirits living beside the modern world, some heavy emotional topics dealt with. The Onion Girl (2001) and Widdershins (2007) are two of my all time favorite books, but you should read Dreams Underfoot (1993) first as an intro to the world/characters, which blurs the line between short story collection and novel. Bonus recommendation points if you have an interest in Celtic folk music.

[JeenLeen]

The Codex Alera books are pretty interesting as well. Humans have the ability to bind (or manifest) elemental spirits to do, well, magic. Not to give away spoilers, but the scale of the conflict does escalate exponentially as the book continues. But it's a cool and fairly original magic system, with different systems for some other races, and unique setting.
Link with some info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Alera

Orson Scott Card used to be one of my favorite authors, but I've grown less fond of him in time and see more flaws in his writing style. And, in general, I think his sci-fi is better than his fantasy. But, of his modern fiction, The Lost Gate is pretty good. Basically all the Norse and Greek and other pantheons are still around (in a sense; if one Thor dies, another with similar powers is named the new Thor), and this follows one of them. It's book 1 of 3, and the latter books are subpar, so that can be disappointing. But if you think you'd enjoy an unfinished story, reading book 1 was fun and interesting.
Again, part of the interest to me was seeing how the god-magic system works. It's not on the level of Sanderson, but there was some world-building and figuring out how powers work and such.

Lost and Found is another modern... kinda fantasy? It's pretty mundane in general, and more about a kid struggling with his life, but his life includes the knack for finding lost things and a compulsion to return them, which has ruined his life as its branded him a thief and social pariah. (Not meaning spoilers here; that's all in the first few pages.) But I found it a fun, quick read. I recommend not reading the jacket summary, though, to avoid spoilers.

[Ibrinar]

My current most common way of finding new books to try is jumping between the "readers also enjoyed" links on goodreads starting from stuff I liked. (Aside from amateur stuff I read on royalroad)

As Eldan says some preferences would help but let's see some random recent stuff I liked (trying for a wide spread):

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10836728-the-rook urban fantasy, basically an secret agency of super powered people. MC starts without memories and tries to hide it while being pretty high ranking in the agency

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30558257-unsouled xianxia by a western author. If you ever read normal xianxia let me say the MC isn't an ******* and it has an actual plot.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/65591-the-books-of-the-raksura I like that the MC is of a less common type of fantasy species (flying lizard humanoids) and they have their own culture. And the world in general feels somewhat unfamiliar which is nice. MC begins outside of the society not knowing what he is and trying to hide but meets someone that brings him back to one of their settlements. Main antagonists tend to be some weird hive mind thingies that look somewhat similiar to the raksura. (Her murderbot books are nice too, but scifi.)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6342491-the-demon-king pretty classic fantasy I would say MC has a secret past he doesn't know, there is a love story with a princess. But it is well written imo.


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19161852-the-fifth-season is pretty good and well known, plays at the beginning of an apocalypse in a fantasy world. MC has powers that she is hiding because they get discriminated against (or put in a school to control them where their freedom is a tad limited and she was once there) Anyway it is well written.



Also I shall shamelessly ignore the specifications to say that
The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox are great fun. Decades old but not that well known I think. Place in a fantasy version of historical china. Humor heavy (though the topic of the humor can get pretty dark the delivery tends not to be). I had trouble finding stuff with a similiar style and the author only wrote the three books.

[gomipile]

I'll second China Mieville's Perdido Street Station.

Also, here's one that's 40 years old, but feels more modern than that: Wild Seed by Octavia Butler.

I like the Dresden Files series well enough. If you don't like the premise based on the cover summaries, I wouldn't prioritize reading them, though. Lots of people have issues with one or another part of the structure of the series, and I understand where they're coming from. Harry Dresden can come off as a bit of a Gary Stu to some people. I disagree, but that doesn't change the fact that some readers do get such an impression.

[truemane]

I'm, like, 93% certain you've heard of this and read it, but no one else mentioned it, and just in case you missed it somehow, there's The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Excellent fantasy writing. Deep and immersive and interesting and just wall-to-wall verisimilitude. Highly recommenced.

[Eldan]

I like the Dresden Files a lot, they may well be my favourite fantasy series, but I also readily recongize that they have a lot of flaws.

[thethird]

I also like to read some old fantasy, but I try to get into new stuff. If you could give pointers of what you like (or which style you like it might be a good way to point you in the right direction).

Following on the dresden files (which are very good), codex alera by the same author is more high fantasy (so if that's a genre that you enjoy more than urban fantasy I would start there).

[Yora]

Alright, since people keep nagging what I am looking for.

- No assassin protagonist
- No overthrowing a dark lord
- No magic as science
- Not urban fantasy
- Not grimdark
- Spirits, ruins, and discovery are fun

With any recommendations, a few sentences what the books are about and what you liked about them would be super helpful. Just a title isn't telling us much about the book, which is the reason behind this thread.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Alright, since people keep nagging what I am looking for.

- No assassin protagonist
- No overthrowing a dark lord
- No magic as science
- Not urban fantasy
- Not grimdark
- Spirits, ruins, and discovery are fun

With any recommendations, a few sentences what the books are about and what you liked about them would be super helpful. Just a title isn't telling us much about the book, which is the reason behind this thread.

Hmm, that does rule out quite a few of my favorites, but here's what's left. Several people have already mentioned some of these.

Warbreaker -- Set in a fantastic city where magic is tied to color, voice, and the soul, Warbreaker focuses on a couple of main characters. Viviena is a princess who's been groomed since birth to be the bride of the city's God King, in accordance with a treaty signed years ago. Sisirina is the princess that actually got sent to fulfill the treaty. Lightsong is a god who doesn't believe in his own religion and is trying to get to the bottom of what the heck is actually happening in this city, where nothing is quite as it seems.

It comes close to "magic as science" and "overthrowing a dark lord". But while it does use a hard magic system, the actual rules are unknown to all the main characters (and the audience), and it's not widely used, making it function appropriately mysteriously. And while the plot initially looks like a classic dark overlord, it's actually a subversion of that: it quickly becomes apparent that the God King is not the evil tyrant Viviena and Sisirini thought he was, which begs the question of what is actually going on.

The War of the Flowers -- Tad Williams is known for writing series of doorstoppers like "Memory, Sorrow, & Thorn", "Otherland", and "Shadowmarch". The War of the Flowers is noteworthy for being a stand-alone, so it's the one I recommend for people new to the author. Theo is a singer who's life is going nowhere... until it starts going downhill, fast. He gets hit with a horrible string of bad luck... culminating in having to flee to a mysterious other world to escape a horrifying undead monstrosity that pursues him relentlessly for reasons beyond his comprehension. As the first human to enter the world of the fey for quite some time, he has to adjust to an unfamiliar environment and people while trying to survive attacks, political intrigues, societal upheaval, and reveals... and hopefully figure out why someone wants him dead so badly in the first place.

The Codex Alera -- Perhaps best summed up by TVTropes: "Magical Roman Legionaries straight out of Avatar: The Last Airbender versus the Zerg, wolfmen with Blood Magic, telepathic yetis and white-haired elves. Riding ground sloths and terror birds. Sometimes, the Legionaries fight each other, too. Yeah, it is about as awesome as it sounds." In a world where humanity relies on elemental bonded spirits called "furies" to contend with their environment and enemies (both physical and political), one boy has no fury of his own, forced to rely on his wits to survive. Awesome swordfights, cool magic, epic battles (with realistic tactics, no less), political intrigues, romance, humor... the series has it all.

The Lightbringer Series -- By the author of The Night Angel trilogy (which I love, but emphatically does not meet your requirements). Magic functions kind of like the opposite of a candle burning: instead of consuming a physical substance to create light, mages can consume light to create physical substances; one for each color in the rainbow (plus infrared and ultraviolet). There are about three main characters. Gavin Guile, essentially the prime minister and the only person in the world who can use magic freely without shortening their life; he's politically savvy, a genius mage, and an all around badass. He's also got one heck of a dark secret. Karris is a badass normal who, as a member of the fantasy secret service, acts as bodyguard, secret agent, or whatever else the country requires. Kip is Gavin's illegitimate son, who he has recently discovered and taken in; he has to deal with making friends, learning magic, surviving fantasy secret service school, and the tangle of politics in the capitol.


Gotta go to class now, may return with a few more.

[JeenLeen]

I'm, like, 93% certain you've heard of this and read it, but no one else mentioned it, and just in case you missed it somehow, there's The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Excellent fantasy writing. Deep and immersive and interesting and just wall-to-wall verisimilitude. Highly recommenced.


Alright, since people keep nagging what I am looking for.

- No assassin protagonist
- No overthrowing a dark lord
- No magic as science
- Not urban fantasy
- Not grimdark
- Spirits, ruins, and discovery are fun

With any recommendations, a few sentences what the books are about and what you liked about them would be super helpful. Just a title isn't telling us much about the book, which is the reason behind this thread.

I think the Patrick Rothfuss books fit that. The only possible exception is the "magic as science", but that's because there's several magic systems, and it ranges from "the main character and we as readers don't get any ideas about how it works, so it's just magic" to "main character studies it, so we get the idea behind the logic behind it" to "main character studies it, and, yep, it's just magic".

You might like Warbreaker, still. There's no deep delving into the magic system, and the different levels of skill some characters have make it definitely look like "just magic". There's a chapter or so where one of the characters is learning to "cast spells", so to speak, and that gets into some technicalities, but it's less rules-heavy than most Sanderson books.

[KatsOfLoathing]

Seconding the recommendation of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. The Fifth Season, the first book, is one of the best fantasy novels I've read in a long, long time, and even if you never pursue the followup novels it works pretty well as a standalone (though with a fair few questions left unanswered). It follows three different protagonists at three different time periods on the same apocalypse-prone continent, each of which are "orogenes", individuals with mutant powers to manipulate the land and (emphasis here) cause and control earthquakes.

I'll also back up the previous recommendations of Codex Alera.

If you're willing to go a little more YA, one of my favorites is The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins (yes, same author of The Hunger Games, but I prefer this series by a landslide). It's about an world beneath the earth where humans coexist (but not necessarily get along) with giant sentient animals of various stripes - bats, spiders, roaches, and rats are the main ones. A teenage boy named Gregor who lives on the surface world finds himself in the Underland by accident, and before long he's become embedded in wars between nations, political intrigue, and multiple prophecies of varying reliability. It's well-written, fast-paced, and at times shockingly dark and graphic for a YA series. Definitely a favorite for high-school me.

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor is another favorite, though it's not pure fantasy; I'd probably describe it as science-fantasy, since it has both sci-fi elements -- the main plot of the book is history's most peaceful alien invasion, set along the shoreline of Lagos, Nigeria -- and fantasy ones -- a major running subplot of the book is that old magic and old gods are starting to awaken to face the new arrival. It's nominally focused on a trio of humans and the alien ambassador they befriend, but the cast is massive and interconnected, with at least three or four subplots running concurrently at any given point in the novel along with occasional side-cuts to new characters we haven't met before. It does take place in the modern day, but I wouldn't call it urban-fantasy, since it indulges much more in the areas of speculative fiction and magical realism. Might be a little outside your desired range, but give it a chance.

[Epimetheus]

Two I've read recently that I've very much enjoyed:

Seven Blades in Black, by Sam Sykes.
Set against the backdrop of a war between a magocratic empire and the disenfranchised, nonmagical folk rebelling against it using technology to level the playing field, our protagonist is Sal the Cacophony, a rogue mage turned bounty hunter/mercenary who'll work for either side, as long as they pay her well. When she finds a secret message detailing the whereabouts and plans of seven former friends who betrayed her and left her for dead, Sal and her semi-sentient, malevolent magic revolver go on a journey across The Scar (the lands caught between the Imperium and the Revolution) to stop them, and get long-overdue vengeance. Features a magic system that always comes at a cost, (want to use storm magic? You'll start developing breathing problems. Want to shapeshift? You'll eventually lose your identity and facial features. Like illusions? Hope you don't mind never sleeping well again, because all your dreams become nightmares, etc.) and weirdly anachronistic retro-future technology, this world is definitely not your generic fantasy fare. Also features eldritch abominations, cults of a mad god, ruins blasted and scarred by powerful battle magic, LGBT romance, and cranky murderbird mounts. Also has a surprisingly nuanced take on the "rebels against the Empire" in that neither side is portrayed as being "The Good GuysTM". Be warned, the book is written in first person from Sal's POV, and she is very foulmouthed. So if you're not a fan of cluster F-bombs, this might not be the book for you.

Steel Crow Saga, by Paul Krueger.
East-Asian inspired fantasy taking place in a world just after a massive war that toppled an empire. Tala is a soldier, a veteran who lost her entire family to the war. She's tasked with escorting the captive enemy prince, Jimuro, back to his homeland so he can ascend the throne and sign the treaty that officially declares his nation's defeat. Meanwhile, Xiulan and Lee, special agents from another nation in the alliance that defeated the Empire, are tasked with making sure that Jimuro never reaches his destination. However, when a threat that defies the laws of magic as everyone knows them rises, these four must put aside their differences and save the world together. Features Pokemonesque animal spirit companions, metalbenders, nearly obscene depictions of incredible food, LGBT romance, Trans Rights, 1920s-era tech, well-written and believable character development, really cool fantasy-counterpart cultures of the Philippines, Japan, China, Korea, and India.

[Clertar]

The excellent Raven's Mark trilogy, which was just completed last year, satisfies the requirements except for not being grimdark. However, I have seen it sometimes be called grimheart, a sub-subgenre of grimdark fantasy where honesty, love and goodness have a definitely central place.

The first book is Blackwing. Do give it a shot.

[Silfir]

My favorite fantasy novel of all time was released in 2014: The Goblin Emperor. It's about the discarded, half-elven half-goblin son of the Emperor of the Elves, who finds himself pulled out of exile and straight onto the throne when an airship carrying the emperor and everyone else ahead of him in the line of succession crashes, leaving no survivors. With only the slightest knowledge of court politics, intrigue or the law, can he stay in power, or at least alive, as conspiracies behind the scenes are already forming to displace him?

It's not a fantasy adventure novel, though. It takes place almost entirely in the Court. I love the world-building, the many characters, and the growth the main character undergoes. It's not often that fantasy novels will put at its center someone who is entirely a non-combatant and also just genuinely a good (but not stupid) guy. None of that antihero nonsense.

In the adventure category I want to shout out Orconomics. It's really reminiscent of The Order of the Stick in how it's clearly an affectionate parody of generic D&D fantasy worlds (especially, as the name suggests, from an economics angle), but doesn't see why that should mean it can't have an epic-scope story (especially in the sequel) and flawed, but relatable and lovable characters undergoing genuinely serious hardship. It's one of the few comedic fantasy novels that genuinely surprised me, because I didn't expect it to also have emotional gut-punches in its repertoire.

I also had a good time with The Deed of Paksenarrion and its successors, at least the ones completing Paksenarrion's story. It hits every spot in the list - it's about a young woman who first becomes a mercenary, and eventually leaves the mercenary company behind to explore the world on her own and find her true calling.

One of my favorite authors out there is Lois McMaster Bujold. Here I'd recommend The Curse of Chalion, which concerns an old war veteran finally released from captivity who gets to go home, and gets pulled into court intrigue as the guardian and mentor of the crown princess. This one is less quite a bit less nonviolent than The Goblin Emperor, and more of an adventure.



But seriously though, there is so much good fantasy out there. Sanderson or Rothfuss are some of the biggest sellers, but they are only part of the crowd, when it comes down to it.

From Sanderson I'd recommed not his monumental 10-volume fantasy epic that won't be completed for a decade (even if what I've read of it has been reasonably entertaining), but his novella The Emperor's Soul, which is about a magic user called a "Forger" who is tasked with crafting a reasonably accurate facsimile of a soul. It's the best at showcasing his strengths - he can do short and sweet, and even his doorstoppers are actually generally filled to the brim with stuff happening, but this one absolutely doesn't waste your time. His chief weakness, which may prove fatal in your eyes, is that he doesn't have a genuinely poetic bent. It's effective writing, but rarely beautiful.

That's what people recommend Rothfuss for, because unlike Sanderson he can turn a phrase that you'll reread, look at and go "that was nice". His issue is that he's still on his debut trilogy and the last book just is never going to come out, and even the second book suffers a little from aimlessness, in that it consists mainly of escapades by the main character, but doesn't (at least as far as one could tell) tie into the big conflict that was set up by the first.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Dragon Bones -- I'm glad I gave this one a shot, because the description I was given made it sound a lot more generic than it really is. Let's see if I can do better. Ward is the son of one of the most influential lords in the kingdom, and has been feigning stupidity for years to avoid his abusive father. This backfires when his father dies and his feigned incompetence is used as a pretense for the king to meddle in the affairs of his land and family by having him committed to an insane asylum. After escaping, he decides his best bet is to gain a heroic reputation so committing him will become politically inconvenient, and goes to aid a province beleaguered by invaders that the king has refused to aid. He has to deal with magic, monsters, politics, the shame of realizing his family has betrayed its oldest duties, and the very personal interest the invading emperor has in what lies beneath Ward's family home...

The Warded Man -- Given that the planet is invaded by demons every night, the world is doing surprisingly well. They keep the balance with magic symbols that, if arranged correctly, can repel specific demons and their magics. The main character is on a quest to learn as much of this magic as he can, taking him far outside the safety of the city walls, the familiarity of his own culture, and the bounds of what he had thought possible. Of the books I've suggested so far, this is probably your best bet for spirits, ruins, and discovery.

The Tortal Universe -- a classic collection of series that started back in the 80s. Since some of the sub-series are far more modern, I'm listing it here anyways. "The Song of the Lioness" is the first quartet, about a woman who disguises herself as a boy to become a knight. "The Immortals" is set after those events, following a young girl with nature magic as the world seems to be falling apart. "Trickster's Duet" follows the daughter of a thief and spy, herself now kidnapped and pushed into putting those skills to use overthrowing a corrupt government. I haven't actually read "Beka Cooper: The Hunt Records" yet, but it follows the distant ancestor of the previous girl as she joins the city guard. Finally, "The Numair Chronicles" follows the childhood of the man who will become the world's greatest mage, as he attends school and realizes that there are deep problems with his country.

[Eldan]

It took me a while to go over my bookshelf in my head (I'm away from home) and think of something you might like, but perhaps Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders might be for you.

The central conceit is that there is a city of merchant families who own special, magical ships. After three generations of family members have died on the ship and have their blood spilled on the wood, the ship's figurehead comes alive, with all the collected knowledge of the dead. The ships are also faster, stronger and the only ones able to sail up the acidic waters of a certain river to dig up the ruins and magical artefacts of a long-dead civilization.

Hobb is generally excellent at writing deep, emotionally complex characters, putting them through absolute hell and have them learn a from it and grow as people. And her magic is deep and fascinating.

[Dire_Flumph]

Surprised not to see Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy mentioned yet. (The Blade Itself, Before they are Hanged, Last Argument of Kings) Excellent deconstruction of fantasy tropes, and an all-around great read. Seems like fairly generic fantasy at first, but there's much more going on with the barbarian hero, wise old wizard, cruel torturer or dashing swordsman than seems at first. San dan Glokta (the torturer) is one of my favorite, and oddly sympathetic, characters I've read in fantasy.

Also would recommend the Gentlemen Bastards books by Scott Lynch, starting with the Lies of Locke Lamora. If the idea of con artists in a fantasy setting appeals to you, then I think you will enjoy these.

I'm currently reading through Malazan: Book of the Fallen but great though it is it's tough to recommend as it's a monster to read through.

[Themrys]

I read the first book ("Maresi") of The Red Abbey Chronicles and liked it. Still waiting for the second to appear in German.

What I liked about it: It's about a girl who lives in a pretty dystopic world, but gets spirited away (or rather, has to actively work to spirit herself away) to a lovely peaceful island where she can live and learn in peace.
I can't actually recall if she is taught magic ... but she totally does learn it, and has to make use of it when bad guys attack.

A lot of the plot takes place on the island, so it isn't particularly grimdark.




Dragon Bones -- I'm glad I gave this one a shot, because the description I was given made it sound a lot more generic than it really is. Let's see if I can do better. Ward is the son of one of the most influential lords in the kingdom, and has been feigning stupidity for years to avoid his abusive father. This backfires when his father dies and his feigned incompetence is used as a pretense for the king to meddle in the affairs of his land and family by having him committed to an insane asylum. After escaping, he decides his best bet is to gain a heroic reputation so committing him will become politically inconvenient, and goes to aid a province beleaguered by invaders that the king has refused to aid. He has to deal with magic, monsters, politics, the shame of realizing his family has betrayed its oldest duties, and the very personal interest the invading emperor has in what lies beneath Ward's family home...


I hope the recommendation you got wasn't by me. Because I would have recommended this book, too, and hope I never did it a disservice.

Ward's feigned stupidity makes for some hilarious scenes.

You forgot to hint at the spooooky secret of Ward's family home. :smallcool:

And there totally are some ancient ruins and spirits to be discovered.

And Ward is a good guy. Not a beautiful cinnamon roll too pure for this world (like The Goblin Emperor totally is), but a decent guy. There's some pretty bad stuff in the book, but it still doesn't feel like grimdark because Ward and his relatives and the friends he makes are decent people who try to make the world a better one.


I also like most of the author's other fantasy books, although I don't love those as much as the Hurog duology. (There's a sequel to Dragon Bones, I think it is called Dragon Blood or something? But you definitely have to read Dragon Bones first.)

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I hope the recommendation you got wasn't by me. Because I would have recommended this book, too, and hope I never did it a disservice.

I also like most of the author's other fantasy books, although I don't love those as much as the Hurog duology. (There's a sequel to Dragon Bones, I think it is called Dragon Blood or something? But you definitely have to read Dragon Bones first.)

Nope, just the description on the library page made it sound like very generic fantasy. If I hadn't already read and loved the Mercy Thompson series by the same author I'd probably never have checked it out, but I'm glad I did.

Yeah the second on is Dragon Blood. I definitely liked it, though I felt like the ending was a bit weaker than the first one.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Alright, since people keep nagging what I am looking for.

- No assassin protagonist
- No overthrowing a dark lord
- No magic as science
- Not urban fantasy
- Not grimdark
- Spirits, ruins, and discovery are fun

With any recommendations, a few sentences what the books are about and what you liked about them would be super helpful. Just a title isn't telling us much about the book, which is the reason behind this thread.

Mmm, I was going to recommend the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, but it's basically the war against Napoleon WITH DRAGONS so it might be too urban fantasy for you. :smallfrown:

I will write up my recommendation for why anyway in case anyone else is interested though. :smallsmile:

The characters are interesting, believable and (important for me, maybe not so much for you?) distinct from each other. They're also generally good, somewhat flawed people (EX: The main human protagonist is honorable to a fault, which gets him in trouble quite a bit. The main dragon protagonist is intelligent but inexperienced and naive) that I don't mind rooting for. There are serious moments, parts that I still cry over, and funny parts too, the series blends them fairly well. Pay attention to minor details and you'll find a surprising number of them foreshadow later events, so they have a good bit of re-read value. The dragon element is well thought out and well integrated into the world (EX: The dragons make up the airforce of the countries at war. To support this, there are ships that are basically wooden aircraft carriers to get them from point A to point B, because of course the critters can't just fly forever. There are different breeds of dragons and they have different traits, and their breed names reflect their region of origin. A number of minor problems crop up around the subject of 'how do we feed a predator that's the size of a house in the middle of nowhere' - that sort of thing).

The series is nine books and complete.

[Caledonian]

I'd like to recommend Martha Wells' Books of the Raksura (https://www.marthawells.com/compendium/). (She's also the author of the Murderbot series, but that's ostensibly SF.)

She writes a very internally-plausible fantasy world that is so well put-together that it takes a while to realize just how fantastic it is - real-world physics and biology just don't apply. She also does a great job of writing action scenes - they feel plausible and sensible, but are always dramatically exciting, so the effect is something like watching a well-choreographed fight scene, only in words. Wonderfully intricate society- and world-building.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by JeenLeen
I'm a big fan of Brandon Sanderson.... Of his recent books, Warbreaker is pretty good.


Originally Posted by Eldan
Warbreaker is the one I'd most recommend to a newcomer….

Warbreaker is the perfect Sanderson novel for someone who just wants to sample his style. Interesting magic, interesting setting, and not one, but two headstrong princesses.

But if you want to dive in and be swept away, then pick up the first volume of Mistborn and prepare to really lose yourself. I bought the first book ahead of some work travel, thinking it would be good to read in the airport between flights. I ended up reading most of it before I even left home, bought the sequel when I landed, and had to force myself to leave it in my hotel room. The story is that compelling.


Originally Posted by JeenLeen
Orson Scott Card used to be one of my favorite authors….

Orson Scott Card was one of my absolute favorite writers back in the day, and his Homecoming series is probably his best work in terms of concept and world-building, as well as the nuances of personal interaction.

His early Ender’s and Seventh Son novels are justifiably classics, although the later volumes of both series tended to show some fatigue. Hart’s Hope, Wyrms and The Worthing Chronicle are more obscure but all really interesting in their own way.


Originally Posted by Ibrinar
[The Rook is] urban fantasy, basically an secret agency of super powered people. MC starts without memories and tries to hide it while being pretty high ranking in the agency….

This was developed into a miniseries on Starz which aired last summer, and it was extremely well done. One thing I liked in particular:

Every single character tries to game the system at one point or another, and every single one of them gets burned because they were in over their heads. Feels just like life.

Also, the miniseries is loaded with subtle dark humor, very British, and often utterly hilarious. Two of the top-ranking characters are discovered in an affair, and their reactions illuminate their personality in small but telling ways.


Originally Posted by Ibrinar
The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox are great fun. Decades old but not that well known I think.

I enjoyed Bridge of Birds, which was on the lighter side but very well done.


Originally Posted by gomipile
Also, here's one that's 40 years old, but feels more modern than that: Wild Seed by Octavia Butler.

This is a classic, tragic and fascinating and wonderfully steeped in African lore.


Originally Posted by Silfir
From Sanderson I'd recommed…his novella The Emperor's Soul….

Much as I enjoy Sanderson, I wouldn't recommend this one. I’ve read seven or eight of his books, and this was the only one which felt like a tremendous disappointment.


Originally Posted by Yora
Alright, since people keep nagging what I am looking for….

Based on what you’ve said, you might enjoy C.J. Cherryh’s Rusalka, which is beautifully written as all her novels are. It’s based on Russian mythology, and it has a unique and subtle form of magic, together with spirits and ruins aplenty.

I would also recommend The Dreaming Tree, which is a compilation of two of her best fantasy novels, The Dreamstone and The Tree of Swords and Jewels. It has a lovely, ethereal feeling to it, drawing on Celtic tradition and with an echo of the spirit of Tolkien, though her world and story are all her own.

[JoshL]

I liked Rusalka a lot as well, though the series as a whole drags a bit. At times it seems the characters spend more time dithering over doing something than actually doing it, which would be fine but the internal arguements are all the same. Which, come to think of some classic Russian literature I've read, is at least accurate.

For something really different, Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton was really fun. Picture a Victorian family drama...only all the characters are dragons! It was a lot of fun, different than anything else I'd read and only seems gimmicky at the beginning. Pulls you into the world and characters well enough that you feel that dragons were just the right way to tell the story!

[Eldan]

I don't think I'd recommend Mistborn, given Yora's preferences. Even though it has spirits and ruins, the first book is also quite dark (the definition of Grimdark shifts a lot depending on the person), it has a Dark Lord to be overthrown and one of the main characters is kind of an assassin. And it's mostly set in a city.

[Yora]

Anyone read The Fifth Season and Blackwing and could describe what they are about? I heard praise about them before, but still have no clue what kind of stories they actually are.

[Clertar]

Anyone read The Fifth Season and Blackwing and could describe what they are about? I heard praise about them before, but still have no clue what kind of stories they actually are.

Blackwing takes place in a fantasy world where there's a cold war situation between humanity and the Deep Kings, evil undead uber-sorcerers, and their mutant minions. On humanity's side there are the Nameless, a handful of uber-powerful sorcerers, one of which is Crowfoot. Crowfoot unleashed a magical nuke during a previous war, creating a reality warped no-man's land between humanity's republic and the Deep Kings. This border is now protected by Nall's Engine, a magical defense created by Nall, another of the Nameless. This has created a cold war situation in the last decades, but the Deep Kings are testing the limits and it's not clear how the republic would withstand another full-blown attack.

The story follows one of Crowfoot's (reluctant) agents, Blackwing captain Ryhalt Galharrow as he looks for his vanished wizard friend, and investigates what could very well be a serious threat to humanity's forces against the Deep Kings next to a noblewoman wizardess with whom he was in love in his youth.

[DavidSh]

Anyone read The Fifth Season and Blackwing and could describe what they are about? I heard praise about them before, but still have no clue what kind of stories they actually are.

A couple of earlier posters have already had some words about The Fifth Season, but I'll add another perspective.
A very strong point of this novel is its setting. You know the theory that many mass extinctions were caused by volcanic activity on a continental scale? Well, here the rate of such events has increased dramatically, for reasons not really explained until the third book, and humanity has figured out ways of surviving such events. At the same time, there are people who have magical abilities to influence geological processes like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and a ruthless bureaucracy set up to control these people.

[Yora]

That's all background.

Who are the characters and what are they doing? That's what makes or breaks a story, isn't it?

[druid91]

Alright, since people keep nagging what I am looking for.

- No assassin protagonist
- No overthrowing a dark lord
- No magic as science
- Not urban fantasy
- Not grimdark
- Spirits, ruins, and discovery are fun

With any recommendations, a few sentences what the books are about and what you liked about them would be super helpful. Just a title isn't telling us much about the book, which is the reason behind this thread.

I would strongly recommend the Cycle of Arawn. The only of your points it comes near to breaking is the first, and even there it's less that the protagonists are assassin's, and more that they're adventurers who happen to be able to assassinate people... So sometimes they do.

As for the gyst of what it's about, it's mainly about the adventures of two teenagers(Though by the third book, they're both in their mid to late twenties.) Who are the main characters.

The first is Dante Galand. An ambitious, somewhat monomaniacal, kinda jerkish (and by kind of I mean incredibly.) Young man who wants to learn magic. So he steals the holy book of cult famed for their use of it only to freak out when cultists try to murder him and so he hires...

Blays Buckler. A Mercenary Armsman, slightly younger than Dante and so unable to find work with the better paying guilds despite his skill with the sword. Though he is a Mercenary, he's far and away the more moral of the two. Whereas Dante is willing to do basically anything that helps him achieve his goals, laudable though those goals often are, Blays very much is not.


Despite these conflicts, the two share a sort of adopted brotherhood after they've saved each other's lives a few times, which keeps them working together.

While not entirely formulaic, the author likes to expand the map whenever things get to feel too stale. Introducing new places, cultures, and mysteries as he goes. This isn't always necessarily a far flung locale either, sometimes he will just elaborate on some strange people that's geographically near, but culturally far.

[Ibrinar]

I also had a good time with The Deed of Paksenarrion and its successors, at least the ones completing Paksenarrion's story. It hits every spot in the list - it's about a young woman who first becomes a mercenary, and eventually leaves the mercenary company behind to explore the world on her own and find her true calling.


Imo some of the earlier parts are pretty weak, I think it was worth getting through them so I just mean that as a warning that if someones taste matches mine it does get better again after the mercenary part is done.

[stack]

Gene Wolfe's Wizard Knight dualogy is from 2005. More accessible than, say, the New Sun/Short Sun/Long Sun series, but still Gene Wolfe so things aren't always laid out neat and clear. Mix of Arthurian legend and Norse mythology.

- No assassin protagonist (check, definitely not an assassin)
- No overthrowing a dark lord (check)
- No magic as science (check (people who have read him are chuckling at the very thought right now))
- Not urban fantasy (check)
- Not grimdark (check)
- Spirits, ruins, and discovery are fun (main character is unfamiliar with the world, so I suppose discovery. Fey are prominent, so spirits are a check.)

I expect any Gene Wolfe books will be polarizing, but if you like them, there is a fair library from his decades-long career.

[halfeye]

Try some webserials? They're free, but not in the main available on paper.

The Wandering Inn: lots of species, humans from our Earth thrown into a magical world, quite a lot of action though it takes a long while to get started. Big rambling world, and the story is apparently barely begun even though it's the longest read I know of in webserials.

Mother of Learning: completed, quite long, most of the story in a magical time loop, mainly humans.

Metaworld Chronicles: set in Australia then China in a parallel world where magic took off and tech didn't, big Mary Sue protagonist (6 ft 1 in slim female), not sure whether magic as tech disqualifies this? another really long one that's still growing.

A Practical guide to Evil: set in a completely non-Earth with no Earth connections, wars and battles all over. Quite dark, doesn't change much in that as it goes.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Oh, here's a slightly weirder one, in that it's a web-serial (published online a chapter at a time) rather than a more traditional series. A Practical Guide to Evil (https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/summary/) is about a world where tropes are In-Universe rules, heroes and villains gain powers based on the archetype they represent, and exploiting or working around the system is the name of the game. Two decades ago, a group of villains now known as The Calamities were savvy enough to conquer the Kingdom of Callow, wiping out all the heroes then and since without being drawn into a story pattern that would spell their doom. Which means that villainy is the only game in town for main character Catherine Foundling, and she becomes Squire to their leader, the ruthlessly pragmatic but strangely likable Black Knight. The story follows her as she learns the rules that govern Named, studies more conventional politics, sword-play, and leadership, and tries to remain true to her ideals and goals despite working for the side of Evil.

The world building is great, the character interactions and dialogue are awesome and often hilarious, the characters are likable and varied, and the plot is engaging. All that said, the poor editing may slowly drive you insane if you're OCPD, or if you just have that as a pet peeve like me. It's never bad enough I considered stopping reading, but it is a recurring irritation.

[Yora]

Could you describe the characters and plot in a few words. Saying that they are good is entirely subjective and doesn't provide real information on who might be interested in reading it.

[KatsOfLoathing]

That's all background.

Who are the characters and what are they doing? That's what makes or breaks a story, isn't it?

I'll try to sum up The Fifth Season. Essentially, we're sequentially introduced to three different women who are all "orogenes" (earth-manipulating mutants) at three different time periods, and follow their stories on parallel tracks, which eventually tie together towards the end of the novel for reasons I'll avoid spoiling here.

The first, Essun, is a schoolteacher and mother of two living in a small farming community. We get the sense early on that she's on the run from some dark past, but the details there only come into focus late in the novel. Before too long things start going to hell - her son is murdered and her daughter kidnapped, and at almost the same time the continent enters a "Fifth Season", an apocalyptic event where ash blots the skies and an endless winter sets in. Refusing to just lay down and die, she leaves the village in search of her daughter and husband, and goes on a continent-spanning journey that eventually sees her joined by a Hoa, a mysterious young boy, and Tonkee, a rogue scientist from the capital.

The second, Damaya, is a teenage girl just discovering her orogene powers. She gets recruited by a Guardian named Schala, a government operative tasked with keeping track of the orogenes and ensuring they don't do anything dangerous with their powers. He takes her to the Fulcrum, a school in the capital for orogenes (though think more "military academy" than "Hogwarts stand-in"), where she develops her abilities and learns more about the truth behind her country's origins.

The third, Syenite, is a trained orogene operative employed by the Fulcrum, who's just received her latest assignment: accompany Alabaster, the world's most powerful orogene, on a trip across the continent to the coastal city of Meov, which is requesting aid unblocking its harbor. Sounds simple enough in theory, but political intrigue and old secrets the Fulcrum and Guardian order would rather keep buried start to rear their heads before long.

I would say more, but it's really best to just try out the book and see how you like it. The worldbuilding is so gradual and organic you almost won't notice it happening, and it would be a more enjoyable read if you experienced everything beyond this barebones summary for yourself.

[InvisibleBison]

big Mary Sue protagonist (6 ft 1 in slim female)

How does being tall and thin make one a Mary Sue?

[Rodin]

Imo some of the earlier parts are pretty weak, I think it was worth getting through them so I just mean that as a warning that if someones taste matches mine it does get better again after the mercenary part is done.

Depends what you're looking for. The three books are in different genres.

The first book is a medieval military story from the point of view of the common soldier. Yes, there's extra adventure in there and the setting is high fantasy. But the thrust of the story is of a military campaign where we only see the strategy from the ground level. I find it a fascinating story and I don't think I've ever read anything similar to it.

The second is a more traditional D&D style adventure. Elves, magic ruins, paladins, etc. If you set it in Forgotten Realms I don't think anybody would notice. It's a very good example of the genre, and one which manages to tell an adventure without a world ending threat.

The third transitions out of that into more epic fantasy. It introduces politics in a serious way for the first time...or rather, we are privy to the politics that were going on in the first book behind the scenes. The stakes reach world-shaping levels instead of the relatively small-time adventures in the previous books. I personally consider it the weakest of the three, but that's probably personal taste. It's still a damn good book.

Then there's the sequel series, written over 20 years later. They...exist. I wouldn't go so far as to call them bad, but the drop off in quality is so high that it's hard to consider them part of the same series. I think Elizabeth Moon would have been better off writing these in an original universe instead of trying to introduce a ton of new lore and plot to a finished trilogy.

As a final note for Yora, these books don't meet the criteria of "recent". The trilogy was originally published in 1988-1989 and eventually released as a single anthology in 1992. It's much closer to Dragonlance in age than the other novels people have been suggesting. I would still recommend them if you haven't read them, but just be aware of their provenance.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Eldan
I don't think I'd recommend Mistborn, given Yora's preferences. Even though it has spirits and ruins, the first book is also quite dark (the definition of Grimdark shifts a lot depending on the person), it has a Dark Lord to be overthrown and one of the main characters is kind of an assassin. And it's mostly set in a city.

That's fair. With this in mind, I'd say Rusalka is very much in line with Yora's priorities. No assassins, no dark lords, and definitely no cities--it's almost entirely out in the wilderness, with ghosts and forest-spirits of various kinds.

In fact, one of the aspects I love most about this book is how CJ incorporates Russian folk mythology into the world and storyline. Domovoi, dvorovoi, bannik, leshy, they all have a presence and personalities, especially the domovoi and the leshies. It's beautifully done and lovely to read.

[halfeye]

Could you describe the characters and plot in a few words.

That is very, very hard.

Wandering Inn: Lots of POV characters, mostly Earth origin human, main human chess playing female innkeeper but more others than her. Plot: adventure and political intrigue with innkeeping and fisticuffs as well as magic and swordfighting

Mother of learning: one main POV character (male student wizard). Plot leveling up while in a time loop sorta groundhog day style, but with fighting using magic.

Metaworld Chronicles: One main POV character, female time skipper into her own past in another world, with magic fighting but no sword waving.

A Practical guide to Evil: See the post below mine, he or she even has a link.

I'm pretty sure those ought to be done better, but that's my 2nd attempt.


How does being tall and thin make one a Mary Sue?

It doesn't at all. The point is she's both a Mary Sue and tall.

[Kitten Champion]

I'd recommend Lois McMaster Bujold's World of the Five Gods series from the early 00's. This includes The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, andThe Hallowed Hunt.

It's kind of difficult to discuss in terms of a blurb, much of what makes the series great in my opinion is in the strength of its characters who don't really fit classic archetypes of fantasy heroes. While each novel share the same universe, each goes in a different direction with a new protagonist who has their own particular issues and self-contained character arc. With Paladin of Souls moving to the perspective of an important side character from The Curse of Chalion and The Hallowed Hunt being a prequel from centuries before.

The world itself resembles the Iberian peninsula in the 15th century with certain names being clear allusions to monarchs from the time and something analogue to the Moors providing a threat in the distance. It pushes itself into a different direction from our history by developing its own specific set of deities and from them associated theological outlooks which then impact each character and their whole society's worldview. There's a lot of thought put into it but at the same time it's not hyper-focused on world-building, the world just feels effortlessly conveyed through the narrative itself in ways I have nothing but praise for. While the plots focus on courtly intrigue - kind of - threaded into the narratives are these magical elements which the characters forced to deal with as their fates are toyed with by powers almost... casually. It's much more akin to the kinds of supernatural forces you'd find in Greek myth than most high fantasy.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

It's a sad fact of life that the fastest way to make something sound stupid is to try to summarize it.

[factotum]

I may have missed it, but I've not seen any recommendations for Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay. It was published in 1990 so it's not the most recent, but definitely more so than the "50 years ago" you mentioned. There is a single antagonist, but he's not a Dark Lord, he's a regular human emperor taking excessive vengeance for the death of his son. It benefits immensely from borrowing from Italian myths and legends for its basis, in the same way that LOTR and derivatives borrow from Northern European myth--that gives it a unique flavour while still being familiar enough to not be *weird*. Oh, and the twist that leads to the final defeat of the Big Bad is something you will never see coming, but which makes all the sense in the world in retrospect, as all good twists should.

[stack]

I may have missed it, but I've not seen any recommendations for Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay. It was published in 1990 so it's not the most recent, but definitely more so than the "50 years ago" you mentioned. There is a single antagonist, but he's not a Dark Lord, he's a regular human emperor taking excessive vengeance for the death of his son. It benefits immensely from borrowing from Italian myths and legends for its basis, in the same way that LOTR and derivatives borrow from Northern European myth--that gives it a unique flavour while still being familiar enough to not be *weird*. Oh, and the twist that leads to the final defeat of the Big Bad is something you will never see coming, but which makes all the sense in the world in retrospect, as all good twists should.

Haven't read that one, but I will second Guy Gavriel Kay in general. His books, while usually set in fictional lands, are closely tied to real-world history. I greatly enjoyed Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors, among others.

[gomipile]

Regarding Wild Seed by Octavia Butler, which i mentioned but didn't describe much upthread:

The protagonist is Anyanwu, a centuries-old shapeshifter who has been living as various wise women providing health services and advice to several Igbo tribes over her lifetime before the novel. The antagonist is Doro, a millennia-old being who started off as human, but has the ability to transfer his soul to the nearest human, killing the body he transferred from.

Doro has spent many centuries selectively breeding humans with various superpowers because to him their bodies taste better to inhabit. The novel starts off with him wanting to add Anyanwu to his collection of breeding stock. The story is their interaction and Anyanwu's interaction with other characters over the next 150 years or so during the 1700s and 1800s.

[Kitten Champion]

It's a sad fact of life that the fastest way to make something sound stupid is to try to summarize it.

Especially when reading summaries of books in a fantasy series all at once --

Like,

Book One - Character X was just an ordinary Y, but then Z happens and now s/he must face the looming threat to fantasy-land #616-2, but can s/he succeed or will fantasy-land #616-2 face oblivion?

Book Two - Character X wildly succeeded in stopping Z and peace has returned to fantasy-land #616-2, but a new crisis emerges, can Character X triumph again? Now that the threat is bigger than ever!

Book Three - Apparently not, as Book Two decided to end on an ambiguous low point. Now in this third book however, can Character X actually triumph with the stakes raised even higher?

[Precure]

Is Dragonlance good?

[halfeye]

Is Dragonlance good?

I didn't like the ones I read. Then again, it's an adventure setting for D&D more than it is a set of novels, maybe it works better as a setting for D&D?

[random11]

NPCs by Drew Hayes
When in a fantasy game some characters accidentally die in a tavern, a group of NPCs assume their identity and try to replace them to protect their small village.

The books (currently 4 in the series) are a good combination of adventure, drama, comedy, and general weirdness.

[Yora]

I didn't like the ones I read. Then again, it's an adventure setting for D&D more than it is a set of novels, maybe it works better as a setting for D&D?

Oh, that stings. From what I heard from D&D players over the decades, Dragonlance usually gets the defense "It makes a better book setting than a game setting."

[Palanan]

Originally Posed by Precure
Is Dragonlance good?


Originally Posted by Halfeye
I didn't like the ones I read. Then again, it's an adventure setting for D&D more than it is a set of novels, maybe it works better as a setting for D&D?


Originally Posted by Yora
Oh, that stings. From what I heard from D&D players over the decades, Dragonlance usually gets the defense "It makes a better book setting than a game setting."

I had one of the trilogies foisted on me by a friend in high school back in the 80s. Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Winter Something, Spring Flower Arranging, something like that.

They were not very good then, even by the standards of cheap 80s fantasy, and I doubt if they’ve aged well. I’m trying to recall the details and I keep getting them confused with the pillar of cheap 80s fantasy, David Eddings. If the Dragonlance books are less memorable than David Eddings, that should tell you something.

In short, avoid them. There are hundreds of better books out there.

[Kitten Champion]

Regardless, in a topic about Recent Fantasy Book Recommendations, I don't think Dragonlance fits. I'm sure there are fantasy novels which are more 80's in their 80's-ness, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kitten Champion
I'm sure there are fantasy novels which are more 80's in their 80's-ness, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Pretty much anything with a Darrell K. Sweet cover.

[Mechalich]

Alright, since people keep nagging what I am looking for.

- No assassin protagonist
- No overthrowing a dark lord
- No magic as science
- Not urban fantasy
- Not grimdark
- Spirits, ruins, and discovery are fun

With any recommendations, a few sentences what the books are about and what you liked about them would be super helpful. Just a title isn't telling us much about the book, which is the reason behind this thread.

With the emphasis on recent, works, I'll recommend Quillifer, by Walter John Williams, currently two books.

Quillifer is the self-told story of the titular character, an aggressively upwardly-mobile butcher's son who becomes embroiled with both an ancient goddess and a royal family dispute due to a combination of circumstance, ambition, and rather overweening pride. The tale is set into a vaguely late-renaissance fantasy Europe with limited and at best vaguely defined magic.

The story is interesting both in its own right as the portrayal of a complex political dispute in the late-medieval or early modern period with a wide array of players and war as a background context, but also mostly because of the trick of the Quillifer's first person narration - the story is portrayed as a tale he's telling to a lover -. he's just on the edge of being an irredeemable conceited jerk without quite falling over the line, and his reliability is dubious at points. However this is in no way grimdark, as Williams' tone drastically avoids such connotations and finds ways for various characters to both serve their own interests and work for the nominal greater good at the same time in a way that would do any D&D adventurer proud.

[Telwar]

Some of the things I'll recommend that are recent are:

Shadows of the Apt, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, starting with Empire in Black and Gold. This is a 10-book fantasy series in a world where humans showed up in the ancient past and wound up binding with insect totem-like things. They look human, just with some insect-ish attributes, grouped by "Kinden" (aka race); Beetles are tough and hardworking, Wasps are *******s, can fly, and have "stings," Spiders are beautiful and manipulative, etc. The world is mostly clockworkpunk, but there's a very strong tension between the Kinden who can use magic, or "Art," (Moths, Mantids, Spiders, Dragonflies, etc) and those who can use technology, or are "Apt" (Beetles, Ants, Flies, Wasps, etc), as in the title. Apt individuals can use machines and don't really believe in magic, and love to build things like landwalkers, orthopters, trains, and air rifles, while the Inapt individuals can't *quite* figure out how to use a doorlatch, but are steeped in mystery. There is a LOT of delving into old mysterious ruins and exploration of the background. The Apt are in the ascendancy, but Things...Happen, and there's the requisite big-ass war...several, actually. The author *loves* his entomology ("...'Mole Cricket Kinden'?"). I spent *way* too much getting the 6th and 7th books shipped from the UK, since those weren't on Kindle at the time and they weren't published in print in the U.S.
There's a set of four short story compilations he wrote, Tales of the Apt. He also has some other works, like the standalone Spiderlight, where a standard fantasy good versus evil apocalypse is upended by the heroes having a spider minion forced on them. He also has another series, Echoes of the Fall, which is very, very similar to the Shadows of the Apt (...and is in fact in the same world), but more of a Native American setting rather than a European setting. Both Echoes and Shadows are done at this point.

The God Fragments, by Tom Lloyd, starting with Stranger of Tempest. This is also a fantasy with some fairly obvious sci-fi overtones, where the central thing that differentiates this is the mage-guns, which are magical firearms powered by the eponymous god fragments. The series follows a band of mercenaries, with a lot of politicking in the background. There is a TON of delving into Precursor ruins; the latter half of the first book is basically the band being chased into something very similar to the Mines of Moria. It's at three books with two novellas so far. Hopefully there are more to come.

The Oath of Empire, by Thomas Harlan, starting with Shadows of Ararat. I'm rounding up on this one, since the first came out in 1999. This is an alternate history where Rome never fell, magic works, but it ...kind of...matches with real world history, with real world characters. I love the epic scale of the series and the vast battles (with maps of unit positions and movements included!), with magic worked in; one of the viewpoint characters is (inhales) an Irish sorcerer sold to Roman witchfinders as a child, trained in an Egyptian sorcery school, and drafted for a campaign against Persia and fights as a skirmisher alongside a prince and princess of Palmyra (exhales). There are also significant lovecraftian overtones in the background. Some of the magic is based on Pythagoras, so there's a little bit of science to it, but not everybody's magic works that way. Also, ahem, the last book is titled The Dark Lord, but I'm just going to point out that "who" the Dark Lord is is very, very up in the air until the end. The series is done, though the author has mentioned he wants to do something more, but hasn't had anything published since 2011, so...

The Baroque Cycle, by Neal Stephenson, starting with Quicksilver. There are very technically fantasy, because there's working alchemy (and this is a prequel to Cryptonomicon). The fantasy is very downplayed, and it's more historical fiction about the transition from a medieval/renaissance economy to a modern economy than anything else, but I just absolutely love the author's use of language. It follows a trio of main characters, Lawrence Waterhouse, a natural philosopher, or "science guy;" Eliza, a former slave turned financier turned noble, or "finance chick;" and Jack Shaftoe, a ne'er-do-well/pirate/Vagabond, or "action adventure guy" in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. These are, also, very, very long books, and the trilogy typically has each book cut into two or three in turn.

You probably wouldn't like the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch, because it's urban fantasy (Magical police in London, and yes they make Harry Potter jokes), and there is an element of magic of science to it (Peter keeps trying to quantify magic, and is irritated that no one else before had, but his instructor really prefers he wouldn't do that). Those are very good, though, if you change your mind. They're funny, but also very, very serious.

I do need to do a reread of the Malazan Books of the Fallen. I've only read them once, and haven't picked them up for a reread yet, which helps, because there's a LOT of stuff that didn't make sense at first blush, but it's probably the best fantasy doorstopper series I've read, and pulls together really well. One of the things I love is that there are these absolutely horrible tragedies, but there's payback; if Erikson wrote the Game of Thrones, say, the Red Wedding would still have happened, but two books later Robb would have popped out of a portal in full-on wolfman warform with an army of wolves at his back to come aid an ally in their darkest hour.

[GloatingSwine]

Alright, since people keep nagging what I am looking for.

- No assassin protagonist
- No overthrowing a dark lord
- No magic as science
- Not urban fantasy
- Not grimdark
- Spirits, ruins, and discovery are fun

With any recommendations, a few sentences what the books are about and what you liked about them would be super helpful. Just a title isn't telling us much about the book, which is the reason behind this thread.


Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower.

The king has disappeared, presumed to have fled before he could fulfil his final duty and give his life to the Raven god. The Raven god has fallen silent. His son and heir must discover what has happened and deal with his usurping uncle before the nation's enemies discover its weakness and attack.

Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings

What if Water Margin but in a sort-of-polynesian archepelago? A dissolute wastrel and a mighty hero cross paths and bring down an empire.

Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor.

A disfavoured half-elven prince ends up the only surviving heir after his family is assassinated, he must survive the intrigues of court and the same fate as his father.

[caputiq]

The Wheel of Time?
Good fantasy....and the series is expected

[Eldan]

The Oath of Empire, by Thomas Harlan, starting with Shadows of Ararat. I'm rounding up on this one, since the first came out in 1999. This is an alternate history where Rome never fell, magic works, but it ...kind of...matches with real world history, with real world characters. I love the epic scale of the series and the vast battles (with maps of unit positions and movements included!), with magic worked in; one of the viewpoint characters is (inhales) an Irish sorcerer sold to Roman witchfinders as a child, trained in an Egyptian sorcery school, and drafted for a campaign against Persia and fights as a skirmisher alongside a prince and princess of Palmyra (exhales). There are also significant lovecraftian overtones in the background. Some of the magic is based on Pythagoras, so there's a little bit of science to it, but not everybody's magic works that way. Also, ahem, the last book is titled The Dark Lord, but I'm just going to point out that "who" the Dark Lord is is very, very up in the air until the end. The series is done, though the author has mentioned he wants to do something more, but hasn't had anything published since 2011, so...

You had me at Palmyra, and then you really had me at Pythagorean magic and Lovecraft.

[LibraryOgre]

If I may toot my own horn...

I released a short story and a novella on DriveThruFiction (https://www.drivethrufiction.com/product/305996/Two-Tales-of-Tellene?affiliate_id=315505). It's pay-what-you-want, though I would, of course, appreciate if you tossed a coin to your ficc'er. The short story is available as the free preview, or from my blog (http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/2014/07/episode-at-old-mine.html).

[Melayl]

I will second the recommendation for Unsouled by Will Wight, and the rest of the books of the Cradle series. And his other series, Of Shadow and Sea/Of Sea and Shadow are the first book. It's actually 2 books, each from the point of view of the main protagonists, who are on opposite sides.

[druid91]

Another series I've been enjoying that while not.... entirely 'Fantasy' definitely kind of fits.

The Ascend Online series by Luke Chmilenko.

The long and short of it is that it's a pair of incredibly lengthy books, about a group of people playing in a full immersion VR fantasy game. Where they've basically got nanites running through their bloodstream hacking their brain into feeling the sensations the game wants them to feel, so they are more or less IN a fantasy setting.

90% of the action is in the game world basically making the VR thing mostly a 'time crunch' thing. "We have to accomplish this now before we hit our weekly logoff!"

[Sermil]

I'll try to sum up The Fifth Season. Essentially, we're sequentially introduced to three different women who are all "orogenes" (earth-manipulating mutants) at three different time periods, and follow their stories on parallel tracks, which eventually tie together towards the end of the novel for reasons I'll avoid spoiling here.

[...]

The second, Damaya, is a teenage girl just discovering her orogene powers. She gets recruited by a Guardian named Schala, a government operative tasked with keeping track of the orogenes and ensuring they don't do anything dangerous with their powers. He takes her to the Fulcrum, a school in the capital for orogenes (though think more "military academy" than "Hogwarts stand-in"), where she develops her abilities and learns more about the truth behind her country's origins.


And I would say "slave (wizard) plantation" more than "military academy". I think your summary is missing the biggest element of The Fifth Season -- what being an oppressed minority does to people. (It's even right there in N. K. Jemisin's dedication on the first page.) The entire society oppresses orogenes and regards them as less-than-human. They treat orogenes like, well, like blacks in the antebellum South. Kept as slave labor if they are useful, killed otherwise, feared always. For goodness sakes, Essun's son is murdered by his own father when his father discovers the son is an orogene.

(That isn't a spoiler, it's in the first few chapters.)

How three main characters deal with having their entire society tell them that they are worthless, that they aren't even human, and how they do or don't cope with being the (very) oppressed minority in the society is such a major part of that book that I don't think you can talk about the book without mentioning it.

Don't get me wrong, the book is not grimdark, though it has some dark moments -- the characters do deal with it, and do try to make a life for themselves, and have some happiness in the moments society isn't looking.

I know you, KatsOfLoathing, were trying to just give a barebones summary. But the theme of oppression and being the oppressed minority is absolutely central to the book, and I don't think anyone can really know if they are going to want to read it without knowing that.

[tomandtish]

The Codex Alera books are pretty interesting as well. Humans have the ability to bind (or manifest) elemental spirits to do, well, magic. Not to give away spoilers, but the scale of the conflict does escalate exponentially as the book continues. But it's a cool and fairly original magic system, with different systems for some other races, and unique setting.
Link with some info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Alera

This one gets even better when you find out the inspiration for it. The full article can be found here (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/throwback-thursday-that-time-pokemon-inspired-a-6-book-epic-fantasy-series/), but...


Back in the early 2000s, Butcher was discussing his craft in an online writers’ workshop. When the subject of good ideas vs. good execution was brought up, Butcher took the stance that any author truly worth their salt can create an enticing story with not one, but two terrible ideas. A challenge was put forth: write an interesting story mashing together Pokémon and the fate of a lost Roman legion. At this point, most authors would laugh heartily and go back to surfing the web. Ever the iconoclast, Butcher dove in head first.

[Seerow]

The Wheel of Time?
Good fantasy....and the series is expected

Oof yeah, I wouldn't have thought to recommend it but if Yora really isn't familiar with anything from the last 30 years, WoT just barely makes it under the line having started in 1990.

But it definitely hits all of the requirements Yora had laid out in the earlier post. Not grimdark, no assassin protagonists, no dark lord, lots of exploration and discovery.


I'm really bad at summaries, but this summary I just found online I like: Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time is a story that takes place both in our past and our future. In his fantasy world, the Dark One, the embodiment of pure evil, is breaking free from his prison. The overall plot is about a man who learns that he is the reincarnation of the world’s messiah and is once again destined to save the world from the Dark One — but possibly destroy it in the process. This saga is not only his story, but the story of an entire world’s struggle to deal with war and change, destruction and hope.

[Silfir]

This one gets even better when you find out the inspiration for it. The full article can be found here (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/throwback-thursday-that-time-pokemon-inspired-a-6-book-epic-fantasy-series/), but...

I've come to think the anecdote has somewhat of a flaw - neither "Pokémon" nor "the lost Roman legion" were terrible ideas to begin with. If you were looking for sources to draw inspiration from, you'd be hard-pressed to do better than the most widely sold media franchise on the planet and a concept drawn from the most widely known epoch of ancient history.

Or, for that matter, the lore of one of the most acclaimed real time strategy games ever made. Of course, that real time strategy game itself started development as an adaptation of another franchise of tabletop tactical combat.

Everybody steals from everyone, and that's ok. But if Butcher proved anything conclusively, it's that "Pokémon" and "the lost Roman legion" were, in fact, great ideas. Really, it's like saying "I'm going to make an awesome remix based on two terrible songs. The songs I've chosen are Lady Gaga's Telephone and Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit."

[shtorm_88]

I love fantasy, I love reading. I really love some fantasy writers from half a century ago, but I actually have not found any newly written and released books that look appealing in decades.

The big problem I always have is that its very difficult to actually learn about the existence of books that might appeal to me. When you go looking for book recommendations and best fantasy books of the past years, you get a lot of results, but almost universally you only get a title and "ohmygosh ermahgerd I love this so much! Best thing ever! Everyone has to read it!" That only tells me that someone liked it, but nothing about what the book is about.

I think it would be great to have people make recommendations for fantasy books from the past few year (post-2000?) that they come across and liked, with maybe a paragraph of description what the book is about, and a paragraph of what makes it interesting.

I do have my own preferences of what I would like to read, but I don't think those fantasy books have been written in the past 30 years, so I'm not asking for that specifically. I'd like to know what's out there and what qualities make the books interesting for readers who are into those kinds of things.


The 10,000 Doors of January - one of my best
by Alix E Harrow

It is a rare thing to relate to a book’s character in such a way that similar situations evoke empathy across your lives. Enough parallels can be drawn to feel almost as if the book is catered specifically toward you in some existential way. I have not read much portal fantasy, but I have always felt a feeling of smothered repression through my youth that has tamped down my will to explore. Instead, my portals to elsewhere revealed themselves in books and stories at an early age, and they’ve been with me ever since. Alix Harrow captures this feeling of finding oneself through the stories we share in her stunning and unforgettable debut novel The 10,000 Doors of January. It is a beautifully written and lovingly crafted adventure about the strength of love, the importance of stories, and the timeless power of words.

[GloatingSwine]

I've come to think the anecdote has somewhat of a flaw - neither "Pokémon" nor "the lost Roman legion" were terrible ideas to begin with. If you were looking for sources to draw inspiration from, you'd be hard-pressed to do better than the most widely sold media franchise on the planet and a concept drawn from the most widely known epoch of ancient history.


It wasn't that they were "terrible ideas" they were considered so by the person he was having the argument with.

There's a longer version of the story in this interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIvNe949uI0) from Eastercon 2015. (Audio only and it's quite quiet).

[Sermil]

Well, I've got to put in a plug for my favorite fantasy novel of all time: Lois McMaster Bujold's Paladin of Souls (which just barely qualifies, being from 2003).

Paladin of Souls is the second of Bujold's World of the Five Gods series, being a sequel to Curse of Chalion (also a wonderful novel). Paladin's main character is Ista dy Chalion, a high-born noblewoman in her 40s, the widow of the previous Roya (king of Chalion) and mother of the current ruler. She is fiercely intelligent and well-educated; unfortunately, she was also badly afflicted by the aforementioned curse of Chalion, which gave her a kind of decade-long, magically-induced nervous breakdown. The curse has finally been lifted, she can think straight again, but everyone who cares for her still thinks of her as "Mad Ista", a wreck to be coddled and cared for and patted on the head, but not a person to be respected or listened to. This is driving her crazy (so to speak, and yes, she's aware of the irony), and she decides to go on a pilgrimage. Not because she wants anything more to do with the Gods, but just to get away from people who are so blinded by who she was 5 years ago that they can't see who she is now.

Some of the book is about her pilgrimage. Much of the book is about what happens when she

encounters Arhys, the son of Lord Arvol dy Lutez. Ista accidentally killed Arvol dy Lutez a decade earlier, during a failed attempt to end the curse, and the guilt still haunts her. At first she thinks the Gods are dragging her though her stale guilt again -- "fetch a bucket of water for the drowning woman!", as she puts it -- but They are more practical than that and want her to cure the body of Illvin, Arhys' half brother, and rescue the soul of Arhys, both of which are in mortal danger. She does so while finding a new purpose and calling in life and finally casting off the shackles of her old identity.


Why do I love the book so much? First and foremost, the characters. Ista, in particular, just feels like a living, breathing, interesting person. She's got a dry wit and self-deprecating humor (Bujold excels at dry wit and characters who can laugh at their own flaws); she has conflicts and hopes and pains. I love just spending time in Ista's company.

She's also a different heroine from so many other stories. So many fantasy stories are about a young person setting off, trying to make those first, early dreams of youth come true. Ista is a middle-aged woman. She's finished with those youthful goals -- some she succeeded at, some she failed at, but so much of the story's heart is a middle-aged person looking around and saying "OK, now what?". I'm also middle-aged. Like Ista, I've raised my children to adulthood and have largely finished my parenting journey. Like Ista, I've failed in some of my early goals, and succeeded in others, but both are now in the past, and I look around and say "OK, now what?" Ista is one of the few models for that second journey.

And Ista is not a great warrior. She could barely lift a sword; her fighting ability is pretty much nil. In most stories, she would just be the mother-type that the professional badass would rescue and she would get two lines amounting to "Oh, thank you!" She doesn't have physical strength. But what she does have is wisdom, the wisdom born of years and sorrows and of deep, deep pain. That wisdom, that understanding, is what makes her the heroine of the story, not any of the flashy swordsmen who accompany her. It's a really different character and a really different story from so much of the fantasy novels out there.

For what it's worth, I'm hardly the only person impressed by Paladin of Souls. It won the triple crown of fantasy awards -- a Hugo, a Locus, and a Nebula -- and the series World of the Five Gods won the Hugo for Best Series.

[paddyfool]

But it definitely hits all of the requirements Yora had laid out in the earlier post. Not grimdark, no assassin protagonists, no dark lord, lots of exploration and discovery.


I'm really bad at summaries, but this summary I just found online I like: Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time is a story that takes place both in our past and our future. In his fantasy world, the Dark One, the embodiment of pure evil, is breaking free from his prison. The overall plot is about a man who learns that he is the reincarnation of the world’s messiah and is once again destined to save the world from the Dark One — but possibly destroy it in the process. This saga is not only his story, but the story of an entire world’s struggle to deal with war and change, destruction and hope.

Eh, the Dark One does kind of fulfill the dark lord role. But it fits well enough otherwise that I'd second the recommendation... with the usual caveat that it gets very slow in plot progression as the books grind on, especially beyond the 3rd book or so.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Seconding the recommendation of The Broken Earth trilogy. Too much has been said about the plot already, in my opinion - particularly the first book is one that shouldn't be spoiled - but no one's really discussed the writing. One of the more striking aspects is that most of the narration is done in the second person, which is unusual and works well throughout the first two books (I felt that it fell apart a bit in the third book). Jemisin also has this tic where she introduces a lot of ominous details by saying something and then immediately contradicting it in a parenthetical aside, which works like a fusion of Kurt Vonnegut and modern 'gothic' memes. I really liked it.

I'd also second Rothfuss, for reasons already discussed. And okay, The Wise Man's Fear comes across as a bit aimless in the context of the trilogy, but the actual content of it is still brilliant. There are scenes and even individual lines that I keep going back to re-read because they're that beautiful.

I've not read The Raven Tower, but I have read Ancillary Justice and its sequels (sci-fi novels by the same author), and they are excellent. The writing is sharp and engaging, avoiding the kind of cringiness that you often see in these sorts of books, and the themes explored (primarily relating to gender, AI and personhood in Ancillary Justice; no idea about The Raven Tower obviously) are interesting and well-handled. It feels like the characters are in genuine peril in the critical action sequences, even though you know intellectually that their plot armour should protect them most of the time. The Hugo & Nebula awards are well-deserved.

aaaand that's pretty much the only recenty fantasy I've read. Maybe I should take some of the recommendations in this thread too. :smallsigh:

[endoperez]

I'm repeating books already mentioned, and some of these are rather well-known too.

The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon

The protagonist, Paks, is a sheepfarmer's daughter who runs away from home to join a mercenary company. She's not a rebel or a heroine, just unable to set in, so she set out to find something else. She's also an innately good person in a world where that's difficult, which makes her quite doubtful of the good gods who seem unable to protect their believers. The protagonist also isn't sexually active and I don't remember there being any romance, either.

The author was inspired by paladin-like warriors, and wanted to write a story about what such a person's story would really be like. The first book, as was mentioned, is told from the viewpoint of a common soldier on a medieval fantasy-ish world, where war isn't nice. I liked the first book quite a lot! From the second book onwards I enjoyed the series less, since it transitions into a more typical kind of fantasy adventure story. I think the first book / the first part of the omnibus is worth reading, though.

It's not exactly a feel-good series, and the books deal with rape as a thing that could happen to female soldiers.


Another series in somewhat similar vein is
The Balanced Sword, also known as Phoenix in Shadow, by Ryk E. Spoor

The protagonist here, Kyri, is also a young woman. Her parents were murdered, her brother becomes the setting's equivalent of a paladin, and her patron god is Myrionar, of justice and revenge. That's what her story is about - like Paks in the Deeds of Paksenarrion, when faced with gods' inability to stave off evil, she joins the action herself. In a way, both book series are about discovering that there is something wrong with the world, and both stories then go on to show the protagonist growing to the point where they can do something about it. Both also toy with the idea of divine power, whether good gods can keep the world safe, and what role good people in the service of those gods can or can not do.

The phoenix books are set in a rather typical fantasy world, but there are enough small variations to keep it interesting. It's nothing ground-breaking, but the small tweaks help it from overstaying its welcome. The story itself is similar - nothing groundbreaking, but it's not a fully derivative copy either. It's a more straightforward fantasy story than the first Paksenarrion books was, but in this case, I enjoyed the adventure, while in Paksenarrion's case, I would've preferred to read something more like the first book.


The Wizard Knight duology by Gene Wolfe (separate The Knight and The Wizard)

Gene Wolfe is a very good writer. He crafts beautiful and terrible worlds, his narrators and characters are very unreliable, and the world if a fantastic and terrifying blend of old legends, stories and mythology.

The books tell the story of a man from our world, who gets lost while hiking, and the story is told through his memories and narration of what he did in this new world, and the books are told like a story - slightly out of order, sometimes referring things that happened earlier, or later, or things he only discovered much later. His name is Able, or perhaps he was given the name Able once he arrived on the new world. Able is often confused, and often weak. I've never read a fantasy book with tone quite like these - the world is scary, but not hopeless. People are weak, but brave and noble and capable of good. But add in the unreliable narration, the way his thoughts bounce back and forth in time, and the way the books focus on how he felt at the time (sometimes scared, or sad, or horrified), and it becomes something quite different. With different narration, the same events could be used to tell a rather typical fantasy story.

At first glance, the world seems to be a typical, if dark, take on the Scandinavian myths about Midgard. There's the world of mortals, and in the sky above, there are gods (similar to Aesir) who fight Giants of Winter and Old Night. But when you scratch the surface, it becomes apparent that the world is full of other influences as well - Arthurian myths, Christianity, old stories about fairy realms and changelings, and more. And all clad in that wonderfully unreliable narration, where you can't really tell how much of what he saw or claims he saw is true. Many things in the books also sound like typical fantasy things, but the way they were described makes them much darker than usual - evil giants, slaves, dragons and so on feel much scarier here than in most other books. For example, arranged political marriage is something mentioned in parts of the story. A princess tells Able what it's like to be traded like precious jewelry, a mere object given away for promises of alliance and peace, and it's her duty whether she likes it or not. The description was harrowing, and has stayed with me since. it made me so uncomfortable I almost had to quit reading the book! It took me some time to collect my thoughts so I'd be able to push forward.



Webnovels:

A Practical Guide to Evil

I started this post by describing two novels where the young female protagonist works more or less for the forces of good. Well, this is the opposite. The young female protagonist of this story lives in the area that was once a kingdom aligned with power of light, but it was conquered by an evil empire. The evil empire promptly rounded up all the orphans and put them in orphanages that teach them a suitable trade - accountants, tailors, cooks, that sort of things. Boring stuff that keeps them busy and off the streets and away from any fateful encounters. In this world, stories are something like a force of destiny - if certain situation looks like the start of a story, and a certain person looks like they could play a role in the story, they might get a Name fitting a hero or a villain. Name,with capital N, is stuff like Good King, Warlock, Archer, Sage - something similar but not quite the same as a character class, with supernatural powers that match the person's role in the story.

One of the orphans grew up seeing the kingdom suffer - but mostly under the weight of bureaucracy and heavy taxes. She thinks the best way to improve the kingdom's lot is to join the evil army, rise in the ranks, and then once she has enough skill and power... ease up on the bureaucracy, from the inside. What kind of a fool would try to solve poverty and food shortages with a war? However, it turns out that the destined orphan thing goes both ways, and she has the makings of a good Villain. And that's how it starts.

Our protagonist here isn't the moustache-twirling, maniacally-laughing bumbling villain type. She has goals, and she's ruthless in her means to reach them. She gets trained, and she learns, and she grasps interesting powers that are a weird mix of story tropes and RPG class stereotypes. She fights against Heroes who she finds both infuriatingly naive and unfairly powerful. She fights against other Villains, because infighting is in their nature. She goes to evil military school where the Legions of Evil train their soldiers and officers (orcs, goblins, humans...), makes friends, and eventually, goes to war. It's interesting to read about a villain musing about what's right and wrong, and where to draw the lines that should not be crossed.

The books are rather humorous and funny. Bad things happen, but the books don't really focus on the gory details that much. Instead, it's about out-planning, out-gunning or out-maneuvering your enemies, whether good or bad, heroes or villains. While the characters do grow and change, my fondest memories are either about the humour, or about the moments of triumph, rather than the characters themselves.


A Mother of Learning

It's the story of a teenager - an asocial jerk with a huge chip on his shoulder, an inferiority complex towards his brother and horrible relationship with his family - studying magic in a magic university. There's an accident, and he ends up in a strange situation that forces him to interact with all kinds of people in all kinds of strange situations. As he gets a better understanding of the people around him, he eventually starts growing up. He never stops being a jerk, but he learns to handle social situations, opens up to certain people, learns more about himself and why he acts like he does, and so on.

The situation he finds himself in is a time loop - every 30 days, time resets. He has no idea what's happening, he's pretty sure it should be impossible, and he's too paranoid and asocial to find anyone to help him, so he just keeps learning. Basically, Groundhog Day as a setup for a weak-to-strong fantasy novel. It's not great literature, but it's nice for what it is. It was very entertaining when read as individual chapters released sporadically, but now that it's complete and can be read in one sitting, it can be a bit rough at times.

Magic and its rules do appear in the story, and lots of the story is about the protagonist learning new things about magic, so it might not be what Yora is looking for. In the story's defence, there are very few actual rules revealed. The magic is clearly drawing lots of inspiration from D&D rulesets - there are magic missiles, fireballs, teleportation spells, enchantment, magic potions and so on. Wizards have a mana pool, though, not spell slots - and mana pools can't be precisely measure. There are also magical mysteries to unravel. However, it all reads more like someone's D&D adventure idea than a magic system built from the rules up. There's a cool idea, which then gets an explanation that more or less makes sense, but there's no overarching magic rules system beyond "D&D with mana pools".

Also, spider-themed monsters keep popping up for some reason, so arachnofobics might want to stay away.

[tiornys]

I'll offer two series and one standalone book by one of my favorite authors of the past couple of decades: Janny Wurts. She's not an unknown but she definitely doesn't get a lot of publicity.

The Cycle of Fire trilogy:

The story follows three teens who are drawn into a conflict between demons and humanity when the Stormwarden--humanity's strongest defender against demonkind--is trapped in ice. One is seduced to ally with the demons, while the other two must find the mysterious Vaere to acquire the powers they need to fight against the demons' poweful psionic abilities. I enjoy this series for three main reasons. I enjoy the characterization and the interactions between the characters. I like the world and the backstory for the setting that is revealed as you get deeper into the trilogy. And I very much enjoy the magic system and the discoveries made about it during the series.

The Wars of Light and Shadow series.

Note this series is incomplete. 10 of 11 planned books are published, and Janny is providing regular updates on her progress with the final book. This series is fantastically epic. It follows two half-brothers, princes, who become cursed to enmity and draw the continent into war. The setting is great, with some of the most original takes on unicorns and dragons that I've seen. It has Bardic magic, witches who channel power through crystals, sorcerers who operate with a system similar to true-naming, and more. It takes a deep dive into issues surrounding morality and rulership. But the thing I like most is how you slowly learn more about the agendas of various power groups, and the more you learn the more it makes you reevaluate what you've seen earlier in the series.

To Ride Hell's Chasm

This standalone manages to pack an exceptional amount of worldbuilding into a tight narrative that starts out as a detective-style investigation and shifts gears midway through to a fast-paced action packed rollercoaster ride. Features a skilled mercenary turned captain of the guard, a highly competent commander, sensible nobles, corrupt nobles, sorcerers, a princess who absolutely refuses to become a damsel in distress, and perhaps the only horses that I've ever connected with in literature (I'm not much of a horse lover).

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I'll second the recommendation for Cycle of Fire. I'd forgotten about that one; it's been years since I read it, but it was a favorite of mine growing up.

[factotum]

I'll second the recommendation for Cycle of Fire. I'd forgotten about that one; it's been years since I read it, but it was a favorite of mine growing up.

I know I've read "Stormwarden" (the first book in the series, I think) but can't remember if I've read the others--I really need to get that book database together I keep meaning to create so I can figure out if I even still have the books!

[tiornys]

I know I've read "Stormwarden" (the first book in the series, I think) but can't remember if I've read the others--I really need to get that book database together I keep meaning to create so I can figure out if I even still have the books!
Apparently there were some publisher shenanigans that caused the sequels to Stormwarden to first be delayed and then mishandled in marketing. The publisher didn't reprint enough copies of Stormwarden and also offered no incentive to have it shelved alongside vol. 2 (Keeper of the Keys) so it was easy to miss that the books were connected. Which is to say, there's a pretty good chance you've only read Stormwarden.

[factotum]

The title you just quoted (Keeper of the Keys) does sound familiar, though...

[halfeye]

There are a whole bunch of authors, go to a library and check out the sf and fantasy section.

There are a couple I want to mention in particular. Katherine Kerr wrote a whole lot of books a while ago, all in her Deverry cycles, Wikipedia suggests she's moved on, but there are still a lot. They are set in a land where a sort of Breton/gaelic is spoken, there's a lot of kind of laid back druidic/bardic magic and swords and horses.

Secondly there is C.J. Cherryh's "Morgaine" chronincles, it's sort of SF if you ask where the magic comes from, but the story is mostly fantasy style, three books are typically collected in one volume, there is also a fourth. The story is set in a set of worlds connected by gates that have broken and need to be shut down. Morgaine is an epic figure, the POV character is her follower, it's mostly swords and arrows and horses, except hers is a monster sword.

[dehro]

Legend by David Gemmell, the main character's final adventure... or is it? He is the classic stalwart hero, paragon of martial prowess, honor bound and unmovable, but actually likeable. The first book of quite a few, several of which explore the various factions that have been the heroes or the villains in previous books.
It's epic fantasy written very well.

Imajica by Clive Barker (same author of Cabal and Hellraiser)..it's a rather fantastic story involving parallel dimension worlds (think of the nordic cosmology for a similar concept), with Earth being detached from the others and devoid of magic, except for a few people who are able to travel to and from it. Thrown in androginous and shapeshifting assassins, secret societies, shifting alliances and similar... it's fairly oniric and rather complex... quite good.

neither are recent

[el minster]

I wouldn't recommend the Way of Kings, currently. I thought the first one was excellent, but the second and third sort of became rambling and unfocused to me, introducing too many new elements at once and kinda destroying what made the first one interesting to me (politics and worldbuilding. It shifted from there to superpowers and the apocalypse, with more and more ever extreme dangers thrown in.)

Warbreaker is the one I'd most recommend to a newcomer, it's one of his shorter works and it is relatively closed off and knows where it's going. There's a few sequel hooks, but it has a clear ending.

read alcatraz vs the evil librarians its funny and has a good magic system

[Eldan]

Tried that one years ago. Didn't like it at all. In general, I've always found Sanderson's humour SUPER cringy.