Recent Fantasy Book Recommendations

[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 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 (

Spoiler

Show

...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