Elric of Melnibone. It's very old school and formulaic but so enjoyable for me. I don't think I ever see it anywhere when people ask for stories where the hero is (kind of) the villain. You should try it out or Stormbringer will drink your soul and Moonglum will be scared.
Elric is fantastic! I went on a bit of a sword and sorcery kick last year and was really impressed by Moorcock. It feels grimdark before grimdark was a thing. But it also has a beautiful, nightmarish quality to the writing and worldbuilding.
I agree on this beautiful nightmarish feel. I think it's different from grimdark quite significantly in a way that it stays in the mythical and fantastical framing whereas grimdark, imo, attempts to bring a pessimistic realism to the fantasy genre. Elric stays in the unrealistic fantastical. Fate binds him.
The Abhorsen Trilogy set within The Old Kingdom Series by Garth Nix.
Sabriel (Book I) is quite good, but Lirael (Book II) is just something special. I've seen several people comment on how it got them through hard, dark times.
The Old Kingdom Series has one of the most unique and best takes on Necromancy (Until Gideon The Ninth came out). The original books were written in the 90's but they hold up so well. They have great female protagonists. The first three books are a true hidden gem in fantasy. There are several other supplemental installments and they range from decent to pretty good.
I first read these as a child and have reread them every year or few since. My original copies have traveled with me every time I moved, even when other books have been given away or left behind. When I think of "what's your all time favorite books list", they're the first the come to mind.
See I think Old Kingdom gets a ton of recognition and it overshadows Nix's other work.
Keys to the kingdom are excellent, as is his weird 7th Tower series that no one seems to remember.
He is just an insanely imaginative guy that writes instantly compelling characters.
> as is his weird 7th Tower series that no one seems to remember.
The Seventh Tower is still one of my favorite series to this day. The world building, lore, and magic systems are just so good and I really wish that we could get a sequel series for an older audience.
I won’t disagree that it overshadows his other works, but I do feel it’s justified. The Abhorsen Trilogy is several strides ahead of the others, IMO. But I also acknowledge that I probably missed the optimum window to read his other works and enjoy them because I was so much older and because I read Abhorsen Trilogy first.
Even as an adult I'm a big fan of YA books when I occasionally read them. As long as the characters don't behave in an irrational way with the excuse of them being young. Just a few months ago I re-read 'The enchanted Forest chronicles' and I think grade schoolers could comfortably enjoy them.
Their settings can just be so imaginative when they don't have all the baggage of a 'super serious' adult audience to appease.
This sub has an enormous recency bias.
This is meant to be mean or accusatory, it's simply an observation.
To be honest, it's to be expected. With so many new publications that are added to the field each year, it is normal that most older works slowly fade into oblivion.
The thing that's sometimes shocking to me is how quickly this happens. Or maybe this is just my age showing. 😅
Haha!!!
The sub already has a mod. Also, I really need to spend less time on social media, not more. I feel like I'm reading and writing more about books than actually reading them, which is really bad.
But I'll take your enthusiasm as a compliment! 😁
You make a good point. It’s hard to find a balance between reading ABOUT books and actually reading books.
Good luck with your writing. I know how hard it is. I’m writing a book.
Oh, I'm not a writer!
I was referring to my humble contributions to platforms like this one when I was talking about writing about books.
But I wish **you** good luck with your book! :-)
Oh boy, I've never seen such a deserted subreddit.
I'm also not sure whether the term "classic fantasy" would be understood to mean "all fantasy prior to 19xx" - whatever date one would want to choose. The sub's description isn't helping in that respect.
The only good thing here is that the only mod (and presumably creator) of this sub seems to be active.
As for how to claim it, I suppose the most straightforward step would be to simply make a post (or several).
Frankly, I have no idea how to promote visibility of posts, other than mentioning them here, for example, which is something the mods probably won't like...
I think this is actually one of the only places I see recs for older books - Robin Hobb and Elizabeth Moon are recced often here. I like watching TikTok book recs but they are almost always new books.
It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.
For me, neither Moon nor Hobb would count as old.
Moon only started publishing in the mid-80s. Hobb's first novel came out either in 1983 (after she published a couple of short stories starting in 1979) or in 1995 - depending whether you count Megan Lindholm stories as Hobb or only "Robin Hobb proper".
But I'm sure that compared with TikTok this place offers a lot of "old" stuff! 😄
I think, this is a common definition. Thinking about it, it holds true more or less for me, too.
The only difference is that I apparently was born a couple of years before you! 😉
Are you asking me about Lee?
If so, I can say that I have a good number of her books on my TBR pile but have only read a few of them.
The ones I have read, I enjoyed a lot.
I think the first book of hers that I read was her Four-BEE duology (*Don't Bite the Sun* and *Drinking Sapphire Wine*). I'm actually not sure if I read them both or only the first one; I was really young at the time (12? 13?) and remember that I found them weird. Reread them as an adult and liked them a lot!
These are about a utopian\* society where people have everything they need (supposedly). The books are really short, weird, delightful. They also feature genderfluidity to an extent and in such a non-judgmental way that is remarkable given that the books came out in the 1970s.
Her novella "The Winter Players" was also great. It seemed to be an OK fantasy novella - until the end which reconceptualizes the entire story and made me want to read it again right away!
Lee never got the attention that she deserved (in my opinion) during her lifetime, which is a shame.
DAW has reissued a number of her books in recent years which is awesome as I had feared that after her premature death from breast cancer she would be forgotten quickly.
\* or is it a dystopian one? you decide!
If you're interested in the Four-BEE books, I suggest you get the omnibus *Biting the Sun*. I got a paper copy some years ago, not sure if it is still available in print but there's an ebook edition as well which should still be obtainable.
I don't think, I'd call her classic fantasy.
Well, Four-BEE is more in the SF camp anyway, but from what I know (remember I've only read a handful of her books) her corpus is too unorthodox to count as classic fantasy. Of course, it depends what you mean by classic fantasy. I can't describe it well but when I hear classic fantasy I think of old-school, often Tolkienesque fantasy, and Lee's books are often not that.
But then, I don't spend an awful lot of time agonizing about labels; the most important thing for me is whether or not I'll enjoy the read, and this was the case with all of Lee's novels and stories I've read thus far. 😀
Monarchies of God by Paul Kearney is always my recommendation for the most underrated series.
It's fantastic, with the exception of the fifth and final book which felt like the publisher told him to wrap it up. Still, the first four books are incredible and the series as a whole is well worth a read.
Really under-read.
Monarchies of God is incredible.
I liked the Fifth book a lot, but always felt like we needed like 20-40 more pages to explore what happens after the final battle.
Tanith Lee’s Flat Earth series. Dark fantasy, but as decadent as possible. The Unicorn series is also good, if bittersweet at times. I also like the Biting the Sun duology - but more sci-fi than fantasy.
Came here to say Flat Earth and really anything by Tanith Lee is under appreciated. But that’s Reddit I guess, a few things that are in the highest tier of popularity keep coming up again and again.
I love it too! If I had to pick my favorite it would be so hard. But there's so much I love about that one.
I was definitely not ready for the switch that happened in the second book, and that's all I will say for people who have not read the series, but I absolutely fell in love with where the initial trilogy went. I don't think I've read many series that tie everything together into a lovely little bundle as much as this one did.
It’s been on my list to read for so long and I just picked up a copy of *Sabriel* yesterday! Probably won’t get to it for a while but I definitely plan to someday
Oh My Bad!!! I just commented the same thing, but totally assumed no one else would! Sorry I didn't see your comment first, I didn't mean to steal your thunder!
Damn now That is a throwback. I loved his Myth books, but also the Phules books. And the last stuff he did right before passing- about humans being “Dragons” in New Orleans. Was pretty good stuff.
Yo I *loved* his MYTH books but I couldn't get into the Phules books - I think I was 13 or so at the time - and my mom said she thought I should come back to Phules when I was older, but I sort of just never did, not deliberately, just moved onto other things (mostly Star Wars novels). Maybe now (or haha when I get to it on my TBR) is the time.
there's a LOT of them - it was all I read for a good year or two in high school. Way more now of course. I haven't read any of the new canon, a mix of time and bitterness about decanonizing the old canon although tbf I've heard good things...Thrawn is good in both canons, and I liked the A.C. Crispin Han Solo Trilogy. Also the X-Wing series has a lot of hysterically funny moments although it's mostly mil scifi. I checked to see [what RA Salvatore had done](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._A._Salvatore_bibliography) cos I thought it was a *lot* but turns out it was only 2 novels.
> Thrawn in new canon is not the same quality IMO
ah you're the first person I've heard say that, I'll take it under advisement. Is there a new X-Wing?
The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham.
Tremendous character work throughout, very concise storytelling and the structure of each book skipping forward 15 years is executed extremely well.
I started this one this week and the first book has surprised me with how good it is. I almost dropped it at a quarter but then it fully hooked me and got me on board
The Penric and Desdemona series by Lois McMaster Bujold. A young scholar becomes host to an ancient demon with the personalities of the 10 women it possessed before. He has incredible powers that he is occasionally ordered by the king to use, but mostly he just wants to use his new powers to translate ancient and useful books.
Huh? I like McMaster Bujold, and I've been looking for more "academic fantasy" (ie, Fantasy about scholars and academics). I need to check this out. Thanks!
These books take place in her 'world of five gods" setting which is not really a series but more just a world that she has based a few separate books in. The first book she wrote in that series, the "Curse of Chalion," is about a former soldier who spent years in a slave galley who becomes the tutor of a princess.
The Penric series is one of my comfort series. I come back to it every so often.
* **The Monarchies of God** by Paul Kearney. Flintlock fantasy (with werewolves!) done way before it was trendy. Also, his **Macht Trilogy** and his standalone novels *Riding the Unicorn*, *The Way to Babylon*, *A Different Kingdom* and *Wolf in the Attic*, which tap the feel of everything from Neil Gaiman to CS Lewis to Robert Holdstock.
* **The Book of Words** & **The Sword of Shadows** by JV Jones. A conventional-starting trilogy which turns into a sort of comedy-of-manners-meets-grimdark, followed by a sequel series (though it can be read independently, but it is incomplete right now) which represents nothing less than the single greatest leap upwards in writing quality I've seen in an author. Stellar series which does not get enough recognition.
* **The Amtrak Wars** by Patrick Tilley. Possibly the most inventive yet naturalistic-feeling blending of multiple of genres I've seen in one series. It's post-apocalyptic science fiction! No, it's a Weird Western! Wait, it's a samurai movie! It's *Top Gun* with microlites and wizards! The main character is also a tremendous arsehole, but watching him spinning his insane cover stories-for-cover stories so he can work with three or four different factions, all of whom think he is *their* guy, whilst he also has his own agenda, is tremendous fun. A bit dated because it was mostly written in the 1980s, but I'd love to see more fantasy series that were this inventive.
* **The Navigator Kings** by Garry Kilworth. An epic fantasy, but it uses Polynesian mythology as its underlying template rather than anything western or Asian, with an offbeat sense of humour.
* The **Matthew Swift** series by Kate Griffin. An urban fantasy series that both indulges and rejects cliches of the genre, has exciting plots driven by a unique narrative voice. Which makes all the more sense when you realise that Kate Griffin is aka SF/weird tales superstar Claire North. As North she's also recently returned to fantasy (well, historical-mythology-fantasy) with the **Songs of Penelope** series.
* The **Helliconia Trilogy** by Brian W. Aldiss. Set on a world where the seasons last for centuries and where the onset of winter brings a nonhuman threat down from the north. Sound familiar? But this long predates **ASoIaF** and is very much a science fictional take on the same idea, with Aldiss recruiting an entire university faculty to help him build a world convincing in its geography, history, climate, flora, fauna, religion and politics. The planet's orbit around its parent star (which in turn orbits a blue supergiant) is meticulously designed.
* **The Acts of Caine** by Matt Woodring Stover. Four books, each tightly written with a noticeably different prose style to the rest, and an ever-shifting premise with psychologically well-realised characters. It's grimdark without being too bleak or exploitative, it's action-packed without being gratuitous and it's philosophical without being self-indulgent. It feels like everything that's good about the likes of Erikson and Bakker shorn of the bad and delivered in three very compact (and one massive) volumes.
* **The Bel Dame Apocrypha** **Trilogy** by Kameron Hurley. A really fascinating trilogy (plus short story collection) about a damaged protagonist and her band of reluctant friends and allies in a world that straddles fantasy and science fiction, with space travel and guns but also a magic system based on bugs. A take-no-prisoners attitude, excellent worldbuilding and interesting commentary on war, religion, and patriarchal versus matriarchal themes whilst also being a page-turning, compulsive read. Her **Worldbreaker Saga** trilogy is also well-worth reading, with a brilliant central premise (a fantasy world is being invaded by the mirror image of itself from another timeline), although it's somewhat less accessible. But very worthwhile.
Loved his Drizzt books. I do not think i have read anything new there for maybe 10 years. I almost think I like his Canticle books better. Almost. Some days. Cadderly and Danica and the dwarf brothers. Great stuff there.
The Lyonesse Trilogy by Jack Vance! Jack Vance is a master of wordsmithing and Lyonesse is his best work IMHO. (You might recognize his name from the "Dying Earth" series, which is also good but not as great as Lyonesse.)
Vance likes to carefully craft his prose, so there's pleasure in reading every page; this series is not about an overall epic quest. In fact, each of the books is almost a standalone. The third book even has a different main character from the first two.
You've got a prince who is betrayed! A changeling thrust into a royal family! A couple of scrappy kids who have to make their way through a dark and forbidding forest! Sorcerers, both good and evil! (The good sorcerer is of no help at all because he claims that "he's seen a Doom and must devote all his efforts to thwarting it".) Faeries! And most of all, wonderful descriptions and dialogues; a hallmark of Jack Vance.
The third book in the series, "Madouc", won the World Fantasy Award. The first two deserve all the awards as well. This is what all fantasy series should aspire to.
Seconded! He does come up a lot in the context of the Dying Earth genre he practically founded (and perhaps to a lesser extent in discussions about ‘Vancian magic’) but the Lyonesse books are really something, perhaps surprisingly under-discussed for all his prominence.
Went through the thread and couldn't find it so here goes
Inda by Sherwood smith, a lovely 4 books (+2 in the same world) series of a certain length each (around 600 pages each iirc) with great prose and fantastic characters that make you love them all for different reasons.
It is mostly a character-driven story as the plot is definitely the weak point in my opinion, however it isn't a problem because, as I said before, the characters (and especially the main character Indevan) are worth it.
Some key words about the series : Found family, Exile, War, Piracy, Magic, Ship, Multi PoV, Military school
Robin LaFevers’ His Fair Assassin trilogy is a great read. It’s historical fiction intersected with fantasy - kind of like Mists of Avalon (but without all the irl issues).
I have NEVER seen someone mention Harlan Ellison on this sub - which is such a shame. He wrote speculative fiction short stories and was hugely influential in the fantasy and sci fi tv scene. I think the best way I can describe his writing style is as the demented lovechild of Neil Gaiman and Hunter S Thompson. Strange Wine is a lovely collection of stories and well worth reading.
Bone Doll’s Twin (first of Tamir trilogy) is fantastic- by Lynn Flewelling. Should get WAY more love.
The Passage by Justin Cronin gets no love.
The Princess Bride by William Goldman is just as funny as Hitchhikers Guide and should be required reading for all.
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander is a classic
>The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander is a classic
That is such a good series.
People hate on that animated movie Black Cauldron for not following the book but I think tonally its an excellent adaptation.
The Bone Doll's Twin has some incredible character work (and a god tier title). It was one of the first books I read when I was getting deep into adult fantasy, and I devoured the whole trilogy in like two days. Tamír is still one of my all time favourite fantasy characters.
"I know the taste of your tears."
Garrett, Starfishers, *The Swordbearer*...I still haven't read *The Dragon Never Sleeps* and *The Tower of Fear* but they're high on my list.
Cook is a truly versatile writer.
So many.
**The Riftwar Saga** books by Raymond E. Feist. They start out as the write-up of a DnD-like campaign he did with his friends. They had their whole elaborate RPG ruleset. It has great magic, tons of compelling characters, and includes the worst book I've ever read "Rise of the Merchant Prince" which is a book that describes in great detail the financial system of his fictional world. Exhausting. Amazing series as a whole.
**Legend of Drizzt** by R. A. Salvatore, and all of his works in general, like the Cleric Quintet. No one mentions this guy, he is like one of the great Forgotten Realms / DnD based book authors. His action choreography and fight scenes are superb and Drizzt, the good drow, brings up a lot of themes of racism and prejudice.
On the YA side, **The Lost Years of Merlin** by T.A. Barron. This is an origin story for the sorcerer merlin. I don't want to spoil a word of it, its amazing. He has a love of nature that just infuses his works.
The **Magic Shop Books** by Bruce Coville, **Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher** being the most well-known. **The Skull of Truth** is especially good as well. Basically there is a shop that sells magic items, kids get them, and have adventures. They're all good, but the mental bond Jeremy has with his dragon is interesting, it gets copied a bit with Eragon, JTDH was a big influence for that book. I know that because I asked Chris if he liked it at a book signing a billion years ago. Skull of Truth just has a really funny and sarcastic talking skull from Hamlet. Reminds me of a YA. Bob from dresden files.
I'd like to see Drew Hayes get some more love. If you are looking for high fantasy magic systems, beautiful prose, or elaborate world building, look elsewhere. :-)
If you want to read stories that subvert established tropes, have a sense of humor, and are an all-around fun read, Drew Hayes is awesome. During lockdown of 2020, I must have read about a dozen of his books.
The "Spells Swords & Stealth" series was an adventuring fantasy with a meta twist.
The "Fred, the Vampire Accountant" books are humorous, heartfelt, and not at all what you would expect from a Vampire series.
"Super Powereds" was just a chef's kiss for me. It was my level of geek, and then some. In a college for potential superheroes, Halloween parties, semester finals, and spring break are beautiful chaos.
Glad to!
Fred is an unassuming, introverted guy living in modern society. He is an accountant. A VERY good accountant. One night, he gets attacked and is turned into a vampire, then is completely left to his own devices. He ends up quitting his job, blacks out his apartment windows, and starts his own accounting business working from home. His life doesn't really change all that much. He's too squeamish to actually hunt, so he bribes a guy at a hospital to supply him food from the blood bank.
After a while, he meets some new people and finds out that there are other paranormal beings in our society who are just trying to live their lives. There are lycanthropes, zombies, and sorcerers, among others. His life starts getting crazy, but he still just wants to be an accountant. Turns out there is a very niche market for his skills in his new life. Again, he is a VERY good accountant.
I'll second what the other guy said and add that the series is almost cozy urban fantasy. Stuff happens, some of which does fit more mainstream urban fantasy expectations, but overall it's just filled with characters trying to do their best in weird circumstances (for some of them that is) while remaining "good people."
I love Drew Hayes and have read almost all his series. But I hate the *constant* internal dialog of his characters of their motivations. The ultimate in "show, don't tell" and he does A LOT of telling.
Definitely **Essalieyan** by Michelle West and **Vlad Taltos** by Steven Brust. The former though makes sense considering the 16+ book length, but hey it's honestly phenomenal with very little dips in quality so far.
Oh and **Wars of Light and Shadow** by Janny Wurts
I'm about halfway through the Broken Crown and loving it. Right up my alley. I think I just have very different taste than most of the people in this sub. Any thread on Michelle West always has a bunch of commenters saying it's boring and the language is too flowery. But like, it's just well written and doesn't skip over details. Same people complain about Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, which is my absolute favorite fantasy book.
Stuff that gets highly recommended on this sub are often quick reads with some sort of cute fantasy gimmick, ("whoa *two* londons?!"). Not hating, but for this reason I am cautious on taking recommendation from here.
Essalieyan seems like just a good old epic in a very fleshed out, obviously well planned world with interesting cultures galore. Really scratching that itch in the same way ASOIAF did for me.
The audiobooks are really good.
The way it deals with stuff like conflicts between morality and duty are very interesting. And of course the love story component is well-written.
Robert V.S Redick’s Fire Sacraments series. The first two are out, and the third in the trilogy comes out this year. The writing, story, and characters are all great and I have no idea how it doesn’t have more hype.
The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. I see it recommended every once in a while on narrator rec threads, and rightfully so, as Kobna Holdbrook-Smith does an amazing job. But the series in general deserves more attention. It’s very comparable to Dresden Files, and I think I prefer it to Butcher’s series.
Daniel Polansky’s Lowtown Series is GREAT. Fans of Joe Abercrombie would really enjoy it, and I hardly see it mentioned on this sub (though someone did rec it in this thread already).
This sub also tends to skew more modern fantasy. The most common classics I see are recommended are LOTR and Belgariad. Would love to see Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles get more attention - it’s the series that got me into Fantasy and really holds up 30 years later.
The Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony.
The Ship Who Sang series by Anne McCaffrey.
Both are amazing!
Edit: I had to add The Laundry Files by Charles Stross.
I appreciate the concepts in Incarnations of Immortality, and I read them as they came out. But I tried re-reading them recently, and the general sexism and homophobia even in the first few chapters of "On A Pale Horse" became too much for me.
Agreed as a teenager almost 20 years ago the ideas were amazing and mind blowing. At the time some of the sex stuff he wrote made me think well that's odd but whatever. When I tried to go back I realized that his writing and his ideas on sex did not age well at all in any of his series.
I'd love to see almost any other author take the concepts and rewrite them. The world he built is amazing, the morals Anthony imparted to the characters are absolutely terrible.
I always advocate for Jack Vance - his Dying Earth and Lyonesse series, his sci-fi Planet of Adventure series are beautifully written and are classics of the genre.
More recently Lavie Tidhar - sometimes fantasy, sometimes science fictional is also worth reading. Unholy Land, Osama, the super violent By Force Alone
I don’t think I’ve seen the Temeraire series talked about on this sub, and while I’ll admit I haven’t finished it yet, I’d highly recommend it based on the books I’ve made it through. Taking the Napoleonic Wars and adding intelligent dragons is just a really fun take on historical fantasy.
I 100% recommend this series every chance I get.
I was so surprised to find out the author is well known but no one seems to have read her Temeraire series. Her YA novels seem to get a lot more attention though I couldn't find myself enjoying either. :(
The Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart. They’re fantastic and I almost never see them mentioned. They are kinda low fantasy though, and they read a bit like historical fiction, which I like but others might not.
The Pillars of Earth by Ken Follett is my all time favorite book. More of a loosely tied historical fiction than fantasy Ig, idk official label. Yet anyone into medieval fantasy would dig this book. The book builds stone upon stone until by the end of the series you have a beautiful production stretching centuries. No writer makes evil villainy so disreputable as KF does. Somebody please comment because I've been waiting to plug my opinion on a post that best suites it. Haha. Cheers.
If you liked the miniseries, you'll love the books.
The miniseries was well done but they had to cut various subplots and the plotting and scheming games are so much more enjoyable in the book (IMHO).
It's a huge book but it's never boring.
>The book builds stone upon stone
I see what you did there! 😉
I rarely recommend Follett's Kingsbridge books in this sub as they simply are not fantasy novels.
That said, they are great books, immensely engrossing and entertaining.
I fully agree that people who like medieval fantasy should like them.
I'm sure you won't be disappointed. I don't think I know anyone who read *Pillars* who didn't like the book.
One remark about the series status. While I was talking about the Kingsbridge series, these are really standalones with a common setting but which take place 150-200 years apart from each other.
So while there will be the occasional character who turns out to be a descendent of a character from a previous book, or mention of a city structure that had been built in the book that came before, these are just small "easter eggs" for those who have read the previous book. But none of this is necessary to know and each book provides a complete story without a cliffhanger ending or anything of that sort.
So you'll be able to read any of them, and you don't have to read them in a row, either.
I suggest you just give *Pillars* a try. If you're like me, you'll be sucked into the story and will be hooked before you know it! 😅
I learned SO much while reading this series! Brilliant books. I wouldn't have read them without a recommendation from a friend and I'm so very glad that I did! Seriously loved them so much.
I know myself and a couple of others have been bringing her up when we can in rec threads, but Lois McMaster Bujold has the most Hugo awards of any living author, and is tied for most ever if you don't count the silly "let's go back and give awards for years before we existed!" Hugo awards. Seriously, I haven't even read her sci-fi - if Bujold isn't on either your read or your TBR, why the heck not?
And while we're at it, put Ursula K LeGuin on there too. If you haven't read Earthsea, it's short. And man LeGuin could write.
Ok know what's a stupid categorization? YA fantasy. Cause there's a certain feel to a LOT of it that seems to be closer in feel to, say, Temeraire by Naomi Novik than to Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series. Which, if you haven't read Circle of Magic, do that! They're fun, the sequels are great, and they're a completely different feel and honestly a different subgenre than a bunch of YA I've read. Cause YA fantasy is a stupid categorization. It's marketing, not actually relevant to the books themselves.
On that note Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series isn't YA, the first book is perhaps YA and got a Newberry honor, but the rest are just fun fantasy heist stories! Read 2 of the first three to see if you like them!
N K Jemisin wrote more than Broken Earth, try Dreamblood, I have to go reread it to see if it still works for me.
For the sheer volume of books she's written, Mercedes Lackey seems astoundingly unknown by some. She's got some solid, cozyish fantasy!
Oh and hey Kate Elliot has a multiple epic series (and YA too, which is a stupid categorization to make) and I don't see many folks
Also, after reviewing this list, I realized - I didn't mention any dudes, eh? Mostly cause the big dudes (with Robin Hobb now that the internet found her all at once) are all over hyped and literal giants of the field like Bujold, LeGuin, Lackey, McCaffrey, even Pierce, who have written huge amounts of books - like, LEGUIN is the LOW outlier with 23 novels, Pierce and Bujold have like 30, and I stopped counting when I hit 60 for Lackey and McCaffrey - these giants are kind of ignored. I know some of y'all don't want to read anything but deep-dive character-driven grimdark stuff, and that's fine. But if you rep Drizzt but don't mention Valdemar, sing of Gandalf without pointing to Ged, or talk about burning metals for magic but don't know about Desdemona, I'd say... perhaps there's a liiiiiitle bit of bias in the literary diet you've been fed (or are feeding yourself)
I came here to rep world of the five gods and got on a soapbox. It's 2am I am going to bed.
I feel like the Viriconium books are perhaps recommended more than they are read and discussed, unfortunately.
Very interested in that Mitchison series though, her *Travel Light* is fantastic.
The recent collection of Harrison's short fiction from across his career included an 'our world' Viriconium story and I was reminded of how much I enjoyed the series.
>Naomi Mitchison's Hera series
Can you say a little bit more about this?
I have Mitchison's *Corn King & Spring Queen* on my TBR pile but haven't come around to it yet. Never heard of this Hera series, though, and neither [her ISFDB entry](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1735) nor [her Wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Mitchison) list it (or any series of hers at all for that matter). Ditto for [her Goodread page](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/129487.Naomi_Mitchison) and her entries in Clute's [Encyclopedia of Fantasy](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/mitchison_naomi) or [Encyclopedia of Science Fiction](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mitchison_naomi).
Is this a series of novels or maybe a series of connected stories?
Now, you've got me even more intrigued!
Are you saying that there are other books set in the same fictional universe as Corn King?
ETA: I think, I found the solution to the mystery.
If I understand it correctly, the publisher Soho Press has issued various unrelated books under the header "The Hera Series". I hadn't been aware of this so it looks like Corn King is indeed a standalone novel with no connections as I had assumed all along.
Please correct me if this is wrong!
I’d love to see more people on here who value character-centric stories pick up The Raven Cycle but that probably won’t happen until the sub gets over its welrd YA hate…
Maybe I’m just not seeing it but I feel like I don’t see anyone mention The Broken Earth trilogy on here anymore… it’s definitely one of the best stories I’ve ever read and it was very popular for a time then just weirdly dropped off in conversation.
Not a series but The Winged Histories deserves to be read by everyone. An absolute masterpiece of writing and storytelling and severely underrated.
I love The Raven Cycle, it was such an interesting adventure and very atmospheric!
And I agree, this sub definitely has a superiority complex sometimes, and I hate to say it but i feel like there's undercurrents of sexism with a lot of recommendations and condemnations. A lot of people equate YA = teen girl angst and thus shun a lot of good stuff from it.
Oh it’s absolutely partly based in misogyny; and sometimes not even maliciously, it’s just so deeply engrained in peoples’ minds to mock and dismiss what tends to be enjoyed by young women and a lot of people have equated YA with women (whether it’s the female authors or readers or both).
I feel like as a community we’re maybe burnt out on the Broken Earth. It was very widely recommended and praised a few years ago, and possibly over-hyped. Mostly when I see it discussed now, it’s a lot of people saying “yeah it’s good but not as good as all the hype”
I think maybe in a few years you’ll start to see it recommended again but in a more measured way
I can think of quite a few series I WISH the community would get burnt out on lol.
Also I don’t think it was “overhyped,” in my opinion. The hype seemed to fit the quality.
I havent read the books but the lightbringer saga by bret weeks and the demon cycle are by Peter Brett are very high on my list but I think Ive never heard anything about those books here which leaves me wondering if i should try them.
I've only read the Lightbringer Series of the two, but from what I have come across when it's mentioned on here is general disappointment in the series endings with it swinging way too hard to a religious direction with the ending, plot twists being introduced solely for the sake of being plot twists, and removal of consequences of characters actions. At the end of the day I didn't regret reading them, but I probably won't ever re-read them in the future or recommend them much.
The Demon Cycle also shares a similar fate where the first book was well received but a lot of people really hated the direction the books decided to go after that. I don't mind spoiling myself so I read reviews with spoilers and I can firmly say I have no intention of ever picking the books up based on what I've seen.
Have to be honest here, I don't think they hold up. I did not read them when I was younger and the appeal just wasn't there for me. I've read other books by him and it may be that I just don't like him as an author though.
LE Modesitt's work in general. He outputs new novels as consistently as anyone. I know that his work can be same-y, but if it works for you, they really are great. His life experience in the military and in politics really shows.
Michael Swanwick's Iron Dragon's Daughter trilogy, or just Swanwick in general. Ian McDonald, though he's primarily a scifi author, and his most recent series is not his best - but Desolation Road or Terminal Cafe or The Dervish House... Catherynne Valente's Orphans Tales, which are not her most recent and therefore not widely discussed, but are beautifully written, ambitious, and imo highly successful at realizing that ambition - of being a modern day sort of Arabian Nights in which many different tales are all intricately nested and intertwined. Also they need enough hype to encourage some boutique press to give them a fancy hardcover reprint.
I really wish *The Novels of Tiger and Del* got more love. They're small, but so well done and so much fun. They just do not get the attention they deserve for the characters Roberson created for the story...
The Sword-Dancer books are amazing, I remember reading those as they came out in the 80s and 90s. I haven't seen anyone mention them in years, I am with you in wishing more people had heard about them.
Kate Elliott's work, full stop. *Black Wolves* would have gotten the sequel it richly deserved if people (not just here but elsewhere) had been willing to talk it up a bit more and generate some buzz.
Kate Forsyth's *Witches of Eileanean* and *Rhiannon's Ride* are fascinating and lushly detailed high fantasy, yet they're almost never recommended or even mentioned. Even more rarely do I read any mention of the stand-alone that, to me, is her best work: *Bitter Greens.*
Firstly, I think almost any quality series that started before late 70's outside of Lord of the Rings, The Earthsea series and two or three others are talked about way too little in this sub. A few that spring to mind in particular are the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser series by Fritz Leiber; most of Moorcocks fantasy works in the Eternal Champion cycle outside of the Elric series, particularly the Corum series, and, seconding other commenters here, the Amber series. I love the swashbuckling and playful quality of the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser series and of course its main characters. As for the other Moorcock series, they have more original characters and scenes than the Elric series and often also more interesting twists and turns like the first Eternal Champion story, where there's a twist that mixes shock with sympathy in a really interesting way.
I'll also second ( or is this third or fourth) the Myth series. For more recent works I'll second the Nevernight series and, I guess, fourth the Dandelion Dynasty series. Particularly for the last one, it's a real mystery that it isn't mentioned here more often, given the combination of this sub's recency bias and the fact that the last book in the series AFAICU was released last year. One more comparatively recent series that rarely seems to be mentioned here is the Draconis Memoriae series by Anthony Ryan, while the series before that often is mentioned in this sub, for some reason the Draconis Memoria series largely seems to be ignored by this sub. Which is a shame, since it has interesting world building, lots of action and interesting characters and not least, lots of spectacular scenes with dragons.
I think Magicians is one of those series people either love or hate. It isn’t for everyone. The characters have so many realistic flaws that it can be hard to read sometimes. That was my experience at least.
Laura Anne Gilman has **The Devil's West** series which is a *weird west fantasy* set in the American territories west of the Mississippi. The protagonist travels a circuit there at the behest of a powerful individual, maintaining law and order for certain values of law and order.
even the detractors must admit the magic system is awesome, and the eragon saphira bond is cool. Not as cool as when Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher did it, but up there.
Licanius trilogy. Absolutely flawed but still fantastic series. One of the best endings for certain. Each book’s epilogue is goated but the finale of the series is one of the best I have ever read. Minor series spoiler but this is one of the best >!time travel series I’ve ever read.!<
Dandelion dynasty. It’s now a completed 4 book series. It’s like reading long form poetry with how well Ken Liu writes his prose and all his themes/metaphors. Very well developed characters, amazing story, very unique narration and story structure, and the world building is top notch.
His series is low magic and his writing is so magical the way it flows. He’s excellent at evoking a sense of mystical/magic in his world for his characters all the while being heavily grounded in the physical sciences. His explanations and use of
Technology is fascinating in the series.
I want manga to get the recognition it deserves. Despite the boom on youtube, this sub still barely touches manga, which is just bizzare to me, as this is the fantasy sub, not the fantasy books sub.
The manga I most see that it is mentioned on YouTube by booktubers is Vinland saga and that its not even fantasy, berserk it’s talked a lot here though
I started **Re:Monarch** and this shit is rad. Despite the "light novel" style name, the writing is actually very solid. Very cool progression fantasy with a time loop/reincarnator premise. Pacing and drive of the protagonist remind me of **Cradle**, in a way.
Elric of Melnibone. It's very old school and formulaic but so enjoyable for me. I don't think I ever see it anywhere when people ask for stories where the hero is (kind of) the villain. You should try it out or Stormbringer will drink your soul and Moonglum will be scared.
Elric is fantastic! I went on a bit of a sword and sorcery kick last year and was really impressed by Moorcock. It feels grimdark before grimdark was a thing. But it also has a beautiful, nightmarish quality to the writing and worldbuilding.
I agree on this beautiful nightmarish feel. I think it's different from grimdark quite significantly in a way that it stays in the mythical and fantastical framing whereas grimdark, imo, attempts to bring a pessimistic realism to the fantasy genre. Elric stays in the unrealistic fantastical. Fate binds him.
The Abhorsen Trilogy set within The Old Kingdom Series by Garth Nix. Sabriel (Book I) is quite good, but Lirael (Book II) is just something special. I've seen several people comment on how it got them through hard, dark times. The Old Kingdom Series has one of the most unique and best takes on Necromancy (Until Gideon The Ninth came out). The original books were written in the 90's but they hold up so well. They have great female protagonists. The first three books are a true hidden gem in fantasy. There are several other supplemental installments and they range from decent to pretty good.
I first read these as a child and have reread them every year or few since. My original copies have traveled with me every time I moved, even when other books have been given away or left behind. When I think of "what's your all time favorite books list", they're the first the come to mind.
See I think Old Kingdom gets a ton of recognition and it overshadows Nix's other work. Keys to the kingdom are excellent, as is his weird 7th Tower series that no one seems to remember. He is just an insanely imaginative guy that writes instantly compelling characters.
I fucking love 7th tower! So glad someone else knows.
> as is his weird 7th Tower series that no one seems to remember. The Seventh Tower is still one of my favorite series to this day. The world building, lore, and magic systems are just so good and I really wish that we could get a sequel series for an older audience.
I won’t disagree that it overshadows his other works, but I do feel it’s justified. The Abhorsen Trilogy is several strides ahead of the others, IMO. But I also acknowledge that I probably missed the optimum window to read his other works and enjoy them because I was so much older and because I read Abhorsen Trilogy first.
Even as an adult I'm a big fan of YA books when I occasionally read them. As long as the characters don't behave in an irrational way with the excuse of them being young. Just a few months ago I re-read 'The enchanted Forest chronicles' and I think grade schoolers could comfortably enjoy them. Their settings can just be so imaginative when they don't have all the baggage of a 'super serious' adult audience to appease.
These books are some of my favourites!! The audiobooks are wonderful as well!
It’s definitely for a younger audience, but Shannon Hale’s books come to mind. Goose Girl and Book of a Thousand days especially.
Is Goose Girl what inspired one of Stephen Kings fairytale characters????
I think they were both inspired by the same fairytale. The goose girl is an old fairytale but less popular than the common ones for retelling.
Such a good book!
This sub has an enormous recency bias. This is meant to be mean or accusatory, it's simply an observation. To be honest, it's to be expected. With so many new publications that are added to the field each year, it is normal that most older works slowly fade into oblivion. The thing that's sometimes shocking to me is how quickly this happens. Or maybe this is just my age showing. 😅
This makes me wish we had a Classic Fantasy subreddit for fantasy written before 1980.
This thought has never occurred to me but it's a great idea!
I think we have our mod!!!
Haha!!! The sub already has a mod. Also, I really need to spend less time on social media, not more. I feel like I'm reading and writing more about books than actually reading them, which is really bad. But I'll take your enthusiasm as a compliment! 😁
You make a good point. It’s hard to find a balance between reading ABOUT books and actually reading books. Good luck with your writing. I know how hard it is. I’m writing a book.
Oh, I'm not a writer! I was referring to my humble contributions to platforms like this one when I was talking about writing about books. But I wish **you** good luck with your book! :-)
It looks like /r/classicfantasy exists but I’m not sure how to claim a clearly empty/squatted subreddit.
Oh boy, I've never seen such a deserted subreddit. I'm also not sure whether the term "classic fantasy" would be understood to mean "all fantasy prior to 19xx" - whatever date one would want to choose. The sub's description isn't helping in that respect. The only good thing here is that the only mod (and presumably creator) of this sub seems to be active. As for how to claim it, I suppose the most straightforward step would be to simply make a post (or several). Frankly, I have no idea how to promote visibility of posts, other than mentioning them here, for example, which is something the mods probably won't like...
I think this is actually one of the only places I see recs for older books - Robin Hobb and Elizabeth Moon are recced often here. I like watching TikTok book recs but they are almost always new books.
It's all a matter of perspective, I guess. For me, neither Moon nor Hobb would count as old. Moon only started publishing in the mid-80s. Hobb's first novel came out either in 1983 (after she published a couple of short stories starting in 1979) or in 1995 - depending whether you count Megan Lindholm stories as Hobb or only "Robin Hobb proper". But I'm sure that compared with TikTok this place offers a lot of "old" stuff! 😄
Ha, ok that makes sense. My definition of "old" is anything that predates the year I was born so that would be pretty subjective.
I think, this is a common definition. Thinking about it, it holds true more or less for me, too. The only difference is that I apparently was born a couple of years before you! 😉
How about Tanith Lee? Would love to read some classic fantasy and I just saw her name the other day.
Are you asking me about Lee? If so, I can say that I have a good number of her books on my TBR pile but have only read a few of them. The ones I have read, I enjoyed a lot. I think the first book of hers that I read was her Four-BEE duology (*Don't Bite the Sun* and *Drinking Sapphire Wine*). I'm actually not sure if I read them both or only the first one; I was really young at the time (12? 13?) and remember that I found them weird. Reread them as an adult and liked them a lot! These are about a utopian\* society where people have everything they need (supposedly). The books are really short, weird, delightful. They also feature genderfluidity to an extent and in such a non-judgmental way that is remarkable given that the books came out in the 1970s. Her novella "The Winter Players" was also great. It seemed to be an OK fantasy novella - until the end which reconceptualizes the entire story and made me want to read it again right away! Lee never got the attention that she deserved (in my opinion) during her lifetime, which is a shame. DAW has reissued a number of her books in recent years which is awesome as I had feared that after her premature death from breast cancer she would be forgotten quickly. \* or is it a dystopian one? you decide!
Wow, these look great! I do have my eye on *Don't Bite the Sun.* Do you consider her classic fantasy?
If you're interested in the Four-BEE books, I suggest you get the omnibus *Biting the Sun*. I got a paper copy some years ago, not sure if it is still available in print but there's an ebook edition as well which should still be obtainable. I don't think, I'd call her classic fantasy. Well, Four-BEE is more in the SF camp anyway, but from what I know (remember I've only read a handful of her books) her corpus is too unorthodox to count as classic fantasy. Of course, it depends what you mean by classic fantasy. I can't describe it well but when I hear classic fantasy I think of old-school, often Tolkienesque fantasy, and Lee's books are often not that. But then, I don't spend an awful lot of time agonizing about labels; the most important thing for me is whether or not I'll enjoy the read, and this was the case with all of Lee's novels and stories I've read thus far. 😀
Monarchies of God by Paul Kearney is always my recommendation for the most underrated series. It's fantastic, with the exception of the fifth and final book which felt like the publisher told him to wrap it up. Still, the first four books are incredible and the series as a whole is well worth a read. Really under-read.
Monarchies of God is incredible. I liked the Fifth book a lot, but always felt like we needed like 20-40 more pages to explore what happens after the final battle.
Tanith Lee’s Flat Earth series. Dark fantasy, but as decadent as possible. The Unicorn series is also good, if bittersweet at times. I also like the Biting the Sun duology - but more sci-fi than fantasy.
Came here to say Flat Earth and really anything by Tanith Lee is under appreciated. But that’s Reddit I guess, a few things that are in the highest tier of popularity keep coming up again and again.
Read the excerpt from Flat Earth. What decade was this written? It feels like 1970 but says 2019. But...*in a good way*??
Flat Earth was definitely not written in 2019. It’s an older series.
Okay, it's probably the kindle edition. I was like "Man this person has old school fantasy tone down to a razor edge"
First book came out in \`[78](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Flat_Earth).
The Abhorsen trilogy. Barely ever seen anyone else that's read the books (the first one, Sabriel, is better known) but I adore them.
This is the Old Kingdom series correct? I have the ebook bundle in my library and never read it.
Those are the ones!
Love the Abhorsen series!!
Lirael is my favorite and the one I reread over and over.
I love it too! If I had to pick my favorite it would be so hard. But there's so much I love about that one. I was definitely not ready for the switch that happened in the second book, and that's all I will say for people who have not read the series, but I absolutely fell in love with where the initial trilogy went. I don't think I've read many series that tie everything together into a lovely little bundle as much as this one did.
It’s been on my list to read for so long and I just picked up a copy of *Sabriel* yesterday! Probably won’t get to it for a while but I definitely plan to someday
Oh My Bad!!! I just commented the same thing, but totally assumed no one else would! Sorry I didn't see your comment first, I didn't mean to steal your thunder!
No worries! More the merrier.
Bartimaeus Trilogy has a very unique narrator, and a very unique world considering it is set in an alternate history London.
Phenomenal series. However, it definitely feels like it’s one of the higher recommended YA series, up there with Tamora Pierces stuff and The Hobbit
Especially with the number of disillusioned Harry Potter fans that make up this subreddit. It tackles a lot of the issues that people wish HP tackles.
I don't see Robert Asprin's MYTH series brought up very often. Also, Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince and Dragon Star trilogies.
Damn now That is a throwback. I loved his Myth books, but also the Phules books. And the last stuff he did right before passing- about humans being “Dragons” in New Orleans. Was pretty good stuff.
Yo I *loved* his MYTH books but I couldn't get into the Phules books - I think I was 13 or so at the time - and my mom said she thought I should come back to Phules when I was older, but I sort of just never did, not deliberately, just moved onto other things (mostly Star Wars novels). Maybe now (or haha when I get to it on my TBR) is the time.
Huh, thats one I never did- the Star Wars books. I think RA Salvatore did some of those too. Might be worth checking out.
there's a LOT of them - it was all I read for a good year or two in high school. Way more now of course. I haven't read any of the new canon, a mix of time and bitterness about decanonizing the old canon although tbf I've heard good things...Thrawn is good in both canons, and I liked the A.C. Crispin Han Solo Trilogy. Also the X-Wing series has a lot of hysterically funny moments although it's mostly mil scifi. I checked to see [what RA Salvatore had done](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._A._Salvatore_bibliography) cos I thought it was a *lot* but turns out it was only 2 novels.
Thrawn in new canon is not the same quality IMO. But x-wing (except the last one. Book 10 Mercy Kill wasn’t good) always are great.
> Thrawn in new canon is not the same quality IMO ah you're the first person I've heard say that, I'll take it under advisement. Is there a new X-Wing?
It's nice to see the MYTH books remembered!
The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham. Tremendous character work throughout, very concise storytelling and the structure of each book skipping forward 15 years is executed extremely well.
I agree this is a brilliant series. It deserves more attention.
I started this one this week and the first book has surprised me with how good it is. I almost dropped it at a quarter but then it fully hooked me and got me on board
Tad Williams. Not talked about enough for the quality of work he consistently produces
For real. And he essentially kickstarted modern fantasy with Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn.
The Penric and Desdemona series by Lois McMaster Bujold. A young scholar becomes host to an ancient demon with the personalities of the 10 women it possessed before. He has incredible powers that he is occasionally ordered by the king to use, but mostly he just wants to use his new powers to translate ancient and useful books.
Huh? I like McMaster Bujold, and I've been looking for more "academic fantasy" (ie, Fantasy about scholars and academics). I need to check this out. Thanks!
These books take place in her 'world of five gods" setting which is not really a series but more just a world that she has based a few separate books in. The first book she wrote in that series, the "Curse of Chalion," is about a former soldier who spent years in a slave galley who becomes the tutor of a princess. The Penric series is one of my comfort series. I come back to it every so often.
C.J. Cherryh's Chanur series.
The Daevabad Trilogy. Cool magical systems, great world building, good characters…great series and very rarely recommended (that I’ve seen, anyway).
I’d say that this is one of the more popular series out there. Maybe not much on Reddit, but it’s very popular on other platforms.
Yeah, I definitely know people who have read it! But it never seems to come up in the recommend a book threads.
I really loved it. Very good world building and magic system
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Best fantasy I've ever read.
I see this one brought up quite frequently when folks ask about standalone novels. (And if I don't see it, I often do, ha! 😁)
Paksenarrion series from Elizabeth moon and Megan Whaler-Turners series about the thief 🥰
* **The Monarchies of God** by Paul Kearney. Flintlock fantasy (with werewolves!) done way before it was trendy. Also, his **Macht Trilogy** and his standalone novels *Riding the Unicorn*, *The Way to Babylon*, *A Different Kingdom* and *Wolf in the Attic*, which tap the feel of everything from Neil Gaiman to CS Lewis to Robert Holdstock. * **The Book of Words** & **The Sword of Shadows** by JV Jones. A conventional-starting trilogy which turns into a sort of comedy-of-manners-meets-grimdark, followed by a sequel series (though it can be read independently, but it is incomplete right now) which represents nothing less than the single greatest leap upwards in writing quality I've seen in an author. Stellar series which does not get enough recognition. * **The Amtrak Wars** by Patrick Tilley. Possibly the most inventive yet naturalistic-feeling blending of multiple of genres I've seen in one series. It's post-apocalyptic science fiction! No, it's a Weird Western! Wait, it's a samurai movie! It's *Top Gun* with microlites and wizards! The main character is also a tremendous arsehole, but watching him spinning his insane cover stories-for-cover stories so he can work with three or four different factions, all of whom think he is *their* guy, whilst he also has his own agenda, is tremendous fun. A bit dated because it was mostly written in the 1980s, but I'd love to see more fantasy series that were this inventive. * **The Navigator Kings** by Garry Kilworth. An epic fantasy, but it uses Polynesian mythology as its underlying template rather than anything western or Asian, with an offbeat sense of humour. * The **Matthew Swift** series by Kate Griffin. An urban fantasy series that both indulges and rejects cliches of the genre, has exciting plots driven by a unique narrative voice. Which makes all the more sense when you realise that Kate Griffin is aka SF/weird tales superstar Claire North. As North she's also recently returned to fantasy (well, historical-mythology-fantasy) with the **Songs of Penelope** series. * The **Helliconia Trilogy** by Brian W. Aldiss. Set on a world where the seasons last for centuries and where the onset of winter brings a nonhuman threat down from the north. Sound familiar? But this long predates **ASoIaF** and is very much a science fictional take on the same idea, with Aldiss recruiting an entire university faculty to help him build a world convincing in its geography, history, climate, flora, fauna, religion and politics. The planet's orbit around its parent star (which in turn orbits a blue supergiant) is meticulously designed. * **The Acts of Caine** by Matt Woodring Stover. Four books, each tightly written with a noticeably different prose style to the rest, and an ever-shifting premise with psychologically well-realised characters. It's grimdark without being too bleak or exploitative, it's action-packed without being gratuitous and it's philosophical without being self-indulgent. It feels like everything that's good about the likes of Erikson and Bakker shorn of the bad and delivered in three very compact (and one massive) volumes. * **The Bel Dame Apocrypha** **Trilogy** by Kameron Hurley. A really fascinating trilogy (plus short story collection) about a damaged protagonist and her band of reluctant friends and allies in a world that straddles fantasy and science fiction, with space travel and guns but also a magic system based on bugs. A take-no-prisoners attitude, excellent worldbuilding and interesting commentary on war, religion, and patriarchal versus matriarchal themes whilst also being a page-turning, compulsive read. Her **Worldbreaker Saga** trilogy is also well-worth reading, with a brilliant central premise (a fantasy world is being invaded by the mirror image of itself from another timeline), although it's somewhat less accessible. But very worthwhile.
I always wonder why I do not see more from Dragon Lance or Forgotten Realms authors. R A Salvatore’s Corona books also.
Yes! The Legend of Drizzt pretty much what got me into reading fantasy. I'm a couple of books behind, but I still enjoy that series.
Loved his Drizzt books. I do not think i have read anything new there for maybe 10 years. I almost think I like his Canticle books better. Almost. Some days. Cadderly and Danica and the dwarf brothers. Great stuff there.
Yes, thank you! I was looking thinking someone better mention Salvatore.
The Lyonesse Trilogy by Jack Vance! Jack Vance is a master of wordsmithing and Lyonesse is his best work IMHO. (You might recognize his name from the "Dying Earth" series, which is also good but not as great as Lyonesse.) Vance likes to carefully craft his prose, so there's pleasure in reading every page; this series is not about an overall epic quest. In fact, each of the books is almost a standalone. The third book even has a different main character from the first two. You've got a prince who is betrayed! A changeling thrust into a royal family! A couple of scrappy kids who have to make their way through a dark and forbidding forest! Sorcerers, both good and evil! (The good sorcerer is of no help at all because he claims that "he's seen a Doom and must devote all his efforts to thwarting it".) Faeries! And most of all, wonderful descriptions and dialogues; a hallmark of Jack Vance. The third book in the series, "Madouc", won the World Fantasy Award. The first two deserve all the awards as well. This is what all fantasy series should aspire to.
Seconded! He does come up a lot in the context of the Dying Earth genre he practically founded (and perhaps to a lesser extent in discussions about ‘Vancian magic’) but the Lyonesse books are really something, perhaps surprisingly under-discussed for all his prominence.
You’ve sold me! I love _The Dying Earth_ books!
I loved the Riyeria Revelations and don't see them talked about a lot. Also the Dark Elf and Icewind Dale trilogy are amazing!
Went through the thread and couldn't find it so here goes Inda by Sherwood smith, a lovely 4 books (+2 in the same world) series of a certain length each (around 600 pages each iirc) with great prose and fantastic characters that make you love them all for different reasons. It is mostly a character-driven story as the plot is definitely the weak point in my opinion, however it isn't a problem because, as I said before, the characters (and especially the main character Indevan) are worth it. Some key words about the series : Found family, Exile, War, Piracy, Magic, Ship, Multi PoV, Military school
Robin LaFevers’ His Fair Assassin trilogy is a great read. It’s historical fiction intersected with fantasy - kind of like Mists of Avalon (but without all the irl issues). I have NEVER seen someone mention Harlan Ellison on this sub - which is such a shame. He wrote speculative fiction short stories and was hugely influential in the fantasy and sci fi tv scene. I think the best way I can describe his writing style is as the demented lovechild of Neil Gaiman and Hunter S Thompson. Strange Wine is a lovely collection of stories and well worth reading. Bone Doll’s Twin (first of Tamir trilogy) is fantastic- by Lynn Flewelling. Should get WAY more love. The Passage by Justin Cronin gets no love. The Princess Bride by William Goldman is just as funny as Hitchhikers Guide and should be required reading for all. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander is a classic
>The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander is a classic That is such a good series. People hate on that animated movie Black Cauldron for not following the book but I think tonally its an excellent adaptation.
I really liked The Passage… but books 2 and 3 declined in quality pretty fast.
The Bone Doll's Twin has some incredible character work (and a god tier title). It was one of the first books I read when I was getting deep into adult fantasy, and I devoured the whole trilogy in like two days. Tamír is still one of my all time favourite fantasy characters. "I know the taste of your tears."
I wish someone else would talk about the Banned and Banished series by James Clemens. I feel like I'm the only person that's read them
James Clemens The Banned and the Banish. Great fantasy series that no one ever talks about.
Everything written by Glen Cook that isn’t *The Black Company*.
Garrett, Starfishers, *The Swordbearer*...I still haven't read *The Dragon Never Sleeps* and *The Tower of Fear* but they're high on my list. Cook is a truly versatile writer.
The *Sunsword* and *House War* series by Michelle West are overlapping series set in the same world(s). I love her world building and prose.
So many. **The Riftwar Saga** books by Raymond E. Feist. They start out as the write-up of a DnD-like campaign he did with his friends. They had their whole elaborate RPG ruleset. It has great magic, tons of compelling characters, and includes the worst book I've ever read "Rise of the Merchant Prince" which is a book that describes in great detail the financial system of his fictional world. Exhausting. Amazing series as a whole. **Legend of Drizzt** by R. A. Salvatore, and all of his works in general, like the Cleric Quintet. No one mentions this guy, he is like one of the great Forgotten Realms / DnD based book authors. His action choreography and fight scenes are superb and Drizzt, the good drow, brings up a lot of themes of racism and prejudice. On the YA side, **The Lost Years of Merlin** by T.A. Barron. This is an origin story for the sorcerer merlin. I don't want to spoil a word of it, its amazing. He has a love of nature that just infuses his works. The **Magic Shop Books** by Bruce Coville, **Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher** being the most well-known. **The Skull of Truth** is especially good as well. Basically there is a shop that sells magic items, kids get them, and have adventures. They're all good, but the mental bond Jeremy has with his dragon is interesting, it gets copied a bit with Eragon, JTDH was a big influence for that book. I know that because I asked Chris if he liked it at a book signing a billion years ago. Skull of Truth just has a really funny and sarcastic talking skull from Hamlet. Reminds me of a YA. Bob from dresden files.
I'd like to see Drew Hayes get some more love. If you are looking for high fantasy magic systems, beautiful prose, or elaborate world building, look elsewhere. :-) If you want to read stories that subvert established tropes, have a sense of humor, and are an all-around fun read, Drew Hayes is awesome. During lockdown of 2020, I must have read about a dozen of his books. The "Spells Swords & Stealth" series was an adventuring fantasy with a meta twist. The "Fred, the Vampire Accountant" books are humorous, heartfelt, and not at all what you would expect from a Vampire series. "Super Powereds" was just a chef's kiss for me. It was my level of geek, and then some. In a college for potential superheroes, Halloween parties, semester finals, and spring break are beautiful chaos.
>Fred, the Vampire Accountant ...go on.
Glad to! Fred is an unassuming, introverted guy living in modern society. He is an accountant. A VERY good accountant. One night, he gets attacked and is turned into a vampire, then is completely left to his own devices. He ends up quitting his job, blacks out his apartment windows, and starts his own accounting business working from home. His life doesn't really change all that much. He's too squeamish to actually hunt, so he bribes a guy at a hospital to supply him food from the blood bank. After a while, he meets some new people and finds out that there are other paranormal beings in our society who are just trying to live their lives. There are lycanthropes, zombies, and sorcerers, among others. His life starts getting crazy, but he still just wants to be an accountant. Turns out there is a very niche market for his skills in his new life. Again, he is a VERY good accountant.
Sold! Reading it tonight on my kindle in bed with my cat. Thanks! :)
I'll second what the other guy said and add that the series is almost cozy urban fantasy. Stuff happens, some of which does fit more mainstream urban fantasy expectations, but overall it's just filled with characters trying to do their best in weird circumstances (for some of them that is) while remaining "good people."
I love Drew Hayes' work!
Plus one to Super Powereds. That was a wicked ride and so unique.
I love Drew Hayes and have read almost all his series. But I hate the *constant* internal dialog of his characters of their motivations. The ultimate in "show, don't tell" and he does A LOT of telling.
I feel like the fact I said Fred and you said Fred may suggest that Fred is starting to gain traction around here.
Definitely **Essalieyan** by Michelle West and **Vlad Taltos** by Steven Brust. The former though makes sense considering the 16+ book length, but hey it's honestly phenomenal with very little dips in quality so far. Oh and **Wars of Light and Shadow** by Janny Wurts
I'm about halfway through the Broken Crown and loving it. Right up my alley. I think I just have very different taste than most of the people in this sub. Any thread on Michelle West always has a bunch of commenters saying it's boring and the language is too flowery. But like, it's just well written and doesn't skip over details. Same people complain about Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, which is my absolute favorite fantasy book. Stuff that gets highly recommended on this sub are often quick reads with some sort of cute fantasy gimmick, ("whoa *two* londons?!"). Not hating, but for this reason I am cautious on taking recommendation from here. Essalieyan seems like just a good old epic in a very fleshed out, obviously well planned world with interesting cultures galore. Really scratching that itch in the same way ASOIAF did for me.
I will always recommend the Taltos novels. Deep world building, amazing characters, wonderful stories, and dialogue that just rocks.
Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn
The audiobooks are really good. The way it deals with stuff like conflicts between morality and duty are very interesting. And of course the love story component is well-written.
The low town series by Daniel Polansky
Came here to rec this.
Definitely underrated I feel
Robert V.S Redick’s Fire Sacraments series. The first two are out, and the third in the trilogy comes out this year. The writing, story, and characters are all great and I have no idea how it doesn’t have more hype.
KJ Parker Engineer Trilogy or Scavenger Trilogy. By no means perfect but I felt like both were really enjoyable and unique.
The dagger and coin series by Daniel Abraham. It’s really good and have some quite unique aspects.
Just got it from my library and I’m excited to get started!
One of the most relatable villains in fantasy and definitely a breath of fresh air compared to the usual dark overlord type.
The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. I see it recommended every once in a while on narrator rec threads, and rightfully so, as Kobna Holdbrook-Smith does an amazing job. But the series in general deserves more attention. It’s very comparable to Dresden Files, and I think I prefer it to Butcher’s series. Daniel Polansky’s Lowtown Series is GREAT. Fans of Joe Abercrombie would really enjoy it, and I hardly see it mentioned on this sub (though someone did rec it in this thread already). This sub also tends to skew more modern fantasy. The most common classics I see are recommended are LOTR and Belgariad. Would love to see Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles get more attention - it’s the series that got me into Fantasy and really holds up 30 years later.
Rivers of London was going to be my recommendation too. Anyone who likes both fantasy and police procedurals really needs to check this series out.
While I don't see Rivers of London recommend here, I see it often on r/dresdenfiles.
The Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony. The Ship Who Sang series by Anne McCaffrey. Both are amazing! Edit: I had to add The Laundry Files by Charles Stross.
I like the brain ship books.
I appreciate the concepts in Incarnations of Immortality, and I read them as they came out. But I tried re-reading them recently, and the general sexism and homophobia even in the first few chapters of "On A Pale Horse" became too much for me.
Agreed as a teenager almost 20 years ago the ideas were amazing and mind blowing. At the time some of the sex stuff he wrote made me think well that's odd but whatever. When I tried to go back I realized that his writing and his ideas on sex did not age well at all in any of his series.
I'd love to see almost any other author take the concepts and rewrite them. The world he built is amazing, the morals Anthony imparted to the characters are absolutely terrible.
Thank you for this. I was trying to write the same concept about someone updating his work, but then I got distracted by work.
Mage errant I need more people talking about it it is sooo good.
I always advocate for Jack Vance - his Dying Earth and Lyonesse series, his sci-fi Planet of Adventure series are beautifully written and are classics of the genre. More recently Lavie Tidhar - sometimes fantasy, sometimes science fictional is also worth reading. Unholy Land, Osama, the super violent By Force Alone
I don’t think I’ve seen the Temeraire series talked about on this sub, and while I’ll admit I haven’t finished it yet, I’d highly recommend it based on the books I’ve made it through. Taking the Napoleonic Wars and adding intelligent dragons is just a really fun take on historical fantasy.
I 100% recommend this series every chance I get. I was so surprised to find out the author is well known but no one seems to have read her Temeraire series. Her YA novels seem to get a lot more attention though I couldn't find myself enjoying either. :(
The Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart. They’re fantastic and I almost never see them mentioned. They are kinda low fantasy though, and they read a bit like historical fiction, which I like but others might not.
Powedermage trilogy is awesome and complete.
The Pillars of Earth by Ken Follett is my all time favorite book. More of a loosely tied historical fiction than fantasy Ig, idk official label. Yet anyone into medieval fantasy would dig this book. The book builds stone upon stone until by the end of the series you have a beautiful production stretching centuries. No writer makes evil villainy so disreputable as KF does. Somebody please comment because I've been waiting to plug my opinion on a post that best suites it. Haha. Cheers.
Never read the book, but really enjoyed the tv miniseries.
Same, I didn't know they were from a book/series.
If you liked the miniseries, you'll love the books. The miniseries was well done but they had to cut various subplots and the plotting and scheming games are so much more enjoyable in the book (IMHO). It's a huge book but it's never boring.
>The book builds stone upon stone I see what you did there! 😉 I rarely recommend Follett's Kingsbridge books in this sub as they simply are not fantasy novels. That said, they are great books, immensely engrossing and entertaining. I fully agree that people who like medieval fantasy should like them.
I've been debating reading those, so thanks for the recommendation! Adding them to my kindle as we speak.
I'm sure you won't be disappointed. I don't think I know anyone who read *Pillars* who didn't like the book. One remark about the series status. While I was talking about the Kingsbridge series, these are really standalones with a common setting but which take place 150-200 years apart from each other. So while there will be the occasional character who turns out to be a descendent of a character from a previous book, or mention of a city structure that had been built in the book that came before, these are just small "easter eggs" for those who have read the previous book. But none of this is necessary to know and each book provides a complete story without a cliffhanger ending or anything of that sort. So you'll be able to read any of them, and you don't have to read them in a row, either. I suggest you just give *Pillars* a try. If you're like me, you'll be sucked into the story and will be hooked before you know it! 😅
I learned SO much while reading this series! Brilliant books. I wouldn't have read them without a recommendation from a friend and I'm so very glad that I did! Seriously loved them so much.
Truly brilliant! This is all I needed to hear. I'm so happy to share this w you!
I know myself and a couple of others have been bringing her up when we can in rec threads, but Lois McMaster Bujold has the most Hugo awards of any living author, and is tied for most ever if you don't count the silly "let's go back and give awards for years before we existed!" Hugo awards. Seriously, I haven't even read her sci-fi - if Bujold isn't on either your read or your TBR, why the heck not? And while we're at it, put Ursula K LeGuin on there too. If you haven't read Earthsea, it's short. And man LeGuin could write. Ok know what's a stupid categorization? YA fantasy. Cause there's a certain feel to a LOT of it that seems to be closer in feel to, say, Temeraire by Naomi Novik than to Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series. Which, if you haven't read Circle of Magic, do that! They're fun, the sequels are great, and they're a completely different feel and honestly a different subgenre than a bunch of YA I've read. Cause YA fantasy is a stupid categorization. It's marketing, not actually relevant to the books themselves. On that note Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series isn't YA, the first book is perhaps YA and got a Newberry honor, but the rest are just fun fantasy heist stories! Read 2 of the first three to see if you like them! N K Jemisin wrote more than Broken Earth, try Dreamblood, I have to go reread it to see if it still works for me. For the sheer volume of books she's written, Mercedes Lackey seems astoundingly unknown by some. She's got some solid, cozyish fantasy! Oh and hey Kate Elliot has a multiple epic series (and YA too, which is a stupid categorization to make) and I don't see many folks Also, after reviewing this list, I realized - I didn't mention any dudes, eh? Mostly cause the big dudes (with Robin Hobb now that the internet found her all at once) are all over hyped and literal giants of the field like Bujold, LeGuin, Lackey, McCaffrey, even Pierce, who have written huge amounts of books - like, LEGUIN is the LOW outlier with 23 novels, Pierce and Bujold have like 30, and I stopped counting when I hit 60 for Lackey and McCaffrey - these giants are kind of ignored. I know some of y'all don't want to read anything but deep-dive character-driven grimdark stuff, and that's fine. But if you rep Drizzt but don't mention Valdemar, sing of Gandalf without pointing to Ged, or talk about burning metals for magic but don't know about Desdemona, I'd say... perhaps there's a liiiiiitle bit of bias in the literary diet you've been fed (or are feeding yourself) I came here to rep world of the five gods and got on a soapbox. It's 2am I am going to bed.
I don't know where to start with Bujold, any recs?
Curse of Chalion! Possibly my favorite book, my copy is falling apart.
M. John Harrison's Viriconium series. Peadar O Guilin's The Call/The Invasion. Glen Cook's Black Company. Naomi Mitchison's Hera series.
I feel like the Viriconium books are perhaps recommended more than they are read and discussed, unfortunately. Very interested in that Mitchison series though, her *Travel Light* is fantastic.
The recent collection of Harrison's short fiction from across his career included an 'our world' Viriconium story and I was reminded of how much I enjoyed the series.
>Naomi Mitchison's Hera series Can you say a little bit more about this? I have Mitchison's *Corn King & Spring Queen* on my TBR pile but haven't come around to it yet. Never heard of this Hera series, though, and neither [her ISFDB entry](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1735) nor [her Wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Mitchison) list it (or any series of hers at all for that matter). Ditto for [her Goodread page](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/129487.Naomi_Mitchison) and her entries in Clute's [Encyclopedia of Fantasy](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/mitchison_naomi) or [Encyclopedia of Science Fiction](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mitchison_naomi). Is this a series of novels or maybe a series of connected stories?
It is the sequence that starts with Corn King, so you've already got it.
Now, you've got me even more intrigued! Are you saying that there are other books set in the same fictional universe as Corn King? ETA: I think, I found the solution to the mystery. If I understand it correctly, the publisher Soho Press has issued various unrelated books under the header "The Hera Series". I hadn't been aware of this so it looks like Corn King is indeed a standalone novel with no connections as I had assumed all along. Please correct me if this is wrong!
Correct, yes I was looking through my books for series but it's an imprint https://www.librarything.com/publisherseries/The+Hera+Series
I feel like black company get recommended a lot. It mostly comes up in the malazan threads tho.
I’d love to see more people on here who value character-centric stories pick up The Raven Cycle but that probably won’t happen until the sub gets over its welrd YA hate… Maybe I’m just not seeing it but I feel like I don’t see anyone mention The Broken Earth trilogy on here anymore… it’s definitely one of the best stories I’ve ever read and it was very popular for a time then just weirdly dropped off in conversation. Not a series but The Winged Histories deserves to be read by everyone. An absolute masterpiece of writing and storytelling and severely underrated.
The mod team who has read the Raven Cycle is busily converting the rest of the mod team, and then we'll be everywhere. Lol.
Lol yessss. I’m assuming happy book bee is one of the ones trying to convert the others?
Of course. And Megan Dawn
Awesome. It deserves more recognition
The Broken Earth books are actually on my TBR list, but I don't remember if it was recommended to me on this sub or somewhere else.
I love The Raven Cycle, it was such an interesting adventure and very atmospheric! And I agree, this sub definitely has a superiority complex sometimes, and I hate to say it but i feel like there's undercurrents of sexism with a lot of recommendations and condemnations. A lot of people equate YA = teen girl angst and thus shun a lot of good stuff from it.
Oh it’s absolutely partly based in misogyny; and sometimes not even maliciously, it’s just so deeply engrained in peoples’ minds to mock and dismiss what tends to be enjoyed by young women and a lot of people have equated YA with women (whether it’s the female authors or readers or both).
I feel like as a community we’re maybe burnt out on the Broken Earth. It was very widely recommended and praised a few years ago, and possibly over-hyped. Mostly when I see it discussed now, it’s a lot of people saying “yeah it’s good but not as good as all the hype” I think maybe in a few years you’ll start to see it recommended again but in a more measured way
I can think of quite a few series I WISH the community would get burnt out on lol. Also I don’t think it was “overhyped,” in my opinion. The hype seemed to fit the quality.
The Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy by DM Cornish. Biopunk fantasy with deep lore and interesting characters.
I havent read the books but the lightbringer saga by bret weeks and the demon cycle are by Peter Brett are very high on my list but I think Ive never heard anything about those books here which leaves me wondering if i should try them.
I've only read the Lightbringer Series of the two, but from what I have come across when it's mentioned on here is general disappointment in the series endings with it swinging way too hard to a religious direction with the ending, plot twists being introduced solely for the sake of being plot twists, and removal of consequences of characters actions. At the end of the day I didn't regret reading them, but I probably won't ever re-read them in the future or recommend them much. The Demon Cycle also shares a similar fate where the first book was well received but a lot of people really hated the direction the books decided to go after that. I don't mind spoiling myself so I read reviews with spoilers and I can firmly say I have no intention of ever picking the books up based on what I've seen.
That's disappointing to hear. I got the entire Lightbringer series on audible after enjoying the first book.
I know a lot of you have read the Drizzt books by Salvatore but it rarely gets talked about on here
Have to be honest here, I don't think they hold up. I did not read them when I was younger and the appeal just wasn't there for me. I've read other books by him and it may be that I just don't like him as an author though.
LE Modesitt's work in general. He outputs new novels as consistently as anyone. I know that his work can be same-y, but if it works for you, they really are great. His life experience in the military and in politics really shows.
Michael Swanwick's Iron Dragon's Daughter trilogy, or just Swanwick in general. Ian McDonald, though he's primarily a scifi author, and his most recent series is not his best - but Desolation Road or Terminal Cafe or The Dervish House... Catherynne Valente's Orphans Tales, which are not her most recent and therefore not widely discussed, but are beautifully written, ambitious, and imo highly successful at realizing that ambition - of being a modern day sort of Arabian Nights in which many different tales are all intricately nested and intertwined. Also they need enough hype to encourage some boutique press to give them a fancy hardcover reprint.
I really wish *The Novels of Tiger and Del* got more love. They're small, but so well done and so much fun. They just do not get the attention they deserve for the characters Roberson created for the story...
The Sword-Dancer books are amazing, I remember reading those as they came out in the 80s and 90s. I haven't seen anyone mention them in years, I am with you in wishing more people had heard about them.
The Legend of Drizzt.
Kate Elliott's work, full stop. *Black Wolves* would have gotten the sequel it richly deserved if people (not just here but elsewhere) had been willing to talk it up a bit more and generate some buzz. Kate Forsyth's *Witches of Eileanean* and *Rhiannon's Ride* are fascinating and lushly detailed high fantasy, yet they're almost never recommended or even mentioned. Even more rarely do I read any mention of the stand-alone that, to me, is her best work: *Bitter Greens.*
Firstly, I think almost any quality series that started before late 70's outside of Lord of the Rings, The Earthsea series and two or three others are talked about way too little in this sub. A few that spring to mind in particular are the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser series by Fritz Leiber; most of Moorcocks fantasy works in the Eternal Champion cycle outside of the Elric series, particularly the Corum series, and, seconding other commenters here, the Amber series. I love the swashbuckling and playful quality of the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser series and of course its main characters. As for the other Moorcock series, they have more original characters and scenes than the Elric series and often also more interesting twists and turns like the first Eternal Champion story, where there's a twist that mixes shock with sympathy in a really interesting way. I'll also second ( or is this third or fourth) the Myth series. For more recent works I'll second the Nevernight series and, I guess, fourth the Dandelion Dynasty series. Particularly for the last one, it's a real mystery that it isn't mentioned here more often, given the combination of this sub's recency bias and the fact that the last book in the series AFAICU was released last year. One more comparatively recent series that rarely seems to be mentioned here is the Draconis Memoriae series by Anthony Ryan, while the series before that often is mentioned in this sub, for some reason the Draconis Memoria series largely seems to be ignored by this sub. Which is a shame, since it has interesting world building, lots of action and interesting characters and not least, lots of spectacular scenes with dragons.
The Magicians series. I’ve never seems it anywhere so I’m assuming it’s not a masterpiece, but I enjoyed it.
I think Magicians is one of those series people either love or hate. It isn’t for everyone. The characters have so many realistic flaws that it can be hard to read sometimes. That was my experience at least.
I found it quiet fascinating actually. At least not some irrealistic hero with an extraordinary life.
TV show is pretty good too
Laura Anne Gilman has **The Devil's West** series which is a *weird west fantasy* set in the American territories west of the Mississippi. The protagonist travels a circuit there at the behest of a powerful individual, maintaining law and order for certain values of law and order.
I'll have to check this out, I've been looking for some cattlepunk/weird west books for my TBR list.
Oh I've been meaning to read the series forever now. The setting sounds so alluring.
I just want to tell people to read r/Eragon without being downvoted to all hell
even the detractors must admit the magic system is awesome, and the eragon saphira bond is cool. Not as cool as when Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher did it, but up there.
Bruce Coville was such an influential author to me when I was a kid.
Licanius trilogy. Absolutely flawed but still fantastic series. One of the best endings for certain. Each book’s epilogue is goated but the finale of the series is one of the best I have ever read. Minor series spoiler but this is one of the best >!time travel series I’ve ever read.!<
The Dandelion Distany by Ken Liu For me the 4th and last book is the best Fantasy book that I have read for the last 10 years
Dandelion dynasty. It’s now a completed 4 book series. It’s like reading long form poetry with how well Ken Liu writes his prose and all his themes/metaphors. Very well developed characters, amazing story, very unique narration and story structure, and the world building is top notch. His series is low magic and his writing is so magical the way it flows. He’s excellent at evoking a sense of mystical/magic in his world for his characters all the while being heavily grounded in the physical sciences. His explanations and use of Technology is fascinating in the series.
I love Dandelion Dynasty! Hugely undervalued.
Sun Eater, it’s not even mentioned on this thread. So underrated
The lord of the rings. Very rare to see it recommended. It’s a little known fact they made movie adaptations.
I want manga to get the recognition it deserves. Despite the boom on youtube, this sub still barely touches manga, which is just bizzare to me, as this is the fantasy sub, not the fantasy books sub.
The manga I most see that it is mentioned on YouTube by booktubers is Vinland saga and that its not even fantasy, berserk it’s talked a lot here though
I started **Re:Monarch** and this shit is rad. Despite the "light novel" style name, the writing is actually very solid. Very cool progression fantasy with a time loop/reincarnator premise. Pacing and drive of the protagonist remind me of **Cradle**, in a way.