I’ve just gotten into reading, as a replacement for watching tv- that gives me headaches. In terms of media, I very much enjoy something with high stakes and consequences, and imagine it will be the same for books. Something unpredictable with twists, and with little to no plot armour for the main characters, though I appreciate it’s not always possible to get away from it entirely. I like things that are quite intense and brutal. Sorry if I’m painting an awful picture of myself lol. I’m actually quite flexible on the genre, even though I imagine I would like fantasy most. Any recommendations please?

Maybe a fore shadowing or deeply meaning titles that flesh out the whole the concept or Author's ideal throughout the Story.

I'm looking for recs of great fantasy books/series where the protagonist becomes the villain. I'd LOVE to see a great "descent into evil" journey that isn't over a broken heart or greed or something else petty, but a real, genuine grievance or even a belief system taken too far.

Any recs for me?

So as the title suggests I want to know what books you've read and loved almost everything about them but the main character was the problem.

I'm currently reading a series titled The legend of Randomly Ghosthound, there are a handful of issues with the book storytelling wise, but honestly the biggest reason I'm thinking about stopping at book Two is I just can't stand the main character.

Title pretty much sums it up.

I read The Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne series by Brian Staveley (first book is The Emperor’s Blades) six years ago and did a reread last week. Holy hell, it was amazing. I love the exploration into religion, ethics, political systems, stoicism and more. The world building is phenomenal, and the character development is also great.

And then with John Gwynne, I read The Faithful and the Fallen series a couple weeks ago, and I was absolutely hooked. It’s a bit more of a ‘good guy vs bad guy’ story in comparison to Brian Staveley’s books, but it works.

I’m just shocked they’re not more popular. I guess they’re known if you’re into epic fantasy, but I truly think they are wonderful authors and I’d love to see more talk around their books.

Hello and welcome to the Hugo Readalong! Today we’re discussing Best Novella nominee The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older.

Everyone is welcome to join this discussion, whether or not you plan to participate in any others. Drop in once or attend every single session, it’s entirely up to you! Please note that this discussion covers the entire book and will include untagged spoilers.

I’ll kick us off with a few prompts in top-level comments, but others are very welcome to add their own if they wish!

Bingo Squares: Bookclub/Readalong (this one!), Author of Color (normal mode), First in a Series (normal mode), Prologues and Epilogues (normal mode),

If you’d like to look ahead and plan your reading for future discussions, check out our full schedule post, or see our upcoming schedule for the next few weeks below.

I'm an old-time Witcher series fan, one of those who read the book before played the game and i always loved it, even now Sapkowski is in my TOP-5 fantasy writers.

I was much surprised when find out that people in this community don't like it. And not on the "mediocre" or "so-so" level, but consider it to be really bad.

I admit, everyone got own tastes, everyone could like or dislike whatever they want - it's fine. But there are also should be objective reasons to consider book to be good or bad, so as a person who read a lot of fantasy and non-fantasy, fiction and non-fiction i really don't understand, in comparison, why Witcher is so hated.

What is in my opinion is good here:

1. Interesting world inspired by late medieval Eastern Europe with a lot of lore, states and politics - check.

2. A bit of uniqueness, when author took some folklore and fairytale tropes and adapted them to be realistic - check.

3. Big pull of diverse, developed and morally grey characters - check.

4. Philosophy ideas about humankind developing, racism and xenophobia, the monstrous inside of human nature and many more - check.

5. Real world references - check.

6. Long journey on the background of large scaled historical events - check.

Of course, there are some flaws - every book has them.

So, here i wan't to ask you, guys who hate Witcher - why?

I'm not here to convince anybody that you're wrong and you should like it - everyone has it's own tastes, as i said - but i'm really curios about the reasons.

Arguments and examples would be appreciated. "It's bad because it's boring" or "Characters/Plot are bad" are not very argumentative statements.

Thanks everyone and let's be respectful to each other.

Hi friends!!!

I would really appreciate some recommendations. I'm looking for fantasy books with great character development, world building but also tons of absurd humour.

Like ... Gintama levels of absurdity

I've read discworld.

Thanks!

Spoiler Warning for Poppy War & Dragon Republic.

Disclaimer: This book really mentally drained me and I might sound harsher than I have a right to be. Maybe I didn’t get the point of this book. But I refuse to believe it’s 4.5 on goodreads. Someone is trolling me. I keep looking for the camera.

I really enjoyed the Poppy War. The whole concept seems very interesting and unique. I really enjoyed Rin’s initial journey and character development in the school but sadly thats where it stopped. Then I had the Cikes & Altan to keep me occupied while I watched Rin become more n more unlikable.

I generally don’t like most protagonists as I find them to be usually the least interesting. For example, when I watch Demon Slayer I enjoy watching anyone but Tanjiro. When I read Mistborn, as much as I loved Vin, every other character was more interesting to me. Even with my unfavourable view towards Protagonists, I never really hate them. I feel like it just comes with the territory, it’s not their fault.

With that said, I have never hated a character more than I hate Rin, not just as a protagonist, but as a character. She single handedly made me hate this entire series which I still think is very interesting. Some have told me she is supposed to embody “female rage” but all I saw was petulance, not rage. She went out of her way on every scene in Dragon Republic to be a bitch to anyone she met. Like a random new character shows up and she immediately started being rude. Like maybe say “Hi, who are you?”. I love the word “Fuck” more than its socially acceptable but jesus christ she just randomly told people “fuck you” or “fuck off” out of nowhere. Even my friends weren’t this bad when we first learned English curse words. I listened to the audiobook and it’s possible the Narrator (who is excellent) made her sound even more unlikable by trully bringing out her ever constant disdain & pissyness towards every living soul.

I understand this is meant to be Grimdark story but goddamn. Its one thing to have a dark plot but could I have gotten one meaningful likable character to root for? In the first book I didn’t feel like this but in the second one I felt like the author was going out of her way make me dislike every single character that showed up.

Now to Altan. If you were to take a shot each time Altan was mentioned, you would be dead by page 50. I really liked him at first in the first book coz he reminded me of Kaladin from Stormlight Archive but he also kept getting worse. The progression of the story explained his regression so it wasn’t so bad. But the constant name drops in the second book made me hate him and it wasn’t even his fault. Let the dude rest in peace ffs.

I wanted to try something new after re reading Stormlight Archive. And BookTok and a couple of friends told me to try Poppy War. I’m gonna blame Brandon Sanderson for getting me too used to characters being interesting, likeable and actually have some connections to one another that isn’t purely toxic.

After finishing almost 3/4 of the book I finally decided to DNF it before Suni or Ramsa got killed off. I kept pushing myself hoping it would get really interesting in the end, hoping all this cruelty and petulance will have some point to it eventually. But I just couldn’t put myself through this any longer. My soul feels so drained that I aged 10 years in 1 week.

I would like to apologize to Sarah J Mass for being the constant butt of my jokes after reading ACOTAR. I would re read those books than to continue with this. Feyre actually had good moments and the side characters were quite likable.

P.S. This is not a review. I didn’t intend to offend anyone, not even the author. I just really needed to vent to regain some of my sanity.

TLDR: Rin is awful, everyone is obsessed with Altan & there’s no likable characters outside the Cike members.

Currently looking for a new fantasy book to read. Try to convince me with one (or a couple) quotes or lines from one book. Fantasy books I’ve read: Good omens Fafhrd and the gray mouser Empire of the vampire Royce and Hadrians (riyria)

The theme for May is Eldritch Creatures!

The theme for May is Eldritch Creatures. We will mix Bingo themes in with other themes throughout the year for book club. Please nominate books that fit the theme, as long as it is speculative fiction and by an eligible author, feel free to nominate.

Definition from the Bingo Challenge:

Eldritch Creatures: Read a book featuring a being that is uncanny, unearthly, and weird. This can be a god or monster from another plane or realm and is usually beyond mortal understanding. See this link for further information. HARD MODE: The book is not related to the Cthulhu mythos.

Nominations will run until tomorrow and then we will start the poll on the 17th.

NOMINATION RULES

• Make sure the book is by an eligible author. A list of ineligible authors can be found here (recently updated with the new Top Fantasy List info). We do not repeat any authors that we've read in the past year or accept nominations of books by any of the 20 most popular authors from our biennial Top Novels list.
• Include any Bingo squares you know your nomination will qualify for. Some of these may be difficult to know until you have read them (Multiverse, etc.), but any Bingo squares will be helpful. Here is the 2023 announcement for reference.
• Nominate one book per top comment. You can nominate more than 1 if you like, just put each nomination in a separate comment. The top 4-6 nominations will move forward to the voting stage.
• No self-promotion allowed. If outside vote stacking or promotion is discovered, a book will be disqualified automatically.

Final voting will be conducted via secret poll on our Goodreads group page. We will include a link to the poll as part of our "Vote for the Goodreads Book of the Month!" post after the nomination process is complete. Winners of polls are revealed a day or two after the Final Discussion of the current book selection.

Have fun with nominating! This is not meant to be homework assignments, but a fun exchange of thoughts and ideas as we read the book together. Also feel free to check out our Goodreads Shelf or Google Sheet for a full and updating list of all past selections of all book clubs!

I’m looking for a setup where the protagonist toils long and hard to learn a skill/skill set before ultimately becoming very powerful.

A clear example of this is the Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan - but I’m looking for adult fantasy with more complex characters and plotlines.

This thread is to be used for recommendation requests or simple questions that are small/general enough that they won’t spark a full thread of discussion.

Check out r/Fantasy's 2024 Book Bingo Card here!

As usual, first have a look at the sidebar in case what you're after is there. The r/Fantasy wiki contains links to many community resources, including "best of" lists, flowcharts, the LGTBQ+ database, and more. If you need some help figuring out what you want, think about including some of the information below:

• Books you’ve liked or disliked
• Traits like prose, characters, or settings you most enjoy
• Series vs. standalone preference
• Tone preference (lighthearted, grimdark, etc)
• Complexity/depth level

Be sure to check out responses to other users' requests in the thread, as you may find plenty of ideas there as well. Happy reading, and may your TBR grow ever higher!

As we are limited to only two stickied threads on r/Fantasy at any given point, we ask that you please upvote this thread to help increase visibility!

This is the weekly r/Fantasy Show and Tell thread - the place to post all your cool spec fic related pics, artwork, and crafts. Whether it's your latest book haul, a cross stitch of your favorite character, a cosplay photo, or cool SFF related music, it all goes here. You can even post about projects you'd like to start but haven't yet.

The only craft not allowed here is writing which can instead be posted in our Writing Wednesday threads. If two days is too long to wait though, you can always try r/fantasywriters right now but please check their sub rules before posting.

Don't forget, there's also r/bookshelf and r/bookhaul you can crosspost your book pics to those subs as well.

Hey all, I’ve read (and audiobook-ed) all Raymond E Feist’s Riftwar saga and all David Gemmell’s Drenai series, and Im looking for a new series to devour. They’re like a song you love, and want to hear more songs like it, but none ever are like it. Not sure where to look, any help would be super appreciated!

Can you all recommend me some urban fantasy standalone books or series that are more on the older side, like pre-2000? It seems like the vast majority of mainstream UF books out there are modern, there are hardly any UF ‘classics’.

I’ve heard that the Newford series by Charles De Lint is pretty good?

Currently rereading Along The Razers Edge by Rob J. Hayes. I absolutely love how the main character is the narrator of the story of her younger self. The way the narrator will give you little glimpses of her future is just very well done. This is my second time with book one and I'm loving it more then the first.

P.S. Eskara Helsene is one of the coolest names I've read.

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https://preview.redd.it/jvvfszmrbmuc1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2dcfdc26c9d2bcb43d76b26189d9b793134f2b45

Review originally on JamReads

r/fantasy bingo:
MultiPOV
Cover buy
Indie or self-published

Title: Metanoia
Series: The Ruined Gods
Author: Alex Robins
Genre: Mythological fantasy

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Metanoia is the second book in the mythological fantasy series The Ruined Gods, written by Alex Robins, acting as a direct sequel to Panacea. While the first book acted as an introduction to the world and their mythology, this second one ups the gear and goes deeper into the mythological aspects, as Zeus, first of the Ruined, prepares to attack the Olympus after his plan exploiting Dexios had success.

After Hades' death, the barrier between realms have disappeared, allowing Zeus to bring back to existence Thena's phalanx, including Keres; but first he needs to gain more strength, planning to raise an older army, led by a fanatic of the god. His journey will also take him to discover more about the destiny of other Ruined, whose help will be necessary for his attempt.
Makar has assumed his legacy as the son of Hades, and that means he's the only one that can repair the barrier between realms; but the influence of Hades won't make this an easy task, including to travel to the Underworld. Luckily for him, he won't be alone, being in the company of the priestess Graycea and sophistes Elena, who act as guides for Makar, while also discovering more about their true nature.
And finally we have Dexios, a broken man who was tricked by Zeus; Panacea was a lie, and Thena has been captured after the thauran herd attacked. His city, under the control of Polydius; he will need to move smartly if he wants to liberate Thena from the oppressor, having an arc that will touch all the nuances a man can experience.

While the first book was relatively simple in terms of storyline, in this one, Robin splits the plot into different threads that slowly converge together, even if we might not see it clearly; the world is expanded, adding a whole plane of existence (the Underworld), which acts as their own place, and the politics are explored. Gods take the main role we could have expected from the start, but that doesn't make them less flawed, especially in terms of hubrys.

Metanoia is more; Panacea was an excellent book, but Metanoia is that jump that makes this series a really memorable one. If you are craving to see how the old myths are given life into a really enjoyable and thrilling story, you should try The Ruined Gods series.

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What's your favourite fantasy world? The obvious is and I think most popular would be Middle Earth... But I'd love to know what worlds / cities you love!

Personally I'm a huge fan of Mistborn so I love Scadrial, popular at the moment but Arrakis from Dune, Vigrið from the Bloodsworn Saga is another great one!

Can you suggest me some short stories (and eventually books, but I'm not sure I'll read them) about a hunt for a wild animal in a fantasy / low tech setting?

When you read Fantasy, what desire do you wish would be written more that you don't see often or don't see at all? For a bonus question: what are your favourite tropes which immediately get you excited?

.. is the fact that I'm almost done. I started reading a few weeks ago and I'm already on book 9. I'm absolutely addicted to this series.

Any suggestions on how I can fill the cradle sized hole in my heart once I finish?

I don't have a better term for it, but I mean a particular type of playfulness that stretches the boundaries of language and makes you giddy with the creativity of it.

For me, China Miéville is the main example. When an umbrella is broken, it becomes an unbrella, an object with a completely different purpose in the story (in UnLunDun). The word and is replaced by & in Railsea, and there is a whole chapter explaining the reason for that - basically, the ampersand is the representation of the rails in the book, as they go all over the place instead of directly going from point A to point B.

I remember an interview with him somewhere where he talked about being told that "the refrigerator man is coming later", or something along those lines. A refrigerator man is obviously a person who is coming to fix the fridge; a refrigeratorman, on the other hand, is a half-man, half-fridge monster figure, and for some reason that was the image that popped out first in his mind. It's like his brain goes for the non-obvious meaning of words, and I can't get enough of that.

Do you have other examples of authors that do that? I don't care so much about genre or even worldbuilding, I'm just curious about this language aspect.

Thank you!

So I recently read will of the many by james islington and LOVED it, and heard it had some similar elements to Red Rising which I’d heard some good things about. So gave it a go.

Well, this series isn’t even in the same LEAGUE as will of the many. But despite that, there’s things to like. The setting is cool, some scenes are very epic, the plot is pretty interesting and fast paced.

But… my god do I have issues. To name a few…

• THE WRITING STYLE. Probably my biggest complaint. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s INFURIATING. I feel so confused sometimes reading these books, like sentences will just go in random directions and my brain will just get whiplash. The plot is fairly good, but I can’t even remotely appreciate the plot when mid-scene my brain can’t even understand what’s going on. It’s so unfocused. Certain things will be repeated a million times (like eo’s dream), and then other things will never be repeated (like half the sci-fi terms.. what the hell is a leechcraft? Even something fundamental like a razor never got explained satisfactorily)
• On that note, I virtually never have any idea where a character besides Darrow stands on anything. None of the characters are really memorable. And with allegiances shifting I’m always like “why? And what was their motivation in the first place?”. I can’t for the life of me understand why Darrow seemed to flip a switch and then just love mustang so much after being so much like Eo is the only one forever!!
• Foreshadowing. Jesus. Do we need to say “hey don’t trust the jackal” every like 10 pages? I get it. He’s gonna betray Darrow. It was so heavyhanded that when it finally happened I was just relieved that the foreshadowing wasn’t for nothing, and that I can stop reading that damn foreshadowing. Ditto with the whole “I should really make amends with roque” every fucking 5 seconds. Then never doing it for some reason? Like, why?
• Then, there’s places where foreshadowing would have been great and easy to insert, but for some reason isn’t. Like, mid battle saying stuff like “my allies show up right when I needed them to, thanks to that conversation I had off screen”. Feels sooo cheap — why not just raise the tension by actually having that conversation on screen and have the reader waiting for it? Similarly, did he train with lorn au arcos off screen or did I miss that? Because, like, I also thought he was lying when he said that, and for a while after that.. it’s so lazy to be in first person and reference things that we should have seen just for there to be a “surprise”
• The whole bloodydamn thing is so dumb — am I really supposed to believe that the only way he’s gonna be caught being a red is by saying a curse word that FOR SOME REASON is reserved only for Reds, that no other color has picked up in conversation, and that no lingual drift from the surface has happened in the millions of mines?
• It feels like most chapters have a time skip to some degree which just DOES NOT work for me in the first person. It’s so jarring going from one conversation to being days later, and having to work that out for yourself. It just adds to what I said about the writing style be confusing. I feel like I’m constantly having to figure out where the story is.

I can type out things I like about the book too, but man. SO much is frustrating. I will say the scene where he returns home and talks with his mom was really touching though, definitely a highlight.

Maybe I’m full of shit but I think I could write a better book than this

TL;DR: The series is not as "dark" as it is hyped to be, people imagine it to bbe worse than it actually is in those aspects due to how it is talked about. The series has a wider appeal than its current readership and many readers who would normally love the series are not even giving it a chance due to this discourse.

Bakker’s “Second Apocalypse” has a massive PR problem. There exist a large number of readers out there who would normally love this series but will never give it a chance due to the PR associated with it. I say this because I was one of those readers who avoided reading this series for a long time.

And surprisingly imo the PR that often turns people off from reading this series comes from the fans of this series rather than the haters. So often and esp on threads on this sub, the series gets pitched as “this is the most darkest shit you will ever read”, “this series is so brutal man, read it if you are sick of all the other fantasy out there” or other such comments highlighting the darkness of the series. Often in these discussions, the amount of rape in this series is also mentioned. All this results in potential readers imagining this series to be darker and a harder read than it actually is. The fans highlighting the darkness of the books is coming from a good place to warn readers to be prepared but in my opinion it is over-correcting in the wrong direction leading to many who would like this series to not even give it a chance.

I also thought this series was going to be some edgelord stuff until I read it. When I picked up the first book I expected some unholy, ugly, demented shit, but after reading it I felt like... it wasn’t that bad? Was it dark? Yes. But was the content something a reader wouldn’t have already read in A Song Of Ice and Fire or Malazan? Not really. So I went on and read subsequent books in the series and the followup series and am glad I did.

I am not saying this series is for everyone and certainly content warnings for some of the things should be given but people imagine the content to be worse than it actually is. For example the amount of rape gets talked about a lot, yes there is a fair amount of rape in the series but generally it is not explicit and mostly happens off-page. Now I fully understand if some readers are completely averse to reading about rape, the content warnings exist for a reason, but there are a large category of readers who have no issue reading something like “A Song of Ice and Fire” which has a lot of rape (one may argue that depending on the counting method ASOIAF has more rape than this series) much of it happening on the page who refuse to give this series a chance because they imagine it to be worse than it actually is (I was one of these readers!). And finally, the “brutality” or “darkness” of this series doesn’t ramp up from 0 to a 100, there are many off-ramps for someone to bow out if they feel it is getting too much. Just don’t assume it is too much before even reading a single page!

So what is a pitch to read this series?

• It is different from a lot of the “normal” fantasy series as it is a unique combination of fantasy, philosophy, horror and another genre that I will not mention as mentioning it might be considered a mild spoiler by some.

• Amazing world building and lore that is revealed slowly. Learning about the mechanics of this world is a big part of the fun of this series.

• Monsters and creatures. The non-human creatures in this series are truly something else

• Epic bombastic prose. The prose here is like nothing I have read, it is loud, bombastic and brings attention to itself but it is not that way for the sake of it, it is that way to truly immerse you in the world.

• Don’t assume that the series is too dark for you. For anyone who has read something like “A Song Of Ice and Fire” and didn’t have an issue with the content warnings associated with that series should be able to pick up this series and decide for themselves if it is too dark for them.

Some Over powered protags seem like self inserts, or have no conflict. What are some good ones where the stakes are high, and it’s believable/fun. I am a fan of One Punch Man and Mob Psycho. I’m not huge on the fights but the mental toll of being a fighter with 0 challenge is a fun twist.

Thank you in advance! As TDLR on myself and background as I can get it:

Favorite fantasy so far: Tolkien's LOTR, CS Lewis' Narnia series (yes, very vanilla for this sub's users I'm sure)

Favorite authors of any genre: Cormac McCarthy and GK Chesterton

Background: I hadn't read fantasy for close to a decade until I stumbled into Sanderson's Cosmere universe 9 months ago. His "hard magic" angle is his best quality IMO and I was addicted immediately, but the more I've read the more I feel like his writing has this juvenile quality that grinds my gears. I had forgotten this, but that same juvenile quality was actually why I stopped reading Fantasy for awhile altogether, it just took me a few books to notice it again. It's a fedora-dawning hyper-progressive cringe feel and once I sniff it it really takes me out of it. In comparison there's utterly nothing juvenile in a series written by a WWI veteran working through overwhelming grief and war trauma and channeling it to creatively explore various forms of human violence and the virtues necessary to overcome it.

So I went hunting for a more respected, grown up modern fantasy and landed on A Memory Called Empire and WOW that book is not for me. I was repelled from it by the first chapter. All respect to people that like it, but I felt this very off putting I-am-very-smart self awareness from the author immediately. Like the book was written by an English major for English majors. The book tells you the story instead of just being a story, if that makes sense?

SO, after trying A Memory Called Empire I'm back at square one. Any recommendations for fantasy that you think would be what I'm looking for?