Is it the bleakness that seeps into every aspect of the story, plot, and characters? A pervasive sense of hopelessness? The unflinching exploration of humanity’s darker sides? Or the refusal to pull punches when it comes to consequences for characters?

Google defines Grimdark as:
"A subgenre where the world is bleak, morally bankrupt, and often violent. There’s a sense that things will not get better, and ‘heroism’ is often a grey area. Characters are morally ambiguous, doing good deeds out of self-interest or for complex, selfish motives."

But definitions can only go so far. Grimdark means different things to different readers, and I’ve noticed a lot of varying opinions about what constitutes a Grimdark book here on r/Fantasy. I’d love to hear your thoughts! What do you personally think makes a book Grimdark? Do you agree with the definition above, or do you have a different take?

I know Grimdark can sometimes be divisive, opinions often differ on whether it’s a true genre, what sets it apart, or even whether it should be enjoyed at all. But authors like Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, and Richard K. Morgan have shown the lasting appeal of this style of storytelling over multiple decades. I think that’s worth celebrating, even if we don’t all agree on the specifics.

Let’s discuss! I hope we can have a fun and open conversation about Grimdark without gatekeeping or dismissing different perspectives. :)

Looking for recommendations on books where the protagonist gets a second chance at life, traveling back in time into their younger body with their experiences and knowledge of the future intact and gets the chance to do everything right with the benefit of hindsight.

I'd love for a story focused on character interaction where the MC manages to keep friendships that they would have otherwise lost and maybe even help bring back villains to the side of good thanks to knowing their history and their respective grievances.

Do you have any recommendation on short stories? They can be individual ones or a collection of short stories in the same world.

After reading a bit here I wanted to grab some Elric books on the cheap. Wouldnt mind getting some of my other older favorite authors. But all I seem to find are uber priced original paperbacks or high priced new editions. I wouldnt mind kindle or e-book but didnt find any. Anyone have a good source for reasonable priced used paperbacks?

Thank you

Hello! I’ve been trying to find a specific type of fantasy book I’ve been craving for a while!

I love the hidden identity and riches to rags tropes, but I can’t find any I have not already read. Goodreads is really bad at giving recommendations.

I loved the hidden identity in red rising, throne of glass, the false prince and the will of the many. Both the false prince and the will of the many had this combined with the riches to rags plot which is just the cherry on top.

The book doesn’t need to have both tropes of course! It also doesn’t need to be from king to orphan! For example, I also really liked the name of the wind, when Kvothe ended up on the streets.

My requirements is that the MC is intelligent, interesting, and has some sort of development in strength! I also heavily prefer books in which you don’t follow too many different characters. Third person with multiple people is fine as long as they are in the same place most of the time… otherwise I will be skimming chapters of characters I’m not interested in and will end up not understanding everything…😅

Thanks!

Christmas is coming up and my 12 year old son is a heavy reader with a strong preference towards the fantasy genre, especially with stories involving dragons. He has already read through the Wings of Fire series, all the Eragon books, and the Songs of Chaos series. He also likes to draw maps of his own made up worlds and create stories about them. He is an advanced reader and I’m looking for books that he might enjoy that won’t be too gory or sexually explicit.

Looking for a comfort novel that has cozy vibes! Something that feels like drinking tea in a cabin on a snowy day in a magical forest 🌳 I’ve been looking at Redwall

So i have to choose a book for my AP Language class to write an essay on. We don’t have the full specifics but the real only requirement was that the book contains some form of cultural significance (stated by my teacher.) This can be loosely interpreted but not so much that it almost makes no sense. Any recommendations are appreciated and a small summary if your willing but it’s not needed, thank you! 🙏🏼

I am a complete newbie in fantasy, only "fantasy" i have read was Harry Potter like 15 years ago. I want something relatively simple, something to ease me into the genre.

I like practically any type of book, except romance, but I prefer books centered around one main character, and preferably first person. In a The Catcher of the Rye kind of way.

So, I'm a huge fan of Game of Thrones especially because of the massive lore and details of the story and i want to get into another fantasy universe to get hard into the lore. I have a list of some series and i wanted to debate about which one is the best lorewise.

- Baldurs Gate Series: so baldurs gate 3 is one of my favourite games and i know DnD setting has a very heavy and good lore, but i played BG1 too and i think its dated and a little bit unplayable because of its gameplay so it takes away my desire to replay and play the next one.

- Elder Scrolls: problably my first choice because i played skyrim and its one of may favourite games too and i knew that the lore is very complex a little bit like GoT (a lot of wars, rulers, politics etc) which is good but the first two games are very dated.

-Dragon Age: i hear origins is a really good game but i know little about the franchise, and veilguard is really bad too from what i hear.

-Pathfinder: i know little about it too, i only know that its very similar to DnD and the games look really interesting in terms of gameplay, lorewise i really dont know

-The Witcher: i already played the trilogy but it was a long time ago and i dont know if its worth to replay again just to get into the lore

-warhammer 40k: i know that it strays a bit from the medieval fantasy theme from the previous, i just think its a really interesting setting and have some good games like rogue trader and space marine and i heard that there are some good books too

-warhammer age of sigmar: there are only the total war games and the vermintides and some books from what i know so i dont know if its worth it

-Divinity original sin: the gameplay is really good and it will be the next focus of larian but i played half of the first one and the story/lore/characters looked really bad so idk

-pillars of eternity: its from the same studio of the first two BG games and i heard the lore is really good but i dont know barely anything about it

-Fallout: same arguments as elder scrolls but different setting (personally i prefer the medieval fantasy)

if there's any other that you know and its good please say

Just looking for something I haven't already seen a million times haha

I'm trying to remember a book recommended here awhile back. The way it was described was that everything seemed very plain on the surface, but there was a lot hinted at/ going on in the background. The setting seemed fairly normal at first glance and mostly followed the perspective of one male character I think. It was in a thread talking about strange books/ much less concrete stories. I thought it was a Gene Wolfe book at first but none matched the description at first glance. I think the book took place in a house or maybe had house in the name? (not House of Leaves though, have already read that.) Thanks in advance!

Hello lads and gals, my girlfriend and I have been gifting each other books for a couple years now and though she is not a huge reader, she does read like 3-5 books per year and completes (and often likes) what books I end up gifting her. Mostly it's been classics like Dostoyevsky, Dickens etc and some sci-fi, but I also want to introduce her to the fantasy genre.

She is not big into fantasy really, other than casually watching shows like GoT and the Witcher. She does like mystery and romance in her stories so recommend me preferably any books that include those, and aren't too "high fantasy" or fairy tale-like (so not LOTR and Malazan).

Thanks in advance!

So these past 9 years ive read alllllot of fantasy books! I really loved Blood Song by anthony ryan, the rest of the series was okay but first book killed it. I read all of raymond feists books, GOT, malazan. Farseer trilogy, and so many more. But ive been looking for something like blood song again. But cant find it or something like the magician series by raymond fiest. I loved the king killer chronicles btw. Prolly one of the best books ive ever read. Robert jordan was mehh. But sanderson. Killed it! And also terry goodkind! Anything like the sword of truth also is welcome! Please help me out!

Should I get into the cosmere? Or the Bloodsworn saga?

Tl;dr: a flawed but competent conclusion to a competent but flawed epic fantasy series. 3/5 stars

(I know that sounds like damning with faint praise, and I suspect the rest of this review will reinforce that perception, but it’s not meant to be. Not everything is going to be a genre-redefining masterpiece, and that’s okay.)

--

The Witch-Queen of Redwinter is the third and final book of the Redwinter trilogy, and in this capacity it is… fine. In what I will admit is a somewhat frosty approbation, this series is a competent and digestible fantasy epic. It is only three books (which, while not short, are not especially long), has a fairly manageable cast of characters, and doesn’t expect you to engage with a massive backstory or body of lore.

The last point, to be clear, is not a demerit. The world-building in a lot of epic fantasy is generic and self-indulgent, displaying neither the creativity nor the thematic resonance of a lot of the icons of the subgenre. The author doesn’t waste your time rehashing Generic Fantasy World #159. World-building details are mostly plot/character-essential, and while I can’t call the magic system especially unique, it has a role in the plot that isn’t just ersatz superpowers. This, again, is fine. Not everyone needs to go full Sanderson with a gimmick magic system for every new series. It’s okay to lean on tradition. The minimalist worldbuilding does open some questions up, but they’re merely points of curiosity, not plot holes.

Tonally, the previous books had been relatively dark and fairly messy for what is essentially YA epic fantasy, and this one is true to form. It’s not going to win any awards for plumbing the depths of grimdark nihilism, but if you’re hoping for an upbeat book with a clean ending, keep looking. I appreciate the author being willing to not wrap everything up neatly – Raine does some pretty dodgy stuff to win out, and it’s made clear in the denouement that there are long-term consequences for this.

The character writing is all over the place. The main character, Raine, is fairly well-written in relation to herself, though potentially frustrating if you find Tragic YA Tomfoolery to be a deal breaker. Prideful, but also bitter, insecure, self-destructive, and unbelievably bad at communicating. This annoyed me more in previous installments, but by the third book it’s priced in. Unfortunately, the way the main relationships in the story are handled is a little bit more dicey. A number of them (romantic and otherwise) mostly seem to develop in response to plot necessity rather than emerging organically from the story-telling. Why do these characters reconcile after having been at each others’ throats with no sign of abatement? Well, because we’ve reached the point in the book where they need to reconcile. Why do those characters hook up and settle down? Best I can tell it’s because they’re both hot. It’s nothing deal-breaking, at least for me, but it’s… not good.

The two most pronounced flaws in this book are hard to discuss directly without getting into spoiler territory, so I will leave it at this: the 11th hour is not the time to introduce a new protagonist or a time travel subplot. It doesn’t ruin the story, but it does take away some from the satisfaction of the conclusion. (Caveat: I really don’t like time travel as a plot device outside of stories that are about time travel).

Ultimately, 'average' books are kind of hard to talk about. It’s easy to oversell their problems because mere competence is hard to praise, foibles are easy to make fun of, and nitpicking comes naturally (at least for me). I could go over this book and the series in exhaustive detail, but the conclusion would basically be “it’s fine”. That's not really going to wow people, but it shouldn't put them off. If you like epic fantasy, don’t mind a bit of YAness, and don’t want a heavy commitment, the Redwinter trilogy is a solid choice and the Witch-Queen of Redwinter is a decent conclusion.

I've been trying to find similar books to ASOIAF, Liveship Traders, Malazan, etc, but am struggling to find anything recent, especially by a debut author. I've looked through lists of recommendations, including Goodreads and an older post on this sub, but haven't found much after 2015. Any help would be appreciated.

Hey everyone, I’m looking for a good fantasy book (or book series) with a magic system like in avatar the last airbender. Shouldn’t be too slow paced if possible. Does anyone have any suggestions that go in this direction? Appreciate every answer! Thank you :)

I just finished reading the Founders trilogy and something is questioning me. I don't know if there's something I missed or if it's a plot hole so big I can't ignore it. I hope my translation is correct, I didn't read it in english.

So, in the beginning of the third book, they introduce the purging knife, that they use to cut the hosts from Tevanne. It seems to be something they use regularly.

I the end, Berenice uses one on herself to trick Tevanne during the final battle. And remains alone in the aftermath, as everyone else is connected, and finally leaves the living world.

My question is : where are the other freed hosts they used purging knives on? Why are they never mentioned in the whole book?

I’ve got:

Red rising books 4-6, First law trilogy (seen so many positive reviews here about it), The tainted cup.

Optimistic about getting through them all but let’s see! What’s on your holiday reading list?

Generally I can appreciate detailed descriptions but some authors make it a real challenge.

I regularly listen to the Riyria series to fall asleep and as much as I enjoy it I can't help but roll my eyes every time the author dives into endless descriptions of the various parts of the Emerald Storm and the work on board. I have absolutely no clue about all the nautical terms and even after listening to these sections multiple times I have zero motivation to learn them. Since Hadrian and Royce don't have a clue either at the beginning of their journey it would have been more engaging if we had learned at least a few of the terms alongside them.

How do you feel about this?

I am just finishing up book 3 of the Echoes Saga by Phillip Quaintrell. And this is hitting me right in the feels. One of the most emotional endings I have come across. What a ride the first 3 books have been. And can't wait to start the following trilogy. This series needs much more love and recommendations.

Dragons.

Battles.

Elves.

Dwarves.

Redemption.

Loss.

Love.

Villain's that are pretty bad ass.

Read please.

I've always loved the names of Joe Abercrombie's books but Last Argument Of Kings and The Wisdom Of Crowds are my favourite. Also love Ruocchio's Sun Eater series with Demon In White and (still not released) Shadows Upon Time being my favourites.

And even though I do enjoy her books, I've never been the biggest fan of the names of the books in Robin Hobb's Realm Of The Elderlings.

just finished the will of the many, and have so many thoughts and points to discuss, and no one i know has read the book yet. LOVED the book, really enjoyed the plot, the characters, the world building. I kind of tbh still struggled with some of the Will concepts- didn't really ever truly get all the stuff about the different kinds of Will categories and what all of that means. I don't know how essential that was to understanding some of the book, but if anyone has any thoughts or explanations for conditional will, harmonic will, etc, would love to hear them.

i want to go through some of the discussion points i had throughout the book, would love to hear people's thoughts!!

1. what was the weapon melior used?? how is it related to Suus?? what did he mean when he was talking about how suus was taken over for a reason that Vis will soon understand? do we think there are copies of melior in luceum and obitium? maybe thats what he was doing during the massacre? transporting himself between realms?
2. what was the pyramid thingy and all the other images the medic who took Vis's blood showed him?? was it part of one of the other realms? maybe obiteum? is the blood testing some kind of test being run to see who has been copied?? are there more of such people than previously anticipated?
3. why does veridius prefer students who have never ceded before? what does that have to do with running the labyrinth/copying oneself between realms?
4. where does eidhin come in?? how did his dad make a deal to get him off the sapper, and what would make governance agree to do this deal? what does veridius have over him that made him step back during the final test. and who is his quintus father??
5. what is up with the eyeless people??? why are the eyeless??? whats going on with the obsidian blades?? what happened to Lanistia's eyes, and how did she survive that whole thing? does she know more than she's letting on
6. what is up with ulscisor...do we think he knows nothing about these realms?? and how does he not know his wife is anguis?? unsure what game he's playing, but looks like he is becoming more untrustworthy, with veridius potentially becoming more trustworthy, though we need to understand why he's been making students run and sacrifice themselves in the labyrinth.
7. were the bodies in the room after the labryinth supposed to kill Vis?? is that what happens once someone duplicates themselves? the version in res is supposed to die? and who is the scarred guy from Anguis at the end?? what did he mean when he said Vis is kin? did he also run and survive the labyrinth in all three realms, is that what he means by kin?
8. also why did caeror save Vis's res version? if he has a copy in Obiteum and Luceum now, what was the need to save him in Res? what is the benefit?
9. Emissa is a question mark currently. how did she know about Indol's defection without him telling her? what did she say sorry for when Vis saved her from drowning? when she tried to kill him, she obviously saw something in his blood, and also said something about how she needs to win. also how did she cede will??? she's most likely a spy or is working with veridius, but its interesting as to why, especially given her family is military and veridius of course is religion. also why did the heart of Jovan fly back into Vis's hand when he fell?
10. indol is likely definitely gay, which is likely the secret he thought Vis knows about him when they were talking about Vis and his connection to Suus.
11. Vis lost his arm in Res after the bite from the zombie thingies, and also gained powers, likely as a result of being copied. he also lost his arm in luceum as a sacrifice. what about in obiteum? does he have both limbs? are the events of one realm reflected at all in the other?
12. why do the Anguis want a ship from military? what do you think they mean about making it an anchor point??

that's all i can think of at the moment, though new thoughts keep popping into my head. i read this whole book within 24 hours...will def have to do a closer reread once the second book release date is announced. would love to hear other people's thoughts!!!

Overall Rating: B (genre staples; reasons to be in a particular subgenre)

"... Anyway, the river's kinda wide there, but shallow at the edges, bushes all along the shore and mornin' mist sittin' on the water. And I'm scrubbin' this pan with some sand. Then somethin' tells me to look up, and when I do, there she is on the other bank...And she's one of Voss's, I can tell. They wore these red armbands, real silly. And she's scrubbin' a pan...We stared at each other for maybe a minute, which doesn't seem like long, but it is. And then, like we both agreed at the same time, we just went back to washin' our pans."

Bookshops is a much improved novel from Baldree's first (which I also liked.) This is largely due to keeping its themes a lot more focused than Legends did; it manages to be "about" something a lot more. It is, however, substantially less "cosy" than Legends; in many ways this is deliberate; it's about how the world doesn't always want you to be cosy. At the end of the day, sometimes you're just along for the ride, and where you end up is less about where you want to be and more about where the world takes you; it gives the novel as a whole a somewhat melancholy tone.

The sleepy, small-town setting fits this to a T, with Viv very much forced into it against her will and actively fighting against being put out to pasture. It's an interesting conflict with audience expectations, in that many will be here explicitly for chill, cosy adventures, but it works to the books benefit and makes the "cosy" moments feel much more earned.

Bookshops is a prequel to Legends, but realistically they can be read in any order; I'd personally recommend it second, as seeing a younger impetuous Viv as opposed to her more mature characterisation in Legends is interesting. You won't particularly lose out though if you haven't read the previous book; there's a few cameos and crossover characters, but that's largely all. It does give the romance a slightly different tone, but the novel isn't particularly subtle about where that's heading anyway.

All in all a substantial improvement on Baldree's already good work, and a book I'd recommend whether you're especially into cosy fantasy or not.

Ever since JRR Tolkien kicked the door open, fantasy books have had genre waves.

Vampires, grimdark, romance, romantasy, progression/LitRPG, etc.

It seems like a wave comes along, hits hard, and then recedes, leaving us with a little seed of desire. An itch that needs scratching again in the future long after the mania of Twilight or Game of Thrones has ebbed.

Personally, I'm a Grimdark guy. While this genre climbed in the late 90's and boomed in the early two 2000s, it's had a bit of a decline in recent years in traditional publishing--though indie seems to be picking up the slack to serve that niche more. I might be biased.

Romantasy has been the latest boom, but what do you think is coming next?
If you were the head of the Big 5 publishing houses, what kind of stuff would you be publishing?
What's been getting left out as these corporations try to ride the big waves?

It has been 4 years since Elden Ring and while plenty of fantasy can be described as Dark Souls-like do we have a fantasy book that's on the more Elden Ring side? Demigods, ruined world and all that?

2024 is almost over, so let's look back on the books that were released this year - ones you've read and would like to share with the club, or maybe ones you wanted to read but haven't found the right time yet. The theme for February is:

#2024 releases

For this theme, you can nominate any book that was released (or will be released) between January 1st and December 31st 2024, and of course, features queer representation.

Nominations

• Make sure that the book has not previously been read by any book club. You can check this Goodreads Shelf. Authors that were read by a different book club are okay.

• Leave one book suggestion per top comment. Please include title, author, and a short summary or description. You can nominate more than 1 if you'd like, but please put them in separate comments.

• Please include bingo squares if possible. Here is the 2024 announcement for reference.

The nominations will be open for 2 days, and on Wednesday, December 4th I will collect them into a poll. Have fun and let me know if you have any questions!

And as a reminder, this month we are reading Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller, the midway discussion will be up on December 12th.

I read to my partner at bedtime every night, but we're running out of books for me to read, and it occurred to me to ask for suggestions!

Especially since there's a few requirements, not all of which are super-obvious?

• Low-action, slow-paced. Exciting, action-packed books are not great for bedtime! (For us, anyway.) I'm looking for meandering, languid books - think Robin McKinley's stuff.
• Third-person POV. Any number of POV characters is fine, but needs to be written in third-person.
• No Christianity. If Christianity, or fantasy!Christianity, is plot-relevant, then the book won't work. Same goes for Christian nuns/priests being POV characters or villains.
• Minimal violence. It's for bedtime-reading, the goal is to chillax enough to get to sleep, not have nightmares! (Partner is extremely nightmare-prone.)
• Minimal misery. Doesn't have to be 'cozy' anything, but ought to be pretty far from grimdark.
• Minimal 'fantasy names'. Remember the Elvish names and terminology in Goblin Emperor? That sort of thing is not easy on someone reading aloud! Please don't subject me to it!
• LGBT+ friendly/neutral. Don't need queer leads (or even queer characters!) but REALLY don't need anyone being/implying anything awful or weird about queer people, thank you.
• Misogyny begone. Not interested in stories about women struggling in a patriarchy, anything where women are only or mostly sex objects, or where women are relegated to the background. A Medieval-esque setting where noble women are just for marrying? No thank you! Anyone walking boobily? Pass! Women are property? Not at this time! Etc.
• Boring. Okay, this is a bit facetious, but if it's too interesting, we won't go to sleep! Obviously, boring/interesting are wildly subjective, so think dense prose, pages of info-dumps, plots that barely move or go in circles...you know the books you have no interest in finishing, even though they're objectively perfectly pleasant? Exactly what I'm looking for!

Welp, didn't mean to create such a wall of text. But looking forward to your recs, reddit!

I just picked up the three "main" volumes of Elric from the Kindle market. I got an itch to read them and was feeling nostalgic for some classic swords & sorcery fantasy before I dive into Sanderson's new Stormlight book in a few days. I hadn't read the main sequence of Elric (six books that, compared to modern behemoths, are almost novellas instead of novels) for probably 35 years, so it felt like a good time.

It got me to wondering what it was that was so different, and as I'm reading them, I've figured it out. While there are recurring characters, the books fundamentally have a cast of one: Elric of Melnibone (it might be argued Stormbringer is a character, but that gets pretty esoteric). He'll link up with past acquaintances in his travels through the Young Kingdoms, but it's still primarily just about him. This is a huge contrast with the ensemble casts you find in more modern works like Sanderson, Jordan, Erikson, or even Eddings during the 80s/90s.

It has one benefit I find really appealing: there aren't the constant narrative shifts you find with ensemble cast novels. It's long been a frustration of mine that just as I'm settling into a story cadence in a modern fantasy book, the narrative will shift over to another group in a different part of the world (Sanderson and Jordan are particularly egregious offenders on this), and I'm left with a bunch of small cliffhangers that I have to wait anywhere from 1-4 chapters to see resolved. Then, just as I'm settling into an enjoyable cadence with the other crew(s), it shift back to the first set.

Thoughts?