hello guys! 20F here. i have always been a thriller/mystery reader and I've decided to venture into the journey of fantasy genre because I feel characters are more diverse and i love reading and relating to characters. Also, English is not my first language so it's a little hard for me to read English books with lots of action scenes, like I found Hunger games really difficult to understand,even though I loved the plot. I couldn't get past the 3rd book. anyways, i didn't even read Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. Also , I'm a little picky reader, like i can't tolerate cringe sometimes. and all these years i didn't try fantasy because I thought magic system was unrealistic and childish. but then I got to know there are low and high fantasy. can you guys suggest obsessive, hooking fantasy standalones? or maybe short series. which I'll absolutely love and will get me into fantasy permanently. I'm okay with mature content. Also, Ive watched game of thrones, attack on titan and will absolutely love worlds like that but the writing has to be elementary level I swear😭

What is y'all thought on Broken Empire Trilogy? I bought it few weeks ago and waiting to finish Red Rising series to start it. I almost never see people talk about this trilogy but it is the one that i want to jump into most.

I like fast-paced fantasy books with good writing (this is a very subjective measure, I know). World building to some extent, but not that it bogs down the plot. I want forward momentum; I'm a mom who works full-time, so I gotta have something that gets me excited to read before going to sleep.

Strange the Dreamer and The Raven Scholar were some of the best books I've read recently. I raced through Fourth Wing but I wouldn't really put that in the "good writing" category as the other books I have cited :P

I have not been in the right focus/headspace to do more Robin Hobb or Brandon Sanderson (although I did read and like Mistborn many years ago). And I couldn't get into The Expanse series but maybe I need to try it again.

Any recommendations?

Just finished Malice, and I have to share my excitement somewhere.

What an amazing book! How is this book so good!?

It's like a mix of Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy and A Song of Ice and Fire. So good!

Can't wait to read the second book!

I can see the following books also have high GoodReads scores - i hope they maintain the high quality.

Tried to order everything based on how much I feel like I enjoyed it right this moment.

Hello, I read a few fantasy books until now. Among those were all of Tolkiens Novels.
And I really liked The Silmarillion, I would go as far as to call it my favorite book.
Do you have any similar recommendations for me to read?

What I liked about the simarillion was the fairy tale esc structure that you have multiple stories that each have a moral and message but still with a fantastical element and entertaining.

Thank you for any replies.

I just finished Riyria Revelations and really liked it. Other favourites are The Faithful and the Fallen, First Law, Red Rising, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Mistborn and Bloodsworn.(all popular once ofc)

I like fast-paced fantasy with strong characters, high stakes, good villains, battles, betrayals, humour/banter and good payoff. I’m not really into romantasy books.

Recent DNF: The Rage of Dragons, Kings of the Wyld, The Blacktongue Thief.

What should I read next?

My First Abercrombie!!
I’ve been exploring different fantasy authors this year and originally had The First Law trilogy on my TBR as my introduction to Joe Abercrombie. However, when my local bookstore got The Devils in stock, I decided to pull the trigger!

After finishing The Devils, I can definitely see why Abercrombie has so many fans! I thought the camaraderie among the characters was incredibly well written, and I loved the banter between them. There were moments that genuinely made me laugh out loud, which is pretty rare for me when reading.

But what I enjoyed most was simply taking the journey with these characters. Abercrombie somehow managed to make me genuinely care about such a deplorable group of people! Haha.

I also appreciated that he doesn’t feel the need to wrap everything up neatly. He leaves you feeling conflicted about the characters, which, despite the fantasy setting, feels much truer to real life. Most people aren’t entirely good or evil. Throughout the story, you find yourself rooting for these characters, but if you step back and really consider who they are and what they’re doing, you start to wonder whether you should be rooting for them at all. I think that’s a fantastic way to tell a story.

I’m currently reading Jade Legacy for The Reddit fantasy book club, and I’ve found myself having similar feelings about Fonda Lee’s characters.

One thing I’ve discovered as I’ve gotten deeper into fantasy this year is just how much character work drives my enjoyment of a book. That’s actually a shift for me. Previously, I was much more interested in fast-paced, propulsive storytelling and exciting action. I still love those things, but it’s been fun developing a greater appreciation for the craft of creating characters that I genuinely care about, even when I don’t necessarily agree with them.

Ultimately, that was what made The Devils such an enjoyable read for me. The journey, the relationships, the humor, and the moral complexity all came together to make these characters memorable.

Now that I’ve had my first taste of Abercrombie, I’m even more excited to dive into The First Law trilogy next!! If anyone would like to join a long I also think this will be the November selection for the Fantasy book club as well.

I love fantasy books and I love D&D, but something really aggravates me about fantasy books, or even arcs within fantasy books, that clearly seem to have been adapted from a D&D campaign the author played in.

Two egregious examples are the bandit-tracking arc in Wise Man's Fear and the quest for the grail in Empire of the Vampire. Both are great books, but I can't help but roll my eyes when I hear Kvothe/Gabriel's party characterized by their D&D classes--the bard, the rogue, the ranger, the barbarian, the fighter, the cleric, etc. It immediately breaks the suspension of disbelief for me and I find myself think more about the mechanics of their campaign, what system they played and how it would have panned out as a TTRPG, than the actual story the author is trying to tell.

I understand that sometimes you strike on a resonant story with your friends at the table, but in my opinion, if you are going to recycle that story, it should at least be adapted properly to the setting of the author's book instead of cut and paste from the Dungeons and Dragons universe.

Does anyone else have thoughts on this?

Hi all, does anyone have any recommendations for unrated, hidden gem fantasy books. Within this less recommended book category I've read Leo Carew's The Wolf series and Michael J Sullivan's riviera revelations series.

As the title says, I haven't sat down and read a book in probably 20 years. I am a big fan of fantasy (video games/movies/shows/series etc..). Looking for recommendations that are fairly straight forward and not too long or drawn out just to get my feet wet with a good story.

Edit to give more details: Big LOTR fan. I enjoy medieval themes; Game of Thrones was a big hit with me. Also grew up playing games like World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot etc..

I'm looking for books set in the modern world where only the practitioners of magic, and a select few non magical people, are aware of it.

I'm writing my own book and struggling to figure out how to integrate it in a way that it's happening everywhere but still a secret.

Also, where's the line between contemporary and urban fantasy for you? My book largely takes place in a town, and some other towns/cities

I started reading again a few months ago. I started easy with all 5 hunger games books. They're good and they're an easy read being YA and all. Then I went to a song of ice and fire. Games of thrones. I just started dance with dragons which is the last book currently written.snf now that I've started reading again I don't want to stop. I used to read alot. But somewhere in the last ten years I just stopped. But it's such a great way to kill time. I have the ebooks on my phone and I can read 50 pages whenever im waiting for something. Its been great

But after dance I'll have nothing left to read. Full disclosure I downloaded all these books for free off of a github library. I got all hg books, all asoiaf, and I also downloaded the lord of the rings trilogy. But I don't really want to lotr. I am willing to buy an ebook now that I know I will read it but what should I get. You see what I like

Definitely fantasy, and I like books that are easy to read.

Its for enjoyment not necessarily to learn anything.

So, any recommendations.

I’ve read project Hail Mary and the hobbit and loved them, but I haven’t really read that many standalones so I’m looking for some recommendations. My favorite books of all time are HP series, Project Hail Mary, and terry pratchetts city watch series. Any recs?

Not into Sanderson. He's not for me.

Trying to stick to trilogies(or shorter)

I made a post requesting recent fantasy looking for stuff that isn't about royalty, mentioning that the stuff that I loved in the past were about misfit adventurers, assassins that don't work for royalty, and people rebelling against the system. I don't think anyone recommended anything about an adventurer.

Here's some examples of series about adventurers that I used to like:

Legacy of the Drow Series is a 4 book series that is part of Legend of Drizzt. It's about a Dark Elf trying to find a society that won't judge him because of his race. I also used to love The Dark Elf Trilogy as well, but Drizzt isn't really an adventurer yet in these books. Don't have a desire to read past this series, and I wanna stick to titles that are set in trilogies or shorter now, but this was fun!

Oh, and I haven't enjoyed anything else in the Forgotten Realms.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/49177-legacy-of-the-drow

The Demon Wars Saga. By the same author. I still really love the first book, and think that it's super underrated.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/529582.The_Demon_Awakens

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is technically not medieval fantasy, but it's one of my faves. About an elderly pirate woman out for just ONE MORE adventure.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61294937-the-adventures-of-amina-al-sirafi

Rogue Angel is about this Indiana Jones-like series where the MC is the reincarnation of Joan Of Arc. It's a way too long series that's still ongoing, and I imagine that they start phoning in the series after a while, but I love the first 3 novels.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/41157-rogue-angel

What's good that's about an adventurer from the last 20 years? Is there anything?

I must say what an absolute ride this series was. I definitely chose it right in, as it was my introduction to fantasy. The book was definitely the fastest of them all in my opinion. All gas, no breaks from beginning to end. Snaka and Lik-Rifa have to be the sorriest gods in fiction 🤣. Absolutely pathetic. As much as I hate Rotta, I feel like he carried her in this war, without a doubt, basically her external brain. Ulfrir and Skuld, my goats though. Snaka being a ‘creator’ god and not even lasting 2 chapters. Absolutely hilarious.

Why was Elvar killed as soon as I started liking her again? Give Chain-Breaker her props though, a world-changing revolutionary. What makes it even worse is that Guðvarr lived longer than her, is that not absolute madness??? He has the craziest luck, and as the book got to the final chapters, the more mad I got that he wasn’t dead yet. The last 15 or so chapters though. Absolute peak. The fights were moving like pictures in my head, Varg vs Brak, Orka vs Drekr, and Lif vs Guðvarr. Everyone getting their get-backs. And am I reaching or can I say there is definitely a parallel between Lif and Varg? Both rising from nothing into great warriors who got their revenge. Breca really had presence this book too, as expected of the son of the Skullsplitter.

Wasn’t the author a bit too trigger-happy at the end? Did he really have to do Glornir like that?

Still, I think it was a good ending to the trilogy. It has my 5⭐️ for sure.

Ps. What should my next read be, Faithful and the Fallen or Rage of Dragons? Though I am missing Wrath from FATF, haven’t bought it as yet

I know I’m in the minority here and it’s pretty unusual for me to like a second book more than the first in a duology but in this case it’s true. For whatever reason it took me awhile to get into the first book, The Knight and the Moth. I found the gargoyle childlike and off putting and it would pull me out of the story. I did eventually get into it and loved it enough to go on to book 2. Book 2 The Knave and the Moon I absolutely love and am devouring it.
Rachel Gillig comes up with very creative and unique magical elements (in both her duologies) that I haven’t seen elsewhere. I also like that her books are heavy on the story and light on the romance. I mean it’s there and is important but it isn’t the center of the story.

I feel like the quality of fantasy has gone up, even though fewer people read books now than before. I grew up with Robert Jordan, Robin Hobb, Brandon Sanderson, Steven Erikson, and George R.R. Martin. These authors always pop up at the top of recommendation/ranking lists. I used to feel like they were the only ones producing that level of quality that resonated with so many readers.

But over the last few years, I feel like something has shifted 😉.

Books like Jay Kristoff's Empire of the Vampire, Robert Jackson Bennett's Ana & Din Mysteries, Richard Swan's The Great Silence, and the grand epic The Bound and the Broken by Ryan Cahill are all high quality in my opinion.

Hasn't the overall quality of fantasy gotten significantly better over the last 6 years?

Have you ever deliberately put off reading a book because you felt it wasn’t the right time for it?

Maybe the subject matter hits a little too close to home, you’re not in the right headspace for something particularly demanding, or you want more experience as a reader before tackling a challenging series.

For example, as someone who’s still relatively new to fantasy, I’ve been holding off on Malazan until I’ve read more widely and feel better prepared for it.

I’m curious what books you’ve deliberately saved for later, and what makes you feel that now isn’t the right time for them.

i've tried to rank Series as one, but some exceptions with the series im not finished with.

Some notes:

• DCC loved it when i finished the first book, but have become a bit saturated with the others.
• Read the first three from The dark tower. Love it, will probably be S-tier when i finish.
• Will continue with Earthsea Cycle at some point. Loved the vibe, but got occupied with some more heavy series.
• Currently reading Iron Gold. Having a great time. Probaly B-tier. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
• Will probably finish the rest of Red rising, before continuing with Liveship traders or The dark tower.
• Would love som recommendations based on my list

Been trying to get into this book for a long time, but it's so long and slow, and really not my kind of book, so I feared that I'd never get into it.

I don't think I ever tried doing it via an immersive read(where I read the ebook and the audiobook) before however, and I feel like it's working for me this time. I'm 2 days into the book, about a quarter of the way through the first book, listening to the audiobook at 2,0 speed, and I'm really digging this despite it not being my kind of book. Just finished the "House Of Elrond" part. so I've finished about 150 pages in 2 days, which is great!

Also, I know that a lot of people hate Shannara, but I find the idea of LOTR if the fellowship never splits up, and it was focused on the characters instead of lore and landmasses really appealing.

Wish me luck on finishing this. If I do, it'll be the slowest, and longest book I've ever finished.

My god was that series god awful. Somehow it just kept getting worse. I think every female was raped at least once in that series. And the MC gets with the fmcs mom and her. Like jesus. And that wasn't even close to the worst thing

Earthsea is mine. Le Guin drew the archipelago map herself, and in A Wizard of Earthsea I kept checking it as Ged chases his shadow further and further out, until the islands just stop and there's nothing left on the page but open sea.

Most maps at the front of a book I look at once and forget. Which ones did you actually use while reading, and was it because the journey mattered or because the world was just fun to get lost in?

just finished the first book for the series last night and it was amazing. Has anyone else read this series? What did you all think if you did? Also has this book kept anyone else up at night cause you're attached to the characters? I'm going to start the second book soon and the third book after that.