Haven’t read this yet, but heard great things about it. Decided on buying it once I saw it was signed!

It's just that's it's very intimidating, ig. Like, the books are pretty long, and I worry that it's overhyped? Idk. Anyway, is it worth it? Other than the obvious, I mean.

Gormenghast has been on my to read list for about 18 years now, purely inspired by the chapters in Tad Williams otherland novels.

I loved the stories from One Thousand and One Nights and the Aladdin movie. Now I want to read more books with a similar setting. Djinns, flying carpets, desert nights.

Here are some books I really enjoyed:

• Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton
• Sands of Arawiya by Hafsah Faizal
• The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty
• The Sandsea Trilogy by Chelsea Abdullah
• This Woven Kingdom by Tahareh Mafi
• The Wrath & the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

The most important thing is the setting. It can have political intrigues like City of Brass or be more adventurous like Rebel of the Sands. It can be YA or high fantasy. Lighthearted or very dark. With or without romance. High or low magic. New series or old, obscure novels. Basically everything that captures the feeling of 1001 Nights.

What books can you recommend?

I first read A Song of Ice and Fire in 2011, and this is my first reread since. I’m on A Clash of Kings right now reading a Bran chapter. Bran is hosting many of the northern houses at Winterfell, and I noticed this conversation, which confused me at first because Theon has JUST got to the Iron Islands, hasn’t attacked Winterfell yet, and hasn’t been captured by the Boltons. So, I guess there were multiple “Reek” servants ? What do we think happened to the previous ones ? How many times do we think Ramsey has done this to someone ? It would make sense if he followed the same ritualistic sort of pattern like serial killers do, but I’m curious if anyone else noticed this. I’m fine with spoilers since I have read the books before, it’s just been a minute !

This is my shortlist TBR

Just finished The Witch who trades with Death. Very pleasantly surprised as it was a random one I picked up from Waterstones because it sounded intreaguing, and the cover had a skull on it.

Can someone please help me find more fantasy books with a lot of powerful female villains that are important to the plot. I also want good worldbuilding and deep lore

Hey guys! I’m really torn between starting Caraval or The Cruel Prince first. Which one do you think is better?

Also, if you have any other books recs, please let me know! :)

Note : I’ve read “The darkness that comes before “ and it’s not my style of writing … not in the slightest. I like authors where I don’t have to decipher their wording or info dump you with names and gibberish race , clan where you don’t know what’s what . I found Malazan easier to read tbh.

I recently found these old books from my childhood, and the nostalgia hit me hard. I was completely obsessed with them and reread them more times than I can count.
Did anyone else grow up reading these? What are your favorite fantasy books these days? I’m always looking for new recommendations, especially books that capture that same sense of adventure and wonder I felt as a kid.

So I know I could prolly just search this up but I want opinions abt this anyway, I bought house of roots and ruin at a bookstore recently and forgot to search up if it’s part of a series first (which I usually do before buying a book) but it seemed rlly interesting and I didn’t see anything rlly hinting to it being a series, anyway I’m just wondering if u can still read it alone and have no trouble. I’ll probably buy the other book once I have extra money cuz I love this author (found her thru the thirteenth child which is rlly good and I definitely recommend) but it’ll be a while so just wondering if I should wait to read this or not, thankyou!!

Currently reading Between Two Fires by Buehlman and craving more books in a similar vain? Any historical fictions/ dark fantasy books you guys know of? Preferably a series.

Hey I just finished A Sharp Endless Need and A girls guide to murder and starting reading The Poppy War and kind of like it, but it's still not quite the fit. I'm looking for a fantasy series or standalone that's surreal and is easy to see in my mind with very little lore and mostly focused on characters and their arches and growth.

I’m newer to fantasy, so maybe this book is not as original as it felt to me, but I absolutely loved the way the story was structured.

The three different layers of storytelling, along with the endless shifts into the perspectives of people within the story and the play, made me feel completely immersed in the world while also feeling like I was watching everything unfold inside a dream. Even the brief perspectives of ordinary people made the world feel larger and more alive.

It did take me a little while to adjust to the writing style, especially coming directly from Rhythm of War, which is much simpler, clearer, and more direct in its storytelling, though still very well done. Once I settled into the rhythm of this book, though, the style became my favorite part of the experience.

I can completely understand why some readers would struggle with it or never fully connect with it. I can also see some fair criticisms of the plot and certain character arcs, but for me, the overall experience worked.

The villains and the imperial family were probably my favorite parts of the story, but I also appreciated that the author did not give us traditional heroic character arcs. Jun and Keema did not always behave like the types of heroes we are accustomed to following. Their journey felt more uncertain, messy, and human.

Ultimately, this was one of those books where the way the story was told mattered just as much to me as the story itself. I finished it feeling like I had not simply read another fantasy novel, but had experienced a completely new way to tell a story and immerse someone in a world.

I would still consider myself new to fantasy/scifi and I am wondering if the types of books that led me to epic fantasy are actually considered part of the fantasy genre? One of my favorite authors is Mark Tufo.. he can have me laughing out loud and then crying in the same chapter. His writing is definitely not complex but his characters are so realistic they have become almost like friends! Anyways, he writes about zombies, Lycans, aliens, Yeti and parallel worlds but I never hear recommendations of dystopian type novels. All of this to ask, are apocalypse novels considered under the umbrella term fantasy?

I've just finished Assassin's Quest. I liked the first two books (not 5* IMO but decent 4/5). I loved the Bloodsworn Saga by John Gwynne and the Red Rising Series. I enjoyed the first part of AQ but I found the ending disappointing. I feel like a lot more could have been done about what happened after they reached the end of their journey and the ending felt rushed. I know this is a classic 'quest' book (it says it in the title!). The ending has left me wondering if I'll like the rest of the series. I must admit I like the action from Red Rising and Bloodsworn but I also liked the character development in all the books. But I found myself craving some more action/confrontation.

Does the rest of the series change its approach or is it more of the same? I've heard great things but maybe its just not my cup of tea!

The description of the book is not at all what I expected and I kind of like that. How is it? Looks really long and I’m already reading Stormlight and Sun Eater but maybe when I’m done them?

I am kinda new to reading books. I have read The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Also I've read 9 volumes (think) of The Beginning After the End web novel. I really love the whole Runeterra lore from League of Legends as well. We can say I like high fantasy but I'm a sucker for a good story. I want to expand my horizons on the book side and would really appreciate some good recommendations. Thank you in advance!

Hi guys! I’m sure this has been asked before but I’m relatively new to this sub. Is ASOIAF worth reading despite being incomplete?
GOT left me highly irritable because the ending was just extremely disappointing to me. But I thoroughly enjoyed the series up to around season 5. I would love to read it but I’m not sure if it’s worth it considering it may never be completed. (No hate, I can’t imagine what it must be like to write that many characters/plots)

I've just started the second book and I'm honestly so confused. Please no spoilers, as still trying to push through!

I remember feeling exactly the same when I started When the Moon Hatched, but by the end I actually thought it was ok. The problem is I finished the first book ages ago and only just picked up the sequel, so I can't tell whether I'm confused because I've forgotten what happened or because the book is genuinely a bit overwhelming at the start.

Did anyone else feel like this? Did it eventually click for you, and was it worth pushing through? I'm hoping it's one of those books where everything starts making sense later on, but right now I feel like I'm constantly wondering if I've missed something!

Maybe its just me but recently I've been seeing a lot of the same book recs on booktok or even through special edition book subscription sites (e.g. Fairyloot/Illumicrate). I caved and read a couple of the more popular books but oh my god, some of them are really badly written. it's rightfully in my "never am I ever going to read this again" pile.

Please drop some hidden gems that isnt ACOTR/Fourth Wing! Would love something to do with dragons too or a baddie FMC or even just straight up fantasy with no romance

need any book recommendations that are similar to dungeon crawler carl

This book was read as a prelude to the third book in the series due August 4th. All thoughts and opinions portrayed in this review are my own. 

Oh, and, if I never hear penis described as ‘wick’ again, it will be too soon. 

With that out of the way, let’s get into it.

"But a prideful creature can talk themself into believing that every deed they do is legitimate. Thus, they both giddily and greedily spin their own doom.”

It is perhaps with a very clear and heavy mind, arbitrary thoughts swirling about in my head as I turn the last pages that I sit down to write this review. This is a book that is, perhaps more so than any of the other works by the author, a book about humans – cosigned with all their fallacies and intricacies, their falsettos and their macabre little augmentation. To be human is to be besieged by greed, by a hunger that is never satiated. It is a two-faced phenomenon: on one side it is what creates art and all the wonders that we mayhaps have taken all too readily; on the other, it brings about so much destruction and ascension of false prophets to godlihood. 

And then a man vanishes from a locked room, four storeys above the ground.

“Well, first there is the pleasant puzzle, yes?” I said. “The how, and the who. Then all the dirty drudgery, wherein I follow folk about or dig through their refuse. And then, inevitably, either a rope or the slam of an iron door, and tears.”

That is how our story begins: with a disappearance and a murder. Our hero, Dinios Kol, arrives in the kingdom of Yarrow to investigate how this missing person wound up in pieces by the boonies. And from there, as these tales are wont to do, the story unravels. Like a silken thread from an ephemeral spintress the layers upon layers of the many crimes perpetrated and brought about are slowly revealed to Kol, and to an extension, to us, the readers; a stoic purveyor of change and audacity through the most queer of methodology: the words spun by an all powerful bring on pieces of parchment – a taunt. And the game, as one might say, is afoot.

The commentary this story portrays, different from what the first book had to say (check my review of that here), is one of justice. One of righteous indignation. Of the wrongdoings of humankind being meted out a punishment equally deserved. And the one facet of life, that right now, is the most elusive of all. For autocracy is on the rise, even as the rebuffment of it is wide and far; boy kings with too much power are sitting upon a landmine of empty promises, and it is up to the various factions of the Empire while dols out punishment and carry out the blades of justice to see that the head of the king does not grow out of reach. This story, in the year of our lord 2026, is a cautionary tale, and a way out, wrapped in a delectable package as we race alongside our heroes in their journey to puzzle out how exactly this creature manages to stay ten steps ahead of them the whole time. 

The heart of the story is simple and all the more potent because of it. If given immense power and an opportunity to do the greater good, one will always become blind to the sacrifices and the payment in blood that has to be made, in order to achieve said greater good. And it is none more so greatly mapped out by the Commander-Prificto who did much in the name of greatness – in the process creating the very weapon that would later spell out their doom.

Goddamn autocrats. They really are hardly better than crap-stained children.

But most of all, this story especially (as is also pointed out by the author’s note in the end) is not about vilifying, but rather an accurate portrayal. In the past decade, the word ‘King’ has undergone a rather tumultuous change. It used to be hated and apartheid, so much so that it led to many revolutions, and establishment of western democracy, the New World. Yet the lessons that were taught seem to have been forgotten, and rather twisted. Somewhere along the way the songs and stories that were supposed to be a warning cry, have instead been twisted and bent – started being portrayed as something that is a propaganda. The diary a little girl wrote, afraid and hidden away, has once again been turned a blind eye to. And it is not in part the fault of the systems put into place to stop such a rise. Through its many misdeeds and amorous intent, through hedonism and childhood destroyed that has come to describe this middle part of the 2020s, the system put into place to fight such autocratic rise, is unbalanced and perched precariously upon an axle whose base is becoming more and more fragile. 

“Because you are a reasonably smart boy. I suspect you shall come to realize what many Iudexii eventually learn—that though the Legion defends our Empire, it falls to us to keep an Empire worth defending.”

Though, even through all that, even through the many slogans and chants and horrifying revelations, there is a justice at work, this book says. There are people, big and small, young and old, pale and tanned, broken, battered, and bloody, who toil unseen and mercilessly to ensure that once the dust settles, once everything is over, there is a World worth inheriting. And this book is an ode to those people. To the ones brave enough to say, to the ones who work in the courts and behind their podium – this tale is for you. For the unseen work you do and for which you are never thanked. It is for you that the system is still chugging along. That there is a world still worth salvaging. 

And to the many different people, the ones who don’t quite fit, the ones who face challenges nearly everyday that others simply cannot ken – this book is a swan song to the battles we all face. And a silent message of hope, even in the darkest of time. 

I imagined him then: Kepheus, so tall and broad, yet always leaning crookedly against a wall or door, his shabby smile on his face, his eyes so understanding. It was he who’d spoken to me of service most of all, there in Talagray, yet only now, after I had been so long apart from him, had I come to truly comprehend it.

Also, if Kol somehow does not end up with Kepheus by the end of this series (whenever that may be), I will fly to wherever this author is, and personally give him a piece of my mind.

Can’t wait for the next one!