So I grew up very sheltered and isolated from society and as a result missed out on a lot of pop culture and other common things. I love to read, and I really enjoy fantasy and DnD and those types of things and I’m trying to find and catch up on the great fantasy books/series that every fantasy lover/nerd should know. I’m not as interested in sci-fi, but I’m willing to read the “great” ones too. What would you recommend?
Series I’ve read: The Lord of the Rings The Witcher The Dark Tower The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Dungeon Crawler Karl
Update to add also read: Wheel of Time Most of the Stormlight Archive The Hobbit
I’m just starting my first Discworld book.
Edit: Thanks everyone! Keep them coming, I’m going to make a list with all the suggestions and start working through them.
Discworld (Terry Pratchett), no question.
Very much Discworld. I shouldn’t have had to scroll this far down to find this shame on all y’all. The Night Watch series and The Witches series are my favourites and I do recommend reading series’s in order to but you can start practically anywhere if you want. Just remember the very first two books aren’t anyone’s favourites but are still good.
DISCWORLD
Honestly, probably the most enjoyable series of novels ever. The jokes are so layered and absurd while being witty well setup. It’s been a few years since I’ve read them, may be time to start over…
And there is, quite literally, something for everyone. From absurdist to noir to scifi to swords and sandals to philosophy…it’s a big universe
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5
Firsthand account of one of the scariest events of the Second World War in the shape of highly entertaining sci-fi novel.
Must read for everyone.
All Vonnegut is worth reading
Kingkiller chronicles so everyone can peer pressure rothfuss into finishing the fucking thing
He won’t. Just toss him as a lost cause like George RR Martin and Scott Lynch and move on. You’ll feel a lot better when you finish a different series that took way less time than what Rothfuss did writing his only 2 novels in the series.
I like the books, superficially they are a treat, the prose is brilliant, the words feel nice on my brain.
But reading just a little bit deeper than that, you start to realise the story is pretty empty. The characters are hollow. The first two books are pretty much the same story loop over and over again. The characters making the same mistakes and learning the same lessons over and over again.
The way the author writes female characters makes you seriously worry about the authors relationship with women, and if he even knows any women.
I read the first book because I’d heard praise for it. It was either during that one, or the next book what I thought:
- orphan
- gifted magician
- professor who hates him
- professor who likes him
- male friend
- female friend
- and some others that I can recall after so many years
…fucking hell. I’m reading a retelling of fucking Harry Potter!
Yeah. It’s full of really common pop-fiction tropes. But the writing is so beautiful you don’t notice it.
It really jumped the shark when in the second book the guy who is a virgin and can’t talk to girls suddenly became the god of sex and literally out-sexed the sex nymph who had been sexing men to death for years.
I thought he specifically didn’t out-sex the sex nymph, but as she was about to turn and kill her latest victim (because she used sex and he was used up), it turned out the victim (our heeeero) had an affinity for the ‘supreme’ or actual magic in the series, and he was able to use it to bind her in the old fashioned ‘true-names-let-you-control’ trope… and then she turned him into a god of sex because she couldn’t kill him and he wasn’t going anywhere for a while.
I also think your characterization of quothe as not able to talk to girls isn’t quite accurate, just that he was a fool who had decided there was only one girl for him.
None of this is to say the criticisms of rothfuss aren’t accurate. The guy sniffs his own farts and thinks he creates pure oxygen in his bowels. His little vignette about making soap goes on for pages, and he had the temerity to sell it as it being just. so. necessary to do.
You’re probably right, it’s been years since I read it, and I was simply piggy backing off other criticisms I’ve read about the book by others saying similar things online.
Did it? I think one of the points is that the narrator isn’t particularly trustworthy.
Yes but also is that just Rothfuss’ excuse when fans call him out about plot inconsistencies? Because that’s how I heard that “explanation” came about.
Oh I didn’t even know Rothfuss ever brought it up explicitly. It’s a conceited character talking about themselves, so it seemed expected to me.
We’re never getting the last book. And my theory is that he just outgrew it. Or at least I hope that’s true, because the whole Denna storyline was just a bunch of incel bullshit.
I think Rothfuss/Martin and others are pressured too much. No matter what they produce, it will never be good enough to satisfy the hordes of loudmouths.
Maybe not, but if they’d actually work on it instead of stringing us along, maybe there wouldn’t be hordes of loudmouths.
Also…keep in mind, they chose the author’s life. I find it pretty tone deaf for a famous person complaining about what fame brings when that’s the path they pursued.
No matter what they produce
Now, I agree that we have no right to demand anything from them.
But… their output rate has been genuinely abysmal. If we had a right to demand anything at all from them (we don’t), then it would be quite reasonable to ask them to at least finish one book every 10 years…
I mean, Rothfuss has produced a couple novellas, and Martin has some projects. I get it, but at the same time i wouldn’t blame either of them if they didn’t feel comfortable releasing another of their mainline series.
I want them to, and ten years is a long ass time, but nothing they produce will live up to the hype so that probably causes a lot of anxiety.
But maybe im projecting here. Idk. I feel like the same thing is the reason we don’t have a Half-Life 3 video game. The first two made such a huge impact in terms of tech and gameplay that nothing is going to live up to the hype. So you can either kill yourself trying to achieve unachievable levels of amazing, or go do something you want to do.
but nothing they produce will live up to the hype
We just want the next book to be about the same as the previous books. There is not “hype” here?
Here are some series I can’t recommend enough:
Cradle by Will Wight — A young man born too weak to matter in a world where martial artists can shatter mountains and walk on air decides that’s not good enough. Starts small and intimate, then escalates into genuinely insane power fantasy. The progression system is crack cocaine. 12 books, all out, binge-worthy.
The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan — A slum girl accidentally discovers she has magic, which is very illegal if you’re not from the right family. Gets accepted into the Magicians’ Guild under suspicious circumstances and slowly uncovers something rotten at its core. Cozy, character-driven, and surprisingly political.
The Lightbringer Series by Brent Weeks — Magic is literally made of light and color, and drafters slowly go mad from using it. Packed with political scheming, morally grey characters, and one of the best slow-burn mystery plots in fantasy. Weeks hid twists in plain sight for five books and sticks the landing.
The Licanius Trilogy by James Islington — Time travel, prophecy, and a magic system where using power costs you years off your life. Dense and intricate in the best way, the kind of series where you flip back to chapter one after finishing it and realize how much you missed. Islington clearly planned every page from the start.
All are fantastic series, happy reading! 📚
Thanks. Haven’t read any of these and you make em all sound pretty rad.
I’ll add that I hated the Lightbringer series. It starts out alright, gets progressively worse, and ends with a big fat literal deus ex machina. Weeks is a flaming Mormon, and if you know anything about the faith, you can see its stink everywhere.
I did like his Night Angel trilogy.
Cradle is pretty amazing.
Can you tell me more? I’m not religious and don’t know much about Mormonism. I’ve heard similar things about other authors like Sanderson. I gotta say, the comments are a bit underwhelming since no one explains the actual problem.
There’s a lot of religion in the books. People are always praying for this and that. Biblical names. Some thinly veiled biblical references. Any character who expresses agnosticism or atheism is eventually proved bad or wrong in some manner. There are some very angelic-like beings that pop up later. Some fallen ones as well. Every single woman character pines over the guys at some point and really just wants to settle down and pop out kids. Oh, and everything is wrapped up neatly in the last book when the very obvious Jesus figure confronts God on top of a tower, sacrifices himself, is subsequently resurrected, and they fly in on a literal airplane and save everyone in the 11th hour. It’s trite and disaffecting and pretty much assured I won’t be reading anything from Weeks ever again.
While I understand your perspective, I believe we hold differing interpretations of the series. I am not seeking an argument, as I consider this to be a fantastic piece of literature, and I believe Weeks effectively portrays religious piety. Additionally, it features remarkably strong female characters. It is quite interesting how we can read the same words on a page and arrive at such different interpretations. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Series?
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Le Guin’s Earthsea Trilogy
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Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain
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Discworld, especially the Night Watch books
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Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series
Individual Books:
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Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown, or anything else she wrote
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Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock and Howl’s Moving Castle, or anything else she wrote
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Philip K. Dick, “Galactic Pot-Healer” (Dick straddles the line between science fiction and science fantasy, but this one’s firmly the latter)
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Madeline L’Engle, Many Waters
I’m sure I’ll think of more but my break is up.
I came here to say Chronicles of Prydain. I read them over and over as a child and they are so magical and well written, it’s a shame they aren’t more well known!
Wait wait. You’re starting with Engel’s “Many Waters?” Isn’t it book 4 in a series where book 1 (“A Wrinkle in Time”) is considered a classic?
It’s been a long time but I remember liking book 2 a whole lot. I never did get book 5, though I think there is one?
not “starting with” but it’s functionally a standalone and the most “fantastic” of her novels
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Most of the classics have been well covered at this point. One of the best books (and authors) I’ve read lately and would argue is a modern classic already is M.L. Wang’s Sword of Kaigen. It is a stand alone fantasy novel set in a world similar to Avatar (the last airbender) where magic is elemental and controlled nationally. It covers the story of a young man and his mother and father, defending their village against overwhelming invading forces.
Wang’s strength is in her character building: everyone is highly complex, multifaceted, and nuanced. Despite the tropey premise, the story manages to completely subvert the standard clichés and covers themes of nationalism, propaganda, grief, forgiveness, patriarchy, and identity. It also has literally the best redemption arc of any book I’ve ever read. Please go read it if you haven’t already!
Chronicles of the Black Company
If you’re into early 20th century pulp fantasy, I highly recommend Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter of Mars and Robert E. Howard’s Conan.
There is an unfortunate lack of female authors in this thread so I will post two recommendations:
- I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
I’m not familiar with Jacqueline Harpman, but Left Hand of Darkness is quite fun. Not at all what I expected going in.
I’ll add Lois McMaster Bujold and her Curse of Chalion to the list. Great book.
Robin hobb farseer books are great
the rainwild chronicles were my favourite
Yeah I think me as well, it’s a slow start but really gets good. Fantastic character development
Ah, I love recommendation posts.
It depends on what you actually enjoyed reading and why. I see you already have a lot of great suggestions. The only author I haven’t yet seen mentioned is perhaps Asimov, although you said you prefer fantasy to sci fi. That’s also my preference, however I find his short stories are worth reading and also low commitment for this reason.
One thing I find useful in recommendations is to know what else people have read and what they think about that. It helps me get an idea of which books I’m more likely to enjoy best or not, especially if I can compare their thoughts to mine about the same books. With that in mind, my thoughts:
Discworld is amazing. Pratchett is a great author. I like that he can write a story that on the surface is just a simple comedy/adventure, but if you are the type that also analyzes what they read you will soon see his stories go much deeper than what they appear to be. He will keep things entertaining and witty but also throw at you a piece of his mind for you to mull over and reflect on various aspects of life. Small Gods is one of my favorites.
I also really enjoyed Dungeon Crawler Karl, and I mean really really really. Hilarious. But it doesn’t have the depth Pratchett has.
On a similar vein, The Witcher- loved the characters and the story is very entertaining, but t can’t say I was blown away as with Pratchett.
I absolutely loved Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy. Now that’s some solid writing. The characters are so well fleshed out, unique, original. Somehow the world and the plot feel realistic, crazy as it sounds for a fantasy book. It may feel a bit slower in pacing than any of the three I previously mentioned, but not slower than LOTR which you have already read.
I can also recommend the first law trilogy, just finished it. There’s actually some standalone books and a second trilogy in that world, i’m reading ‘best served cold’ now which is also excellent and features some characters from the trilogy. Can’t wait to read the rest and dread the day i read them all.
Worm by Wildbow, 10/10 all the way through, which is incredible given it’s 7000 pages and written by an indie author.
It’s good, but even Wildbow themselves says it could use a thorough edit - which will likely never happen. Not to say you shouldn’t read it. It’s fantastic.
I dunno, I’m holding out that an animated adaptation will happen one day on the worm series. Maybe it’ll get the invicible treatment and get some edits then.
Just give a little warning. It’s ‘superpowers’ written in a serial format that brings the brutality of a series like invincible, but while invincible sort of still plays it off in a comic appropriate way, it’s never ‘fixed’ or back to the status quo in worm. While a lot of the brutality is glossed over except when the author is hitting that anvil, and even then more is able to be overlooked because the action and character interactions are just written so alluringly and you’ll be speeding through it, taking a moment to step back and think about what just happened ‘in universe’ can be shocking.
Didn’t spot the chronicles of amber by Roger Zelazny in the thread, so that’s my recommendation if you want a long one!
EDIT: seems somehow no one actually recommended the Foundation/Robots series by Isaac Asimov, that’s the base…
That are titles I haven’t heard in a long time! Literally my childhood.
Great to know there are still people of culture around!
From Zelazny, Damnation Alley is one of greatest self contained stories
I’d aslo add Dune by Frank Herbert. Out of recent two movies only first one is truly faithful to the books. They didn’t do the justice in second one.
Edit: Also Enders Game by Orson Scott Card. One of the best books in my life
Terry Brooks, Shannara series (wiki/goodreads)
It’s a rather extensive fantasy series and covers a prolific amount of time instead of focusing on a few characters and events (over 40 books and thousands of years basically).
