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.
Earthsea.
Earthsea is beautiful. There aren’t very many books, and they were written across 50ish years. They evolved with the genre, allowing readers a clear window into how we got to the modern works of Jordan, Sanderson, etc.
There are six, which, by modern standards isn’t much. The first three came out in a four year time span and was an attempt to answer the question, “What was Gandalf’s youth like?” This was before Tolkien answered these questions publicly.
Twenty some odd years later, she wrote Tehanu. It was, from what I remember, an attempt to answer her critiques who said she had written a series where magic was not accessible to women. Then ten years after that she finished with two more books. The first of the two was a bunch of short stories that fill in some corners of the stories prior.
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.
I mean, they mentioned they’re already reading Discworld…
I found this reading order quite helpful:
Edit, better version:
Wtff… I remember the colour of magic being fun and knew there was more but that’s wild
The Colour of Magic was published in 1983, The Shepherd’s Crown was posthumously published in 2015 with up to three books published in some years. It’s an incredible life’s work.
If you liked The Colour of Magic, I’d strongly recommend continuing reading, it’s usually considered one of the weakest novels in the discworld, being the first book he wrote while still having a day job.
The good thing is, there are these sub series as you can see in the picture following specific characters with some cameos from the other series, so no need to read all of them (although recommended, because they’re great). Even within these series, every book is basically a standalone story with minimal spoilers if you read them out of order and zero confusion if you don’t remember what happened in the last book.
I’m a really fast reader and I had a slowish day at work yesterday. I read The Colour of Magic start to finish yesterday morning and really enjoyed it. I’m almost finished with The Light Fantastic now.
They get better
Oglaf 😆
Excellent suggestion.
I need an Oglaf omnibus.
insert joker laugh
His dark materials aka the Northern Lights series. I read it as a young teen and again as an adult. Really good.
Whenever I see someone asking for book recommendations, I always seek out comments like yours or make one if I don’t find it.
His Dark Materials aka Northern Lights (Golden Compass in US) is a really good one. I was 12 when I read the first one. It’s such a good story and I remember anxiously waiting for the 2nd and 3rd books to be published. When my friends started reading HP #1, I was already 2 books deep into HDM and was fully engulfed in Lyra’s story. HDM is a superior series that I think all children should read.
I read it again as an adult and realized how much those books really shaped my world view. Philip Pullman is an amazing storyteller.
‘I always seek out comments like yours or make one if I don’t find it.’
Same here! They were so eye opening as a young kid
Just a note to add that if OP does dig in to HDM, bear in mind that there are only three books. There are three more books masquerading as a continuation of Lyra’s story, but they can be safely disregarded as they are a nonsense.
I really like Frank Herbert’s Dune. It is science fiction, but takes many aspects from history, like fiefdomship/politics and religion, especially from medieval times. Some argue the book is too much into details and thus can be dry (no pun intended) but I like it as the world seems more authentic, the characters more relatable.
Just remember that Dune is only half (eh, two-thirds) of a book, and the story isn’t complete without Dune Messiah.
The next two books are more self-contained.
oh I didn’t realize Dune counts. Yeah Dune is awesome
Malazan, Malazan, Malazan. Literally the result of two bored archaeologists and their DnD campaign while they were out on a dig.
It hangs with the best in terms of humor, tragedy, epic scope, and heroism. It does not hold your hand, in fact it will delight in letting your hand go while leading you through a dark room. Deeply philosophical, challenges and embraces tropes in equal part, absolutely interesting magic system(s). It is hardcore hopecore, it champions the little guy, empathy, and the bright mind over the slow. Main series is finished, 10 giant books. Also a bunch of others outside that series by both creators.
Be patient with it, some payoffs take a while. Read Gardens of the Moon and then Deadhouse Gates to see if it’s clicking. It isn’t for all.
I feel like this might be a terrible suggestion to start with. It has ruined fantasy for me. Nothing else I’ve found has come close, the worlds feel half baked, the stories mediocre, the characters forgettable, the scale a fraction of Malazan’s.
Erickson can get me more attached to a throwaway character that is introduced and killed off in a handful of pages than some authors can to their main character.
R Scott Bakker kinda scratches a similar itch, though it’s much more bleak.
More bleak than the Chain of Dogs, the Children of the Dead Seed, Beak’s candles, The Snake?!
I have had Bakker on my radar but I have to be in the right mood for fantasy.
Much more bleak. Erikson has more in the way of heroics in the face of the bleak. Bakker you get more of human flaws ushering in doom. It has a similar sense of scale, the world building is top notch. But the passage of time and intelligence are much less forgiving in Bakker’s world.
I’ve done numerous rereads of Malazan, none for Bakker. Though it’s just as deserving, if not more so. It’s just… a lot less uplifting.
Glen Cook’s Black Company novels come close for me. They’re smaller scale, but they’ve got some heft. Erikson has said the series was a huge influence on him, too.
Brandon Sanderson books, specifically the cosmere stuff are all pretty fucking good.
My favourite is probably Mistborn but I know a lot of people prefer The Stormlight Archives. All worth reading!
Both Mistborn ages are really tight, making them easy reads. Intriguing magic, moving story, great characters.
Stormlight has all the same elements, but it lets every character have their own storyline. It’s sprawling. It lets you see more sides of it.
Sanderson is a great airport read.
I wouldn’t recommend it outside of that context. It’s nothing special.
He’s great at coming up with magic systems but he’s basically a very talented YA writer.
I’ve heard great things about Malazan. I should probably pick that up.
I just finished Gardens of the Moon. In order to keep track of everyone, I made my own wiki. It felt like watching Eriksson play a war game.
I’m taking a break as the style isn’t interesting to me. I hear his writing becomes more intimate and visceral in the rest of the series. Looking forward to this in book 2. Sort of wish I started with book 2 since none or few of the characters carry over.
If you continue with the series, just about every character carries over. Malazan is crazy intricate and complex. I’ve read the ten-book main series a few times and notice new connections every time through.
Ok so since you’re doing sci-fi as well, Hyperion/Hyperion series.
I just finished the Cantos this week. I think Hyperion is one of the best sci-fi setups ever conceived. The Canterbury Tales in Space is so hype, and so well executed. I could read it ten times and love it every time.
The rest of the series is ambitious, but never quite lived up to the first book. There are incredibly interesting ideas, and some excellent parts… but I can’t give the whole thing a 10/10.
Book four light spoilers
Aenea spends so much time talking at the reader, and her set up as the savior of humanity pins her character in a corner.
The discussion on how “humans stopped evolving” was an incredible turn on my view of the Ousters, and helped recontextualize the series as a radical, conservationist epic instead of just an anti-authoritarian one was also A+.
Since I just read this, I’ve been thinking a lot about how a television adaptation would work. Season one would be just the first book… one pilgrim’s tale per episode. But then I feel like the next three books would need a comprehensive overhaul to streamline the narrative and pick a clearer focus.
I started the second book shortly after reading the first, and I didn’t finish it. I think I prefer to remember Hyperion as a standalone story as it’s so perfect
Yeah, I put Hyperion/Hyperion series since the series is not for everyone.
I personally enjoyed the Endymion books, some people enjoy Fall of Hyperion and leave it at that.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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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
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
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.
- Anne Rice’s Vampire books.
- Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives
- Jordan’s The Wheel of Time
Sci-Fi:
- James S A Corey’s The Expanse series
I’m going to second The Expanse. It’s a fantastic series and one of my favorites.
The original “The Princess Bride” by S. Morgenstern
Oh that’s a good suggestion! Definitiely worth reading!
