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.
Oglaf 😆
Excellent suggestion.
insert joker laugh
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.
Kingkiller chronicles so everyone can peer pressure rothfuss into finishing the fucking thing
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 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.
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.
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.
Titan, Wizard, and Demon by John Varley. The first book starts off with a bog-standard “first human exploration of Saturn’s system” bit, but starts going off the rails immediately. By the end, you’ll meet a 50 foot clone of Marilyn Monroe and think, “eh, I’ll accept that.”
It’s one of sci-fi’s more delightfully unhinged stories.
Completely agree. It is fucking unhinged and a great read.
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! 📚
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.
The original “The Princess Bride” by S. Morgenstern
Although it’s more recent, my favorite fantasy novels are the first law series by Abercrombie (I suggest the audio book). It’s grim dark fantasy, very pessemistic with great character work.
His newest book (The Devils) is slightly lighter and a great read. However, the First Law series is my absolute favorite by Abercrombie.
Came into the thread to recommend Abercrombie, glad to see it’s already covered!
LOTR… Of course, since this is really the start of the genre as it exists today. So when you read it and think that it’s full of tropes… Continue thinking a little bit and realize that LOTR CREATED those tropes.
The Belgariad by David Eddings. I’ll come out and say it, David Eddings was a horrible person, but this series is worth reading. He’s dead now so you won’t be supporting him if you get these books. The followup series “The Mallorean” is not a must read, it’s basically a retread of “The Belgariad”. As are his later series “The Tamuli” etc…
The Cosmere by Brandon Sanderson. A lot of people will recommend Mistborn, or the Stormlight Archive, but both of those series are just parts of a greater arc called “The Cosmere”. I would recommend starting with Elantris or Warbreaker, both of which are standalone books, but are in the Cosmere. Then go to Mistborn series 1, then tackle Stormlight Archive. Be warned, each book in SA is longer than LOTR in its entirety. But it’s well worth the read.
A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay: One of my wife’s favorite books. Not a series, but worth the read.
Memory, Sorry and Thorn by Tad Williams: Excellent series that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.
Destiny’s Crucible by Olan Thorensen: I liked this one a lot and continue to follow it, although it’s starting to get a little long.
The Riyria Revelations and Chronicles by Michael J Sullivan: Both of these series are great and worth the read.
I would say Dune. It is sci-fantasy but I think it is ok.
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books. Hyperion (first 2 are best buy i love all 4 in the series). Read some of the classics like Philip k dick “do androids dream of electric sheep” and robert heinland’s “stranger in a strange land” isaac asimov’s “i robot” books and foundation series are excellent too.
I would recommend Jack Vance’s Dying Earth series as well as his Lyonesse Trilogy.
Glory Road is begging for an adaption, even tho a bunch of other stories have ripped off the premise. Like, it’ll be a “new” story to you, but you’re going to constantly see shit that other writers ripped off in the 60 years since it was published.
It’s Heinlein pulp SciFi too, so you can legit read it all in a day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_Road
If you like that and want more, he wrote a shit ton of novels about “Lazarus Long”. Like, true old school 1960s sci Fi where the books weren’t telling a single coherent story, he just had to keep pumping out pages so he kept coming up with new stories.
There’s also “Stranger in a Strange land” which was known as “The hippie bible” during the height of the counter-culture movement, despite being about a man raised by Martians who returns to Earth.
Just anything by Heinlein really
“The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” is what I always recommend from Heinlein. I feel like this one in particular has stood up conceptually and thematically over time. AI, space colonialism, predatory capitalism, class revolution. It all feels very relevant.
