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Fantasy series with a lot of full on monster fights
I recently read >!In the Shadow of Lightning by Brian McClellan!< and I've noticed that a lot of fantasy books I've read these days. It's mostly just all humans and only humans. I'm looking for a series where the characters fight actual monsters.
It's okay if the monsters are sentient, so long as they're otherwise completely inhuman. Also, preferably no eldritch horrors
Stuff I already read that has at least some monster fights:
Stormlight Archive (and the rest of the cosmere) by Brandon Sanderson
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinimen
The Bound and The Broken by Ryan Cahill
Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
The Black Tongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman
Mage Errant by John Bierce
Cradle by Will Wight (and everything else he wrote)
https://redd.it/1tj3yi8
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‘Fourth Wing’ Author Rebecca Yarros Announces New Romance Novel ‘Peculiar Stars’
https://variety.com/2026/shopping/news/rebecca-yarros-pecuilar-stars-preorder-where-to-buy-1236755419/
https://redd.it/1tj3l1q
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Review Radiant Star by Ann Leckie - an novel set in the Imperial Radch Universe
I recently finished Radian Star, a new novel in the Radch universe setting. Like Provenance it is set entirely on an alien world inhabited by humans and features a new set of characters and focuses on their lives. Like her other novels it is well written and features a lot of political intrigue, which I do like, but no aliens, unfortunately. There is one ship, and it acts to move the plot along, but we don't really get much of it.
The story itself is about a crisis in Ooioiaa, an isolated underground city on an icy wandering planet that was taken over by the Radch empire for unspecified strategic reasons.
There are a wide cast of characters, one young boy accidentally put in stasis at the start of the invasion only to be released years later, a Radch governor, a rich family of industry, and several member of the church of the Radiant Star. The narrative voice is... odd. It's third person and sometimes comments on the story as if it was being told as a history, but the story is told from the point of view of the characters. It will also comment on the characters, saying how deluded they are, etc.
Which was kind of my issue with the book. The author seemed to focus a lot on representations of people she holds in contempt, or so it seemed reading the book. Selfish rich people, social climbers, the clergy... especially the clergy. I found it odd that so much of the book was focused on worshipers of the radiant star when she made it very clear they believed a bunch of nonsense and all twisted it to self-serving goals anyways. But perhaps that was the point? At any rate the author spent a lot of time exploring the selfish motivations she attributes to caricatures of people she clearly doesn't like, which isn't all that fun.
If you like Ann Leckie you might pick it up, but I didn't find it to be one of her stronger books.
https://redd.it/1tiyhzk
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What is the quickest you loved a character?
What I mean is, when you started reading a book, how quickly did you empathise or at least sympathise with the protagonist or other main character? I'm not talking about how quickly the story hooked you, but how quickly the character hooked you.
For me, the quickest I was hooked was in Flowers for Algernon. Charlie Gordon made me sympathise with him a mere two sentences into the novel. It was incredible, and nothing like that has happened to me since.
What about you? Which book, and character, drew you in the quickest?
https://redd.it/1tiw9qa
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Book Recommendations for Manly Man
My dad is starting to listen to audiobooks and was recommended scifi/fantasy by his psychologist. Fantasy is my favorite genre, however the closest thing to what he would like that I've read is The First Law. Do you guys have any suggestions for as little cringe as possible, as much action as possible type of books for a 56 year old man. Anything similar to the First Law I think he would really enjoy.
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between duty to vis community and vis passion for intellectual pursuits (Yatima, like many Polis citizens, uses gender-neutral pronouns) to Paolo’s quest to discover who he is beyond his digital father’s expectations. And if one should ever reach personal and spiritual fulfillment, what comes next? If an individual or a civilization explores all the different permutations of what it could be and what it could achieve, what is left for it or them? Diaspora’s ending evoked a bittersweet mix of awe and melancholy that has me still thinking about it weeks later.
Bingo Squares: Small Press/Self-Published; Unusual Transportation (HM; while wormholes are not unique in SF, the use they are put to here, how they function, and the amount of work Egan invests into describing how they work qualifies it in my opinion); Vacation Spot (I would love to visit the 5-D universe, both to see its native ecologies and simply to try and comprehend how to see and navigate in five physical dimensions… some cognitive modifications might be in order first); Older Protagonist; Explorers/Rangers; One-Word Title; Non-Human Protagonist; First Contact (depends on how you interpret “prominently features”, but I feel it counts) (HM) (>!Much of narrative deals with our protagonists seeking to contact an advanced race they call the Transmuters; though they never do meet them, along the way they do make peaceful first contact with another species directly in the U* universe, meet a non-sentient ambassador of another peaceful species, and encounter sentient simulated intelligences on another planet, though they are unable to make contact with them!<)
https://redd.it/1tiqprr
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What would be, for you, the perfect fantasy book that doesn't exist yet ?
So sorry but no "winds of winter" lmao.
I'm just curious, probably looking for idea too since I'm writing for myself. What kind of world would you like ? What kind of characters, of story, or vilain ? high on magic, dark, colourful, etc ?
Really want to know what you guys would like.
https://redd.it/1tio77o
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r/Fantasy Daily Recommendations and Simple Questions Thread - May 20, 2026
https://preview.redd.it/l2cosnpoixbg1.png?width=3508&format=png&auto=webp&s=cb9f4a2807499edc796351cc28ec39b3aea4d7c2
**Welcome to the daily recommendation requests and simple questions thread, now 1025.83% more adorable than ever before!**
Stickied/highlight slots are limited, so please remember to ~~like and subscribe~~ upvote this thread for visibility on the subreddit <3
——
This thread is to be used for recommendation requests or simple questions that are small/general enough that they won’t spark a full thread of discussion.
Check out [r/Fantasy](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/)'s [2026 Book Bingo Card here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1s9n3e6/official_rfantasy_2026_book_bingo_challenge/)!
As usual, first have a look at the sidebar in case what you're after is there. The [r/Fantasy wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/wiki/recommendations) contains links to many community resources, including "best of" lists, flowcharts, the LGTBQ+ database, and more. If you need some help figuring out what you want, think about including some of the information below:
* Books you’ve liked or disliked
* Traits like prose, characters, or settings you most enjoy
* Series vs. standalone preference
* Tone preference (lighthearted, grimdark, etc)
* Complexity/depth level
Be sure to check out responses to other users' requests in the thread, as you may find plenty of ideas there as well. Happy reading, and may your TBR grow ever higher!
——
[^(tiny image link to make the preview show up correctly)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ITpGPzWOOd7MHhCY2d6Zv_6MWsntfT3s/view?usp=sharing)
art credit: special thanks to our artist, [Himmis commissions](https://himmis.carrd.co/), who we commissioned to create this gorgeous piece of art for us with practically no direction other than "cozy, magical, bookish, and maybe a gryphon???" We absolutely love it, and we hope you do too.
https://redd.it/1tijiok
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(Spoiler free) the Fallen Gods series by Hannah Kaner was SO GOOD!
I just finished the audiobook to Faithbreaker, Book #3 of the Fallen Gods series by Hannah Kaner, and I had to come somewhere to gush about it! It was SO GOOD!!! Such a satisfying ending to the series.
The series follows several main characters: a grizzled “godkiller” (Witcher-like profession), a knight with PTSD, and a child with mysterious powers. All tropes which I honestly love and are done to perfection in these books.
I read them as they came out, so it’s been a while since I listened to Godkiller and Sunbringer, but there was no middle book slump. The pacing was really great and action packed.
Highly recommend for people wanting a high fantasy with interesting god-pantheon world building, LGBTQ+ representation, and great characters! My favorite aspect was there was also really great disability representation, which is not common in fantasy.
https://redd.it/1ti9s6h
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than a full song. There is an ending, but it feels more like a comma than a full stop. There's certainly the groundwork laid to expand into a full novel (>!is the coming apocalypse the Black Death, given the time period? How would the knowledge help, or fail to?!< >!Is the man who tells him how to achieve this quest truly just a man, or a Mephistopheles figure?!<) This also feels quite like Dark Souls in the atmosphere and aesthetic, though a more Hellish (more Izalith than Lordran), but in particular has some excellent twisted, discomfiting monsters. It also has a metal AF cover, which wasn't insignificant in me first checking it out.
https://redd.it/1ti9zhd
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Looking for books with central characters who work behind the scenes
Hello everyone, I hope this finds you well!
I’m looking for novels featuring central characters who secretly control, influence, or manipulate events from behind the scenes, while those around them have little or no idea how dangerous, intelligent, or powerful they really are.
I’m especially drawn to characters who operate like hidden chess masters, quietly pulling strings and shaping outcomes without revealing their true capabilities.
Examples of the kind of characters I mean: Osamu Dazai from Bungo Stray Dogs, Kiyotaka Ayanokoji from Classroom of the Elite, and perhaps even Gandalf the grey from The Lord of the Rings...
Any recommendations? Thank you very much!
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I’d consider ‘main’ characters as it continues. They shuffle back and forth expertly, pushing storylines that thematically mirror each other even as they inevitably converge. Ennes plays a few tricks with this format. While I didn’t see the exact specifics they were going for, I found the shape of the ‘twists’ pretty obvious. I didn’t mind it though, and I think some people will love a reread with the context that the ending of the book provides to the opening. Thematically though, this book felt a lot like when The Hunger Games would comment on the absurdity of Capitol fashion. However, the whole book is examining that slice of culture (and the exploitation it's based on) instead of using it as a fun-but-inconsequential worldbuilding detail. Guy in particular straddles these two worlds. Yes, he's a bottom level exterminator with a short life expectancy. He also spent his childhood ushering at the opera, sneaking looks at performances with earplugs removed, consuming the art illegally. He is the glue that holds the story together, including his unconditional devotion to keeping his sister safe from the life he's trapped in.
What Didn’t Work For Me:
This is, I think, purely a me problem. It was a bit wordy for my current mood. The descriptions in Works of Vermin trend towards the baroque and abstract. Ennes paints a scene with metaphor and ambiguity as much as they do sensory details. This was objectively the correct choice for this novel. A book that dwells so much on the absurdity and indulgence of rich-people art should be a little bit flowery. At the end of the school year though, I think I’d have preferred something a little bit simpler. Works of Vermin doesn’t quite demand your attention, but neither does it allow you to turn off your brain to enjoy the ride. Again, I think Ennes made all the right choices. I just wasn’t in a place to receive those choices quite as much as I’d have liked.
Conclusion: A deliciously original story with lots to say
Want More Reviews Like This? try my blog Marked For Plot
https://redd.it/1ti5nop
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elements of the final revelation. Often that’s a mark against a book, but I don’t find it to be so here, as the impact on both the characters and the thematic exploration give the revelations an emotional weight that hits even if some of the details are suspected in advance. Sometimes a gut-punch is a gut-punch, even if you see it coming.
Ultimately, both the resolution of the mysteries and its impact on the lead are inextricable from the major themes being explored. The heart of the story involves the former enslavement of the Star Eaters and how they have come to be willing workers in service of an alliance who had abused them for so long. And while the details are mostly delivered obliquely, through epistolary snippets and the lead’s experience impersonating a Star Eater, they nevertheless pack an emotional wallop and offer sharp challenges to societies trying to brush their darker histories under the rug. The fact that it’s a story largely about the treatment of the Star Eaters without any actual Star Eater perspective may draw unpleasant comparisons, but in this case, it’s a feature and not a bug. The storytelling perspective may prevent the reader from directly immersing into the Star Eater mindset, but the perspective choice shoulders thematic weight of its own that more than makes up for what is lost.
There are moments where the academic jargon can become distracting, but by and large, the lead is relatable, the mystery is compelling, and the ultimate resolution hits like a ton of bricks, both from an emotional and thematic perspective. One or two moments of being lost in linguistic minutiae doesn’t detract much from a book that checks so many other boxes—The Language of Liars is the best novella I’ve read all year, and it isn’t close.
Recommended if you like: exploration of unusual cultures, indirect commentary on imperialism and slavery, neurodivergent leads, academic puzzles.
Can I use it for *Bingo*? It's hard mode for Unusual Transportation and Non-human Protagonist. It's also Published in 2026 by an Author of Color and features plenty of Politics.
Overall rating: 18 of Tar Vol's 20. Five stars on Goodreads.
https://redd.it/1ti4r0a
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Books with magical worlds as strange and unique as The Dark Crystal
I don't mind a classic hero's journey, but I'd like to check out a world that's as far from classic "Humans meet Elves, Dwarves, and Dragons" as possible.
The heroes might be completely new creatures. The animals, plantlife, maybe even the geography is something curdled out of a deep dream.
https://redd.it/1ti3rey
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Struggling with The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul
I’ve read Hands of the Emperor and The Return of Fitzroy Angursell. The latter gave me tonal whiplash after HotE, but it was fine - mostly because I felt >!bad for Fitzroy/Artorin and could get behind his embracing his freedom!<. But TRPA had a trope that I realized was also in HotE, and why I disliked part of the ending. >!Characters who have been established as having very close relationships (Kip and his family, Kip and his friends, Pali and Fitzroy) have a strained relationship because of a simple lack of communication that should be present in such a relationship. In Pali’s case, she has the information about what happened to Fitzroy but has decided to be pissed at him anyway.!<
Does this continue to be present in the books? If it’s just the author’s style, no problem, I’ll move on. I’m 80% of the way through Pali, and will finish it, but my annoyance with her isn’t “ugh, what’s her deal, I can’t wait to see what happens” it’s “she is so annoying and nasty to a character I like, why am I reading this?” In the case of HotE, I was annoyed by >!Oh, the misunderstanding about your work that has affected your closest relationships at home for decades? It’s all the princess’s fault. Solved!!<
The characters are (mostly) great, the world is expansive and detailed. But the relationships have the issues above and the plot is almost non-existent.
Is there a name for this trope, or this style of book? It feels like someone wrote a fictionalized history of real places and people, and threw a travelogue in at times.
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Do I need to remember halls and vestibule numbers in Piranesi?
I’ve just started reading Piranesi and it feels nuts to try and remember details like the Third Northern Hall, Ninth Vestibule, Nine-Hundred-and-Sixtieth Hall to the West – I mean wtf I feel trolled. Every second phrase is capitalised. The beehive woman and calendar with the albatross are strange enough to wrap my head round but in a cool way.
Does it get easier as I read on? This is making my brain hurt. If this is by design I have ADHD and that’s unfair
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What's your favourite example of entrusting hopes to future generations?
There is a foe or system so powerful that it cannot be beaten in the present. So instead, the heroes chip at it, and pass down knowledge/power to those that follow, over and over until finally they break through.
The best example of what I mean is Dungeon Crawler Carl with the Cookbook. But there are others such as the structure of the Expeditions in Expedition 33 and One for All in My Hero Academia.
What other examples of this are there?
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Bingo Review: the Dragon with a Chocolate Heart by Stephanie Burgess (HM)
I used the Dragon with a Chocolate heart for my Feast for the Eyes square (also bingoes for middle grade, first contact, politics/court intrigue, and non-human protagonist). I picked it because I'm doing a disabled/ND/chronically ill authors card and it sounded super cute. The main character is a young dragon named Aventurine who gets turned into a human after attempting to eat a mage. He tricks her into drinking enchanted hot chocolate and her mind is so blown by having chocolate for the first time that she decides to go to the closest human city to apprentice to a chocolatier. Adorable hijinks ensue, lessons about friendship, family, and love are learned, and a whole lot of delicious chocolate is eaten. Five stars. Made me ravenous.
As an apprentice, she's responsible for roasting the beans herself, so I thought I'd try to replicate the hot chocolate that her shop specializes in. The ingredients are listed as milk, cream, freshly roasted and ground cacao beans, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and chiles. I couldn't find whole beans, but I toasted some nibs on the stove and ground them in my vitamix along with oat milk and cacao butter (dairy milk doesn't agree with me), Mexican vanilla, ancho/guajillo chile, freshly grated nutmeg and cinnamon, and turbinado sugar with a pinch of himalayan sea salt. It came out gorgeously frothy with a rich, almost floral flavor and a lovely bit of heat. Took about 15 minutes and was well worth the fuss! Here's some pics I took of the process/ingredients.
https://redd.it/1tj0cax
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Bingo Review: God Country by Geoff Shaw, Donny Cates and Jason Wordie
Bingo Square: Older Protagonist (HM)
Another one from u/bearyneutral ’s [25 comic recommendations for 2026 bingo](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1sbiez4/25comicrecommendationsfor2026bingo/?utmsource=share&utmmedium=web3x&utmname=web3xcss&utmterm=1&utmcontent=sharebutton)
This was another winner from that list. Wow. The story is that Valofax, the God of Blades, or Blade of Blades has chosen Emmett Quinlan, a widower with Alzheimer’s to be his champion. As someone who has watched his grandparents and older relatives deteriorate over time, this one hits home.
Yes, there are gods, monsters and zombies, but it isn’t just sword and sorcery. There is also love, compassion, fear and understanding. By issue 6 it’s clear that God Country is a story about family, about legacy.
The gods are amazing, like the New Gods or the Eternals with incredible art work. They literally dwarf the humans in the book. But there’s a vulnerability there as well. Balegrim the god of death comes across as a Loki like figure who did it all for his father’s approval. Aristus, for all that he’s a god of war, feels like a son who loves his father.And Attum, well, he and Emmett fight because they are much alike.
Moving to Emmett and his family, I like them. I see myself in Roy - in caring for his family in both directions and how that pulls at him. I also don’t think that I’m going to get a magic sword to come along and restore my mother to the observant, sarcastic person I knew and loved. For her it might be a chef’s knife, ladle or a rolling pin.
This is a damn good comic and I wish more people knew about it. I like it for sliding a story about family and growing older in there among the amazing art and men defying gods.
https://redd.it/1tiv09o
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The Will of the Many by James Islington (10/10)
Okay, so a bit of context: I have a fascination with Latin. The entire language was so mesmerizing to me that any chance I got, in my teenage years, I'd read it up, learn about it. Any of my own writings also always had Latin ingrained deep into the world building. For me, Latin is, and has always been, the foundation of any strong fantasy world building.
And so when, to my utter delight, I chanced upon this book and saw the Latin words and phrases, I jumped right in.
Now that that's out of the way, it should come across as no surprise that I kinda already had figured out how the novel would be ending. I mean, sure, the idea of copying was a bit out of the blue, but the literal clues all around, along with the titles of each part was a very obvious answer to what the biggest question the book posed.
Also, Synchronism: Ex Uno Plures, is not that hard to figure out. But anyways. Had a blast reading the book. The world is really well developed without coming across as too pretentious and preachy. The words are not illegible to pronounce, and by the end of it, that one character's demise reality hit harder than I had expected it to. Though the last part of having 3 different copies of yourselves in 3 different worlds is a really unique bend that I had not foreseen coming.
So, now onto the next one. I'm particularly eager to see how he'll handle the increasing complexity demanded by such an ambitious plot.
10/10 would recommend.
Tl;dr: fantastic plot, good character arcs, with some good twists and turns that keep the momentum going. Give it a try!
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Diaspora by Greg Egan (Bingo Review 4/25)
“Conquering the galaxy is what bacteria with spaceships would do – knowing no better, having no choice. Our condition is the opposite of that: we have no end of choices. \[…\] We need to speak to other \[civilizations\] who’ve faced the same decisions, and discovered how to live, what to become. We need to understand what it means to inhabit the universe.”
“He was a bridger. He created you to touch other cultures. He wanted you to reach as far as you could.”
For the uninitiated, Greg Egan writes sci-fi so hard that he provides graphs, proofs, and equations as supplements on his website. Diaspora was my second foray into his work and while it gets quite technical at times, I found it to be an excellent showcase of Egan’s skill at tackling high-concept science fiction without sacrificing interesting characters and themes.
The start of Diaspora takes place \~1000 years in our future and humanity has splintered into three main flavors. Fleshers are biological descendants of Homo sapiens, some of which have undergone substantial genetic modification (e.g., amphibious and avian branches of humanity exist). Gleisners are conscious software that inhabit robotic bodies, prioritizing continued interaction with the physical universe. Finally, citizens are conscious software that primarily exist as disembodied entities within computer networks known as Polises. This latter group contains most of our POV characters. Shortly into the novel, Earth suffers an astronomical catastrophe that should have been impossible, revealing that humanity’s understanding of physics is woefully incomplete. This spurs an interstellar search for answers and for humanity’s very survival (the titular Diaspora).
Diaspora is full of wonderfully imaginative concepts, including a detailed description of the emergence of self-awareness in a newborn AI (Yatima, one of our main POVs), the evolution of simulated life within biological computers, and species communicating across time and space via molecular terraforming. However, it is perhaps most famous for the alternative cosmology that Egan develops for this book.
In Diaspora, subatomic particles (neutrons, electrons, etc.) are the mouths of wormholes, though which our characters eventually learn how one can enter higher-dimensional space. Egan then mathematically works out the consequences of what that kind of universe would be like. As one example, within our universe that is defined by three physical dimensions, stable planetary orbits around stars are possible (gravity and centrifugal force interact to form a trough into which a satellite can settle). However, this is not the case in five-dimensional space—the trough becomes a ridge and a satellite would slip right off, down into the heart of the star or spinning away beyond its reach. From this follow various consequences, including how stars are distributed across interstellar space, where native ecologies are likely to form in such a universe, and even how molecules are structured and interact.
If this sounds intimidating, I’m right there with you. In the more technical sections, I generously understood perhaps a third of the details. However, lest this deter you, I felt Egan does a very nice job of communicating the Big Picture “so what”, such that I rarely felt lost. I also found the notes and figures on his website (divided up by chapter) helpful in this regard, though your mileage may vary.
Despite these science fictional elements, Egan also tells very human stories about the search for meaning in a vast, uncaring universe in which life is fragile and all the more precious for its rarity. We witness the struggle of Orlando and the Bridgers—fleshers dedicated to communication and mutual understanding at all costs, even as life becomes stranger and more varied than they could have ever conceived. With the Polis citizens, the book explores the quest for meaning and spiritual fulfilment for beings that are functionally omnipotent within their software environments, from Yatima’s conflict
r/Fantasy Writing Wednesday Thread - May 20, 2026
The weekly Writing Wednesday thread is the place to ask questions about writing. Wanna run an idea past someone? Looking for a beta reader? Have a question about publishing your first book? Need worldbuilding advice? This is the place for all those questions and more.
Self-promo rules still apply to authors' interactions on r/fantasy. Questions about writing advice that are posted as self posts outside of this thread will still be removed under our off-topic policy.
https://redd.it/1tijicn
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Looking for food from fiction fantasy media?
I’m looking for recommendations anyone has for foods from fictional fantasy’s media like movies and tv shows or books and comics and how to make them work as a vegetarian dish as although I’m not vegetarian I have sensory issues with food so I don’t eat meat a lot by choice or even any recipes you have that are inspired by fictional media are great like for example food based off the elven diet of vegetables from lord of the rings like lambas bread any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated
https://redd.it/1tih7vb
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Magic Kingdom of Landover Recommendation
I just finished the Magic Kingdom of Landover series by Terry Brooks. I was wondering if anyone could give me a series recommendation with a similar tone? Comedic and relatively wholesome. Thanks!
https://redd.it/1ti9ugu
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The two most Dark Souls feeling things I've read- mini-reviews of Contra Amatores Mundi and Hurled Headlong Flaming
I recently read Contra Amatores Mundi by Graham Thomas Wilcox, and just finished today Hurled Headlong Flaming by Matt Holder, and enjoyed both a lot. Because they're both fairly obscure, short novellas (83 pp. for the former, 113 pp. for the latter), I thought I'd tie their reviews together, and also because they feel very similar to me. People often ask for books which feel like Dark Souls, and, more than BotNS or Between Two Fires, these novellas feel the closest things to DS I've read.
#Contra Amatores Mundi
Contra Amatores Mundi by Graham Thomas Wilcox is an excellent gothic, dark fantasy sword and sorcery novella. This was one of the best things I read last year. The premise is that two rather brutal knights are transported to a strange world under the sea, while "convincing" some heretics of the merits of their religion by the sword, and are attempting to escape. This is very medieval quest like in writing and style. The prose is a faux-Chaucer kind of style done well, and the plot is fundamentally a quest (in the end, a quest to slay a questing beast by any other name). But though that's the surface plot, the main conflict isn't really the quest, but man vs. self; the two knights trying to maintain their sanity in this strange world.
As well as following the two knights through Heironymus' PoV, we also get glimpses of his relationship with Walpurga, his lover and also a nun/bride of Christ, who may also be a witch. There's a very interesting dynamic there, regarding whether Walpurga's feelings are true or just manipulation, as well as the medium we get to see Walpurga's actions through-- visions from a demonic eye or uncertain veracity, as the world attempts to break the knights.
Though this is a short novella and I would happily have read more, I enjoyed this a lot for what it was and felt like it wrapped up well. Which is not always the case for me with novellas; I'm often left wanting more. I'm not claiming this is the closest in plot or lore to Dark Souls, but it matches the vibe better than anything I've read. That gloomy, claustrophobic, paranoid atmosphere of tension of your first playthrough.
#Hurled Headlong Flaming
Hurled Headlong Flaming I just finished, and it strongly reminded me of Contra Amatores Mundi (and Between Two Fires), prompting me to give them these mini-reviews. This is a dark, grim novella, about a Bishop's descent into an underworld/otherworld (probably Hell) to retrieve a manuscript which he believes has knowledge which will help avoid/forestall/survive an upcoming apocalypse. The novel is set against the background of the Crusades, in which the Bishop has participated, starting in Cyprus and Tripoli in the ~1290s. After finding out who has the information about how to get to this underworld, the Bishop has to pass through different trials on his journey downwards.
As well as being reminiscent of Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard, and influenced by Milton (the title is a line from Paradise Lost) and Dante, I'd say the book this most reminds me of is beyond those I've already mentioned is Vathek by Samuel Beckett. The purported purpose of the novel (and the series it's a part of) in the introduction from the publishers is to push the boundaries of S&S, and I'd say it makes a good effort at that. It's fairly philosophical, especially compared to some of the more "stab first think later" S&S novels, prodding at ideas of the interrelationship of power and violence, the Crusades, and the contradiction between Christianity's tenets and some of its believers actions. Though they're important ideas to the story, it's not overwhelmingly didactic; foremost, it's an atmospheric painting of a weird, Dantean, quest for knowledge.
My only quibble is, like many novellas for me and opposed to Contra Amatores Mundi, it does feel more like a snapshot of a story than a full tale; a snatch of music heard as the door opens and shuts, rather
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh has blown me away
I have around 50 pages left to go. This book, going into it, was one I not at all expected to like. I really am not fond of magical schools. I really tend to loathe modern fantasy settings. The Incandescent is a modern magical school story.
What sets this book apart however, is the way it makes magic so mundane in so many ways. This is a field of academic study at a very (in comparison to other fictional magical schools) unremarkable English boarding school. Sometimes this feels a little off and not fully fleshed out, but it's mostly done very well and serves the book excellently. It's more about the teaching than the magic.
The main thing with this book though, is that, whilst most "magical school" stories tend to be kind of vapid, tropey slop - The Incandescent has quite a lot to say. Particularly about the exploitation of passionate people in the education and beyond, how damn hard it is to grow up and come out fine on the other side, how hard it is to be a child in modern day with cell phones and the crushing evil of social media, etc.
I have many more thoughts but I just wanted to share these ones here before I finish it up. It's always nice to have a pleasant surprise read like this. Please give it a go, it's wonderful!
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Works of Vermin - When Bugs Go to the Opera
I am very late to the party on this book, but I am here to offer yet another (mostly) glowing review of Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes. Eldritch bugs + magic perfume + creepy operas = one hell of an idea for a book, and it lived up to that promise. I got lost wandering the streets of Hiron Ennes’ imagination. It is a decadent new entry in the New Weird genre, and it feels extremely apt for a world that sees the potential for the first human being to become a trillionaire. This book is a masterpiece, and I really wish I hadn’t read it near the end of the school year as my brain is struggling to remember which hallway the copy room is in.
Read If Looking For: violent revolutions, weird worldbuilding, the dangers of capitalism, so many operas, big ass bugs
Avoid If Looking For: windowpane prose, clear explanations of how things work, dramatic fight scenes
Comparable Media: Perdido Street Station, Ambergreis, The Divine Cities
Does it Bingo? Trans/NB Protagonist (HM), Book Club, and Politics (HM). I could see arguments for a few others (anyone want to vacation on a cool stump?) but those are the big ones.
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Elevator Pitch:
Guy is a vermin exterminator in the undercity, struggling to support himself and his younger sister. Aster is the chief perfumer for the violent Grand Marshal, who wears the skulls of those who would kill him as helmets. An insect with a taste for fine art has begun feeding in the city, and political unrest has begun to stir.
What Worked for Me:
The worldbuilding in works of vermin is simply delicious. Yes the city is a stump, and yes this leads to all sorts of delightful details (each root is its own neighborhood!). However, Ennes’ worldbuilding holds the special quality of making you feel that astounding things are, in fact, completely unremarkable. Tiliard is full of hallucinogenic insects, bugs that consume your ability to cook quality meals, and millipedes that consume art itself. Technology runs on sugar and sap. The upper class weaponizes perfume, mixing scents that stray into the realm of magic. The murder of actors as part of an operatic performance is utterly unremarkable, even though this death is administered through a poison that causes muscles to bloom like a flower. To the denizens of Tiiard however, this is unremarkable. The city is bizarre and disturbing and vibrant. Most of all, however, it feels like the characters walking the streets belong there, unaware of how strange their world is.
Thematically, I loved Ennes’ insistence that capitalism, art, politics, and war cannot be isolated. They go beyond claiming these elements impact one another, instead asserting that they are, fundamentally, the same thing. A military raid’s novel (and intensely disturbing) tactics and new visual artistic styles are both simply an indication of a regime change from one era to another (Revivalism being the most relevant movement for most of the book). Predatory loan sharks cannot be disentangled from operas which profit from the on-stage execution of ‘traitors’ who dared to paint outside the bounds of established technique. The destruction of a building is an artistic masterpiece. Whether Ennes would apply this thought process to our world is beyond my knowledge. It certainly rings true for me however; we live in a world where art, politics, war, and business is being rapidly reshaped by AI (and reactions to AI). And in both worlds, the people who benefit most are those who were already filthy rich before the regime change began.
Structurally, Ennes’ choice to balance two separate storylines was a great choice. We see both the most opulent and seediest parts of society at once. The rich perfumier and the downtrodden exterminator climbing out of debt is a really great pair - though the book continues to expand those
Espionage, Language, and Slavery: A Review of The Language of Liars by S.L. Huang
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Sometimes a new release checks so many boxes that there’s no real question about whether I’ll pick it up, only about how long it will take me to get my hands on it. With an author I’d enjoyed in the past, thematic exploration of imperialism and oppression, and a plot centered on the difficulty of translation when dealing with species with radically different experiences of the world, S.L. Huang’s The Language of Liars was just such a book.
The Language of Liars is a long novella that uses linguistics minutiae to explore both imperialism writ large and a language-loving lead whose abilities cast him awkwardly in the middle of powerful machinations. If that description calls to mind R.F. Kuang’s Babel, there is reason for it, and indeed, I suspect Babel fans will quite enjoy The Language of Liars. That said, Huang’s offering is significantly shorter and a fair sight more subtle in its execution, so those who were critical of Babel for its pacing or moral self-assuredness shouldn’t let the comparison put them off. The Language of Liars does require patience for academic details, which will surely pose a barrier for some readers, but it isn’t written purely for an audience of linguists, and it remains engaging for those (like me) with little experience in that particular field of study.
It opens in an unassuming corner of a galactic compact with nary a human in sight, and it stars a member of a furred species with a hive-like social structure and an empathetic ability that allows them to jump into the bodies of the long-lived Star Eaters. Though such jumps are extremely rare, they remain a closely-guarded secret that’s vital to the continued survival of a race that otherwise has little leverage to ensure access to the Star Eater-mined meridian element that powers so much of society. The promise that the lead may one day execute a jump is the only reason his advisors tolerate his absent-mindedness and maddening tendency to shirk unpleasant responsibility. But when he does finally break through, those same barely-tolerated character traits make him a deeply unreliable agent, struggling to stay hidden while persistently questioning the orders relayed from home.
At the risk of applying human categories to alien characters, the lead comes off as neurodivergent—and not in the classic “there’s a race of aliens (or group of robots) who act like neurodivergent humans” sort of way; on the contrary, the lead is considered both exceptionally linguistically adept and exceptionally inattentive even among his own people. As such, relatability may vary from reader to reader, but I found it remarkably easy to immerse in his narrative, even without particular previous knowledge of linguistics. The bulk of the story features not so much imposter syndrome as being a literal imposter, but it still makes for a psychologically claustrophobic experience, with the lead forced to put on extended act without any confidants that may allow him to drop his guard. His fascination with some of the more puzzling attitudes and expressions common to the Star Eaters provides an overarching mystery that drives the story, and the way he bristles against the incurious attitudes from his own society will doubtless strike a sympathetic chord with large swathes of the sci-fi readership.
Though the clues to the puzzles are often linguistic in nature, the reader gets enough context from the lead’s internal monologue to understand the broad shape of the mystery, and each chapter opens with an epistolary snippet that provides further background on the history and culture of the Star Eaters. When combined with information from the lead’s training and firsthand behavioral observation, there’s plenty to puzzle over for readers from a large variety of backgrounds. In fact, I’d argue there’s sufficient foreshadowing for the reader to anticipate major
Help me Give Recommendations!
Hi all!
My Stepdad has recently got into reading (so exciting for me as a future librarian!) and is needing good fantasy recs. I got him into reading through John Gwynne’s the “Shadow of the Gods” and he read all of Gwynne’s books thereafter. He also enjoyed the Echoes Saga, LOTR, the Wheel of Time, the Witcher, the Sovereign of Seven Isles, The Burning, The Bound and Broken, and some others that he didn’t like. I think he tried Sanderson’s the Way of Kings and didn’t like it and didn’t like the Blade Itself
He counts on me for recommendations since I love helping people connect with novels (hence my future career), but I am way out of my depth here at this point. 😅 I’m someone who is into literary fiction, classics, and historical fiction. Not epic fantasy like him. It’s getting increasingly harder to find more novels for him. He’s flying through them since he listens to them as audiobooks when traveling for his job. He’s read 50 books in just the last year and can read a 20 hour fantasy audiobook in a week!
Have any of you guys read and liked the same books and had other series you have enjoyed??
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Bookish Cat Names?
Hi all!
I'm getting two young kittens in about a month and I was thinking about giving them bookish names. They're both male, one is black with white socks and a white stripe on the nose, the other is ginger.
My first thought was naming them Frodo and Sam or Fitz and Fool (I know, male may not technically be correct here).
Do you have other recommendations for iconic bookish Duos?
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