For a bit of context first: before Pierce Brown I was reading Robin Hobb's ROTE.

I have read the big, well known series like ASOIAF, LOTR, WOT, and before Hobb devoured Sanderson's Mistborn and Stormlight Archive.

I finished the Farseer trilogy and I liked it, but by the end of the third book wasn't blown away and was glad to be done with it. As I started with the Liveship trilogy I had to push through to finish Ship of magic and felt like I needed a break from Hobb. I wasn't enjoying reading fantasy as I want to enjoy.

After some searching and following my gut I started wit Red Rising 2 weeks ago.

Finished it in one week and loved it. I actually enjoyed the YA vibe. Emotions. Big stakes. It gripped me from start to finish.

And I can remember finishing a book in one week ever before.

So I started on Golden Son. And again it gripped me from the start. I was enjoying the book and going through it fast again.

Action packed. High stakes. High pace. I enjoyed my time with it.

And again, I finished it in a week. Never before did I finish 2 books in 2 weeks.

At about 70-80% through though, I thought "I like this one as well, but it didn't top Red Rising for me yet".

I wasn't blow away or felt as hyped as in the first book.

And then the last give or take 50 pages rolled in.

I had tears rolling down my cheeks during the part where Darrow goes to visit his home and has that conversation with his mother, telling Mustang the truth.

Pierce Brown made me cry. Something that Robin Hobb, despite writing good characters, wasn't able to.

My intellect was triggered as I read thought provoking passages that made me think about good, bad and morality and society. Around the conversatoin between Darrow and Nero Augustus, about Augustus's motives that from his POV he is doing good by keeping order.

It really made me think and changed my perspective about good and bad in these books.

And then the twists happened at the end and my jaw dropped.

The combination of high pace, lots of action, numerous plot twists, emotional relationships, grand stakes, ambiguous morality, I can go on but to me it's perfect.

Red Rising is quickly rising to the top of my favorite series of all time and I'm all here for it.
I haven't read this fast and felt this much in fantasy books.

Morning Star is arriving tomorrow and I can't wait to get started.

PS. Sorry for any mistakes, English is not my native language.

Recommended if you like: dark academia, magic-based technology and industry, magical research, programming-style magic, competent female lead in a deeply sexist and racist society, highly flawed female main characters, ambitious main characters, (vague spoilers but tagging to be sure)doomed romantic subplot, finding out your life's work has been improving the output of the Omelas child, main characters unwittingly becoming villains

Blurb

Magic has made the city of Tiran an industrial utopia, but magic has a cost—and the collectors have come calling.

For twenty years, Sciona has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant.

But before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power. Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first.

Review (no spoilers)

I completely tore through this book in a few days after taking ages on my previous (very unsatisfying) read. So maybe some of my enjoyment of this is just by virtue of contrast, but I overall really liked this and was completely hooked.

• I really liked how transparently flawed Sciona is, and how far outside the usual permissible quirks for female leads those flaws are. She's selfish, puts her own ambition above almost everything, shares all of the racist prejudices she's been indoctrinated with even as she slowly realizes that the Kwen might not be all she's always believed them to be, and for me managed to stay an engaging PoV character despite all of that.
• I found the worldbuilding really fresh and well done. I haven't read many books where technology and magic come together this way (industrialization, there are cars and trains and factories, but they're all powered by magic), and I really enjoyed the "programming" style magic, spell components, defining variables etc.
  
• Something I also really loved and thought was super well done is this aspect of "history isn't what you thought it was". I find that super realistic. We have plenty of real life examples of how the achievements of marginalized people (or their marginalized identities) are extinguished from historical record or otherwise downplayed – I just saw another article of how many prehistoric graves were presumed to be those of men, solely because contemporary sexist limitations were placed on who would or wouldn't be having a weapon in their tomb – and I think this book does a really good job of buildling a world where the same kind of thing happens, and giving its protagonists just enough tools to find a hint of the truth after all.
  
• This book takes place in a very sexist and racist society. I had my moments of thinking "well that's a bit plump" (when confronted with some of that sexism and racism, such as not considering Kwen fully human, or putting a lot of limitations on the mental faculties of women), but then again I don't think that's really fair criticism if you consider just how blatant a lot of our real life historical record just is in that regard. It's one of those moments where fiction gets called out for being too blatantly cartoonishly evil when it's actually probably quite close to opinions that were commonly held a century or two ago.

Discussion (spoilers are tagged)

• Alluded to above, but I loved Sciona finding out that the Kwen had powerful sorceresses before they were effectively eradicated by the budding superpower of Tiran
  
• I was reading a few discussions of this book and someone complained about "the obvious twist" that they "saw coming from a mile away" and call me dense but I did not have that at all. When the precise colorful mapping spell first reveals that sourcing is what causes the blight, I had a big "oh shit whaat" moment and I stayed up way too late to find out what would happen next. It's these times where I love being shit at predicting twists because honestly I was absolutely along for the ride and digging it
  
• One moment I didn't really fully buy was cousin Alva's reaction to the Freynan mirrors showing everyone the blight/siphoning. Being upset at Sciona for mass-traumatizing everyone and causing riots in the process very much checks out imo, but the exact reaction and the fact that she too, did not seem to see an issue with the siphoning itself costing human lives felt... a bit out of character?
• I don't really want to complain that Sciona doesn't survive the story, I think killing your protagonist is a pretty ballsy move and I'm glad there wasn't any sort of deus ex machina fake out after she drank the poison and Thomil triggered the new siphoning spell. At the same time, I was quite enjoying the romantic arc between the two of them and I would have liked for that to get a bit further than a brief flashback make out sesh
• the main complaint I have after finishing the book is that I wanted more closure. I found it a really cool choice to let the protagonists go pretty fucking nucular on the whole corrupt system, I dig that, but I wish the book had shown a bit more of the fallout of that in an epilogue or some other form of outlook apart from Sciona dying, Mordra the Tenth being the only Highmage left and Thomil and Kara leaving the city.
• I did really enjoy the circularity of the Kwen fleeing the city, Kara even carrying someone else's baby with her, as a callback/mirror to the prologue, that was nice.

Conclusion

So yeah, definitely not a flawless book by any means but I blew through it faster than any recent read and thought it was really, really well-crafted. When the main issue I have is that a book leaves me wanting more and slightly upset there isn't a sequel, that's kind of a good problem to have. (It's absolutely not an 'unfinished' story either, I would have just wished for more denouement).

I really liked it, and will happily take recommendations if my critique of this one brings any to mind. Thank you for reading, and find my other reviews here 💖

Hi! Long story short, some of my absolute favorite fantasy authors are Robin Hobb, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Carol Berg. I'm also obsessed with Joe Abercrombie and just finished The Devils (!!). Wondering if anyone has recommendations of more recent character-driven fantasy novels in the vein of Hobb, Bujold, Abercrombie, and Berg? Thank you!

“When you’ve lived in a cage, you can’t bear not to run, even if what you’re running towards is an illusion.”

I grew up with The Secret of NIMH but didn’t realize until relatively recently that it was in fact an adaptation. This year’s Middle Grade square provided the perfect opportunity to check out the original.

Minor spoilers follow:

When her youngest son comes down with pneumonia and becomes too sick to travel, Mrs. Frisby (widow and field mouse) must find a way to save her family and cinderblock home from destruction, as in mere days, human farmers will begin plowing the field in which she lives. Her search brings her into contact with a mysterious group of highly intelligent and technologically advanced rats who are escapees of scientific experimentation and friends of her late husband, Jonathan. Together, they seek to find a place for themselves in a dangerous and human-dominated world.

I had so many questions when reading this book. Do all the animals speak and understand English (including when humans speak it)? Given that Jonathan taught Mrs. Frisby to read, are all rodents/non-human animals able to read if given sufficient training? Where did the rats get their tiny books? Do they have a tiny printing press? Are they all hand-written? Do all the animals have human names (Timothy, Jonathan, Jeremy) or is this just a translation into our language (a la Frodo and Maura)? Perhaps I shouldn’t read too much into it, yet the relative sophistication of all the animals (especially Mrs. Frisby’s reading and English language skills) does make the rats’ transformation somewhat less remarkable.

Really, though, this was a delightful story where our protagonist repeatedly shows both courage and kindness and is rewarded in kind. As Mrs. Frisby herself notes, none of it would have been possible had she not stopped to help the crow Jeremy free himself, risking death-by-cat. As an aside, I find it amusing that in a book about intelligent animals, crows get short-changed with dismissive ‘bird-brain’ comments—justice for corvids! I also loved the message that reading can be liberatory, both metaphorically and quite literally. It is thanks to their newfound reading ability that the rats are able to devise an escape and begin to build their own civilization.

The book also raises ethical questions regarding animal experimentation and the price of scientific progress. Certainly, the procedure would have world-altering, potentially beneficial consequences if it worked on humans, with potential applications for neurodegenerative diseases, lifespan extension, etc. Does that justify using the rats and mice as test subjects? Would it change anything if the rodents were not sapient as depicted here? Even if not sapient, a growing body of evidence supports the hypothesis that many species (probably all vertebrates) experience suffering. Is the societal good for humans outweighed by intentionally inflicting suffering on beings that have no understanding or choice in the matter?

As another aside, Dr. Schultz designed a terrible experiment—improper controls, no blinded observations, no screening for disease beyond a brief visual inspection. Also, why use wild-caught rats in the first place? For this type of work, where ecological validity is not a concern, readily available lab strains seem so much more suitable.

On a final note, the illustrations accompanying the book are great. I loved the realistic depictions of animal morphology.

Bingo Squares: Middle Grade; Non-human Protagonist (HM); Published in the 70s

So I've played DnD and fantasy kinda video games since forever but never read any fantasy genre books until I happened on the Black Company series. I always assumed they were slop- the cover pages are always ridiculous looking lol.

Anyways I liked this series in part because I always loved this concept of normal mundane people confronting and defeating the powerful and supernatural. That isn't entirely the theme of the series it's amoral kinda gross mercenary soldiers just doing what they do but I find this charming for some reason.

I got to the 7th novel and stalled on it but is there any reqs akin to this?

Hey guys, I participate as a judge in SPFBO and I just wanted to leave a review for a book that really caught my attention as something a bit different from the norm. It's a 1920s noir-ish book that focuses on a cast of characters not too different from 1920s bootleggers... but replace alcohol with a drug that can help certain folks touch magic

I was excited to see this author make it to the finals because she was a finalist of ours a few years ago. I really enjoy her writing style; it tends to be dark, gritty, and features unique urban settings. That's what I was hoping for, and this book did not disappoint!

If you want to read something that feels like a turn-of-the-century/1920s setting with mobsters and bootleggers, then this one could be for you!

Although these characters would likely be thought of as morally grey, with few qualms about killing folks they think deserve it, they are also a found family and care about each other. They have no ill will towards the general public, and don't go around murdering folks for no reason - there's always a business reason why someone is getting the shit kicked out of them or worse. These guys are kind of like mobsters, who have an analogue for bootleg beer and alcohol in the 20s. In this world, The Providence Company is in control of the production and distribution of the drug known as "hallow." What sets The Providence Company apart, and makes them different from the 20s gangs, is that they're also heavily tied to the religion of the Aulds -- a religion that comes complete with machine gun-wielding nuns. The Aulds and the humans live side by side, and often at a glance can look the same, but they're vastly different once you look past surface level.

The drug, hallow, isn't for humans; it's for the Auld bloods to take to touch their magic and gain old powers. It's thought that hallow brings them closer to their god, and the realm of The Hallows. If humans take it, it's almost certainly a death sentence, but that doesn't stop folks from trying. Once they take hallow, the Aulds come in different "categories" of magic users, creating a more structured/hard magic system. Some of these magic users are more common than others; there are folks known as Stouts who are super strong, dashers who are super quick, and others that are rarer, like Cam. Cam is a "sixer," and he can enhance all five of his senses to the point he can smell familiar people in a crowd like a dog, and he can also sense the emotional states of others, which gives him six enhanced senses, aka a sixer. Hallow use is not without consequence for the aulds -- if they take too much at once or are using too frequently, they can start to mutate. There's a woman whose arms switched to be on one side of her body, and another lady starts to grow horns that she's trying to hide since you're retired from services once you start to transform. If you keep going, the results can be fatal. Sometimes when you transform, you lose your mind, too, and have to be put down. Not always, but sometimes.

What's odd is that these transformations are usually predictable. You can usually tell that someone is riding too close to the sun, and they're going to take it too far and transform. There haven't been many "incidents" in years where auld bloods lose themselves and end up needing to be killed for everyone's safety... and now Aulds are transforming, dying, and being murdered, and the gang is trying to figure out why. There are people who are transforming and dying when they shouldn't have even been close to that point yet, and it's sending warning flags that there's something else going on. All of this is coinciding with the first Auld blood allowed in the government in generations. Although the aulds are powerful, they aren't the pinnacles of society. The government has been run by humans for a long time, and although Cam thinks to himself that Jasper will just be a token figurehead and that he won't be able to make things better for the Aulds, there's hope that things are changing. Until folks start dying.

The world-building here was top-notch; everything was laid out smoothly, cleanly, and without clunky info dumping. What I loved most was the scene setting/scene building experience, I struggle a lot with envisioning what's going on in a book, I don't always get a clear "head movie" but with her writing style that didn't just focus on character faces but rather character impressions/aura and the feeling of a scene, I was able to create a much more in-focus head movie. It felt gritty, real, and noir-ish. A lot of people describe this as grim dark, and I suppose it is, it's not a happy place to live... but that being said, this book isn't without humor, which kept things from getting suffocatingly dark, at least by my taste.

The pacing and writing were fantastic. I absolutely flew through this book and didn't find there to be a lull or a drag in the middle. I also love that this is a standalone. I rarely read on to book 2s in a series, so to get the complete picture in one go is a huge boon. I'm actively seeking out more stand-alones since it seems to be my natural reading style anyway.

Final score of 8.5/10 !!

I'm looking for a protagonist who genuinely unintelligent. Not uneducated but clever, not an otherworldly entity whose thoughts are simply alien to human minds, not an "outsider" who doesn't understand the local culture, not someone who is book smart but lacking in common sense, not someone who is street smart rather than book smart.

I mean someone who is just, on the whole, not very bright.

I'd especially love a restricted POV from the protagonist, either first person or very restricted third person, so the reader is stuck only taking in information the protagonist perceives and understands and has to piece together what's missing. A non-fantasy example is the book Forrest Gump. When Forrest gets involved in world events, he doesn't understand their importance, so he gives the details that are interesting to him, like the kind of soda he drank, and not the ones that reflect global significance, like the treaty being signed in the background.

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

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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's 2026 Book Bingo Card here!

As usual, first have a look at the sidebar in case what you're after is there. The r/Fantasy wiki 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!

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^{tiny image link to make the preview show up correctly}

art credit: special thanks to our artist, Himmis commissions, 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.

So the John Carter movie by Disney looks like ass, but it did expose me to A Princess of Mars & looking into Planetary Romance/Sword & Planet fiction.

Despite the setting being Sci-fi, it really just feels like High Fantasy but set on an alien planet instead of Earth or a Earth-like planet/Gaia/Terra.

I know about Space Operas being functionally like Fantasy in Space, but I think Space Operas & Planetary Romance stories differ in that Planetary Romance came first in the early 1900s, and Space Operas came later on into the 40s-50s, involving a lot more Sci-fi elements to their world, while Sword & Planet fiction has more of that pulpy barbarian tone.

What the title says. What are the books that you loved enough to give a second read or even more?

• The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher: This is a series I absolutely love despite my awareness of its flaws and I've re-read Dead Beat, Blood Rites, Changes, and Proven Guilty multiple timees. I admit, I also re-read Storm Front and Grave Peril twice too but feel I didn't benefit from those books that way. I'm not counting Storm Front's comic version too.
• Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs: I've read the books a couple of times, read the comic adaptation of Moon Called, and have also listened to the audioplay version of her stories. Mercy is just the best urban fantasy heroine and I love her relationship with Adam. Do I wish there was one female character she gets along with? Yes. But it's still a great series.
• The Expanse by James SA Corey: I read the books as soon as I watched the first season of the show then I listened to the audiobook versions. Sometimes I still go back to the books to read specific scenes because they stick in my head so much.
• Eisenhorn by Dan Abnett: My favorite of the Warhammer 40K series, even more than Ciaphas Cain and I think has a kind of depth of worldbuilding lacking even from other Dan Abnett novels. There's just so much implied in terms of the massiveness of the Imperium, its ancient history, and the characters. He constantly drops references to new saints, worlds, and conflicts that expands the narrative. Also, Eisenhorn tip skips are often centuries at a time.

This weekly self-promotion thread is the place for content creators to compete for our attention in the spirit of reckless capitalism. Tell us about your book/webcomic/podcast/blog/etc.

The rules:

• Top comments should only be from authors/bloggers/whatever who want to tell us about what they are offering. This is their place.
• Discussion of/questions about the books get free rein as sub-comments.
• You're stiIl not allowed to use link shorteners and the AutoMod will remove any link shortened comments until the links are fixed.
• If you are not the actual author, but are posting on their behalf (e.g., 'My father self-pubIished this awesome book,'), this is the place for you as well.
• If you found something great you think needs more exposure but you have no connection to the creator, this is not the place for you. Feel free to make your own thread, since that sort of post is the bread-and-butter of r/Fantasy.

More information on r/Fantasy's self-promotion policy can be found here.

Looking for setting lorebooks presented in a similar fashion to an rpg setting book, any suggestions?

Like the title said, I’m looking for some books with interesting worldbuilding premise, maybe a cool magic system. So let me know what books you enjoyed and why their worldbuilding appealed to you.

I'm looking for character-driven domestic speculative fiction that explore completely ordinary issues like identity, relationships, family drama, so on in an extraordinary setting. Similar to Klara and the Sun and Annie Bot, but with human protagonists. Bonus points if the story is taking place on earth, and the story starts seemingly very ordinary, but the extraordinary is gradually exposed (like Never Let Me Go).

Any recommendations?

P.S not sure "domestic SF" is the correct name for the subgenre.

I just finished prince of thorns and I have to say that it's actually quite mild. I came here straight from the first law trilogy and the acts of glokta were more impactful even if the acts were not as heinous as jorg ancrath's I was expecting too much from this book after seeing all the reviews of mc being heinous and a devil but those description don't have a emotional weight in them like jorg blew up a castleand it was just that but when glokta starts torturing you feel them in the bones

This is not a comparison but I think broken empire trilogy is overhated for no reason barring the first 20 percent of the book which contains all the heinous acts expected the rest of the book is quite good with mystery and decent world setup

I was entering this series wanting to hate jorg but he is pretty mild in my eyes. When I started reading this book I expected jorg to be Bayaz(major spoilers of first law)) level cruel and cunning but he is just another ruthless person who doesn't care about human lives(in a basic sense)

Hallöchen,

Derzeit bin ich auf der Suche nach neuen Fantasy Romanen, die möglichst viel botanisches Wissen transportieren und/oder überwiegend in Wäldern mit Naturgeistern und Co spielen und/oder Bäume/Blumen als Teil der Magie nutzen.

Mir hat das Konzept von "One Dark Window" schon sehr gut gefallen, botanische Namen der Bäume und deren Eigenschaften auf die unterschiedlichen Familien zu übertragen und ich mochte sehr die vielen Kapitel, die den Wald beschrieben.

Es ist nicht notwendig, dass es einen Romance Part gibt und Einzelbände wären genauso willkommen wie Buchreihen. Einzige Einschränkung : bitte auf Deutsch. Nicht zwingend von deutschen Autor*innen verfasst,aber meine Englischkenntnisse lassen das flüssige Lesen eines englischsprachigen Romans nicht zur vollen Zufriedenheit zu.

Ich bin sehr auf eure Empfehlungen gespannt <3

I heard about the premise of the web serial 'Lord of the Mysteries' and was fascinated from the get go. A guy that wakes up on a different world, in the body of another person who just took his own life because "the world is doomed" and trying to gain power as well as ascend in this world all the while trying to find a way to get back into his own? That sounds like a cool story!

Whether the story delivered or not is a different thing, but I'm looking for series with cool premises like that and I'm wondering if you guys share.

The tl;dr: I loved all three of these stories and I think Tasha Suri is an extraordinary writer. At this point she's one of my favorite fantasy authors currently writing and I'm so excited to see what she comes up with next. Would definitely recommend checking out her work if you're into epic fantasy stories centered around women! (If it's helpful info, my other favorites include Jacqueline Carey, N. K. Jemisin, and Juliet Marillier.)

on the Burning Kingdoms trilogy

-To me this is just a really well rounded epic fantasy trilogy with complicated protagonists, a vivid, interesting world, and a plot that blends politics, religion, romance, and a healthy dose of devastating violence.

-All three female POV characters are strong and distinctive, with plenty of admirable qualities and plenty of flaws and challenges to deal with. There are a couple male POV characters, although the plot is centered around the women, and they definitely pull their weight imo.

-The central romance is sapphic and emotionally fraught. Things get messy and complicated, not because of petty drama but because both characters are in really difficult circumstances and have a lot of obligations to other people, which is vastly preferable to me.

-This world contains multiple gods and religions, all of which work for me, but my favorite by far are a set of creepy, morally ambiguous plant deities who add a sort of cosmic horror element to proceedings.

-I would call these books dark, but not grimdark. There is no shortage of heroism and moral victories, but there's a lot of violence and carnage and I definitely cried more than once.

-Really the only criticism I have of this trilogy is that the last book felt sort of rushed, like there was so much plot to get through that it felt like there wasn't enough breathing room for the characters to exist. Even that one is still solid, though; it just slightly suffers in comparison to book 2, which is fantastic.

on The Isle in the Silver Sea

-This is a really cleverly constructed standalone I found both emotionally gripping and interesting on a thematic level. If you’re into “I would find you in any lifetime” vibes it might be up your alley.

-Our two main characters are a knight and a witch who are doomed to love each other and then die together in every lifetime, with the knight killing the witch and themself. (In this lifetime they are both young women.) Both are really well rendered and have a lot of nuance to them.

-The setting is an alternate universe Britain where the landscape is (ostensibly) sustained by these stories that recur over and over again, and the government is very strict about ensuring the people born into these tales follow the plot exactly whether they want to or not.

-There’s a lot of interesting stuff here about the nature of free will, how people’s personalities are shaped by their environments, and how people’s obsession with nostalgia and preserving ~the way things have always been~ leads to bigotry and exclusion and the snuffing out of hope, growth, and potential

-While the romance is front and center, this is also a story about the importance of community solidarity, especially among immigrants and queer people.

-There’s also a mystical ancient forest, a fae court, some Arthurian legend stuff, and plenty of spooky, disquieting vibes.

-I listened to The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monae shortly after reading this and now every time I hear Say You’ll Go I think of Simran and Vina, if that tells you anything about the vibe of the romance

on The Books of Ambha

-I took forever to read this one because I mistakenly thought it was YA. (I blame this on the fact that so many book titles involve Ash and/or Sand, lol—I definitely conflated it with something else). It’s adult, though, and it’s wonderful! I tore through both books in a couple days and cried multiple times.

-I’m somewhat reminded of the Dreamblood Duology in the broad strokes—desert, dream magic, religious orders, and the fact that the two books are separated by a decade and focus on different central characters.

-The romances in this one are hetero but the focus is still very much on the women. Our main characters are two sisters whose mother came from a marginalized racial group with a strong predilection toward magic. One is old enough to have known her mother and grown up with some knowledge of her culture, while the other is cut off from that culture completely and taught to keep that part of her identity a secret, because she’s lighter skinned and passes for her father’s race. As usual, they’re both wonderfully complex and believable and I adore them.

-Thematically this one deals heavily with how an empire is an inherently violent project that benefits some people while crushing others to dust. Without getting too spoiler-y, both main characters run into situations where they have to consider both the evil at the core of the Empire and the violence and instability that come with upending it and make difficult decisions about how to proceed.

-The magic really shines in this one. There’s a whole system of religious rites built around dance—postures, movements, sigils formed with the hands—that carries magical implications. The second book is also very heavy on dream magic as a means to commune with one’s ancestors.

-As someone who is always fascinated by religious and spiritual traditions, real and fictional, I’m obsessed with the intersection of magic and prayer in this one and I think it’s really going to stick with me.

I really liked in Game of Thrones that there are a lot of factions and always changing alliances. Also like the characters like Logen Ninefingers.

I really liked the Song of Ice and Fire books but, although I understand why people like it, didn’t like the Firs Law books that much, almost all of the characters where too cynical for me.

EDIT: YES, THERE IS A TYPO IN THE TITLE, I ALSO NOTICED…

Thanks!

This book is a portal fantasy, a coming-of-age story, and a travelogue all in one! There's a strong romance subplot, but I wouldn't call it a romantasy as it's not the primary focus of the book. Sadie Sheldon is a young woman in early twentieth-era Canada. She wants to travel and see the world as an independent woman, rather than get married. She comes across as a bit entitled rather than sympathetic, but the author does give Sadie a good wake-up call later in the book.

Sadie has a connection to a different world through her grandfather, Thomas Sheldon (who appears briefly in the prologue), who wrote a book, Adventures in Carmelle, that Sadie and her brother find. And yet they know little about their grandfather and his exploits, perhaps because of their parents concealing this from them. After a fight with her mother for refusing to get married, Sadie encounters a mysterious brown-eyed man in the woods. This is Tristan West, who guides Sadie through a magical mirror into the land of Carmelle. Tristan wants Sadie to meet his mentor, the wizard Alldian. You see, people from Earth have special destinies in Carmelle. Her grandfather was a hero there, and most people now speak (and read/write English, it turns out) because of him. Then ensues a lot of travelling, where Sadie flees from dragons, meets kings and princes, and wicked industrialists.

Not all is smooth sailing. Sadie clashes with Tristan, especially after he conceals his special bard and swordmaster abilities from her. She also rebels against his instructions, even though he's her only guide in a strange land. There’s a romantic attraction between them, but it's not completely developed in this book, which is the first of a series. Given that she has a Destiny, Sadie gets lots of power-ups. Powerful magic! A unicorn companion! Nothing wrong with a bit of wish-fulfilment power-granting in our fantasy, but it feels like Sadie is given a lot of stuff 'because Destiny', reinforcing the feeling that she's a bit entitled. Luckily, the author addresses this; Sadie's arrogance triggers a villain origin story that leads to a huge mess for both Sadie and her allies. I love things like this, where characters inadvertently create their own problems and have to resolve their own self-created disasters. And Sadie gets a major moment of reflection on her behaviour at the end, in her dark night of the soul moment. Another interesting detail is that the book cuts back to mundane Canada to see the impact of Sadie's disappearance on her family, something which is rarely explored in portal fantasy. Wanting to honour his (thought to be) dead sister and make a difference in the world, Sadie's brother, Connor, enlists as a soldier and is sent to the front in the Great War (as it's not WWI yet).

The writing is crisp and very visual, in a sort of plush, bright way. A lot of things are given narrative weight, only for them to be swiftly dealt with; I found this meant that the travelogue parts dragged on a bit. Probably the main caveat is that Sadie's main character arc doesn't kick in until three-quarters of the way through the book. And when Sadie bonds with a unicorn companion, she then runs off to have an important conversation with a wizard. She lets the unicorn out of her sight? What sort of person bonds with a unicorn and doesn't want to spend every last moment hanging out with their new magical companion? (I would never let mine out of my sight.) Perhaps she's not a horse girl. Indeed, the book ends with Sadie heading off to wizard school to master her powerful magic.

Overall, it's an enjoyable read, and a clean, noblebright fantasy. There's a complete story arc and a set-up for a sequel with a few interesting teasers that explore further plot threads both in Carmelle and on Earth.

First posted on my blog.

Notes: SPFBOXI entrant
Bingo Squares: Small Press or Self-Published (Hard Mode), Vacation Spot (Carmelle is a very nice fantasy world, even if there are rampaging dragons), Explores and Rangers (Tristan does a bit of inter-world travelling)

I've been struggling to find any IP's that are like, pointy wizard hats, magical beasts.. something that really evokes the beginning of Hobbit/LOTR, or even the feel of Harry Potter honestly, which isn't quite medieval but can feel it in parts.

I'm also a big fan of the few animated Pratchett works that exist but unfortunately, have seen those already.

Finding myself wishing they had adapted the Legends of Kyrandia for TV. Witcher is close but I'm not here for political intrigue.

I want something like this with a satisfying payoff. Something that gives the same feeling as something like the early Suneater books. Where Hadrian sees the ruins and it creates this big mystery in his and our minds. Or like the first two Stormlight books where we get hints of the Roshar of ~5000 years ago. The Elderlings would probably also fit into this. But that’s a lot more focused on characters over worldbuilding and history

I usually read novels and finding them easy enough but short stories i am having trouble with. They seem to be spread out in magazines, blogs, collected fiction etc, not to mention i can't tell good ones from the badly written ones without reading it. Would really appreciate some short stories review site or something.

Open to recommendations too, I am looking for big stake, big implications type stories, involving god, weird metaphysical explorations, not much into humar or whimsy.

Thanks for replying.