I have taken almost a year long break from reading fiction to focus on non-fiction. I am ready to start reading fiction again, but after such a long break I have no idea where to start.
Here are some books I have enjoyed in the past:
- Dragon’s Egg (Robert L. Forward)
- The Damned Trilogy (Alan Dean Foster)
- Mage Errant series (John Bierce)
- Cradle series (Will Wight)
- Gods of Blood and Powder (Brian Mckellan)
- The Spiral Wars (Joel Shepard)
- Basically everything Brandon Sanderson has written
Since you’ve read Cradle and Dungeon Crawler Carl I’ll throw out the Divine Dungeon and Completionist Chronicles series by Dakota Krout. Both are progression focused, pun-laden, and very light-hearted. They are sometimes sloppy in tying things together, but they spark my imagination in ways most other books don’t. Technically Divine Dungeon is a prequel to Completionist Chronicles, but enough time has passed between them that it doesn’t especially matter.
Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series is excellent for those that enjoy well written Fantasy
And for people who sometimes need to feel really sad.
Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series. It’s right up there with Sanderson IMO.
Reading order is the Farseer trilogy, Liveship Traders trilogy, Tawny Man trilogy, the Rain Wild Chronicles and finally the Fitz and the Fool trilogy. IMO they’re all absolute page turners from start to finish. I’ve read the whole lot twice, some of them more.
It’s not quite as daunting as it looks as the Liveship Traders trilogy and the Rain Wild Chronicles follow a different cast of characters from the other 3 trilogies albeit set in the same world and with some crossover.
The one thing that sets it above Sanderson’s work for me is that it’s complete with no loose threads. Hopefully he gets there one day too!
Came to rec RotE myself, it’s a series I wish I could read again for the first time more than any other. I’m doing a listen of WoT with a friend, and I’m going to convince him hey, you did 14* books, why not do it again, but a lot sadder.
Yeah, ‘bittersweet’ is an understatement :(
Literally anything by Terry Pratchett. There are flowcharts.
Or my personal favorite: the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian. It’s not fantasy, but the writing and action might pique your interest. I think the best place to start would be the third book, HMS Surprise.
Fatherland by Robert Harris.
It is an alternate history where the Nazi’s weren’t defeated and control about half of the world.
Pillars of the Earth is pretty sick if you can look past horrible amount of SA scenes. Writers bareky disguised fetish and all that.
Have you read wheel of time? Brando finished that series and it’s really good.
Agree with this, Wheel of time was also the reason I found Sanderson. Some people might say it is a bit dated, but I still find it highly enjoyable
I hear the bible is pretty popular fiction
Unfortunately, I have already read it. Honestly it’s overrated compared to other fictions of the same genre.
Tanith Lee.
Neil Gaiman stole his style and most of his best ideas from her.
“Red As Blood” is a short story collection where the princesses are the evil ones. Cinderella is a witch and Snow White is a vampire.
“Night’s Master” is an Arabian Nights-style story of a demon prince who loves to seduce and/or torture humans.
There’s a sequel to Dragon’s Egg called Starquake. I didn’t like it quite as much as the original, but it’s still pretty good.
I have read it, it was better than I expected. But agreed.
Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio. First book(Empire of Silence) is half Dune then it finds its own story to tell. It gets really fucking interesting. The whole series explodes into this grand space opera. Good stuff.
This is how I felt about it too, I saw a one star review of it that called it the most derivative work ever created which made me laugh a lot. I am interested in the rest of the series as I only finished the first book and everyone seems to love them despite the Dune adjacent story in the beginning.
The books get better as the story moves along. Though there are some pain points. Depending on if you like Game of Thrones dynasty type drama, there’s some of it sprinkled in there that was a drag for me to get through. Then there’s a reliance on one character in particular that becomes sort of heavy handed as the story goes on. For the most part it’s at it’s best when talking about the Cielcin and the other space stuff. Overall I’m loving it. 4 books in and there’s no way I’m stopping. Plus it’s a completed series!!
Practical Guide to Sorcery (I think it counts as progression fantasy?)
Would you be interested in something like Dungeon Crawler Carl? It’s not really fantasy per se but uses heavy fantasy elements in a sci-fi setting. New book also came out yesterday and I believe there’s going to be two more.
Joe Abercrombie, ideally starting with The Blade Itself and working your way through the rest of the First Law series.
He Who Fights With Monsters.
LitRPG like Dungeon Crawler Carl. The main character is a little /r/IAmVerySmart to begin with but much like his chin it gets smoothed out over time.
