Fantasy series with multiple viewpoints and toned-down magical elements - recommendations ?

[Jo498]

Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is a rather medieval world and magic does not dominate. It is very well done, but traditional fantasy, fewer surprising twists than many newer books.

Although it may be too dark/gritty (it is not that much worse than ASoIaF, because of the humorous way) and very eclectic as far as historical feel goes, First Law etc. is rather low on magic (apart from a few key scenes, overall maybe less than ASoIaF) and has often strongly characterized different viewpoints.

[polishgenius]

Sure, take out the scene with a dragon in flight lighting the fuck out of a bunch of spider priests attempting to brainwash a king which their magical mind controlling powers, and I'll agree with you. It's not Malazan level KEWL magic use, but it's still there.

The same goes for george. People try to down play how much, or how important magic is in Westeros, but it's pretty damned important, and much more prevalent than people want to admit. I think they want to try and assign some literary significance to ASoIaF and they can't do that when it's just a book about dragons, magic swords, and and creepy ice zombies.

It's there, and it's not downplayed, it's pretty damned important.

Saying that, i'll agree, there are varying degrees of magic 'use' in the genre, and his is a little more sophisticated, but it's not hidden.

While I definitely agree with you on, and have ranted about before, the amount of magic in aSoIaF (it's really not much less, if at all, prominent than in Lord of the Rings, imo), in the context of the discussion here I think it's fair to mention Dragon's Path alongside aSoIaF as fantasies that focus less on the cool races and stuff and more on the medieval political aspects.

I can't really think of too many fantasies that are actually low on magic. KJ Parker, maybe some of Abercrombie, the occasional Gemmell book.

[Jo498]

While I agree that there is more magic in ASoIaF than some people tend to admit I think magic feels less important in ASoIaF for several reasons. One is that the dominant plots with intrigues and battles is almost magic free. The biggest exception is the Shadow Baby Assassin. The most "magical" things, the Others/wights have so far a comparably marginal role, and the main "magical" character, Bran, commands a rather limited form, warging. Many other things are maybe "magical, but mysterious, unsystematic, uncontrollable by the main characters.

Although there are a few powerful mages and a few magical things or creatures in First Law, I'd say it feels overall even less "magical" than ASoIaF (two of the standalones are basically magic-free).

Bakker is very different, I'd say it qualifies as "high magic environment".

[polishgenius]

While I agree that there is more magic in ASoIaF than some people tend to admit I think magic feels less important in ASoIaF for several reasons. One is that the dominant plots with intrigues and battles is almost magic free. The biggest exception is the Shadow Baby Assassin. The most "magical" things, the Others/wights have so far a comparably marginal role, and the main "magical" character, Bran, commands a rather limited form, warging. Many other things are maybe "magical, but mysterious, unsystematic, uncontrollable by the main characters.

Two of the main plotlines involve a thousand-foot-high wall of ice defending the world from ice zombies on the one hand, and a woman immune to fire playing mum to three dragons on the other.

[Jo498]

I completely agree that there is a lot of magic, but I was trying to find reasons why many people seem to have a different impression.

I guess, because it is still rather different from the "magical schools" of Bakker or from D&D style wizards etc. As I said the ice zombies have not a major role yet and the Wall is like the huge towers of Tolkien. And Dany cannot even control the dragons.

There must be reasons why quite a few people like the threadstarter here say that they love ASoIaF but are looking for other fantasy low on magic.

[Errant Bard]

DR2: no death that matter on the scale of asoiaf or what he was suggesting: feeling afraid for the (main) characters, certainly. We know from the start that Severian is alive too so tjete is not that kind of tension in the book.

Errant Bard - Do the French really drop in "super fun" in some sort of Franglais?

Why, yes indeed we do. Both words are in the dictionary too, so it's barely franglais.

[Yersinia]

I completely agree that there is a lot of magic, but I was trying to find reasons why many people seem to have a different impression.

I guess, because it is still rather different from the "magical schools" of Bakker or from D&D style wizards etc. As I said the ice zombies have not a major role yet and the Wall is like the huge towers of Tolkien. And Dany cannot even control the dragons.

There must be reasons why quite a few people like the threadstarter here say that they love ASoIaF but are looking for other fantasy low on magic.

I like to read books with some supernatural elements but tend to get turned off if the phrase "magic system" is used in the description of a book. Perhaps the OP has similar feelings about it.

[Jo498]

I like to read books with some supernatural elements but tend to get turned off if the phrase "magic system" is used in the description of a book. Perhaps the OP has similar feelings about it.

I know I do! Although I did enjoy some books with RPG style magic (like dragonlance) and it is handled rather well in Bakker (so far, I have only read about 2,5 books of his series).

OTOH I think "magic system" may be shorthand to discuss whether readers find magic plausible or overpowered and plot-breaking

[sologdin]

'magic system' is a rhetoric used to describe part of the setting. those who want a 'magic system' are just saying that they want the setting explained.

[MisterOJ]

So, it's no skin off my teeth since I've read all the books anyway... But, y'all might want to put some spoiler tags around some of the discussion in this thread about Dagger & Coin because...

the dragon is a pretty big reveal at the end of the third book.

[Yersinia]

Yeah, I know it's irrational for a fan of fantasy novels to have a slight aversion to magic (and dragons and gods and red-haired boys). Come to think of it... WTF am I doing here?

But seriously, I'm less likely to pick up a book that sounds like it focuses heavily on magic.

[Syhle]

Wow thank you so much for all this advice and suggestions !

I just want to add that I put up a list of criteria thinking about the main points in common between series I really liked, but I also loved books that were entirely different ; I just wanted to be a bit specific in order to get recommentations. Any suggestion is welcome even if it doesn't fit some of the criteria !

a writer that doesn't hesitate to kill off characters (it's so boring when you know that the main characters will always escape)
Seems to contradict your "not too dark/gritty". If you are seeing main character deaths, you are not in carebear land anymore. Anyway, most of those I've read kill some characters, notable exceptions being:

• Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller series +
• Ann McCaffrey, PERN
• Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint & Privilege of the Sword
• The Book of the New Sun By Gene Wolfe

So, that means you should not read any of the books I have read....

Mais bon, franchement, ça serait dommage de ne pas lire au moins TLOLL, qui est un roman de cape et d'épée, à la base, avec des éléments fantastique, et super fun à lire. Le reste, bah, si tu ne veux pas de truc trop noir ou déprimant, c'est sûr que je ne vais pas recommander de lire Abercrombie, Bakker, Kearney, Erikson ou Parker, bien que ce soit les gros auteurs dans la catégorie "epic fantasy". Durham et Keyes sont en dessous au niveau qualité, je trouve.

Je dirais qu'au delà de Lynch, Abraham peut être un bon choix avec sa série The Long Price, bien que ça manque de PoV et de batailles que tu retrouverais dans les bouqins plus noirs.

Sorry I think dark/gritty was a poor choice of words ; I don't mind about character deaths and stuff like that but I meant more like gloomy, twisted and sick stuff... ok incest isn't the sanest thing but you never feel really that bad or uneasy reading scenes between Cersei and Jaime (though the rape scene on the show was twisted). I don't know if I really make myself clear, sorry...I guess it also depends on the way the story/scene is told. For example I loved "Gagner la guerre" by Jaworski (where there are no multiple viewpoints) which can be really dark and full of cynism.

Welcome to the forum. :)

I have not read that much fantasy either, so I just want to comment on your mentioning Philippa Gregory because as far as I know, none of her work counts as fantasy.

So yeah, if you are trying to find a good fantasy series with multiple POVs and realistic mediaeval setting and character building, you might want to scratch that off your list.

Thanks ! Now that you mention it I remember that I saw this in a thread about fantasy and historical fiction and the poster did say that it wasn't fantasy.

After reading ASoIaF I went through a "oh my god what am I going to read next" phase, three years ago. What got me out of it was the First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. It's different from ASoIaF in that the characters are way more grey, while on GRRM's series you can tell which side is the "good" side pretty easily, in First Law world that's a lot harder to do. Who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys? Abercrombie's battle scenes are excellent, very well written and not hard to follow. His book follows six PoV characters, each chapter is told from one of those PoVs, like in ASoIaF. The magic usage is low, and the world is gritty, most of the characters are very cynical. There's a dry humor in these books that I really enjoyed. From what you said, I think you'll like this series, if you don't mind the grittiness.

As for wanting a sample of the books you want to read, you should check Amazon's "look inside" feature, clicking on the cover of the book. Even if you don't have a Kindle, you can read the first few pages of a book to get a feeling of the style and the story. I do have a Kindle, but being able to read a sample of the books I'm interested in helps me decide what to buy.

It is reassuring to see others have been through this phase too ! Thanks for the suggestion and I'll check Amazon too.

As Snowborn said, Amazon is a good source of samples. In fact, you can download a Kindle sample (usually a couple of chapters) and read it using a free Kindle Reading App on your computer or phone. This is usually enough to give you a good feel for a writer's style and whether or not you want to read the book.

I find it really useful, because I also lack easy access to physical copies of English-language books.

Ok I didn't know about the samples, I'll do that thanks !

I completely agree that there is a lot of magic, but I was trying to find reasons why many people seem to have a different impression.

I guess, because it is still rather different from the "magical schools" of Bakker or from D&D style wizards etc. As I said the ice zombies have not a major role yet and the Wall is like the huge towers of Tolkien. And Dany cannot even control the dragons.

There must be reasons why quite a few people like the threadstarter here say that they love ASoIaF but are looking for other fantasy low on magic.

Yeah I think I wasn't very clear but I meant that in ASOIAF, few characters interact (or even believe) with magical beings. It is a world where magic has disappeared or faded, it is not something commonplace. Magical stuff happens but is not fully explained with rules and principles and stuff. We don't really know how Melisandre's or Dany's (supposed) powers work, it is still obscure ; dragons are born again but we don't know the full extent of their capacities and how one can control them ; white walkers are still mysterious and seen as "myths" by most of Westeros and we don't know much about them. That's the thing I really liked, to have some mystery and magic without spoiling the "realism" of the world. I don't know if that's clearer, I understand some may not agree (because yes magic is important in some plots) but that's how I feel.

Another thing I liked in ASOIAF was the extensive genealogy, history and myths (I don't mind magic at all if it's in legends mostly).

[Errant Bard]

Sorry I think dark/gritty was a poor choice of words ; I don't mind about character deaths and stuff like that but I meant more like gloomy, twisted and sick stuff... ok incest isn't the sanest thing but you never feel really that bad or uneasy reading scenes between Cersei and Jaime

Uh, well, maybe you did not, but I did on occasion (seriously, forcing her, when she has her period, and on top of the corpse of their dead child?), so it's not all that clear to me what you think is tolerable and what is not, truly.

Having said that, if you don't like gloomy, doomed, hopeless, powerless feelings, and despite how much the fanboys will try to sell it to you, DO NOT READ THE FIRST LAW. You've been warned. I mean, they are great books, most of those on your list are, but even KJ Parker or Bakker put in more hope/promise for change and future life than Joe in the First Law.

I'll still say, read Kearney if you want your dose of battle, then try Lynch, Abraham, Wolfe, maybe some Vandermeer, Gilman, Tchaïkovsky, and heh, maybe Les Rois Maudits, there's a series with political stuff and low magic...

In any case, you'll probably want to read Abercrombie, Bakker and Erikson to get an idea of what they do, at one point or another. Picking at random in your list is good as long as you don't put the kingdom of the elves and the reaches, the sword of truth or the fifth sorceress in it.

[peterbound]

So, it's no skin off my teeth since I've read all the books anyway... But, y'all might want to put some spoiler tags around some of the discussion in this thread about Dagger & Coin because...

the dragon is a pretty big reveal at the end of the third book.

No.

[Esa1996]

I'd still recommend WOT to you. A friend of mine read them shortly back, and he was very near to giving up after the first book. The second one is better, then at around book 6 he was thanking me for telling him to go on, despite whining constantly about all kinds of details. In the end when he finished he whined about the series ending as "It was a good series. I didn't want it to end" and said it was better than ASOIAF (To be honest I kind of agree).

But if you want something different, I'd recommend Malazan to you.

I'd like your advice on this :

- first what I really, really like is when the story is told from multiple points of view

The same friend I already mentioned is now reading these and just for fun I counted the amount of POVs in the series. I came up with 172, although I'm fairly sure I'm still missing some and there's a few books in the side story books that I have not yet read. As a comparison WOT has 147 POVs, and ASOIAF around 30.

- I also like good and extensive character building and world building (preferably a medieval world)

There's a lot of debate on whether Erickson is good at character creation. Some say he is some say he isn't. Personally I think that his best are equal to Martin's best and his worst are equal to Martin's worst. As a whole it may take a while longer to learn to know his characters as he never tells you anything about them. Erickson is a strong believer in the "Show don't tell" philosophy, and thus, he never tells you anything, and lets you figure things out on your own instead.

His world is probably the most complex one ever made with the possible exception of LotR. There's a history spanning around 300 000 years on 7 continents. Something that I find very interesting in the series is how things that happened over a 100 000 years ago are still very relevant to the main plot.

- not too dark/gritty

Hmm. Perhaps I should have read these before starting to write. Malazan is probably the grittiest book series I've ever read, although the second place goes to ASOIAF so I haven't read anything too gory. There's rape, cannibalism, force feeding certain organs to their former owners... As a whole, if ASOIAF wasn't too gritty to you, I don't think Malazan will be either (It sounds bad, but it's not happening all the time. There's a lot of humor in the books too to lighten up the mood also)

- nothing poorly written (english is not my mother tongue so I can't always judge but stuff like Terry Goodkind made me cringe)

Erikson is a good writer in terms of text, I think. I'm not a native speaker either though so I'm not the best judge, but I never have any qualms with his text. Everyone says the first book is a bit medicore in terms of writing but there is a big gap in terms of writing skill between the 1st and 2nd book, as Gardens of the Moon was the first book Erickson ever wrote with the idea of someday releasing it. He does have a habit of occasionally throwing in some completely insane words, but not so much as to make the text incomprehensible. Someone actually once asked him about whether anyone had ever complained to him about his use of rare words and he answered like this: "Of my impending obfuscation if not outright prevarication, I remain obdurate as in an indigent rectal murication upon the rim of this importune crapper". I was just like "What...?" and I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't understand whatever he just said.

- little magic or fantasy beings, more political plots and war, evolving rapidly (and I don't mind about romance if it's not too cheesy)

There's quite a bit of magic in Malazan, but personally I think it's one of the greatest thing in the series. It has some rules so it's not complete Deus Ex Machina like in Thrones but it's still fairly free so it can hold all the epic stuff that happens in the series (There's a lot of epic stuff in Malazan. Were I to make a "Top 10 Action Scenes in Literature", the whole list would probably be occupied by scenes from the Malazan books). Thing like battles and chases etc. that span a few different dimensions/warrens wouldn't be possible with out heavy use of magic. Most of the fighting in the series is however done by a sword. The magic system also makes it possible for the gods to exist in the world and they make some extremely cool stuff possible. Just think about a hypothetical duel between the God of Death and the God of Assassins. Epic. Something to point out is that the gods in Malazan are not truly immortal like in religions such as Christianity. You stab a god in the eye and they'll die unless they're pulling tricks on you. This means that even mortals can kill gods if they're lucky.

There's also a lot of war and battles in the series. In the first 10 books there are around 16 battles, +- a few depending on how you count them.

- a writer that doesn't hesitate to kill off characters (it's so boring when you know that the main characters will always escape)

People say that Martin kills off a lot of characters. Well, he's nothing compared to Erikson. At first I started counting how many POVs he killed but I got lost at around book 6 when the count started bordering 30. In the end, were I to throw a guess, I'd say he killed perhaps around 70-100 POV characters.

The series is also probably the widest work of fiction ever written (I haven't read Silmarillion, but judging by what I know of it, it doesn't compare. At least the Malazan books are way longer). There's a main series consisting of 10 books, a "side" series that happens simultaneously with the main series and is also best read simultaneously with it, consisting of 6 books. There's a 3 book prequel trilogy in the works, and other upcoming sequel trilogy, and a prequel book, which as of now, isn't a part of a trilogy. There's also 5 short stories taking place in the same world and the characters in these occasionally even appear in the main series.

As a whole the series is 17 000 pages long at the moment with approximately 5 000 more pages in the works. Even more may be coming but those books have not yet been announced.

Also, probably my longest post ever by far. On any forum.

[peterbound]

I'd still recommend WOT to you. A friend of mine read them shortly back, and he was very near to giving up after the first book. The second one is better, then at around book 6 he was thanking me for telling him to go on, despite whining constantly about all kinds of details. In the end when he finished he whined about the series ending as "It was a good series. I didn't want it to end" and said it was better than ASOIAF (To be honest I kind of agree).

But if you want something different, I'd recommend Malazan to you.

I'd like your advice on this :

- first what I really, really like is when the story is told from multiple points of view

The same friend I already mentioned is now reading these and just for fun I counted the amount of POVs in the series. I came up with 172, although I'm fairly sure I'm still missing some and there's a few books in the side story books that I have not yet read. As a comparison WOT has 147 POVs, and ASOIAF around 30.

- I also like good and extensive character building and world building (preferably a medieval world)

There's a lot of debate on whether Erickson is good at character creation. Some say he is some say he isn't. Personally I think that his best are equal to Martin's best and his worst are equal to Martin's worst. As a whole it may take a while longer to learn to know his characters as he never tells you anything about them. Erickson is a strong believer in the "Show don't tell" philosophy, and thus, he never tells you anything, and lets you figure things out on your own instead.

His world is probably the most complex one ever made with the possible exception of LotR. There's a history spanning around 300 000 years on 7 continents. Something that I find very interesting in the series is how things that happened over a 100 000 years ago are still very relevant to the main plot.

- not too dark/gritty

Hmm. Perhaps I should have read these before starting to write. Malazan is probably the grittiest book series I've ever read, although the second place goes to ASOIAF so I haven't read anything too gory. There's rape, cannibalism, force feeding certain organs to their former owners... As a whole, if ASOIAF wasn't too gritty to you, I don't think Malazan will be either (It sounds bad, but it's not happening all the time. There's a lot of humor in the books too to lighten up the mood also)

- nothing poorly written (english is not my mother tongue so I can't always judge but stuff like Terry Goodkind made me cringe)

Erikson is a good writer in terms of text, I think. I'm not a native speaker either though so I'm not the best judge, but I never have any qualms with his text. Everyone says the first book is a bit medicore in terms of writing but there is a big gap in terms of writing skill between the 1st and 2nd book, as Gardens of the Moon was the first book Erickson ever wrote with the idea of someday releasing it. He does have a habit of occasionally throwing in some completely insane words, but not so much as to make the text incomprehensible. Someone actually once asked him about whether anyone had ever complained to him about his use of rare words and he answered like this: "Of my impending obfuscation if not outright prevarication, I remain obdurate as in an indigent rectal murication upon the rim of this importune crapper". I was just like "What...?" and I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't understand whatever he just said.

- little magic or fantasy beings, more political plots and war, evolving rapidly (and I don't mind about romance if it's not too cheesy)

There's quite a bit of magic in Malazan, but personally I think it's one of the greatest thing in the series. It has some rules so it's not complete Deus Ex Machina like in Thrones but it's still fairly free so it can hold all the epic stuff that happens in the series (There's a lot of epic stuff in Malazan. Were I to make a "Top 10 Action Scenes in Literature", the whole list would probably be occupied by scenes from the Malazan books). Thing like battles and chases etc. that span a few different dimensions/warrens wouldn't be possible with out heavy use of magic. Most of the fighting in the series is however done by a sword. The magic system also makes it possible for the gods to exist in the world and they make some extremely cool stuff possible. Just think about a hypothetical duel between the God of Death and the God of Assassins. Epic. Something to point out is that the gods in Malazan are not truly immortal like in religions such as Christianity. You stab a god in the eye and they'll die unless they're pulling tricks on you. This means that even mortals can kill gods if they're lucky.

There's also a lot of war and battles in the series. In the first 10 books there are around 16 battles, +- a few depending on how you count them.

- a writer that doesn't hesitate to kill off characters (it's so boring when you know that the main characters will always escape)

People say that Martin kills off a lot of characters. Well, he's nothing compared to Erikson. At first I started counting how many POVs he killed but I got lost at around book 6 when the count started bordering 30. In the end, were I to throw a guess, I'd say he killed perhaps around 70-100 POV characters.

The series is also probably the widest work of fiction ever written (I haven't read Silmarillion, but judging by what I know of it, it doesn't compare. At least the Malazan books are way longer). There's a main series consisting of 10 books, a "side" series that happens simultaneously with the main series and is also best read simultaneously with it, consisting of 6 books. There's a 3 book prequel trilogy in the works, and other upcoming sequel trilogy, and a prequel book, which as of now, isn't a part of a trilogy. There's also 5 short stories taking place in the same world and the characters in these occasionally even appear in the main series.

As a whole the series is 17 000 pages long at the moment with approximately 5 000 more pages in the works. Even more may be coming but those books have not yet been announced.

Also, probably my longest post ever by far. On any forum.

Tl:dr summary: don't care about what the op wants. Had poor tastes in books, and doesn't understand what deus ex machina means.

Also states that Malazan is better than Tolkien.

[Esa1996]

Tl:dr summary: don't care about what the op wants. Had poor tastes in books, and doesn't understand what deus ex machina means.

Also states that Malazan is better than Tolkien.

Malazan fills most of the OP's wishes so there's nothing wrong with suggesting it. Besides, I'm not the only one who has suggested it here.

You would call the shadow baby assassination of Renly something else than Deus Ex Machina?

Tolkien is over rated. LotR is a good book, but IMO it's not as good as people make it out to be.

Also, why do I have a bad taste in books?

[Serious Callers Only]

Try Joel Sheperd A trial of Blood and Steel. Based on your requirements i think you'll like it.

[peterbound]

Malazan fills most of the OP's wishes so there's nothing wrong with suggesting it. Besides, I'm not the only one who has suggested it here.

You would call the shadow baby assassination of Renly something else than Deus Ex Machina?

be.

I'd call it a plot device used by a good author in a world where it was completely plausible. Again, I think people forget that asoif takes place where magic exists.

That also allowed for some expansion on the red priest/priestess power set.

DEX also usually 'wraps up' the story. Not a detail in the story. I'm also amazed that you don't apply the same logic to Erickson's work. That dude uses his 'kewl' magic system to get his guys out of trouble constantly. Hell. Rather than kill off his characters he comes up with a clause to make his favorites into gods. Lazy writing, but I wouldn't expect much else from that dude.

[Serious Callers Only]

Malazan is a really bad suggestion - based on the requirement of low magic - if not the bad writing one ;) . Similarly glen cook, jordan, sanderson etc are out.