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New fantasy series recommendation


stark of winterfell

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Hello all

 

Just finished reading the Ravens Shadow trilogy so now I need a new series to get into any recommendations because I have no idea?

 

I'm a big fan of Joe Abercrombie, Patrick Rothfuss, Peter Brett, GRRM (of course) etc so anything in that vein I know I'll love. I've had John Gwynne's The Faithful and the Fallen recommended to me by a friend is it worth a read?

 

Thanks in advance. 

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There's a big thread on it in the Recommendations post pinned at the top of the board.

 

However, off the top of my head:

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

Gotrek and Felix by William King (guilty pleasure)

The Riyria series by Michael J. Sullivan
The Ties that bind by Rob J. Hayes
The Blood War Trilogy by Tim Marquitz
Gnomesaga by Kenny Soward (better than it sounds!)
Blackguards: Tales of Assassins, Mercenaries, and Rogues
The Witcher by Sapkowski (the short stories anthologies, definitely)
The Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch

 

People really seem to like Mark Lawrence too

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This Scott Bakker. Tell me more about his series

It's a trilogy (The Prince of Nothing) and another trilogy, which we are still waiting for the final book of.  The series is rather divisive, but it has a lot of supporters on this forum.  Here is my spoiler free review of the first trilogy, it might give you some idea whether this is the right series for you. 

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This Scott Bakker. Tell me more about his series

The Second Apocalypse is the fantasy series to end all fantasy series. Read it only after you've exhausted everything else the genre has to offer because you'll never be able to look upon lesser works of literature with the same eyes after you've delved into its unfathomable depths.

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The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

 

Because why haven't you read it already? Oh, maybe because you don't have a couple of years to focus on it? :)

 

The Ties that Bind by Rob J. Hayes

 

The Ties That Bind is a series about a trio of a master swordswoman, a murderous bandit, and an Inquisitor who get roped into a complex plot against the local God-Emperor of a corrupt city-state. I really enjoyed this series and I think it's nice hard R-rated Sword and Sorcery and grimdark fantasy.

 

The Blood War Trilogy by Tim Marquitz

 

You know how all those Tolkien pastiches have orcs portrayed as Always Chaotic Evil cannibal monsters? Well Tim Marquitz does a trilogy where we see what that's really like and how horrifying it is. They're also wolfmen rather than orcs. The Blood War Trilogy is a relatively concise but still multi-charactered, grim, and complex fantasy trilogy where everything we take for granted in fantasy is played horrifyingly straight. 

 

Gnomesaga by Kenny Soward (better than it sounds!)

 

GnomeSaga is a somewhat off-kilter homage to Dungeons and Dragons fiction from the Nineties like the Drizzt novels and Dragonlance. A bunch of steampunk gnomes living in a high fantasy world have to deal with the invasion of their world by an extra-dimensional conqueror. Rakkish dandy necromancers, oddball inventors, and stone golem revolutionaries make it a quirky but fun setting.

 

The Witcher by Sapkowski (the short stories anthologies, definitely)

 

The inspiration for the popular video game series, the Witcher books are dark and gritty fantasy about a monster hunter named Geralt who struggles to deal with the fact his world is complete crap. Corrupt Kings and Queens, racial disharmony, plague, monsters, and worse make his life very depressing but he manages to keep himself going thanks to the fact every lovely lady in the setting seems to want a piece of him. Also, he has a hilarious comic relief bard named Dandelion who keeps things from getting too angsty. The short-story anthologies (The Last Wish and The Sword of Destiny) are even better than the novels.

 

The Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch

 

Locke Lamora is a teenage and con man thief living in a Westeros-ish version of Renaissance Italy where thieves are punished with death regardless of age, everyone is a corrupt bastard, and revenge is a dish best served cold. Locke is enjoying his life with his gang despite all this when, well, things go to ****. The trilogy follows Locke trying to put his life back together and rebuild his reputation as the world's greatest thief following the first novel's dramatic events.

 

The Riyria series by Michael J. Sullivan

 

Basically, a modern day Lankhmar about two thieves who work together as one on a variety of very humorous and dramatic capers. There's not much else to say regarding that except how much fun they are.

 

Blackguards: Tales of Assassins, Mercenaries, and Rogues

 

Blackguards is a standalone anthology which contains dozens of short-stories about fantasy rogues by some of my favorite authors. With an introduction by Glen Cook, it shows antiheroes but hilarious and horrible doing what they do best: killing and stealing and making the law look like fools. I mentioned this is closer to what I wanted Rogues to be like, though it lacks Martin's star power or Westeros history. The Kindle version has a whole novella's worth of extra material.

 

Dirge by Tim Marquitz

 

Another novel by the author of the Blood War Trilogy, Dirge follows a young thief named Kaleine who is stealing to provide for the monastary full of refugees where she was given shelter years ago. The kingdom is having a slight problem of well, zombie genocide, due to an invasion by necromantic overlords from another kingdom and is going to be destroyed soon. Given a chance to care for them for the rest of their lives and possibly shift the balance of the losing war, "Dirge" accepts a mission from the local King to kidnap one of the Necro-Lords and find out the secret of their horrifying undead armies. Reminded me strongly of the Thief games starring Stephen Russell.

 

Gotrek and Felix by William King

 

One of my favorite guilty-pleasures is Warhammer fiction, I have to admit. A poet and a dwarf kill a huge number of monsters. Nothing else needs be said.

 

:)

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