Good epic fantasy books (relatively modern)

[cowolter]

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson is a good book, and you won't regret having it on your shelf... It's available free online, along with chapter-by-chapter annotations.

[Fragile Bird]

On 11/17/2021 at 5:14 PM, Rhom said:

I am currently reading the conclusion of Josiah Bancroft's Books of Babel series.  The series starts with Senlin Ascends.  Really enjoyable reads.  Only four books and the series is now complete.

Please tell me the books are worth reading. I’m stuck on the first because I’m having such a problem with how. Fucking. Stupid. The protagonist is at the start. So stupid I got physical pangs of pain reading the the first third of the book and set it down. Mark Lawrence keeps recommending it so I picked it up.

A book I currently love is The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. The hero is an 18-year old half-goblin half-elf 4th son of the Emperor. Being half-goblin is not a great place in a world run by white-skinned white-haired elves (Maia is slate grey, pure goblins are black, there’s a lot of inter-marriage in the populace). His mother was the 4th wife, married for political reasons and hated immediately by the Emperor, exiled shortly after the one-night-of-sex to consummate a treaty marriage produces a son. Then one day the Emperor and his three oldest sons are killed in an accident and the Goblin exile is emperor. And he’s a really decent kid faced with confidence issues (“my ugly grey skin”, “hobgoblin” , “everybody loved my father and brothers and they hate me”) triggered by having a loathsome guardian/exile keeper after his mother died when he was 8 years old. It’s just a lovely book. I’ve listened to it 4 times now, before my library loan runs out.

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Please tell me the books are worth reading. I’m stuck on the first because I’m having such a problem with how. Fucking. Stupid. The protagonist is at the start. So stupid I got physical pangs of pain reading the the first third of the book and set it down. Mark Lawrence keeps recommending it so I picked it up.

A book I currently love is The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. The hero is an 18-year old half-goblin half-elf 4th son of the Emperor. Being half-goblin is not a great place in a world run by white-skinned white-haired elves (Maia is slate grey, pure goblins are black, there’s a lot of inter-marriage in the populace). His mother was the 4th wife, married for political reasons and hated immediately by the Emperor, exiled shortly after the one-night-of-sex to consummate a treaty marriage produces a son. Then one day the Emperor and his three oldest sons are killed in an accident and the Goblin exile is emperor. And he’s a really decent kid faced with confidence issues (“my ugly grey skin”, “hobgoblin” , “everybody loved my father and brothers and they hate me”) triggered by having a loathsome guardian/exile keeper after his mother died when he was 8 years old. It’s just a lovely book. I’ve listened to it 4 times now, before my library loan runs out.

I have really enjoyed the series.  How many fantasy series have a school teacher as the protagonist?!!?  

Senlin does improve in my opinion.  He shows up at this tower believing he has understood what to expect because of the books he read and it takes a while for him to realize everything he knew was wrong.

The Tower is a wonderfully bizarre setting.

[john]

Senlin grows believably and satisfyingly in a way that is rare in novels, never mind fantasy novels. There’s always a little bit of frustration with him though, it’s part of the character.

I loved the Goblin Emperor too. Addison’s other recent book outside that world is Angel of the Crows, which I also thought was excellent, though it’s more urban fantasy.

[williamjm]

On 12/4/2021 at 9:16 PM, Fragile Bird said:

Please tell me the books are worth reading. I’m stuck on the first because I’m having such a problem with how. Fucking. Stupid. The protagonist is at the start. So stupid I got physical pangs of pain reading the the first third of the book and set it down. Mark Lawrence keeps recommending it so I picked it up.

Senlin does definitely become less of a naive fool as the books go on. Having said that, I do generally find the other main characters to be more interesting, from what I remember the early parts of the first book are all from Senlin's point-of-view but that only makes up a minority of the chapters in the later books.

On 12/4/2021 at 9:16 PM, Fragile Bird said:

A book I currently love is The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. The hero is an 18-year old half-goblin half-elf 4th son of the Emperor. Being half-goblin is not a great place in a world run by white-skinned white-haired elves (Maia is slate grey, pure goblins are black, there’s a lot of inter-marriage in the populace). His mother was the 4th wife, married for political reasons and hated immediately by the Emperor, exiled shortly after the one-night-of-sex to consummate a treaty marriage produces a son. Then one day the Emperor and his three oldest sons are killed in an accident and the Goblin exile is emperor. And he’s a really decent kid faced with confidence issues (“my ugly grey skin”, “hobgoblin” , “everybody loved my father and brothers and they hate me”) triggered by having a loathsome guardian/exile keeper after his mother died when he was 8 years old. It’s just a lovely book. I’ve listened to it 4 times now, before my library loan runs out.

It's maybe not quite as great as The Goblin Emperor but I think you may also enjoy [i]The Witness For The Dead[/i] which follows one of the minor characters from that book.

[Pecan]

I just started the Crown of Stars series by Kate Elliott. Not sure what's taken me so long, but I'm quite enjoying it so far. Her prose is just okay, in my opinion, which is the main thing that I think holds her back because she does an awful lot right. 

[Fragile Bird]

On 12/4/2021 at 2:40 PM, cowolter said:

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson is a good book, and you won't regret having it on your shelf... It's available free online, along with chapter-by-chapter annotations.

Holy crap, this is great! Thank-you for posting!

[Rhom]

On 12/5/2021 at 6:21 PM, john said:

Senlin grows believably and satisfyingly in a way that is rare in novels, never mind fantasy novels. There’s always a little bit of frustration with him though, it’s part of the character.

 

On 12/5/2021 at 6:55 PM, williamjm said:

Senlin does definitely become less of a naive fool as the books go on. Having said that, I do generally find the other main characters to be more interesting, from what I remember the early parts of the first book are all from Senlin's point-of-view but that only makes up a minority of the chapters in the later books.

Since there doesn’t seem to be enough appetite on the board to discuss Books of Babel with its own thread, might as well co-opt this one for my abbreviated thoughts on the end.

I really enjoyed the series.  The Tower is a truly unique setting unlike anything I’ve read.  In some ways, it is almost its own character.  The writing of the series is almost poetic.  The characters that begin as side characters take on a life of their own.  In some ways, I’m sorry to see it all end.  I did enjoy the conclusion.

Major spoilers for Fall of Babel incoming.  Do NOT read if you have not finished the book yet.

Spoiler

I’m still deciding if I like that the entire tower was built to power a colony space ship to then head off to an unknown world.

The book did a pretty good job of leaving enough threads dangling that you can picture life going on.

However, I feel like it did need to give some closure to who/what the Bricklayer was.

I loved Marya’s line when she reminded Senlin she would meet him at the top of the tower if they got separated.  And I guess that their ending was appropriate if bittersweet.

Overall I loved the series and am glad he concluded it well… I liked Fall of Babel; but I’m still uncertain on how I feel about it as a conclusion to the series.

If any of that makes sense.

 

[Leofric]

15 hours ago, Rhom said:

 

Since there doesn’t seem to be enough appetite on the board to discuss Books of Babel with its own thread, might as well co-opt this one for my abbreviated thoughts on the end.

I really enjoyed the series.  The Tower is a truly unique setting unlike anything I’ve read.  In some ways, it is almost its own character.  The writing of the series is almost poetic.  The characters that begin as side characters take on a life of their own.  In some ways, I’m sorry to see it all end.  I did enjoy the conclusion.

Major spoilers for Fall of Babel incoming.  Do NOT read if you have not finished the book yet.

  Reveal hidden contents

I’m still deciding if I like that the entire tower was built to power a colony space ship to then head off to an unknown world.

The book did a pretty good job of leaving enough threads dangling that you can picture life going on.

However, I feel like it did need to give some closure to who/what the Bricklayer was.

I loved Marya’s line when she reminded Senlin she would meet him at the top of the tower if they got separated.  And I guess that their ending was appropriate if bittersweet.

Overall I loved the series and am glad he concluded it well… I liked Fall of Babel; but I’m still uncertain on how I feel about it as a conclusion to the series.

If any of that makes sense.

 

I really enjoyed these books and liked how it ended.

Spoiler

Regarding the tower being built just to send humanity into space.   I found ingenious how it tied into the original mythology of Tower of Babel which was built by a unified humanity to try and reach Heaven.    In the books, the tower is a gift/invitation to join his people in space from the Bricklayer (alien/God) who gave them his technology to achieve it.  But the technology is powered by a specific fuel, so the tower was created to provide the specific controlled habitats for the various creatures that provided the ingredients for that fuel.  And the Tower then became a production facility to produce enough fuel for the voyage.  

However, similar to the myth, the grand purpose was lost, by humanity losing its cohesion and focus on the goal.    This is not so much by God giving them separate languages as the rise of separate classes and ringdoms in the Tower (though Marat did give the hods a separate language).  But in the case of the Books of Babel, they eventually succeeded in reaching Heaven despite this, as opposed to the myth, where they failed.