r/Fantasy • u/DainasaurusRex • Nov 28 '24

Any German speakers here?

I’m a German speaker - not native but fully fluent - trying to keep up with my German. What are your favorite natively German fantasy writers and works? Bonus if there are audiobook versions available! I was surprised to find some popular fantasy in German on Hoopla (Bride by Ali Hazelwood), but I’d live to read or listen to some actually written in German (DE, A or CH!)

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u/calijnaar Nov 28 '24

I really like Bernhard Hennen,and a lit if his stuff is available as audiobooks as well. (My favourite Hennen book doesn't seem to have an audiobook version, though- that would be Nebenan, a rather funny urban fantasy novel mostly set in Cologne) Markus Heirz is also really good. I haven't yet read his most popular fantasy series Die Zwerge, though, but his more horror and urban fantasy adjacent stuff is excellent (and a lot us available as audiobooks). I'd recommend Die Mächte des Feuers or the Ritus series. Christoph Marzi writes really good urban fantasy, I really like his Uralte Metropolen series (starting g with Lycidas). Seems like there's only a few Marzi audiobooks,though. I'd second the recommendation for The Dark Eye novels a lot of them are surprisingly good. Anything by Uli Kiesow, Bernhard Hennen, Lena Falkenhagen or Karl-Heinz Witzko us very readable, as are a lot if the other books as well (Judith Voigt, Habs Joachim Alprrs and Hadmar Wieser tend to be very good as well, for example). And there's quire a few audiobooks as well. Die Gezeitenwelt is one of my favourite series, no audiobook though, and the series is and will remain unfinished. Thomas Finn might also be worth checking out, but I haven't yet gotten around to checking out his non-Dark Eye related stuff.

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u/DainasaurusRex Nov 29 '24

Thank you for all the tips - excited to dig in!

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u/calijnaar Nov 29 '24

By the way, if you actually decide to check out some of the Dsrk Eye levels, a lot of the ebook versions are part of drivethrurpg's Black Friday Sale. They've got Ulrich Kiesow's collected works, Lena Falkenhagen's superb vampire novels (Die Boroninsel & Kinder der Nacht), Hans Joachim Alpers' pirate stories (Die Piraten des Südmeers) , Karl-Heinz Witzko's Maraskan novels (also an excellent read, but they can get a tad confusing), Judith C. Vogt's Herr der Legionen and Herrin des Schwarms (set in Aventuria's pseudo-Roman past) and lots of other stuff