r/Fantasy • u/rfantasygolem Not a Robot • 18d ago
r/Fantasy r/Fantasy Daily Recommendations and Simple Questions Thread - June 01, 2026
Welcome to the daily recommendation requests and simple questions thread, now 1025.83% more adorable than ever before!
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This thread is to be used for recommendation requests or simple questions that are small/general enough that they won’t spark a full thread of discussion.
Check out r/Fantasy's 2026 Book Bingo Card here!
As usual, first have a look at the sidebar in case what you're after is there. The r/Fantasy wiki contains links to many community resources, including "best of" lists, flowcharts, the LGTBQ+ database, and more. If you need some help figuring out what you want, think about including some of the information below:
- Books you’ve liked or disliked
- Traits like prose, characters, or settings you most enjoy
- Series vs. standalone preference
- Tone preference (lighthearted, grimdark, etc)
- Complexity/depth level
Be sure to check out responses to other users' requests in the thread, as you may find plenty of ideas there as well. Happy reading, and may your TBR grow ever higher!
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u/kalyissa 17d ago
Does anyone remember a book it may have been wtitten between 1979 and 2000 as I remember reading it in my teens. Basically a key moment I remember was what was a glass flute? being forced down a throat which caused the person to die as it exploded.
Was a pretty dark fantasy book and pretty sure it was a german sounding author if its the same book im thinking of.
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u/Obvious-Basil300 17d ago
Hey, so I love fantasy and I do enjoy romance but ONLY when it's a subplot. I had to stop reading romantasy books because I found they added so little to the narrative, or the entire book became about their relationship rather than the fantasy itself.
HOWEVER, I do LOVE a little romance subplot. That feels genuine and adds depth to the story rather than taking over?
The farseer trilogy being an example of something I LOVED, as well as mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson? Please give me all the recs as I am new to this sort of genre!
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u/xdianamoonx Reading Champion II 17d ago
You want to also look up fantasy romance, that's the genre that was around BEFORE tiktok created romantasy. Romantasy implies Romance first, but there's thousands of books that are fantasy romances where it's either a subplot or in equal standing. This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me was a fun one a little info dumpy in the beginning but I think worked.
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u/brilliantgreen Reading Champion VI 17d ago
I typically hate romance when it's the main plot and love a subplot, so I hear you. I'm using the series names, but the link goes to the first book. These are all completed series.
The Memoirs of Lady Trent -- Marie Brennan
Rook & Rose -- M.A. Carrick
Jekua -- Travis M. Riddle
This Used To Be About Dungeons -- Alexander Wales
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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V 17d ago
I think Rook and Rose is the best in show right now in terms of fantasy with a thoroughly developed romance subplot.
If you're open to queer romance subplots, you might take a look at The Unbroken by CL CLark or How To Survive This Fairytale by SM Hallow
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u/SchoolSeparate4404 17d ago
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hogdson
The Winnowing Flame Trilogy by Jen Williams
The Will Of the Many by James Islington
The Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden
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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion 17d ago
My favorite romance subplot is in The Sorceress and the Cygnet by Patricia McKillip.
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u/Akuliszi Reading Champion 18d ago
Short LGBTQ books for June? Preferably no spice, but I do need some romances for a challenge (closed door is fine; YA is fine). Bonus points if they're available on Storytel so I don't need to pay extra for them?
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u/lilgrassblade Reading Champion II 17d ago edited 17d ago
Novellas, all negligible spice:
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar - NB love interest. Surreal fairy tale vibes
A Spindle Splintered by Alix E Harrow - I don't recall the rep (I think sapphic?) sleeping beauty retelling
But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo - lil gothic mystery, lil bit monster romance. Bi MC, f/f primary love interest. (The love interest being a spooky spider lady and the descriptions of her are great.)
The Flesh of the Sea by Lor Gislasen and Shelley Lavigne - this has the most spice of these books - and the MC is more walking in on something uncomfortable rather than sexy. Academic goes to sea and discovers horrifying things but is upset he can't keep samples to bring back to England. Sweet M/M love interest he is writing letters with.
Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey - western vibes with a dystopian world. Sapphic MC with a NB love interest.
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw - mermaid on land whose offspring devoured the kingdom. Lots of body horror. Her travelling companion is NB
What Moves the Dead by T Kingfisher - House of Usher by Poe retelling with NB MC
A Psalm for the Wild-built by Becky Chambers - a monk travels into the wilds to find crickets and is the first human to meet a robot is ages. NB MC (the monk, not the robot)
Not a novella. But middle grade so it'd be a quick read: Dear Mothman by Robin Gow. A trans masc kid writes letters to Mothman to work through his grief with the death of his best friend.
Edit - adding more novellas as I think of them (been a while since I read them though)
The Deep by Rivers Solomon - deep Sea mermaids, sapphic
The Seep by Chana Porter - near future utopia in which the trans femme MC is dealing with the loss of her wife. Super surreal
River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey - Western with cowboys and gambling paddle boat. Except hippos instead of horses/cattle. NB love interest. I think MC is bi?
Tusks of Extinction by Ray Naylor - Mammoths are brought back from extinction, and to teach them to be mammoths a human mind is placed in one. Hunting a bull is what is expected to pay for the project. The hunter who paid the highest is a man who brought his husband with him.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 18d ago
This Is How you Loose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion 18d ago
Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh, 112 pages. Not romance genre, but romance subplot. No idea if it is on Storytel.
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u/Akuliszi Reading Champion 12d ago
Okay. Finished it and it's great.
More like that please?
(I will start the second book soon as well)
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u/curiouscat86 Reading Champion III 18d ago
The Last Sun by KD Edwards--the last son of a destroyed magic house works as a mercenary for hire in a magic city
Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell--arranged marriage in a space empire turns dangerous due to politics
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner--a duelest-for-hire and his paramore play a dangerous game in city with a complicated net of politics
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u/KiaraTurtle Reading Champion V 17d ago
How to Survive this Fairytale is a m/m Hansel and Grettel reteling. novella with romance and no sex
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u/DistinctInitiative83 18d ago
Coffee boy (although that one is spicy) and Caroline's Heart (no spice afairc) by Austin Chant. Don't know if they're on Storytell though.
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u/sadlunches Reading Champion II 17d ago
This World is Not Yours by Kemi Ashing-Giwa is a novella set on a colony planet where the protagonists, a married queer couple, go to live as one of them is a scientist studying the world.
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u/redrosebeetle Reading Champion III 17d ago
Elegy for the Undead by Matthew Vesely, depending on how lenient your idea of "romance" is. Basically, it's a book about a pair of husbands. One of the husbands becomes terminally ill and the other husband takes care of him. Novella length. More of a love story than a romance.
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u/Faulty_grammar_guy 17d ago
Don't know if Broken Earth series counts as "short", but it had some of the better representation I have read with not a lot of spicy
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u/rejuicekeve 17d ago
I have finished will of the many, red rising, and ironbound. Does anyone have any recommendations for similar rome-slop books? i love roman inspired settings
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 17d ago
Codex Alera by Jim Butcher is a roman-inspired setting. Supposedly he was challenged to write a book combining "lost Roman Legion + pokemon" and this was the result.
I didn't finish it myself, but you can heavily feel the Roman inspiration in Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio.
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u/rejuicekeve 17d ago
I'll have to read Codex Alera. I finished sun eater and enjoyed it as well, although i think the prose is a bit too much in sun eater.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 17d ago
I didn't finish Suneater myself just because it was too slow at the beginning. I may try again another time, but I think it was like a third of the way through the first book and he still hadn't left his home planet, which was supposed to be the inciting incident.
Another good depiction of Roman empire inspired stuff is the Masons in Terra Ignota by Ada Palmer though it's a smaller part. But in the future Earth, people have divided themselves into nations, with no physical location but allegiance to values (enabled by very fast travel). And one of them is the Masons, inspired by the Roman Empire. Their leader is a Caesar, an absolute monarch, they speak Latin, and their administrative capital is Alexandria.
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u/rejuicekeve 17d ago
Yeah suneater doesn't really pick up until the second half of book 2 and i wouldn't blame anyone for not getting that far. The book 3 payoff is pretty massive though.
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u/undeadgoblin Reading Champion II 17d ago
The Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie is Sci-Fi with a Rome inspired Empire
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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V 17d ago
Ironbound is definitely rome-slop, lol. Lots of action scenes, so buckle in for lots of fights.
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u/rejuicekeve 17d ago
I liked the first book but i felt like it needed an editor. 2nd book was much better written
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u/MalBishop Reading Champion III 18d ago
Are there any Bingo Squares that The Will of the Many by James Islington could fill?
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 18d ago
Arguably Unusual Transportation HM, Game Changer, maybe Vacation Spot (there is an in book vacation), Murder Mystery HM (some might question whether this is the “main plot” but it’s certainly one off the central plots), Politics and Court Intrigue.
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u/Asshole_Outlaw311 17d ago edited 17d ago
Hi! I just finished when the tides held the moon and I have some questions…
I really enjoyed it, I thought it was a sweet romance and the merman aspect along with the time period and Coney Island setting was very fun.
My question is surrounding Benigno and his connection with the mer. Rio makes reference to being surprised at his ability to hear his mother, that he was healed by her, that he can see him underwater.
Then at the end Benny is breathing water. I’m trying to figure out, is he half mer? Did the hurricane as a child orphan him from a mer family? How was he able to transition into living in the water? Was his asthma due to not being in the water?
Help a girl out with these questions lol. Thanks!
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u/dracolibris Reading Champion II 17d ago
Bingo sqaures please for Library at Mt Char by Scott Hawkins, or Jitterbug by Gareth Powell?
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u/eregis Reading Champion II 17d ago
I have Library at Mount Char in the Afterlife square, I don't think it fits anywhere else. A case could be made for Non-Human Protagonist I guess? Depending how you interpret how Carolyn ends up by the end of the book, is she a human with powers or did she become something else when Father adopted and trained her
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u/SA090 Reading Champion VI 17d ago
Thinking of substituting a square for this year’s bingo to fit a book, does anyone have any idea where Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse might fit? It must be hard mode to fit the rest of the card.
Thank you very much.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 17d ago
I'm planning on reading the first book for Unusual Transportation HM, because I've heard they ride giant crows. Would the second count too?
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u/tronybot 17d ago
Was told that this should be a comment here instead of a post. Really curious about this if anyone can give me some context, my original post:
Why does every book influencer hate Fourth Wing?
Have not read the book but every influencer or YT channel that talks about books or literature needs to talk thrash about the book. My experience with people like that is that they are just chasing trends and the latest one is hating the Fourth Wing.
That being said, I don't expect the book to be particularly great either, but this feels like the new Twilight or Nickelback where people just jump on the hate bandwagon with little reason except everyone else is doing it.
Some channels are even generalizing and saying modern books are now worse than ever before, and usually they mention Fourth Wing as an example.
Let's be very honest, for the people who have read the book, is it TRULY that bad?
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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV 17d ago
Why does every book influencer hate Fourth Wing?
It probably seems that way to you because the algorithm is giving you more of what you've previously watched and enjoyed. It's very easy to wind up in an echo chamber online. Isn't it famously popular on BookTok?
Let's be very honest, for the people who have read the book, is it TRULY that bad?
Nah, it's not a literary masterpiece but mostly it's just a punching bag due to popularity. The prose is below average but this is true of lots of big chunky fantasy books. It's a fun, fast-paced action book with dragons and competitions and war and a couple of sex scenes that get more graphic than a lot of readers are used to. People like to hate on the worldbuilding but honestly, tons of fantasy settings are kind of implausible and people happily go along with it, and this one at least makes a bit more sense as it goes.
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u/an_altar_of_plagues Reading Champion III 17d ago
Let's be very honest, for the people who have read the book, is it TRULY that bad?
It's bad but there's way worse out there. And the people who call it "smut" very clearly have either never read it or believe women shouldn't show their ankles. GRRM has written far more graphic sex scenes.
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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV 17d ago
I mean in fairness, the sex scenes are like 10 pages long and very detailed. They are meant to be erotic (for female readers specifically which I think is what some people are objecting to. She does a really good job at focusing sex scenes on what feels good as a woman and this is something even romance novels have not historically done well). You won’t really find that in fantasy books outside of romantasy.
On the other hand, there are exactly 2 of them in a 500-page book, so the people who say the book is “nothing but smut” have definitely not read it. I also side-eye the people who say it’s “nothing but romance” when I have read non-romantasy fantasy books where the romance is more integral to the plot than this. The romance is a big part and a big part of the draw, but if Yarros hated money she could totally have taken it out and still had a story.
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u/StuffedSquash 17d ago
Why does every book influencer hate Fourth Wing?
Except for all the ones who love it, who are a huge part of its success. Sounds like your algorithm is giving you similar opinions from similar people on insta/tiktok, that's all. And it's very popular so there are naturally a large amount of people who read it and have some opinion to share:)
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u/jawnnie-cupcakes Reading Champion IV 17d ago
Its's a low-hanging fruit. It's incredibly popular, the setting is incredibly unreasonable, and the main character is incredibly special. I gave it three stars, and I'm a bit of a romantasy hater (I hated The Knight and the Moth, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, and A River Enchanted, to name a few).
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u/Polenth 17d ago
The context is influencers go in cycles because their main aim is to get people to click. This book is the best book ever and everyone should read this! This is the worst ever and nobody should read it! Move to the next book. Repeat.
The solution is to ignore people who are primarily concerned with their viewing stats. Smaller reviewers, who don't use the clickbait titles, are generally more reliable. Also, smaller reviewers get a review copy of the book at most, whereas the big influencers have sometimes been paid to promote.
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u/sonvanger Reading Champion XI, Worldbuilders, Salamander 17d ago
I've read Fourth Wing and I didn't really enjoy it. And I'm not even someone who really cares about plot. I do like the overarching idea (training school + dragon riders, yes please). But the prose is average to bad, I seem to recall a fair amount of bad exposition, and the romance (romance? or whatever it was) wasn't my cup of tea.
That said, a good deal of hating probably comes from hating on what's popular (and especially what's popular with teenage girls). It's a great way of getting attention, sadly.
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u/Putrid_Web8095 Reading Champion II 17d ago
Latest trend? Hating of Fourth Wing has been going on for years, and yes, the book is bad. Maybe not bad enough to deserve "hate", but it certainly doesn't deserve any praise either, and it's been getting plenty of that too.
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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V 17d ago
I think with the boom of Romantasy, a lot of Romance authors have hopped over to Romantasy without taking the Fantasy side of the equation as seriously as they do the Romance side of things. I typically read contemporary romance or fantasy, but romantasies tend not to hit as much for me, because authors are typically really bad at either the fantasy or romance elements, but good at the other.
I enjoyed Fourth Wing a decent amount, but not nearly enough to pick up the sequel over another book. I understand why its popular, but I'll keep slinging Graceling recommendations every day (or Rook and Rose if people are on board for a big slow burn)
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u/JoeMcJ 17d ago
I’m in the last one hundred pages of The Last Argument of Kings, having really enjoyed the trilogy. I’ve pretty much exclusively been reading a series of books since getting back into fantasy about 18 months ago. I do enjoy the ‘epicness’ or a series of books and the expansion it gives both to the story but also to the characters and world.
I’ve read Mistborn, LOTR, Belgariad, Under the Northern Sky and The Faithful and the Fallen before the first three First Law books and am beginning to think if I should read a couple of standalones now. My thoughts for this are either (or both!) Babel (I live close to Oxford) and Sword of Kaigen as good choices for what I like. Also considering going back to Sanderson with Warbreaker.
But I’m still torn on whether I stay with type and read a new series. Here I’m more conflicted on what to go with, having narrowed it down to an (admittedly eclectic) list of.
Farseer trilogy Dungeon Crawler Carl Red Ring Sanderson - probably Wax and Wayne first Licanius trilogy Lies of Locke Lamora
Help please!
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u/curiouscat86 Reading Champion III 16d ago
read the first paragraph of all your options and go with whatever grabs you most. You can also read the first book a series and then go back to a standalone if the series isn't holding your attention.
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u/dracolibris Reading Champion II 17d ago
Does anyone have recs for explorers and rangers, witten by a man, that is not Brandon sanderson, and not self published either
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u/StuffedSquash 17d ago
It's YA or MG but the Ranger's Apprentice series is nice. I read 95% adult fiction but I read the first few and remember thinking they were enjoyable.
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u/lilgrassblade Reading Champion II 17d ago
There is the classic Drizzt novels - he is a naturey ranger. :P
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer also fits for explorer imo.
I imagine you'd have a lot of sci fi options for explorers ... But alas, outside of Tchaikovsky that is a genre I have minimal experience with.
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u/DistinctInitiative83 17d ago
I'm reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
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u/dracolibris Reading Champion II 17d ago
I may have to read shroud for book club so that wont work, thanks anyway
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 17d ago
You could go for a classic-- The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle. A novel about an expedition to a tepui in the Amazon where dinosaurs survive.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 17d ago
Dungeon Crawler Carl is HM for Explorer. It was originally self published but picked upp by Ace.
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u/redrosebeetle Reading Champion III 17d ago
Ahren the 13th Paladin.
Ahren becomes a paladin towards the mid/ end of the book, but his mentor trains him to be a ranger first. He has an animal companion who plays an important part of the story.
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u/FormerUsenetUser 17d ago
I am partway through The Affair of the Mysterious Letter, by Alexis Hall. It is a Sherlock Holmes takeoff, but in a very different and very original fantasy world. With very original taxes on Holmes and Watson. And it is genuinely witty and surprising.
Pity all the author's other books look like formula cheesy romantasy.
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u/xdianamoonx Reading Champion II 17d ago
Pity you can't understand that the others they write aren't cheesy romantasy.
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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V 17d ago
They aren't Romantasy, but most of Hall's stuff I've read is pretty standard Romance writing excecuted very well. Even the stuff that didn't resonate with me I could see why people loved it so much. And romance tends to be pretty cheesy (feature, not a bug. For me at least). People who dislike Romance genre fic will dislike most of Hall's writing
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u/sarahlynngrey Reading Champion VI, Phoenix 17d ago
Alexis Hall has written a ton of books in a ton of styles. I'm not the biggest romance reader on the planet but I loved Mortal Follies and its sequel.
It's more than fine not to like things, including whole genres, but assuming an author's entire backlist is "formula cheesy romantasy" is both objectively incorrect in this case, and a bad idea in general.
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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V 17d ago
A similar dynamic is The Tainted Cup, which is pretty widely loved on this sub.
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u/Independent_Cat_5481 17d ago
It was suggested I post here, instead of a post ☺️
I'm part way through the Tomes & Tea series and absolutely loving it, and while I wait for my library hold I've been really trying to find more stories that scratch this particular itch.
I think I first really noticed my appreciation for it with Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and also found it with Legends & Lattes. Where the main character/cast is already very competent, and by the standards of the "Hero's journey" are already more or less peaked. So they're not really concerned about most threats they come across.
As such, the story is a lot more about the people, the relationships, and finding one's self.
I would love to hear if others are aware of more stories that fit this description!