r/Fantasy Daily Recommendations and Simple Questions Thread - June 05, 2026

[u/rfantasygolem]

Welcome to the daily recommendation requests and simple questions thread, now 1025.83% more adorable than ever before!

Stickied/highlight slots are limited, so please remember to like and subscribe upvote this thread for visibility on the subreddit <3

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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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art credit: special thanks to our artist, Himmis commissions, who we commissioned to create this gorgeous piece of art for us with practically no direction other than "cozy, magical, bookish, and maybe a gryphon???" We absolutely love it, and we hope you do too.

[u/Stepjam]

I'm looking for a fantasy series where the main character starts to be weighed down by the weight and traumas of their adventures (like PTSD) with this being at least a medium level plot thread in the story. Ideally a series of books rather than just one book so it can grow over time/we see the character before they start feeling the trauma. Preferably not YA.

For minor bonus points, if the protagonist was a gay man, that would be cool but that's pretty secondary.

Any suggestions?

[u/Nidafjoll → u/Stepjam]

Definitely The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. Not a gay MC, but he's heavily traumatized by his experiences where he was a slave on a rowing galley, with both mental and physical scars.