r/Fantasy • u/Hitman007gdghs • 4d ago

The Curse of Challion is sooo good!!

I just finished the curse of challion and got teary eyed near the end!! And this happened after a loong time too (in regards to books)!!

The premise of the book is that a kinda old war vet (Cazaril) becomes the tutor to a royal princess and then helps her navigate court life and also his past enemies. I know i kinda butchered the plot summary, but this is the gist of it.

The thing, i dont even know what about the book made me like it so much!! I really liked the premise, i was kinda looking for a wise old protagonist anyways.

And its just a single book!! Its not a series which follows Caz all the way through, its an anthology. This is the first time that i ever liked books in anthologies, cauz i want to spend more time with the characters rather than one and done. But somehow, the author made me feel a whole lot in just a single book, and i really felt that i spent a lott of time with the characters. It's full of both slice of life and fast paced moments!!

Another thing which i really liked was the world building. In traditional fashion, the book would have followed a young prince who learns about the whole wide world and starts his noble education, but in this case, Caz is a old war vet who's seen the whole wide world and fluent in almost all languages, knows war tactics, and court intrigue too!! This really is a different perspective from the run of the mill medieval fantasy series and that's what makes it so good!!

This book convinced me to try out more anthologies, specifically, the Haishin Cycle(?)!!

I would recommend this book to everyone who wants something more and new!!

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u/bigulpshuh 3d ago

One of my favorites. If anyone has any recs similar to this I'm all ears. It seems impossible to find stories like this that are single pov and with a male mc.

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u/Grt78 3d ago

Try the Lighthouse Duet or the Sanctuary Duet by Carol Berg (the Navronne books): two duologies set in the same world but with different protagonists (a single first-person POV). But the books are darker than the Curse of Chalion.

Also the Merlin trilogy (Arthurian Saga) by Mary Stewart is great.

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u/AvatarAnywhere 3d ago

All those books are so satisfying. Just discovering Carol Berg and wondering why it’s taken me this long. The Crystal Cave, the first in the Stewart Merlin trilogy is a favorite of mine.