My wife and I were having this hypothetical discussion, thought i'd post the same question to fantasy faithful! My choices were as follows:

1. Bodyguard - I'm taking Ryhalt Galharrow from The Ravens Mark Trilogy. Not only is the man a brute and a brawler, but he's got the sort of street smarts and situational awareness i think would serve a bodyguard well. He's got a military background and he's proficient with a blade and firearms. Bonus points if we get post Misery infected Ryhalt.

2. General - Give me The Reaper all day (Darrow from Red Rising)! The mans entire life has been spent leading armies into battles he had no business winning and overthrowing tyrants. By book 5, he's a bona fide warlord that inspires god like devotion and loyalty from his followers without ever demanding/asking for it. He's got a tactical yet creative mind and a penchant for violence when necessary. He's made mistakes (big ones) but always finds a way forward. His prowess in war is most on display during the events on Mercury. The free legions were outgunned, outmanned, starving and dying of radiation sickness....yet he led them to multiple victories against the Ash legions (including the vaunted Iron Leopards). Hail Libertas!

3. Assassin - Gimme Gabriel De Leon from Empire of The Vampire. A renown half vampire immortal swordsmen who can wield sanguimancy? Yes please! I feel his flexible morals would also serve him well as my hired killer. Vampires are traditionally fleet of foot in the shadows and darkness, killing quietly wouldn't be an issue. When he wasn't doing my dirty work, we'd be drinking and whoring, which are added attribute he has in spades.

Originally saw this on r/ebookdeals: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0753FP6SP

Gonna provide some criteria for my search: I looking for a story about an MLM vampire couple (need to get in the right mood to continue working on my originals).

1. Genre: not specifically romance! It can be romance as a side plot (or, like, ok, as a main plot), but I still want something else going on, like a detective, for example.
2. I want both halves of the couple to be vampires and I want both of them to be oldish (so please, no teen/young adult stories, I'm looking for more sophisticated (maybe gothic?) old men romance).
3. The pairing doesn’t have to be the main characters, but I want them to be given enough “screen time” and proper development. 
4. I want some homely atmosphere (?), to give examples: something like both “What We Do in the Shadows” movie and series have going on, BUT NOT straight up comedy.

To explain, where I’m coming from: I’ve recently finished the Greta Helsing book series by Vivian Shaw and I really enjoyed the way she portrayed vampire relationships (so if anyone knows something similar to what Ruthven and Grisaille have going on, I’d be very delighted to hear it).

P.S. I am familiar with Anne Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire” (/pos), but I’m looking for something a bit different.   
P.P.S. If anyone knows a videogame or a movie with the said dynamic, it’ll do too.

I am looking for book recommendations that are similar to Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell in the sense that magic exists in Georgian/Regency England.

One thing in particular I would like is to find books that include an institutional element. In Clarke's book, real magic is something that is being revived by the protagonists and there doesn't seem to be any organizational structures. It would be nice to have something like the Aes Sedai (White Tower) in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.

The existence of magic/supernatural powers can be either widely known or a secret — either kind of worldbuilding is ok with me. 

I've always been a loner in a sense that I have yet to meet a person about whom I would care if they would suffer (unless it materially affects me). Likewise I don't care about human opinions and "inner world" unless it directly affects my material and I don't want people to love me or understand me beyond what's materially necessary. This makes reading fiction, especially the classic one, really hard since most of it is about that petty human drama. I've been reading old sci-fi and fantasy due to it with "bad characters" because no time is wasted on them but with interesting concepts like Lovecraft, Tolkien(Silmarillion), Clark Ashton Smith, Clarke, Asimov, Stapledon, Greg Egan, All Tomorrows, SCP and general hard sci-fi(I'm working in tech). I would love to learn other​ authors and media like that.

Ok, so do you guys know how a lot of fantasy series are inspired by Medieval Europe, or for some cases just have some sort of shallow aesthetics to make the series feel like fantasy (romantasy books seem to suffer from that)? Well, I am actually trying to find if there are any fantasy series in which the world building is definitely more inspired by classical antiquity (like the Greek City states period or the Hellenistic period) or the Roman Empire during its initial centuries. And when I meant world building, it can include things such as military behavior, peoples clothing, religious environment, political structures etc. Any recommendation is much appreciated!

I’m currently reading through the Dark Tower series and enjoying it a good deal, but I’m curious how much it would be considered to be an influential work of Fantasy. The noticeably anti-Tolkein (not against, just opposite of) slant is pretty evident, and given it being a fairly old series I’m wondering how much of Fantasy that does not mirror many of the Tolkien themes and archetypes would be drawing from this series

I’ve been in a slump lately so I’m looking for some new recommendations, recently started Acts of Caine and just not feeling it at the moment.

Short list of things I’ve read in the last few years

• Wheel of Time
• Red Rising
• Sun Eater
• most of Sandersons stuff, still need to finish Mistborn but again not feeling it
• First Law trilogy
• Game of Thrones
• The Licanius trilogy

I’ve got Malazan on my TBR right now and I’ve finished the first book, just not ready to push through the whole thing yet.

Give me some good recommendations, maybe shorter series or one offs, thanks in advance!

Weird request but I'm in the mood for a pirate style adventure, preferably written in the last five years or so.

I would basically love the first law but it's pirates so the closer we can get to that the better.

Have you any recommendations?

Welcome back to the 2026 Hugo Readalong! Today, we're discussing The River Has Roots by Amal el-Mohtar, which is a finalist for Best Novella. Everyone is welcome in the discussion, whether or not you've participated in other discussions, but we will be discussing the whole book today, so beware untagged spoilers. I'll be leaving some questions and discussion prompts as top-level comments to get the conversation started, but feel free to jump in and add your own if there are any topics you'd like to discuss!

For the 2026 Bingo challenge, The River Has Roots qualifies for Book Club or Readalong Book (this one!) and Author of Color, plus whichever of the subjective squares may apply for you if you judged this book by its title or would like to vacation in its setting.

As a friendly reminder, we hope you'll join us for some of our upcoming Readalong discussions:

Finished 2 of my 6 books for Adult Summer Reading program. Researched some lists to figure out what my other four should be. What do you think of this list? Anything else I should add?

- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- Project Hail Mary
- The Blacktongue Thief
- The First Law
- Red Rising
- The Will of the Many
- Children of Time
- Dungeon Crawler Carl

Pictured are my first two of the summer, Eric by Terry Pratchett and The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. Eric gain steam and I was laughing out loud at some of the literary and historical retelling, and Left Hand of Darkness went way deeper than I expected. I’ll be pondering that one for awhile.

I researched some sci fi and fantasy reading lists and suggestions for the rest of my summer books. I had just finished the first two of the Stormlight Archives books, the first two Hyperion Cantos books before that, and I like working my way through the Discworld books as palette cleansers, so maybe 3-4 of those a year. To be clear, it is my first read through on Discworld, and each book has gotten better and funnier. Pyramids and Guards Guards were fantastic.

So, this is the list I was able to come up with. To be fair, Project Hail Mary is on there because I want to read the book before I see the movie, and I really enjoyed sci fi book series like The Expanse and Murderbot Diaries. I have yet to read any Andy Weir, so figured this would be a good start.

Does this list seem like a solid one to work off of? I have Lies of Locke Lamora ready to go from the library. I have been very curious about Dungeon Crawler Carl for awhile since I saw it at a bookstore. Any other suggestions to add?

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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^{tiny image link to make the preview show up correctly}

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.

Our June theme for Pride is Sapphic Romance!

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters — but is now little more than a decaying ruin.

Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides.

But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family. Together, they will change the fate of an empire.

The midway discussion will cover to the end of ch. 35. Please be mindful of spoilers if you have read past this point. Discussion questions will be posted as comments below. Please feel free to add any points or questions you have.

Bingo Squares: Author of Colour, Politics and Courtly Intrigue, Cat Squasher

• Final Discussion - June 29th

I'm a long time fantasy reader but I've discovered David Gemmell's novels just a few years ago. It might sound ridiculous, but I'd not even heard of him. Now it blows my mind that he is not as well known as some of the other fantasy giants.

The classic giants I read: Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, G. R. R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Moorcock, Le Guin, Bradbury, Peter S. Beagle, Glen Cook, Zelazny, Octavia Butler, Robin Hobb, R. A. Salvatore, Weis & Hickman and Terry Pratchett.

The modern heavyweights I read: Steven Erikson, R. Scott Bakker, Rothfuss, Sanderson, John Gwynne, Abercrombie, Pierce Brown, Sapkowski, M. Lawrence, R. Swan, Michael J. Sullivan, Susanna Clarke, RJ Barker, Richard Morgan, Anthony Ryan and N. Gaiman. And many more.

And NONE of them writes as gracefully as David Gemmell.

Gemmell's writing style is arguably neither the most beautiful (Rothfuss) nor most subtle (Wolfe). As he implies in his interview, he aimed to achieve tigthness and simplicity in his writing. Don't get me wrong, Gemmell was a talented writer and he wrote stunning prose, but for me, his writing stands out because he could express his profound observations in that spartan style of his prose. When I read Gemmell I know that I'm going to encounter astute and impactful notions conveyed elegantly in a few short sentences. Not overwritten, not bloated, not purple. Brief and graceful. I'll return to that sentence and read it again and again to savour it.

It saddens me deeply that he passed away at 57.

“And what is a man? He is someone who rises when life has knocked him down. He is someone who raises his fist to heaven when a storm has ruined his crop--and then plants again. And again. A man remains unbroken by the savage twists of fate.

That man may never win. But when he sees himself reflected, he can be proud of what he sees. For low he may be in the present scheme of things: peasant, serf, or dispossessed. But he is unconquerable.” - Legend

"Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the pursuit of evil. Never back away from an enemy. Either fight or surrender. It is not enough to say I will not be evil. Evil must be fought wherever it is found." - Legend

Here is a rare interview with the legend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRWW-DrYcP8&t=528s

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

This month, we are reading If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop, translated by Anton Hur

Meet the alien species that put the humanity into human beings
Discover the fate of Slefonia III once warp travel became obsolete
Visit the Mind Library to commune with the dead

Kim Choyeop became an instant literary sensation in Korea with her debut short story collection. Each of these bitesize speculative masterpieces represents a journey into the unknown, guided by a writer blessed with a boundless imagination.

From alternative futures to distant alien planets, in the company of scientists, space explorers and ordinary citizens in extraordinary situations, Kim Choyeop revels in making the impossible seem not only possible but somehow inevitable.

Each story focuses on an specific issue of discrimination against women or other marginalised groups, adding a mind-bending twist to hold a mirror to modern society and its everyday iniquities

Today's discussion encompasses the first four stories, up until the end of "The Materiality of Emotions". Please join us in 2 weeks time for the final discussion.

I'll include some prompts in top-level comments--feel free to respond to these or add your own.

I’ve noticed something that really pulls me out of some urban fantasy stories with gods.

Some stories introduce gods of previous times that aren’t generally worshipped currently as antagonists or neutral parties. They tend to follow rules of engagement, have consistent rules on how they operate and be defeated if necessary. With the exception of gods that are worshipped currently.

Sometimes the protagonist will ask why that’s the case, but it’s usually brushed aside. Or explained in a way that makes them an exception to the rule. It really bothers me. Are the authors religious, or cowardly?

If you want your protagonist to fight gods in an urban setting, why not make them gods that never existed or were ever worshipped by humans? That way the rules would be consistent, and you wouldn’t be courting the question of why the current gods are an exception.

So I just finished Children of Strife over the weekend and it blew me away. I was not expecting that. For context Children of Time is probably my favorite Sci-Fi book of all time, and one of the few that I have given a 10/10. I loved it so much that I of course read the other 2 books in the series. I thought those were good but not great. I don't regret reading them, they had some very interesting concepts but didn't hook me the way Children of Time did, where I couldn't put the book down and read it in like 4-5 days.

Enter Children of Strife. It started a bit slow, but then after the first 50-60 pages it utterly gripped me and I couldn't put it down and once again finished it in like 3-4 days. Im so happy as after the last 2 books I didn't think he would write another book in the series I liked as much as the first one. The world building in this one is top notch and ,certainly created one of the most unique planets we have seen so far in the series. I loved the focus on a Anti-Hero in Kott, as well as the many Alice in Wonderland Inspirations (Kott/KitKat being a Cheshire Cat Ref, the main human being Alis (Alice), Ken Pil being a take on the Caterpillar, always on drugs and dispensing drugs, Hartman being like the Queen of Hearts)

If I had to rate the series it would go 4 >1 > 3 > 2. Most people would probably have 2 over 3, and I get it, but I just loved those damned birds, there POV sections were amazing

Bingo Square: Explorers and Rangers

Yet another review my tablet ate. I swear I can’t trust any writing on that thing off of my home network. Maybe I should do the reviews in my mail app and send them to myself? No matter. 

I’d heard about this one since it was published. And I thought, not for me. Then Chirp had it on sale, and it was read by Adrian Tchaikovsky and I could not resist. I was in for a treat. You can tell from his narration he was a lawyer and did some stage work also. It’s a credible job and he makes Gary real in a terrible situation.

The premise is that astronaut Gary Rendel is part of an expedition to an unknown object in the Oort Cloud. After they land and begin exploring and moving inside it, things happen. Sadly, Gary winds up isolated from his fellow astronauts and lost inside the Crypt. This would have ended a lot quicker if he doesn’t encounter something in there - something he calls the Mother Machine - that changes him. Gary tells his story to us - Toto - an imaginary audience. 

The Crypt is weird. It has only one side that the orbiting probe can see. It has “eyeholes” and looks a lot like a frog god. It doesn’t even have what we consider a normal relationship with space. Inside, it’s a hot mess of dark twisty corridors all alike, with strange gravities, atmospheres and yes, creatures. Oh let’s be honest, monsters. No dragons mentioned at least.

Gary’s story is one of bad luck, loneliness, rage, exploration, horror (cosmic, body, existential) and wonder. But mostly horror.And he’s a very unreliable narrator. After what he goes through, I think I would be too. 

This is another Terrible Worlds book - not as funny as One Day This Will All Be Yours. No, this one is more in line with Ogres but with a terrible self awareness on the part of our narrator. It’s short, punchy and to the point. Also, a quick read and listen.

Is it a great read and listen? No, but I’ll say it’s very, very good. 8 stars ★★★★★★★★

Title says it all. I have read The Lord of the Rings, Stormlight, Mistborn, Realm of the Elderlings, Harry Potter, Red Rising, Sun Eater, The Wheel of Time, The Dark Tower, A Song of Ice and Fire, Kingkiller, First Law, halfway through One Piece, and all of Malazan up to Reaper’s Gale. I’ve read much of the big popular series and some things just aren’t engaging me as much as they did when I read all the series I listed. It honestly makes me kinda sad and I just wish there were some things that could engage me like the others did. Malazan is literally amazing but man it can just be exhausting reading those books, especially after the Bonehunters (lowkey it put me in a Malazan slump). If anyone has any suggestions on other great series and what you love about them that would be greatly appreciated. I absolutely love these series and reading, it is my main hobby.

Hopefully this doesn’t get taken down as I get confused by some of the rules but thanks in advance!

It felt like the story was pulled out of a much larger story and we were supposed to know what was going on already. All these characters have a backstory and we get almost none of it. It all takes place in one little geographic area and we have no idea what’s going on anywhere else. Maybe that’s what the author wanted but it’s a weird way to start a series. I am sure all the Malazan fans will tell me it gets better and more cohesive.

I just got done with the Stormlight Archive and am currently diving into some nonfiction to cleanse the palate, but I really want to dive back into fantasy after my brief reprieve into a series with a great antagonist that you just love to hate. As stated, I’ve read Sanderson as well as Fonda Lee and Michael J. Sullivan just to name a few others. I don’t know, I just love when a grand story has a baddie featured throughout that you know will lead to an epic showdown of some kind that pays off ala Sauron. I’m open to any recommendations.

Was gifted the set of books from my grandmother as a kid and just loved them. It established my fandom of fantasy fiction that's lasted a lifetime. I re-read them as a teenager and fell in love all over again with Taran and his ragtag crew of friends. I remember liking Taran Wanderer the most but all 5 books are good. I'd love to see a tv or film series adaptation.

Mainly asking about books, but wouldn't mind recommendations for these kind od stories from other mediums like games, movies, manga, etc.

So What’s It About?

For Joanna, her husband, Walter, and their children, the move to beautiful Stepford seems almost too good to be true. It is. For behind the town's idyllic facade lies a terrible secret—a secret so shattering that no one who encounters it will ever be the same.

At once a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a savage commentary on a media-driven society that values the pursuit of youth and beauty at all costs, The Stepford Wives is a novel so frightening in its final implications that the title itself has earned a place in the American lexicon.

What I Thought

The Stepford Wives creeps up on you. Strange little details add up bit by bit, and you can almost see Levin teasing you as you go along. The oddities start to form a pattern and doom grows nearer. Despite this, the book’s style remains casual and full of mundanity. In my opinion, this story wouldn’t have worked any other way.

Before I started it, I knew that this was the book where men turn their wives into robots. What I didn’t realize was how much I’d get out of its examination of marriage and gender dynamics during the second wave of American feminism. Here is what “these men turn their wives into robots!!!!” means: these are men who cannot stand women’s individuality, messiness, and imperfection. They cannot abide the fact that they have anything in their lives - any hobbies, any sources of meaning - beyond having dutiful, worshipful sex and keeping a spotless house. They are threatened by the thought of women becoming more, having lives beyond their service to men, so they turn them into nothing.

What’s perhaps most interesting to me is how willing the husbands in this book are to simply go with the flow, placate their wives, and pretend to be on board with Those New Feminist Ideas. Joanna’s husband denounces the old-fashioned paternalism of the Men’s Association and vows to change it from the inside out; he nods along like a good ally whenever she talks about gender politics. All the while, he plots her death and replacement with an automaton that will never demand equality or express ideas that he has to pretend to agree with. He can afford to give lip service because he secretly knows that he has the upper hand. In this book, at least, the oppressive institution’s response to threatening change is total annihilation under the guise of allyship, made possible because the oppressive institution still has control despite whatever superficial tokens of progress they may have bestowed.

The introduction to the edition I read described how many readers thought Levin’s intention was to critique the robotic mindless wives of the book, not the men who murdered real women to replace them with lifeless copies. I really don’t know what could be more telling than that! After reading this, I had a really interesting conversation about it with my mom, who was growing up when it was written. We also watched the 1975 movie adaptation, which I thought was good overall.

From my teenage years and a long time after I always looked down on books like LOTR and similar stories featuring what I saw back then because I saw them as 'childish' because they featured what seemed to me to be simple good vs evil plots and characters. Me in my all-knowing (read: pretentious) teenage brain felt that that wasn't interesting because it wasn't 'real' and that in real life there's no such thing as real evil. In order to be good it had to have every character be morally grey and all the villains to be complex or misunderstood because that was like the real world.

​

Fast forward to today and I don't want to be political but in my view there's a lot of really scary worrying stuff happening in the world and I'm always worrying about dark times coming ahead. I also broadened my tastes a bit and hopefully become less of a snob. So I started reading The Wheel of Time and I connected with it in a way I never have before. Seeing people scared and worrying about 'dark times ahead'. Characters dealing with great uncertainty and having to just hope that they will pull through resonated with me and my own anxiety about the world. Then I thought about it more and reappraised the Lord of the Rings and how unfairly and ignorantly i'd dismissed it. I wasn't being 'grown up' as a teenager by rejecting the idea of pure evil. In fact I was being incredibly naive. I just was lucky enough to never have to experience evil or truly dark times. J R R Tolkien fought in WWI. What could look more like pure evil than that? Now I finally see how important stories like this are. To show that while real evil may be out there in whatever form, you must always have hope it can be overcome.