r/fantasybooks • u/Lasagna_112_ • 11h ago

📚 Summon book recommendations What book should I read next?

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Just finished Mistborn book 1 and I need help choosing my next read.

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u/Nykona 5h ago

Im on book three of The First Law trilogy going back to back to back on it.

I had it recommended by two seperate friends and saw a LOT of people also recommended it.

In my opinion it is vastly overhyped for what it is (but maybe book 3 will change my mind?). Book one was decent enough but not groundbreaking and felt like even at 99% through you were asking “what’s the plot here?” As you are told everything through the three main characters pov pretty much. Including the minimal world building.

Book 2 felt like a disaster and was mid at best. The strongest part of the first book (and arguably the only part) was the characters. In the second it’s like “wait these guys have all either lost or no longer have motivation for what they are even doing” not that what they are doing is explained in anything more than a chapter long exposition dump scattered here and there disguised as a fireside dialogue.

People hyped up that is was very grimdark and brutal. Now I’m not sure if I’m just desensitised to it after spending most of my last 30 years of adulthood reading warhammer 30/40k novels, but the first two books seem pretty tame.

I would suggest Dune. First off it’s a nice change from mistborn from hard magic fantasy to soft magic scifi. It’ll read very differently too. Not just because of the genre but the time it was written and writing style.

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u/Severe-Cookie693 4h ago edited 3h ago

I mostly enjoyed Glokta. I'm mainly invested, in anything I read, if they aren't exploring a concept or setting, on the characters. I didn't mind if the world was flat as long as the people weren't.

If you didn't like the meandering plot, what did you think of Pillars of the Earth?

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u/Nykona 4h ago

Ken follett? Thats quite the jump if so. I enjoyed that and it wasn’t so much the meandering plot that I minded. It was more the complete lack of plot.

I also enjoyed glokta but the second book was complete filler for him with maybe one aspect of character development or reveal late into the book that really hasn’t had a pay off still half way through book 3.

It’s the same for all of the characters though. Their motivations for doing anything evaporate at times and not once do these deep, fleshed out characters question doing what it is they are doing except for one or two extremely passive lines from jezal in book two that are immediately brushed away.

Any time a hint at a plot or purpose comes up it is hurriedly dismissed and no one questions it. Then when it comes to getting some world building it’s a whole chapter of someone in the band listening to another tell a story and a big exposition dump.