With the release of a new translated volume in the Condor Heroes series - A Love Illicit: Return of the Condor Heroes Volume 2 on 17 November. I thought it would be a good opportunity to find new fans who would be interested to this gem of Chinese literature: wuxia stories.

In China, wuxia is very influentional genre and literary tradition with deep cultural roots. Jin Yong is often referred to as the Tolkien of the East.

Wuxia takes us into the world of jianghu a world of martial artists, wandering heroes, rival schools and sects, personal codes of honour, and philosophical conflicts. It explores what it means to be a hero, what justice really is, and where personal morality stands in relation to the rules of society.

Wuxia can be seen as one of the precursors to modern progression fantasy and several other fantasy subgenres. But what makes it particularly fascinating is how martial arts and personal development intertwine with Chinese culture, traditions, philosophy, and history. It based in Three Teachings - Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. It's so much deeper peo than people fighting with swords. Unlike high-fantasy genres, wuxia is typically grounded in historical or pre-modern Chinese dynasties, with fantasy limited to martial arts prowess. So you get politics, power struggle, epic fights, travelling, adventures and heroes are driven by a strict moral code of honor, loyalty and justice. Every time I personally read any wuxia story they gave me sense of freedom, free spirit characters living according to their law and rules.

Western fantasy has J.R. Tolkien, but we Asian fantasy authors have Jin Yong's stories in our DNA. The debt we owe him is immeasurable" - Shelley Parker-Chan

"if you haven't read Jin Yong's work, you haven't fully experienced fantasy genre" - Fonda Lee

For anyone interested in exploring the genre, here are some of mine recommendations:

Wuxia:

- Condor trilogy by Jin Yong and Return of the Condor heroes

- The Eleventh Son by Gu Long - A classic wuxia novel by one of the genre's most influential authors compare to Jin Yong he is less idealistic and his stories often focus less on traditional heroic ideals and more on flawed individuals, moral ambiguity and the darker side of the jianghu.

- Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain by Jin Yong – shorter less epic novel centric around one epic duel

- Thousand Autumns by Meng Xi Shi – One of the newest modern author, every sect represent Three Teachings - Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. set during China's Northern and Southern Dynasties period. It focuses on a protagonist who, after being betrayed by his own sect, has lived a secluded life, determined not to involve his sect in political struggles or power games. However, circumstances force him to confront his own shortcomings and step into a world of political intrigue, power struggles, and competing martial arts factions. It is mostly translated because it also features a love story between two powerful sect leaders, but don't expect an explicit or sweeping romance. It stays very much within the tradition of classical wuxia. At its heart, the story is about two people with fundamentally opposing views of human nature, morality, and what it means to be good. Their worldviews are almost complete opposites, and throughout the novel, they constantly challenge each other's beliefs and assumptions. Through their relationship, the novel explores whether kindness is just product of favourable circumstances or a conscious choice and a form of strength, even in the face of betrayal and suffering, Dostovesky character study in wuxia setting. It examines these opposing philosophies without trying to see one as right or wrong.

The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu – This on eis not traditional but a wuxia-inspired that blends Chinese martial arts traditions with Western fantasy. It turns the traditional Chosen One trope. A boy raised to be the prophesied hero destined to defeat an immortal god-king turns do not fullfill this expectations. When the prophecy falls apart, an unlikely group of characters must find their own way to save the kingdom. But has interesting wuxia elemenmts as an ageing martial arts grandmaster, political intrigue, magical martial arts and epic fight scenes.

Wuxia-inspired:

- this genre inspired so many popular stories in fantasy world like Poppy War by RF Kuang, Cradle, urban fantasy Jde City by Fonda Lee or even popular game Where Winds Meet, which is an epic open-world action- adventure RPG rooted in the rich legacy of Wuxia. Set during the turbulent era of tenth-century China.

I really hope this little introduction to one of my favourite genres finds some new fans! Whether you enjoy elegant martial arts fights, character progression, historical fiction, political intrigue, complicated love stories or stories about heroes and villains from a time when honour, loyalty, and personal codes mattered, I hope some of you will find something here worth reading.

Ven is a researcher into the period of time known as the Burning Age, a time of excess which led to climate collapse and the awakening of the kakuy, powerful spirits which devastated humanity. Civilisation has recovered, somewhat, thanks to the intervention of the Medj, priests who preach closer commune between humans and nature. The revolutionary Brotherhood, which is close to becoming the ruling power in the nation of Maze, rejects these notions, believing the kakuy are a myth and it is the goal of humanity to seize the riches it once possessed again...by any means. Lowly Ven finds himself unexpectedly thrust into the role of a key advisor in the Brotherhood, a witness to the most crucial moment in history since the Burning Age itself.

Notes from the Burning Age, originally published in 2021, is the twenty-third novel by prolific and acclaimed British genre author Catherine Webb, as well as the ninth under their preferred pen-name of Claire North, which they used for more interesting, literary and experimental standalone fiction. Under this name they published their best-known and biggest-selling novel, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, as well as The Sudden Appearance of Hope, The Pursuit of William Abbey and 84K. More recently they published their first space opera, Slow Gods, and this year's time travel story, As We Fall Through Time. The North novels exist at an intersection between mass-market appeal and niche, poetic thoughtfulness, and Notes is no different.

Notes from the Burning Age feels like a post-apocalyptic novel, with our age reduced to a rumoured historical epoch, but the book takes a more original tack by showing that quite a lot of knowledge from our time has survived. The Medj are keen to share that information and technology which can make humanity better - solar power, bicycles, electric vehicle engines, books - but are also withholding anything that could be destructive, such as internal combustion engines, nuclear weapons, high explosives, social media and genetic engineering. Of course, maintaining the dividing lines is hard, and only possible by imposing order through religion, with the carrot of peaceful technology and trade backed up by the stick of the kakuy returning to destroy humanity once and for all.

Our narrator, Ven Marzouki, was nearly killed in a forest fire as a child and, at key moment, thought he saw the kakuy of the forest. But as an adult he is not certain if he saw something real or experienced the trauma of a child faced with certain death. His uncertainties eventually drive him to the great city of Vien, capital of Maze, where he witnesses an uneasy revolution, as the sceptical Brotherhood seeks to raise the supremacy of the human spirit over what they see as superstition, if not an outright conspiracy to keep humanity in the dark ages. Ven's knowledge of ancient artifacts attracts the attention of Georg Mestri, ostensibly an advisor to the Brotherhood but Ven quickly realises he is the hidden power behind the throne. Mestri finds Ven's scepticism of the Brotherhood's motives and ambitions amusing, but Ven's ability to tease out secrets becomes invaluable and he ascends the ranks to become Georg's closest advisor.

The novel unfolds in several sections. The opening setup chapters establish this strange world, effectively a post-apocalyptic setting on the verge of transitioning into a utopia, until what feels like a rising oligarch class decide that the old world where a tiny minority held power and wealth and everyone else had to make do the best they could was actually a great idea. The middle sections depict Ven's life in the Brotherhood, and his reluctant fascination as the organisation has to face what should be a Herculean task - convincing the masses to hand over their power and decision-making to a tiny privileged minority - but finding it surprisingly easy with the media as willing accomplices. It doesn't help that the other nations of what is (fairly clearly) Europe seem baffled as to why one of their nation-states would decide to embrace authoritarianism with such gusto and are slow to react to it.

Lurking over all, of course, is the threat of the kakuy. Were they real? Are they a lie drummed up to keep humanity in check and stop it repeating the mistakes of the past? Or are they simply a metaphor for the very real, devastating consequences of humanity's rapaciousness, names given to natural-but-terrifying forest fires, landslides, glacier collapses and floods? The book teases at possible answers several times but much is left up to the reader.

North is one of the best prose stylists working in SFF today, especially at the more commercial end, and as usual the novel is a pleasure to read. Dialogue is strong, especially in the battles of wits and wills between Ven and Georg, though the characterisation of some of the other players can be a mixed bag. A substantial chunk of the book's narrative twists depend on the actions of Ven's childhood friend Yue, a character who has barely any page time and we have to keep hearing about her actions after the fact, or through reports. On one level this works as we are as in the dark about what's going on as Ven (as a first-person novel, this makes sense), on another it means a few too many unlikely coincidences and too many times that Ven's fat is pulled out of the fire rather than him saving himself.

This passiveness can be grating, but it makes sense. Ven researches, watches and analyses before drawing any conclusions over what action to take. His methodical approach is fascinating, before events spiral out of control and the story briefly becomes an action novel, with exciting car and bicycle chases, huge battles (mostly off-page) and clandestine fistfights on the snowy streets of European capitals. One of the pleasures of the novel is its constant wrong-footing of the reader with genre expectations, especially how what appears to be a post-apocalyptic dystopia turned political treatise tailored for the moment (though North shouldn't be blamed that 2026 feels closer to the novel's setting than even five years ago did) metamorphoses into a Cold War thriller, and a good one at that. Given how most of North's work can be slotted into different genres, this one book being a chameleon that twists between different forms is refreshingly different, and mostly successful, even if it makes the book harder to pin down.

Notes from the Burning Age (****) is unusually different from most of North's other books, freer to spin between different genres and moving between sombre character introspection, musings on climate collapse and technology misuse, and fun battles of wills between secret agents trying to slip across eastern European borders. The book feels like it briefly circles clunky modern metaphors before North decides those would be too on-the-nose and heads in other, more interesting directions. Not as immediately impactful as the likes of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, this is still a fascinating, highly readable novel, packing in a lot of interesting ideas explored with delicious prose skills. It's just not their best work.

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

——

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!

——

^{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.

(Spoilers included)

I just finished the City of Brass on my kindle, which I enjoyed and planned on continuing the series. At the end of the book they gave a preview to the following book (or so I thought) so I began reading. Within 5 pages, i realized my mistake. For some reason at the end of the City a Brass, Amazon put a preview for the third book, Empire of Gold, instead of the second book, Kingdom of Copper.

In those five pages you learn that Nahri and Ali were together (as in near each other not necessarily in a relationship), that Nahri’s mother had returned, and that Ali’s older brother was dead. All of which seem to be extremely important.

First, how badly was the second book spoiled for me, and is it still worth reading given what I know?

Two, has this happened to anyone else where Amazon just skipped an entry in a series in its preview at the end of a book?

Welcome back to A Readalong of Earthsea! This month we are reading Tales from Earthsea, a short story collection intended to fill in several gaps in the Earthsea Cycle. This Midway Discussion will cover the stories "The Finder" and Darkrose and Diamond." Our Final Discussion, covering the remaining stories, will be on November 30.

Five stories of Ursula K. Le Guin's world-renowned realm of Earthsea are collected in one volume. Featuring two classic stories, two original tales, and a brand-new novella, as well as new maps and a special essay on Earthsea's history, languages, literature, and magic.

I will be posting discussion questions below. Feel free to answer those questions or pose your own.

Tales from Earthsea counts for these r/Fantasy 2026 Bingo squares:

• r/Fantasy Book Club or Readalong Book (HM if you comment here!)

• 5 Short Stories (HM)

• Potentially the subjective squares (Judge a Book by its Title, Vacation Spot)

Let me know if I've missed any squares!

Reading Schedule at a glance

• Final - Nov 30 (crossover w/ Short Fiction Book Club)

Remaining series schedule

• December - The Other Wind (Midway: Chapters 1-3)

I just want to share my excitement. I am about to finish Mercy, it has been a joy, I loved every second of Imriel's story (except Dorelei because she was amazing but I can't enjoy the romance while the best girl is waiting home), but did I feel like Carey was breaking the 4th wall with the BDSM she inflicted upon me with those travel montage experiences (I cried when Phèdre appeared at Tarkov and I would do it again).

Ok, so.

I just finished The Dispossessed, and I am NOT smart enough to be able to truly understand all of the themes and through lines by myself. This might sound silly, but can someone explain it to me like a 5 yr old? I truly need a little help wrapping my head around it all.

Also, was Ursula an anarchist?? This book gave me, a brainwashed American, a whole different perspective on anarchism. If the Odonians had been able to build their society on Urras, would they have had an easier go of it??

Plus 1,000 other questions!

Looking for power fantasy books where the protagonist isn't necessarily nice, but also isn't an asshole. I don't want a protagonist who's a jerk for the sake of being a jerk, or who causes unnecessary harm just because they can. But I do want them to do what's necessary to succeed, and when it comes down to it, to grind their enemies into paste without mercy.

I'm pretty flexible on where they land on the hero-to-villain spectrum, I just want the cruelty-for-its-own-sake to be absent, not the ruthlessness itself.

Some examples of what I mean:

\- Jason Asano (He Who Fights With Monsters) — generally reasonable and doesn't go looking for trouble, but if you genuinely piss him off or it's necessary, he'll break the rules of reality to win.

\- Catherine Foundling and the Black Knight (A Practical Guide to Evil) — villain-coded, but not cruel for its own sake.

\- Straight-up villain protagonists like Darth Bane also work, as long as the cruelty has a point beyond itself.

I mostly read Fantasy, Urban Fantasy and Sci-Fi, in that order, but I'd be open to other genres. Bonus points if it has an audio version, I have less time to read than I'd like.

Any recommendations?

I really like this interview because it shares just how much she's enthusiastic about the character, unabashed in her love for paladins (I've read some of the Paladin books), and also how she consulted with the original author. I enjoyed the book tremendously but I had some criticisms about kind of sanding off Astarion's darker, nastier side. He's a character that means a lot to a lot of people for various reasons (particularly in its nuanced depiction of a male victim of abuse) that wasn't a perfect victim but the book is really...fun. Still, I loved it as I mentioned above.

This weekly self-promotion thread is the place for content creators to compete for our attention in the spirit of reckless capitalism. Tell us about your book/webcomic/podcast/blog/etc.

The rules:

• Top comments should only be from authors/bloggers/whatever who want to tell us about what they are offering. This is their place.

• Discussion of/questions about the books get free rein as sub-comments.

• You're stiIl not allowed to use link shorteners and the AutoMod will remove any link shortened comments until the links are fixed.

• If you are not the actual author, but are posting on their behalf (e.g., 'My father self-pubIished this awesome book,'), this is the place for you as well.

• If you found something great you think needs more exposure but you have no connection to the creator, this is not the place for you. Feel free to make your own thread, since that sort of post is the bread-and-butter of r/Fantasy.

More information on r/Fantasy's self-promotion policy can be found here.

Hi all,

Looking for an easy to follow but exciting audiobook to get in to. Usually audiobooks don’t work for me as I can’t follow plot intracicies and my mind tends to wander, however, I now have a tiny human that takes up most of my life so reading time is fighting with keeping the house liveable time.

For the sort of books I enjoy - LOTR, WOT, Malazan, jade trilogy, sword of Kaigen, cosmere, traitor son.. nothing too out of the ordinary for this sub!

I’ve started Cradle which my friend tells me would be perfect however I’m enjoying reading it in the small chunks I’m managing.

Thanks ahead of time!

Update - At the recommendation of many, I started The Blade Itself a little bit ago. Keep the recommendations coming, though. A good 'to read' list is a wonderful thing to have.

I've been looking for a new series to get sucked into, but I'm looking for something very specific. I want a bit of complexity without it reaching ASOIAF or Wheel of Time levels. Good world building. Mysterious elements that get solved as time goes on. Great characters that have depth. Here's some recent reads that I liked, and why. As well as ones I did not finish.

ACOTAR series - I love the characters and their interactions with each other. The world and it's history/mysteries are really cool, simple as they may be. Artifacts, powers, and romance are fun.

Kings of the wyld/Bloody Rose - Again, great characters and their interactions. Fast paced, with lots of action without sacrificing good character moments and world building. Easily my favorite books I've read in a very long time.

Throne of glass series DNF - Some great ideas ruined by terrible writing, inconsistent characters, and disappointing resolutions. I would love to find something like this, but actually good.

Blood Tainted Winter DNF - Way too fast-paced. Set piece, to set piece. No character development at all. Great action and setting, but all characters and relationships feel shallow, and at times baffling.

I’ve got kind of a specific rec-ask here. I’m looking to find more books featuring an ensemble group put together for some quest (preferrably they don’t know each other – less “group of grizzled vets,” more knight/werewolf/elf trying to work together).

I’m trying not to say Suicide Squad, but yeah basically Suicide Squad.

Better way to do this might be by example – here are some books that fit what I mean; you’ll see the theme here:

- Hyperion (might be my favorite book).
- The Sixth Nik (favorite book this year).
- The Devils (I didn’t actually love the Marvel-y register Abercrombie was writing in but it fits the criteria perfectly and I really enjoyed the plot).
- Black Leopard, Red Wolf (not as direct of a fit, but the quest for the boy fits – also might be my other favorite book).
- Hollow and Clockwork Boys (didn’t love these either but they fit).
- Atlas Six.
- Fantasy or sci-fi, I love both.
- Bonus points for a cool/unknown setting.

Fingers crossed there's one of these out there that YOU loved. Thanks all!

I’m looking for a fantasy book with a fairly classic premise: a character, or perhaps a small group of characters, sets out on a dangerous journey to rescue a woman or another person who’s been captured or is in desperate need of help.

I know the whole “knight rescuing a damsel in distress” trope is pretty old-fashioned, but I’m honestly in the mood for something along those lines. It doesn’t necessarily have to involve a knight or a damsel, though.

It doesn’t have to be a straightforward rescue mission from beginning to end, but I’d love for the rescue to be a central part of the story, rather than just a minor subplot.

Any recommendations?

This year, for Bingo, I suppose I decided I had to truly go all in on the Cat-squasher square. So I decided to read Ice by Jacek Dukaj ( tranlated by Ursula Phillips) and The Rouse by China Mieville. Each of these books is in it's own way a big, dense, undertaking, and not merely on pagecount. Each took me close to a month if not more to pick my way through. Neither necessarily ended up as my favorite book, but they've both reminded me of the joys of reading something a bit on the big and rambling and messy side.

I will be avoiding any major late game plot spoilers in discussing the two books, but to the extent that, being big weird books, there might be some premise related surprises that you get to in the first couple hundred pages, I am likely to mention those.

Ice

Bingo Squares: Cat Squasher (HM), Politics, Translated, Vacation Spot (if you like a winter landscape)

Ice is set in the early twentieth century, in a world where the Tunguska event, rather than simply being a big boom deep in Siberia, sent waves of cold into the world, freezing it both physically and metaphysically. The world wars don't happen, Russia doesn't fall, instead it's politics freeze in a strange stasis. Strange beings known as gleissen freeze their way through the world relentlessly, patches of eldritch cold that may or may not be alive. Weird physics abounds and creates new strangely strong materials. We follow a mathematician from Russian controlled Poland conscripted to travel to the depths of frozen Siberia and try to find his exiled father who seems somehow.

The novel roughly splits into three major parts. First, after a short introduction Benedykt Gierosławski (our protagonist)finds himself aboard the Trans-Siberian railway at the behest and on the dime of the Ministry of Winter. He becomes entangled in the claustrophobic politics and dramas of his fellow travellers, a grab bag of inventors, soldiers, nobles, and politicians who argue philosophy and strange physics. Here we meet Nikola Tesla, dispatched to harness the odd physics of this new world. The second embeds Benedykt in the politics and dramas of the Siberian capital of Irkutsk, here a world bound in frost at the heart of a fabulously profitable boom in materials production and export. This is perhaps the most stunning setting of the novel, strange materials and soaring buildings hold the wealthy while the rest of society lives in the strange cold, at the mercy of the random path of Gleissen freezing up through the floor. Finally, the novel spurts out into the actual cold wilderness as Benedykt finally seeks out his quest and then does many fun weird things with it.

At a premise level the novel mixes a rather straightforwardly science fictional alternate history with a maximalist character driven novel of ideas. However the formal level is also fascinating. Apparently in the original Polish the entire novel is written in both a somewhat outmoded grammar reminiscent of the time period and simultaneously employs a strange grammatical mode that avoids really having a subject. Thus, in translation, the novel uses a fascinating and at first frustrating grammar, many sentences phrased as almost imperatives, to elide the usual indications of what the subject is. This sounds more annoying or stilted than it actually is and while the novel's grammar always leaves one a bit on edge you do mostly ease into it (and it mostly refers to other characters besides Benedykt in normal ways). Similarly, the texture of terms used reflect both the interesting intermixture of Russian and Polish influences in both home and Siberia, and the strange new language of cold technology and materials.

A fascinatingly knotty novel full of big ideas, weird physics, weird philosophy, and stunningly strange scenes and settings.

The Rouse:

Bingo Squares: Published in 2026, Cat Squasher, The Afterlife, Politics.

China Mieville is back with his first solely authored piece of fiction in quite a while. I cut my teeth in r/fantasy writing a giant post about all his prior solely authored fiction, and I find myself pleased to be back with his writing, even if its very different from what it ever was before. I swear I'll read the Keanu book at some point guys.

This books starts with about 100 pages or so of what seems to be purely realist fiction following a young single mother in London, Maur as she raises her son Ewan, a troubled boy who then drifts away from her, joins the army, is involved in strange things and then she learns that he has died on bases in tragic circumstances.

Thus, about 100 pages in one is hit with EPILOGUE.

The epilogue is then 1100 or so pages to go. The rest of the novel flickers between the story of Maur in the present, trying to understand the death of her son and slowly being drawn into the plot of a very strange thriller, and the much earlier story of Steve Allardyce, a soldier in the British military in the middle of the twentieth century who finds himself recruited into a strange unit that deals with ... well ... what does one call them ... some sort of phenomenon or function that might be mapped a bit possibly onto the remnants of the life of soldiers and who we might call back to duty. So to speak. Yeah, ghost soldiers. More rightly, a whole weird ecology of maybe the afterlife the slips into the cracks of the world in weird and disturbing ways.

Formally, the novel is a fascinating beast. It is a pleasing physical object, making use of its immensity and its typography in the chilling moments. It often deploys blank space on the page in a way reminiscent of the most effective formal moments in something like House of Leaves.

If Maur's story seems to mostly focus on more immediate forms of grief, and the subsequent bewilderment and unknowability of even those closest to us in life, Allardyce's story is a more far reaching and rambling thing that reflects on how we might fit as pieces in a machine. Allardyce is a fascinating character insofar as he simultaneously doesn't really buy the bullshit he's fed from above about the good of the nation, but he puts this skepticism aside in its own compartment and simply continues to go on doing and serving. This paradox is remarked on my many around him, who seem baffled by the fact that he can be so intellectually curious and skeptical at the purely intellectual level but seems to have no issue completely divorcing it from his actions.

As someone who has read a bunch of Mieville, I want to make a few points. This novel continues a trend in the overall arch of Mieville's career that he has become less and less formally straightforward. He always had prose that was fun to read and engage with, and the situations described were deeply weird, but a lot of his early work is ultimately fairly straightforward genre fiction of one type or another in the kind of story it tells. He might make a very nice cake out of very weird ingredients but it was very recognizably a cake. Last Days of New Paris and This Census Taker arguably broke that mold, with more weird and ephemeral kinds of storytelling. On the other hand, it is I think pleasing in that there was in my mind a sense that his early works had a kind of maximalist throw-many-things-in-even-if-a-bit-much energy that was quite joyful and the restraint of his latter works left me a tiny bit cold. Here a maximalist return throws quite a lot in.

Thoughts on Both, Together, and the Nature of a True Cat-squasher

I deeply enjoyed both of these novels. And yet, I am unlikely to view either as precisely my favorite. Both do drag at points. There are long sections spent on drama that doesn't compel, or yet another iteration of a class of conversations or interactions or explorations that I wasn't feeling. I'd churn through a couple hundred pages in a week then only proceed by 50 the next...

And yet. I'm not sure I'd have it any other way. Maybe this is me being a doormat or refusing to criticize but for all that it can drag I do think one of the fundamental joys of these books was never quite knowing when or if they'd pack in another idea. When they'd let you absorb a character or setting via repetition. You'd get to sit with a character, see how they bang up against various iterations of various themes. You'd never quite know where you were in the rhythm of plot or narrative because the books don't match any of those standard pacing structures. You'd simply accept what was coming (or not, and slowly march through).

Poor cats. I had fun.

Hi!
I've loved dragons since I was a kid, they're the whole reason I got into fantasy, but have struggled with finding adult dragon books, especially since Fourth Wing got popular (and FYI: I tried reading it and could barely find anything I enjoyed unfortunately)

Here are some of my preferences (not must-haves):

* Dragon riders

* Animalistic/realistic dragons. Usually find these types of relationships between human and dragon more interesting than the "ancient mind reader" kind

* Less romance than story. I have no problem with there being romance in the book, it can even be a big part of it, but I usually don't like it overriding the plot

Some books I've read and enjoyed (general fantasy, not just dragons):

* A Game of Thrones (not super dragon-focused though)

* Natural History of Dragons (loved the way dragons are depicted)

* The Farseer Trilogy

* Red Rising-trilogy (current favourite series)

* Mistborn-Trilogy

Can't think of any more atm, but Honorable Mention of my favourite movie of all time How To Train Your Dragon :)

I've long been wanting to get into Patricia McKillip's work, since it seems universally beloved by those who've read it and I've heard consistent praise for the quality of her prose. I recently came across the full set of her Riddle-Master of Hed trilogy at a local bookstore and thought I would give it a go since I've heard there's no bad starting place with her work. Unfortunately, having now finished the second book, Heir of Sea and Fire, I'm feeling a bit let down and wondering if these aren't for me.

The prose is, indeed, beautiful and efficient but it's in service of a fairly rote and straightforward narrative. Besides that, the characterization is slight and I'm actually finding some of the dialogue to be rather stiff and clunky, which I was not at all expecting. It feels like there's just not a lot for me to sink my teeth into.

I made it through the second book after wanting to see where the twist ending of the first book was leading and I was intrigued by the POV change, but I found it to be another extended travelogue with some new lore and magic thrown in. I find my interest waning again and I don't feel like continuing to the end, even though these books are pretty short.

Anyone else have thoughts on these books? Did I just pick the wrong starting point for McKillip's bibliography? Any fans interested in elaborating if they feel I've missed something? Anyone else similarly underwhelmed by this trilogy?

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

——

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!

——

^{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.

I just finished Robert Jackson Bennett's A Trade of Blood, which I enjoyed very much. However, it was only on the strength of The Tainted Cup [which I thought was a fantastic book] that I gave A Trade of Blood a read as I found A Hint of Corruption to be unnecessarily convoluted and felt forced [I know a lot of folk really liked A Hint of Corruption, just how it left me].

Anyway, it got me thinking, which series did people come back to on the strength of the first book, after they felt second was a step down from the first, but they decided to give the series another chance?

EDIT: Looking at folks' responses [thank you all, BTW] a memory of M.K. Wren's 'Phoenix Legacy' - also jogs a memory for me here. I loved Sword of the Lamb, but SHadow of the Swan seemed somewhat of a step back, albeit House of the Wolf was excellent [does anyone other than me remember this series?]

BIG HYPE

Like the Time Turner in Harry Potter. Something like that.

This book lives up to its reputation. It’s a truly impressive sci-fi novel, but it makes the reader work for it.

Our protagonist is Mahit, the new ambassador from small independent Lsel Station to the great Teixcalaan Empire. She was summoned to Teixcalaan because the prior ambassador had died suddenly and somewhat mysteriously. Thanks to a bit of secret Stationer tech, Mahit has a copy of the late former ambassador’s memories in her head - but they’re years and years out of date. Upon arrival, she very quickly gets tangled in Imperial court politics, while trying to find out what happened to her predecessor and also protect her people’s independence.

As I said, this book makes the reader work for it. The Mesoamerican-inspired Teixcalaanli naming convention gives everyone a name that takes the form of [Number] [Noun] - examples include her aide Three Seagrass, the emperor Six Direction, and the emperor’s close advisor Nineteen Adze. As one might expect, this made it very difficult to keep everyone straight - though to be fair this might have been made easier if I’d realized there was a character list at the back of the book. (Aside: character lists should always go at the front) This aspect of the book was reminiscent of Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor: a newbie thrown into the thick of complex court politics where it’s very difficult to keep individuals and factions straight.

Despite the challenging learning curve, this was super intriguing. This mostly comes down to Mahit as the protagonist. She’s a delightfully complex individual: she brings a lifelong love of Teixcalaan language and culture to her new post, alongside a fierce loyalty to her station and pride in her people’s distinct culture. She’s committed to keeping Lsel Station independent while also longing to be Teixcalaan herself.

The book has lots of complicated twists and turns: what had her predecessor been up to, and who killed him? How did the ambassador of tiny Lsel Station become a confidant of the Emperor himself? Why are his implanted memories not working right for Mahit? Is Three Seagrass flirting? (That particular relationship is a very slow burn and I wanted to grab both of them by the scruff of the neck and shake them.)

The worldbuilding is a highlight. An well-imagined interstellar empire inspired by Mesoamerican cultures (and not focused on human sacrifice, for a change) is delightfully original. The language, the naming, and how much of the culture is built around poetry - I don’t really have the language to describe it (ironically) but it’s, again, delightful. And the integration of Mahit’s predecessors is carefully thought out and thoroughly explored - Arkady Martine manages to explore the concept in a single book about as deeply as Deep Space Nine did with Dax in seven seasons of television.

An excellent book is the bottom line, and I’m looking forward to the sequel. And will know to look for a character list before I dive in.

Bingo categories: Duology Part 1; Murder Mystery [Hard Mode]; Politics and Court Intrigue

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(Spoiler-free description)

Witch Wood, sometimes called John Buchan’s literary masterpiece and indeed the author’s personal favourite among his own works (though not his most popular) follows David Sempill, a Presbyterian minister from Edinburgh who has recently arrived in the Scottish village of Woodilee where he has been newly appointed as minister. The novel is set during the 17th Century - specifically the War of the Three Kingdoms - and this forms the narrative's backdrop and emphasising the overall sense tension and unease. This era and particular conflict is not one that I knew much about, so that already was a learning curve. A figure who is mentioned throughout is the Marquess of Montrose, who is feared as a scourge by the presbyterian villagers of Woodilee as he is on the side of Charles I and, in the villagers' eyes, the Papacy. Sempill, being a more moderate Presbyterian, sympathises more with Montrose’s cause and associates himself with a fugitive who follows the marquess’s creed, putting him in contention with the villagers.

An additional challenge presented by this novel is Buchan’s heavy but authentic use of Scots dialect in the dialogue of the Woodilee residents. Very few words of this I knew, and what I do know I owe largely to that which survives today (e.g. ‘bairn’). Some editions come with a glossary, and beyond that I could mostly discern it from context or speaking the dialogue out loud.

At the heart of this narrative lies the ‘black wood’ called Melanudrigill, a remnant of the vast Caledonian forest that is steeped in ancient folklore. The wood is a constant, looming presence that challenges Sempill’s peace of mind. It is in this wood where he stumbles upon a satanic ritual and from there Sempill makes it his mission to root these blasphemous worshippers out of Woodilee and soon finds that the people around him may not be as cooperative as he’d hoped. Factions form, and once the plague reaches the village, the residents look for a scapegoat for their misfortune, and Sempill - the newcomer seen keeping company with a young woman – is the obvious candidate.

The light application of the Gothic to the novel’s mood is particularly interesting; this novel was post-Ulysses yet reads like it came straight from the depths of the 19th Century. It has a distinctly Romanticist flair with its emphasis on the landscape, nature and lush prose. There are some scenes which are reminiscent of Tolkien, e.g. lilting maidens ethereally appearing in the woods.

This similarity to Robert Eggers' films is probably most evident in the novel’s authentic adherence to the period through its language, as well as its use of geography and landscape to convey and amplify the horror. Witch Wood is set during a similar period to Eggers’ The Witch, a film in which the characters speak in Early Modern English and the wood beyond their homestead being a supernatural presence that seems to actively taunt them into entering it.

If you like historically authentic folk horror inflected with the Gothic, perhaps give this a try. It is public domain in both the US and the UK but for whatever reason has not been uploaded to the main Project Gutenberg site, however it is available on the Australian version of the site.