r/Fantasy

You know the movie, 300? It's one of my favorites. I want some books with that kind of ruthless, savage warrior vibes that you'd find could compare or inspire a movie like 300.

Hit me with your best recommendations!

Thanks in advance

Hello and welcome to The Magnus Archives readalong! We will be discussing a new batch of episodes every Wednesday. The episodes are available for free on any podcast platform and transcripts can be found here or here.

If you can’t remember something or are confused, please ask in the thread. Those of us re-reading will do our best to give a spoiler-free answer if we can.

156: Reflection #0090401

Statement of Adelard Dekker, taken from a letter to Gertrude Robinson dated 4th January 2009.

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157: Rotten Core #0131408

Statement of Adelard Dekker, regarding a potential pandemic originating in the town of Klanxbüll, Germany.

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158: Panopticon #0182509-A

Original recording of events leading up to the disappearances of Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Alice Tonner and Peter Lukas.

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159: The Last #0182509-B

Statement of Peter Lukas regarding his life, family and interactions with The Lonely.

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160: The Eye Opens #0181810

Vigilo, Audio, Supervenio

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Bonus content:

• Season 4 Q&A part 1 (transcript)
• Season 4 Q&A part 2 (transcript)
• Building the Panopticon - Making MAG 158 (transcript by u/improperly_paranoid)
• Blooper reel (transcript)

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And now, time for discussion! A few prompts will be posted as comments to get things started, but as usual, feel free to add your own questions, observations...anything!

Comments may contain spoilers up to episode 160. Anything concerning later events should be covered up with a spoiler tag.

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Next discussion will take place on May 27th and include episodes 161 Dwelling - 165 Revolutions.

For more information, please check out the Announcement and Schedule post.

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Readalong by: u/improperly_paranoid, u/sharadereads, u/Dianthaa, u/ullsi

I used to read and love quite a bit of fantasy/speculative fiction when I was younger. Some of my big childhood/teen favorites were Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, The Hunger Games, and Twilight. Now I’d like to come back to fantasy as an adult, but I’m still figuring out what kind of fantasy works for me now.

Recently I read Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy. I liked it and even though it actually made me cry a couple of times, something about the narration/writing style still felt oddly detached to me. I’m not entirely sure why.

I also read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, which I really liked, though maybe more as literary fiction than as fantasy. It didn’t quite give me the “returning to fantasy” feeling I was looking for, but I enjoyed the atmosphere, mythic Americana, road-trip structure, and weirdness.

Outside fantasy, some books/authors I’ve loved or rated highly include:

- Haruki Murakami — Kafka on the Shore, The Wind-Up Bird

- Chronicle, Killing Commendatore

- Donna Tartt — The Secret History, The Goldfinch

- Thomas Pynchon — The Crying of Lot 49, Inherent Vice

- Kurt Vonnegut — Slaughterhouse-Five, Welcome to the Monkey House

- John Williams — Stoner

I’m open to both classic/foundational fantasy and modern fantasy. I’d especially love recommendations that might help me figure out what kind of fantasy I actually like as an adult.

Edit: Thank you all so much for the thoughtful recommendations! I didn’t expect this many replies, so I probably won’t be able to respond to everyone individually, but I’m reading and saving them all. This has already given me a much better map of where to start.

Hi, I've tried to get into contact with CJ Cherryh but nothing has worked. She used to sell ebooks on her website Closed Circle, but the service shut down a few years ago due to outdated code. Some of the ebooks were unique and never published elsewhere, such as revised and rewritten versions of her Rusalka series. Does anyone have direct line to Cherryh? I really want to see this material preserved for posterity in Kindle and other stores with the rest of her works, as well as read it myself. I managed to buy the revised ebook of the first Rusalka book shortly before the service shut down, but not the rest. As I heard, the third book was almost completely rewritten! Thanks!

EDIT: I have also contacted her wife Jane Fancher about any ETA for getting the books on Kindle. No response either.

I just wanted something with similar feeling. Philosophers stone was the first book I ever read and I was also 11 at that time(so the same age as the characters).

And I turned 18 a couple of months ago and read the HP books again and I feel so sad. I'm not the same age as the characters anymore. And just reading the books again took me back to my childhood

At 11 i had a bit of hope that Hogwarts was real and my letter might arrive anytime soon

Books with characters aged 18-21 would be great

(Also i have read almost all Rick Riordan books already)

https://preview.redd.it/l2cosnpoixbg1.png?width=3508&format=png&auto=webp&s=cb9f4a2807499edc796351cc28ec39b3aea4d7c2

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.

Am looking for recommendations for age appropriate children’s fantasy (or even some sci fi elements) books, ideally looking early school ages. Something without all the ‘orrible gory murder etc. thanks in advance

Looking for suggestions for books that involve/take place in a Magical Library. I'm reading Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series and loving them, looking for more things about extra dimensional or otherwise interesting libraries.

Other books with magic libraries I read and liked:

The Library at Mount Char

Wooing the Witch Queen

The Discworld books with the Unseen University

Kit Rocha's Mercenary Librarians books

My dad is starting to listen to audiobooks and was recommended scifi/fantasy by his psychologist. Fantasy is my favorite genre, however the closest thing to what he would like that I've read is The First Law. Do you guys have any suggestions for as little cringe as possible, as much action as possible type of books for a 56 year old man. Anything similar to the First Law I think he would really enjoy.

Edit: Thank you all for your suggestions! I've already added a few to his phone from this list, and will continue to reference it.

I’ve just started reading Piranesi and it feels nuts to try and remember details like the Third Northern Hall, Ninth Vestibule, Nine-Hundred-and-Sixtieth Hall to the West – I mean wtf I feel trolled. Every second phrase is capitalised. The beehive woman and calendar with the albatross are strange enough to wrap my head round but in a cool way.

Does it get easier as I read on? This is making my brain hurt. If this is by design I have ADHD and that’s unfair

I recently read >!In the Shadow of Lightning by Brian McClellan!< and I've noticed that a lot of fantasy books I've read these days. It's mostly just all humans and only humans. I'm looking for a series where the characters fight actual monsters.

It's okay if the monsters are sentient, so long as they're otherwise completely inhuman. Also, preferably no eldritch horrors

Stuff I already read that has at least some monster fights:

Stormlight Archive (and the rest of the cosmere) by Brandon Sanderson

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinimen

The Bound and The Broken by Ryan Cahill

Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

The Black Tongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

Mage Errant by John Bierce

Cradle by Will Wight (and everything else he wrote)

It is my turn to select a book for a book club I am in, and I think I would like to go with something Fantasy. Not many rules, but a few things to consider:

1. Nothing overly long. No specific page limit but...

2. First book in a longer series is OK

3. Nothing too sexy. Everyone is an adult but...

4. It is a diverse group

I've been struggling with picking a book, so any suggestions help!

I'm looking for historical fantasy with lots of court drama and intrigue, set in the ancient Chinese Inner Palace or a similar analogue.

I like that the characters are stuck in one place and incentivized to back-stab each other. I also think the contrast of the concubines' lack of agency with their potential for immense soft power makes for interesting social and political dynamics.

I really enjoyed both the Poet Empress and Apothecary Diaries. I did not like Raven of the Inner Palace - it didn't have enough intrigue.

Kushiel's Avatar has the seraglio/zenana setting for part of the book, but it's not really what I'm looking for. It's the third book in a series with a lot of travel, and I'm looking for a boo that takes place primarily in the one location.

I'm mostly looking for books, but I'd take recommendations for other types of media. I'd also take recommendations for straight-up historical fiction.

What I mean is, when you started reading a book, how quickly did you empathise or at least sympathise with the protagonist or other main character? I'm not talking about how quickly the story hooked you, but how quickly the character hooked you.

For me, the quickest I was hooked was in Flowers for Algernon. Charlie Gordon made me sympathise with him a mere two sentences into the novel. It was incredible, and nothing like that has happened to me since.

What about you? Which book, and character, drew you in the quickest?

Okay, so a bit of context: I have a fascination with Latin. The entire language was so mesmerizing to me that any chance I got, in my teenage years, I'd read it up, learn about it. Any of my own writings also always had Latin ingrained deep into the world building. For me, Latin is, and has always been, the foundation of any strong fantasy world building.

And so when, to my utter delight, I chanced upon this book and saw the Latin words and phrases, I jumped right in.

Now that that's out of the way, it should come across as no surprise that I kinda already had figured out how the novel would be ending. I mean, sure, the idea of copying was a bit out of the blue, but the literal clues all around, along with the titles of each part was a very obvious answer to what the biggest question the book posed.

Also, Synchronism: Ex Uno Plures, is not that hard to figure out. But anyways. Had a blast reading the book. The world is really well developed without coming across as too pretentious and preachy. The words are not illegible to pronounce, and by the end of it, that one character's demise reality hit harder than I had expected it to. Though the last part of having 3 different copies of yourselves in 3 different worlds is a really unique bend that I had not foreseen coming.

So, now onto the next one. I'm particularly eager to see how he'll handle the increasing complexity demanded by such an ambitious plot.

10/10 would recommend.

Tl;dr: fantastic plot, good character arcs, with some good twists and turns that keep the momentum going. Give it a try!

Whether in gaming, movies, or novels, the world hidden inside another world is such an intriguing worldbuilding idea. Mainly looking at Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 because the worldbuilding and story is one of my all-time favorites, but what are some of your favorite world-within-a-world ideas, stories, etc. you've come across, regardless of the medium?

There is a foe or system so powerful that it cannot be beaten in the present. So instead, the heroes chip at it, and pass down knowledge/power to those that follow, over and over until finally they break through.

The best example of what I mean is Dungeon Crawler Carl with the Cookbook. But there are others such as the structure of the Expeditions in Expedition 33 and One for All in My Hero Academia.

What other examples of this are there?