You should read these books (If you want to).
I have always hated “Ten books you need to read before you die”, and I dislike elitism in literature. Read what you want, enjoy what you want, do what you want. You can read a book a year or a book a week, but whatever you do just pick ones that you enjoy reading.
I’m currently writing my first review, ever? However, in the meantime I am going to write a quick list of the Fantasy series I would recommend to everyone and anyone. Why? Because they are fucking brilliant. I have a nature of preferring books that include lots of battles, swords, magic and huge set pieces. Be prepared for most of these books to be a little bias towards these.
There are so many more books I want to write about, Ive stuck to well-known series here and I guess that’s not the best, but these are some of my most loved for a reason. I will have to write a part two.
Also for some strange reason I havent included Brandon Sanderson in this post, this is a travesty. But he deserves a more practised writer and his own post…
John Gwynne – Malice, The Faithful and the Fallen
If I had to make a top five, It would be a struggle every day not to put this at the top. So much swordplay, so much action, this is an incredibly entertaining book to read. Gwynne manages to do something that I normally struggle to read, he writes an epic fantasy spanning multiple characters where I do not want to skip a single chapter to get back to the ones with the characters I’m fully absorbed in. Every character in this book is so well written, has so much depth and every chapter is so exciting read. However, what did happen is Gwynne gave us the heroes, our BrightStar Corban and our main good boy, Storm, and I was so emotionally attached to these characters that when this series ended, I couldn’t bring myself to read his next series just because I couldn’t bare reading about a world that didn’t have these people in.
However, I would like to point out this was dumb because when I finally managed to pick it up it was every part the first series equal.
Robin Hobb – Assassin’s Apprentice, Farseer Trilogy
I think Hobb managed to write possibly one of my favourite characters ever with this series. It has been a long time since I’ve read these so I’m not going to go in depth about this, but I’ve never felt so emotionally attached to towards an imaginary friend. Every time his life seems to be getting just a little bit better someone else comes to mess shit up. Hobb manages to write an incredible world, with unique magic and characters that really draw you in. These books are beautiful and tragic and exciting, and they should be read.
Pierce Brown – Red Rising, Red Rising Saga
(This is technically Sci-Fi, shoot me) Urgh. I’ve read and reread, and I adore. This is the book I used to get my mother to stop reading only non-fiction. These books inspired my first tattoo, I patiently wait for the final instalment of the current series. Roman Space Hunger games on steroids. Action, blood, slingblades, gorydamn. Brown has mastered the technique of cliff-hangers and an author has never made me shout at the ending of a book till this man (Its fine for wheoever is reading this because you don’t have to deal with the gorydamn year long wait for the next book). Try the first book and I can almost promise you won’t regret it, Pierce Brown you beautiful man.
Brian McClellan – Promise of Bloody, The Powder Mage Trilogy
When I walk into waterstones and I pick up books from the new hardback section in my favourite little corner, I must make a choice. I read the blurb, I put some books back and I take some to the tills and I remember thinking how easy it was to not put this back down.
In a rich, distinctive world that mixes magic with technology, who could stand against mages that control gunpowder and bullets?
Powder mages! what more could you want from a book? All out war, betrayal, battles, magic, and gods. Wonderful.
Evan Winter – Rage of Dragons, The Burning
Winters was the best debut author of 2017, easily, this book took off, the second in the series was just as incredible and I can’t wait for the final part. This book draws you into the rage and pain that our boy Tau feels, this is a story of revenge but ends up so much more. A struggle to break the chains of a broken system, a fight against an old evil that won’t stop till it wipes out his race. The kind of book you don’t put down till the entire thing has been finished. My favourite book of 2017 and its sequel Fires of Vengeance was my favourite book of 2020.
Brent Weeks – The Black Prism, The Lightbringer Series
Epic fantasy at its best, Weeks talent really lies in the world he builds, the uniqueness of what he has written is so special and this five-book series ended with what is now one of my favourite books of all time. I really like action, Fantasy is action for me, I read for the set pieces, I read for the swordplay, I read for mages throwing everything at each other. Weeks final book in the series was massive, close to a thousand pages, and almost seven hundred of those were the final showdown. I really hate sometimes when you read this massive series and then everything finishes in fifty pages and it’s over, it can feel so sudden and almost hurts to read. Weeks did the complete opposite and just had you tense for the whole damn book which honestly was incredible.
Dales Fantasy Review 