I went through a 100 posts on this subreddit asking for books similar to ones they loved and picked the most upvoted comment.

Methodology: Basically I searched for “books like [insert title]” in r/Fantasy for a bunch of popular books. Then I picked a post asking for similar books (I tried to avoid posts asking for recommendations with specific details when possible) and took the top comment. Here is what I got:

And it doesn’t really go anywhere. I think the prose is beautiful and somehow easy to read at the same time. But the 700 pages I just read seems like the first 3 episodes of a 15-episode season 1 of a show.

It doesn’t reveal or answer anything. It doesn’t even raise that many questions. The book felt like an introduction to the world through Kvothe’s backstory.

Edit: I don’t mind Kvothe as a character. Really don’t mind the Mary Sue thing at all. I’m just disappointed that there is no real progress to the “plot”, if there is a plot at all.

Edit 2: for example, about 300 pages near the end is about Kvothe riding to the town with the wedding because of the Chandrian attack. By the end of that side quest, he learns nothing more about the Chandrian. Everything stays the same, like 300 pages ago.

When I think about the moments that really stuck with me, it’s never the big battles or the chosen one prophecies. It’s the quieter, eerie details. In “ The Bone Season ” by Samantha Shannon, there’s a scene where the architecture of the city feels suffocating, like it was built more for control than for living. Or in “ The Poppy War ” by R. F. Kuang, the way the gods are described as distant and almost cruel, making you wonder if calling on them is a blessing or a curse.
The one that really haunted me, though, was in “ The Priory of the Orange Tree ” by Samantha Shannon again. there’s a passing description of an abandoned temple where the walls are painted with the names of people who swore their lives to protect the realm, but no one remembers their faces anymore. That single image, tucked into a paragraph, made the whole world feel heavier, like history was pressing down on every character’s choices.
What are the small but unforgettable pieces of worldbuilding you’ve come across? …

This is intentionally an open-ended question. Maybe you’re sick of vampire romance subplots, or ridiculously overpowered main characters who survive on plot armor, or maybe you’re just tired of castles and dragons. One person I know will throw a book in the trash if it has medieval peasants who are cheerful instead of miserable.

What do you never want to see again in a fantasy book?

I grew up on the Redwall books. Every single one. I read them multiple times, and I still remember finishing the last book, The Rogue Crew, when I was 19. That was the end of an era for me, because those stories had carried me through my entire childhood.

To me, Redwall isn’t “just a kids’ series with talking animals.” I’d argue it’s one of the greatest epics ever written. It deserves to sit alongside Beowulf or The Odyssey. Why? Because Brian Jacques understood something a lot of “serious” literature forgets: heroism doesn’t belong only to kings, demigods, or chosen ones. It belongs to the timid, the ordinary, the ones who don’t look like warriors until the moment comes when they have no choice but to stand up.

That’s the message that stuck with me. Matthias, Mariel, Triss, Martin, none of them started out invincible. They were scared, small, unprepared. But they chose courage anyway. That’s what Jacques was writing about, and it hit me as hard as anything I learned in church or …

Eider nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving Glokta’s face. ‘That must have been hard. To come back, after all that time in the darkness, and to find that your friends had no use for you. To see in their faces only guilt, and pity, and disgust. To find yourself alone.’

Glokta’s eyelid was twitching, and he rubbed at it gently. He had never discussed such things with anyone before. And now here I am, discussing them with a stranger. ‘There can be no doubt that I’m a tragic figure. I used to be a shit of a man, now I’m a husk of one. Take your pick.’

‘I imagine it makes you sick, to be treated that way. Very sick, and very angry.’ If only you knew. ‘It still seems a strange decision, though, for the tortured to turn torturer.’

‘On the contrary, nothing could be more natural. In my experience, people do as they are done to. You were sold by your father and bought by your husband, and yet you choose to buy and …

I’m not talking about your Watership Down death scenes or the dead wives scene in Bluebeard or the weird sex scene in IT when you read it far too young, but the more workaday scenes that broke your heart.

The one that springs immediately to my mind and still makes me cry:

In The Tree that Sat Down, where Mrs Rabbit gets swindled into spending all of her family’s money on an imported box of Rien or Nicht.

Or in one of Paul Jennings’ stories, an evil salesman is going round selling super-strength glue that’ll hold anything. One of his customers/victims is a lonely old lady whose pride and joy is her collection of porcelain horses that she’s been gifted over the years. Naturally, a day later, the shelf collapses and smashes all her horses. The final scene (iirc, I haven’t read it since I was about 12) is her kneeling amongst all these shattered figures cradling the front leg of one that her father had given her as a girl.

Yep, no, still makes me cry …

60F UK female here who loves to read books considered classics. This kept popping up as one that must be read. Had given this a swerve though as it’s about cowboys and ranches and horses and so on and so on. Eventually took the plunge based on reviews on Reddit. Have just finished it. What a book!!! I actually feel a little bereft that it’s over. What this novel demonstrated for me (amongst other things) is it really doesn’t matter when you live, where you live and what your circumstances are, human nature with all its foibles, its meanness, its random acts of kindness is the same wherever you are. The richness of these characters, the incredible narrative, the shock of some of the happenings. This is one book that will stay with me forever. Now, do I just accept that nothing will beat this or tackle the prequels and sequels?

Probably, right? Besides sci-fi, he’s written some of the most important essays on queer sexuality, in addition to literal porn. And that horniness shows up in Dhalgren in a, uh, big way. lol.

But who else out there has a horny oeuvre? A hoeurnvre, if you will? And I’d like to keep it to “established” published SF writers rather than, say, erotic fanfics.

They don’t make book series like this anymore. Beautiful

I’m thinking books like Project Hail Mary and Hull Zero Three, where the protagonist wakes up from cryo sleep and is immediately thrust into a situation that he has no idea of what is going on.

I enjoyed reading Ubik by Philip Dick. What other books really make you think?

It feels really bittersweet now that I’ve finished all of them but damn what a ride. I finished it with Forward the Foundation and im really glad I did because it felt like a good ending for the story.

For those wondering if read it in this order: 1. The Foundation to Foundation and Earth 2. I,Robot to Robot and Empire 3. The Stars, Like Dust to Pebbles in the Sky 4. Prelude and Forward the Foundation.

I love the order I read it in for some reason. It was awesome going back more than 10000 years to see how the universe i loved came to be and then how everything was set into motion.

And now that im finished im starting all over again.

Who else read the entire series and what did you think?

Something like Highlander, or Casca the Immortal Mercenary, or Milo Morai from the Horseclans? Nothing to serious or philosophical, just something fun.