The biggest problem with the story, at least to me, were the self-surprising plot twists, as I like to call them.

This was when Pierce would surprise (or try to surprise) his readers by just... straight up lying to us through Darrow. He would write the darkest hour from (as always) Darrow's perspective, bemoaning that all is lost... AND THEN it turned out the whole thing was a ruse and that the rebels where in control of the battle all along! Meaning, Darrow's inner monologue was lying to us and ITSELF by pretending to not know about the ruse. Genuinely ruined Morning Star for me.

Movies obviously won't do that because it won't be from Darrow's POV so I'm at least glad of it.

Anyone have any recommendations for a long series I can get really invested in? I have read The Wheel of Time, Realm of the Elderlings, most of the Cosmere, ASOIAF and Dungeon Crawler Carl for context of what I usually like to read, but I am also open to any suggestions really. I have read a lot of duologies and trilogies recently so I want to get into something more intensive.

Edit to add: I have also read the Wandering Inn, which a lot of people are recommending since it is so long, so if anyone has any similar LitRPG suggestions, that would be awesome!

I’m not a rereader, but this trilogy is the one major exception. I’ve reread it over 10 times, and whenever I do, I still go to bed excited to keep reading the next day. I read a lot, but no other books have consistently brought me this much joy.

I’m talking about* the *Darkest Powers trilogy by Kelley Armstrong.

It’s a great blend of horror, paranormal mystery, urban fantasy, and light sci-fi, with an incredible slow-burn romance. It’s technically YA, but I’m now well past the target age range and still love it just as much. I think other adult readers would, too!

Spoiler-free premise:

The Summoning begins with a teenage girl who suddenly starts seeing ghosts. She’s sent to a group home for troubled teens and given a mental health diagnosis that seems to explain away what she’s experiencing. But as she gets to know the other residents, she realizes their diagnoses might not tell the whole story, either. It turns into a supernatural thriller with an interesting cast who develop a found-family dynamic.

Then there’s the romance subplot. Two characters go from being wary of each other to building a friendship and eventually something deeper as they go through difficult experiences together. It’s genuinely my favorite romantic relationship in any book. I love how naturally it develops through trust and getting to know each other, with no obvious early hints that romance is even on the table. (I hate when books do that!)

I’m so excited that the trilogy was recently reprinted with new covers and sprayed edges, and I hope the new editions help it find a whole new audience.

If you enjoy stories about the paranormal, found family, and a really good slow-burn or hate-to-love romance, please give these books a chance! They’ve been special to me for over 15 years, and I’d love for someone else to discover a new favorite through this post.

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.

HII Everyone,

I'm currently reading "There will come a darkness" by Katy rose pool and I highly recommend it.

One of the characters is a prince who survived a coup. His story is making me want to read fantasy with a heavy emphasis on politics.

A Song of Ice and Fire is a great example of what I'm looking for / I'm buying the books by the end of the year. And in terms of what I'm looking for is clash between different peoples over who gets to rule, and or, the struggle of the people overthrowing a corrupt government. I love the dragons in GOT and am open to low fantasy or high fantasy with magic, different fantasy species, etc..

Im also looking for character development..I want to get attached to the characters and grow / struggle/ celebrate with them..if it helps my two favorite characters from GOT were Dany and Sansa..I'm a sucker for the underdog but would also be interested in a story from the villains point of view. I'm thinking that " The Traitor Bau Cormorant" will be my next read but I want hear people's thoughts on those novels too

I am open to children's, YA,, NA, and Adult fantasy..and let's throw in sci-fi ( I have the first three "Red Rising" novels in my pile of books in my room) just in case of some good stories that I might miss keeping just to fantasy.

Thank you in advance! =) <3

PS huge bonus if the story involves witches..they are my favorite fantasy characters to read about

Tl;dr: I'm looking for political fantasy stand alone or novel series. I like the politics of Game of Thrones and am looking for something similar to scratch this itch. My favorite characters are Dany and Sansa so I guess I'm a sucker for an underdog!

I finally finished the full Realm of the Elderlings series and with that, my journey with Fitz and the Fool is at an end. And what a beautiful, bittersweet ending it was! I cannot recall feeling so connected with characters in a Fantasy book since Lord of the Rings.

In terms of writing quality, Robin Hobb can measure herself with the best writers out there, genre fiction or otherwise. Her prose has the same impact on me as for example John Steinbeck. Some writers write very flowery prose while others stick to utilitarian prose. Robin Hobb manages to write beautiful but still easy to digest prose. I would almost say “cozy”, even when her themes are anything but.

Speaking of themes, Robin Hobb is occasionally “accused” of writing “misery porn”, allegedly because her characters rarely have an easy time. To me, this rings patently false. Yes, a lot of bad things happen to her characters, but at the same time her storytelling has a certain “warm” and human character to it. As an example, this first book of this trilogy spends a lot of time exploring the almost ordinary life of the main characters living a family life and settling in a happy and almost mundane routine. It’s really endearing to be honest. Bad things happening to characters, feels like it’s part of a reflection of humanity. In that sense, it’s realistic, dragons be damned.

At the same time, the grander story arcs are still grand and evocative. In the end, sweeping changes rock the world and its characters. And I feel satisfaction from Robin Hobb’s ability to construct a grand plot, in an almost cozy way.

And in the end, this book managed to make me tear up. And the typical black hole looms before me that you get when you finished reading something really special. The big open question: where and how can I chase this high next?

I like my fantasy how I like my coffee, dark and bitter! So far I've read the following:

"The Second Apocalypse" may very well be the gold standard for me.

"BERSERK" I adore!

"Beyond Redemption" was alright. Very gross and fun, but I didn't like the writing particularly.

Angel Country by Alex T. Singer
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Horror
Representation: Queer author, neurodivergent-coded MC, Native American love interest, secondary Black character, secondary trans (or something???) character
PoV: First-person, past-tense
Published on: 20th October 2026
Goodreads

Highlights

~‘biblically accurate’ angelic horror
~THAT IS TOO MANY EYES
~women who love science more than humanity
~(more than THEIR OWN humanity, even)
~no women rights = Women’s Wrongs

THIS BOOK IS GENIUS!

Not because it has an incredibly cool premise. (Though it does.) Not because it features one of the most awful-person-amazing-character protagonists I’ve ever come across. (Though it does!) Not even because the worldbuilding is endlessly fascinating. (Though it is!)

But the WRITING. The sheer, technical writing craft that went into Angel Country is MINDBLOWING!

See, Ada, our main character, is not well. She’s done…something to herself. Experiments, with angelic tissue. It’s having an effect on her mind. Sometimes she loses track of where she is or what’s going on. Sometimes she wakes up to find herself out on the marsh instead of in bed. Sometimes particular stimuli make her thoughts go very strange indeed.

And Alex T. Singer has caught all of this in the prose. Forget telling us that Ada’s not well; forget even showing us. Singer makes us experience it, with run-on sentences and spliced paragraphs and forgotten commas, with shifts in perspective and time. This is not a simple case of dual timelines; at one point, alternating paragraphs follow entirely separate scenes happening at different times, a fight-for-our-lives scene spliced into something much calmer. That example – my gods, the writing rhythm!!! The way the switches back and forth create this amazing strobing effect, ratcheting up the tension immensely, turning the pacing to 11 – you could play it like music, the bass is so clear; you can see it in your head like it’s been synced to a soundtrack. It’s AWESOME.

Thieves. Bastards. Con men. Oh what I would have done if they’d been in front of me in that moment. They deserved nothing as beautiful as an angel’s maw but I might have made an exception if I could have gutted them with my newfound strength oh I would have I digress.

You see what I mean? You see how in the above quote, how the run-on sentences make us feel Ada’s not-sanity? How the lack of commas makes it punch harder? This kind of thing is CONSTANT in Angel’s Country – not run-on sentences specifically, but this phenomenal awareness of and skill with writing rhythm, which Singer uses ruthlessly and masterfully to create whatever effect she wants a particular paragraph to have.

This is an author who understands EXACTLY what Ursula Le Guin said about writing rhythm, and it makes me so happy I could freaking cry.

“Men are snakes,” she said, emphatically.

“Didn’t you use to be one?” I managed to ask, with a ragged smile.

“Perhaps,” garbled the Keeper, the wrinkles of her face lifting into what I’d come to recognize as a smile. “All the more reason I would know!”

The book’s description calls it a ‘fever dream mash-up of alternate history, dark fantasy, and eldritch horror’, and that is extremely accurate. But it’s also a manifesto on Women’s Wrongs, on female rage, on women who are unapologetically mad scientists. Ada has spent her entire life being belittled and dismissed, even though she has an incredible mind, is light-years smarter than the men whose names end up on the results of her studies and experiments and proposals. This isn’t something the book lingers on – I would be bored if it did – but we see plenty of examples of it, and it’s obvious that enduring a lifetime of this is part of the reason Ada is so – well, so Ada. She has to fight tooth and nail to be allowed anywhere near the science she loves so much, and it is equal parts heartbreaking and infuriating and Singer makes you feel all of it.

Would you consider keeping just the first initial of your name–

Would you consider signing on as a significant other–

Would you consider

Consider

Which is not to say that Ada is likeable, even if her struggles in academia are easy to sympathise with. Ada is terrible. She has next to no social skills, has a hard time seeing people as people rather than tools or obstacles, and if there’s ever a moment where scientific inquiry and basic ethics are in conflict, she tosses ethics out the window. I read her as autistic – definitely not neurotypical – which might explain the poor social skills…

“Unbelievable,” she said. “So. How human are you, these days? Did you call me up here for a free meal?”

I stepped in very quickly at that supposition. “Oh, no. That is not one of the side effects. No angelic entity has been known to consume human flesh as sustenance.”

They both turned, staring. I realized very quickly that had not been what was on either of their minds.

Coralie threw up her hands. “I meant, did you expect me to do a food run. Jesus Christ, child.”

…but most of it is just Ada, and her overwhelming, overriding-everything obsession with angels. She is fascinated, she is driven, she loves angels and loves studying them, and it’s so intense and well-written that there’s no way for the reader not to end up feeling it too. It’s infectious. (Like all things angelic) Even as these ‘biblically accurate’* angels are gross and terrifying, Ada’s adoration for them sweeps you up – which creates this incredible effect, wherein you feel fondness and wonder alongside the ick and horror. It reinforces everything Singer does with the writing rhythm, so even the reader’s emotions start to mimic a Salvador Dalí painting, melting and strange and surreal. Magnificent!

I loved Ada’s passion; I loved that Singer made me feel it too. I loved that I was never in any doubt about the strength of Ada’s convictions and motives – that I never doubted that Ada would absolutely do the terrible things she’s done – and is doing – and will do – because her passion for angels and the study of them is unquestionable.

But gods, the terribleness of the terrible things she does! The gradual, dawning realisation of exactly what her prototype is!!! (I kept telling myself no, you’ve guessed wrong, it CAN’T be that, it just CAN’T. Even Ada wouldn’t do that. BUT FRIENDS, SHE DID.) If the story were only slightly different, she would be unambiguously the villain, and honestly the only reason she isn’t unambiguously the villain here is because someone else is worse.

And yet, I can’t help admiring her. For her passion, and her genius, sure, but also her…horrifying personal strength? To take just one example: due to the experiments she’s run on herself, over the course of the book Ada’s body starts shapeshifting, growing extra parts, and she bites them off to hide them. BITES

THEM

OFF.

Can you imagine the kind of determination of will it takes to be able to do that?! And she does it so casually. Her first-person narration barely even mentions the pain. Because the pain is unimportant. What matters are Ada’s goals, and anything required to accomplish those goals? She will do, without even hesitating.

I used my teeth to pry it off, and held my hand until the pain subsided, and the skin was much more pallid and unbroken. I swallowed the excess, knowing my altered body would do the rest. I did wish I could have logged it.

Ada, I say this with love, but WTF?!

Ada’s love for angels is far from her only effect on the writing of the book. Huge, game-changing revelations are dropped carelessly, dismissively, because to Ada they are all unimportant facts, are things she takes for granted even though we have been wondering about them for 300 pages. I loved that, loved how sneaky these mic-drops were, how much the way we learn about them showcases Ada’s self.

Just. My love for the writing here is endless. Every detail about the prose is deliberate and full of meaning; sometimes individual word choices gave me galaxy-brain moments! Even capital letters convey so much to the reader, in some scenes! And like I mentioned earlier, the shifts, sometimes mid-sentence, of perspective, especially around Blake.

“Ada,” he began, with a catch in your voice.

!!!

As should probably be clear by now (as is inherent, really, in any mention of ‘biblically accurate’ angels!) Angel Country is body-horror central. As the book goes on, we see more and more of what Ada’s changed body is capable of, with more and more extensive and dramatic shapeshifting, but Ada is not the only example. The lover mentioned in the book description, Blake, is in a state similar to Ada’s; worse, as they try to chase down the thief of the prototype, they encounter a whole lot of people who have been affected by its use, many of them warped in one way or another – growing extra eyes, or melting. Because exposure to angelic emanations is very bad for you! And animals are affected, too; at one point a poor horse grows gills, and there are many instances of ‘canonized’ birds. The angels themselves are very rubbery and slippery and shapeshifty, with nightmare fuel galore! So. Brace for that?

I watched the gooseflesh on my arms open to make way for tiny waving down feathers.

The worldbuilding never stops being fascinating. This is a North America where only a slice of the East Coast has been colonised; the rest is still squarely in the hands of the Native Americans, a state of affairs that no one expects to change in the foreseeable future. Angels seem to mainly come from the sea, which is why the coast is lined with bells – because bells keep them away. The connection between angels and music is so much fun to learn about, as we follow along with transcripts of Ada’s experiments and see her and others utilise her findings in real-time, pacifying or driving away angels to a limited degree with specific rhythms, songs, drumming. (THE ELEPHANTS!!!) And the way angels warp the animals around them! Especially human animals; humans exposed to too much Grace, especially long-term, become ‘canonized’ into Saints, deeply creepy eldritch beings who definitely can’t be considered human any more. Several Saints are vital to the plot – in fact, everything I’ve summarised here is hugely plot-relevant! There’s not a lot of extraneous detail – probably because there’s no extraneous words in this book, full stop. As I keep saying, the writing is too good, and too powerful, for that; every word is a bullet.

Which is especially clear in all the breathtaking visuals Singer gives us. Long before I was finished with Angel Country I was longing for someone to make it into a tv series, because this book is full of incredible, and often incredibly cinematic, visuals. The fight scenes (and there are several) are phenomenal; Ada pushing her shapeshifting abilities is often grotesque but also amazing; and of course the angels themselves, swarming on a beach or flooding into a city or flying in strange patterns! To say nothing of all the body-horror monstrosities; human civilians caught in the prototype’s effects, or animals turning strange under angelic exposure. Basically, if this was ever adapted into something live-action, I hope Guillermo del Toro is the one they call to direct it.

We hadn’t set the lanterns up that high, but up above, we saw a halo of light. The halo was made up of dozens of small bodies, all circling each other in increasingly elaborate concentric circles. Each of these bodies comprised at least six or seven wings, pearlescent white and dappled with gold. They beat furiously.

(The above quote is one of the tamest of my favourite visuals, because I refuse to spoil you for the properly breathcatching ones!)

And as if all that’s not enough? Angel Country is freaking FUNNY. I lost count of how many times I burst out laughing; at Ada’s Scientist Arrogance being disproven in hilarious ways; at the wryness of the narration; at the ridiculous images Singer comes up with at times. There’s a moment where a putti – a tiny angel – gets kicked like a football by a civilian who is just Done With This Shit, and I laughed until I cried. I had to go read it aloud to my partner, who also found it hysterical.

There’s even a quiet thread of queerness running through the background. Alex T. Singer is openly married to another woman, and has definitely brought what I can only call a queer sensibility to the book as a whole (if you know what that means then you know, and if you don’t know then I can’t explain) but there’s also the Keeper, a very plot-relevant Saint who was apparently a man when human and now uses she/her, and Ada’s parents seem to have been part of a bisexual polyamorous trio. It feels very of a piece with creating an alt-history where North America remains in the hands of its indigenous peoples, or casually drawing attention to the racism of the time period by making one of the important secondary characters, Cora, one of the first Black women to practice law.

“It’s big, Cora.”

“You don’t say. Bigger than the national conspiracy to keep us from the vote?”

Blake did pause to think about that one.

“About equal,” he concluded, “but there’s probably some crossover.”

Angel Country is not an easy book: it definitely requires Brain On reading. As well as Ada’s own narration, there are excerpts of other people’s lectures, case files from experiments, footnotes that track Ada’s mind coming apart. Sometimes we get other people’s memories. I already mentioned how different scenes are sometimes spliced together. It is often not immediately clear whether a new scene is taking place in the past or the present (ie, before or after Ada wakes up in a grave). Especially in the second half of the book, clues or revelations often have game-changing ripple effects on what we thought we knew, and those ripple effects are often retroactive, casting scenes or even chapters we’ve already read into a new light. So alas, this will not be a book for everyone; it isn’t straightforward enough to be mass-appeal, even aside from all the horror elements.

But my gods, this is a me-book. It will be on my Best of Year list come December, and it will be on my Best of Decade list come 2029, because Alex T. Singer is a genius. The sheer craft of Angel Country would have had me starry-eyed even if it hadn’t also featured so many of my very favourite things: genius women who are objectively terrible, men who love them anyway, shapeshifting, body-horror, ‘biblically accurate’ angels, Women’s Wrongs. I feel very strongly that this book was written for me specifically.

Now I need everyone to buy it so Alex T. Singer gets to write a gazillion more books!!!

*At this point, ‘biblically accurate angels’ is a term that has come to represent a recognised aesthetic inspired by ophanim angels specifically, but technically it is a misnomer, since the vast majority of angels in the bible seem to be indistinguishable from humans. If I remember correctly, the ophanim – the burning wheels covered in eyes type of angel – only show up in the bible one time! Anyway, that’s why I always put quotes around ‘biblically accurate’. I adore the aesthetic SO MUCH, though, whatever we call it!

Bingo Squares: Unusual Transportation (HM), Published in 2026 (HM), arguably Non-Human Protagonist (but not hm)

Just one book/series. No spoilers, no crazy details. Just enough to pull me in! Always looking to add to my tbr

I hadn't thought about these books in many years, probably not since I first read them as a young guy back in the 1990s. Then they randomly popped into my head a few minutes ago, and I tried to recall what I thought about them, and the online discourse surrounding them at the time.

I remember absolutely loving the first book, Wizard's First Rule. I initially wasn't aware of the controversy surrounding the books and the author, and I don't know if that would have changed my perception of it.

What I remember enjoying:

I found the part where Richard crosses the boundary trying to avoid those shadow people things being absolutely terrifying.

I thought Darken Rahl was a great villain.

The relationship between Richard and Kahlan was touching, at least to my young mind.

I found the Mord-Sith to be cool at the time, but cringy as hell in retrospect.

That said, the culmination of the relationship between Richard and Denna was actually one of the few times I can remember actually crying while reading a book. I doubt it would hit me the same now.

As I said, it's been many years since I read these. I know they were almost universally hated by forum denizens of the time. Terry Goodkind himself was a major asshole in all the interviews I remember reading. They're just weird books, blatant theft from other books combined with some very unique characters, ideas, and set pieces. Well, some the characters' names certainly weren't unique - I remember that bothering even at the time: Frank, James, John, Randy, George, etc.

Apologies for the scatterbrain post. Anyhoo, your thoughts on these books in 2026?

For November we will be doing another bingo themed bookclub. We've been talking to people in the community and will be trying to cover one of the more difficult bingo themes that many seem to have yet found a book for (No, this isn't a short stories book club, we have another one for that. There are so many good short stories, GO AND READ THEM).

The theme will be First Contact!

First Contact: Story prominently features interspecies or interracial meeting for the first time. HARD MODE: Non-violent first contact.

Please nominate books that fit the theme, as long as it is speculative fiction and by an eligible author. If you're still looking for inspiration for the square, you can check out the recommendation thread for First Contact!

Nominations will run today and then we will start the poll tomorrow.

NOMINATION RULES

• Make sure the book is by an eligible author. A list of ineligible authors can be found here (recently updated with the new Top Fantasy List info). We do not repeat any authors that we've read in the past year or accept nominations of books by any of the 20 most popular authors from our biennial Top Novels list.
• Nominate one book per top comment. You can nominate more than 1 if you like, just put each nomination in a separate comment. The top 4-6 nominations will move forward to the voting stage.
• No self-promotion allowed. If outside vote stacking or promotion is discovered, a book will be disqualified automatically.

Final voting will be conducted via secret poll on our Goodreads group page. We will include a link to the poll as part of our "Vote for the Goodreads Book of the Month!" post after the nomination process is complete. Winners of polls are revealed a day or two after the Final Discussion of the current book selection.

Have fun with nominating! This is not meant to be homework assignments, but a fun exchange of thoughts and ideas as we read the book together. Also feel free to check out our Goodreads Shelf or Google Sheet for a full and updating list of all past selections of all book clubs!

Hey all! I know this might be a better fit in a sci-fi sub but this community consistently nails recommendations so I thought I'd try it here first!

My partner recently read a book of short stories called 'solarpunk' and really enjoyed it. The collection is named after a subgenre I'd never heard of that seems to be a more hopeful version of cyberpunk. She loves the idea of a hopeful future with humans finding a way to live in harmony with nature, and also loves fantasy books so elements of that are no problem at all. She's also queer so the author having relatively modern sensibilities in that area is a big tick.

It's her birthday soon and she's mentioned to me she'd love to read something that was along the same lines but a full length novel. If anyone has any recommendations I would appreciate it!

I need a book recommendation for something really dark and depressing. I am going through hell right now and I need something to match my mood. My favorite authors are Robin Hobb (looooove her), George RR Martin, Paula Volsky, Melanie Rawn, Raymond Feist, Jennifer Roberson. I pulled Gene Wolf's Book of the New Sun off the shelf but haven't started yet. Otherwise I might dive into Redwall going into the opposite direction with something engaging and comforting but I would truly prefer something edgy and dark and depressing. Suggestions? Or should I stick with Gene Wolfe?

Just finished By Blood and By Salt and A Hount for Jackals (incredible books, go check it out). Looking for more realistic or low fantasy military series, napoleonic era style is welcome

I want to buy the wandering inn, but I cant find book 1? I can only find it as book 1a. I cant find a ''complete'' book 1. Is there any, and should I stop looking? Or is there?

Thanks in advance

Is it just me or are his books weirdly pessimistic for a through and through socialist? I'm not saying all left leaning material should be inherently positive or that failure and problems in bringing change should not be shown but the Bas Lang novels and stuff like The City And The City always have the main characters either being defeated or crippled by the forces of Capital.

It's like Mieville either does not believe a socialist revolution will ever succeed and that the forces of capital will continue to crush any resistance. In a way these books sort of read as being defeatist.

Am I overthinking this?

Any love for Orson Scott Cards Alvin the Maker series, I read the Ender Saga many years ago (and still return to Enders Game) regularly but have never dipped into the Alvin the maker series. Just saw it pop up on an audiobook feed and thought I'd ask for a few reviews.

I'm working on a hard mode, 4 star and above card.

Fulfilled: I would LOVE to spend a month or two in that isolated mountain cabin by a stream, surrounded by forests and other flora, fauna, and old Taiwanese folklore.

My rating: 4.5/5

Blurb: A reclusive young boy stumbles upon his father’s diary. Filled with drawings, photos and anecdotes, the diary reveals an alpine world that his father once inhabited as a child: where tribes were fashioned by tree spirits; animals could be spoken to; fleas danced; and the moon and stars were guiding lights in darkling forests. His father’s world was alive with birdsong and hidden spirits, serene yet fleeting—but it all changed when he befriended two bears.

Bewitching and timeless, award-winning Taiwanese author Chang Ying-Tai’s The Bear Whispers to Me is a poignant forest fable about the vivid beauty of the natural world, childhood, loss and the transient nature of time.

Review: You are probably not going to run across this book by chance. I only found it because I'm trying to read books by authors from 52 different countries this year (not counting USA, Canada, and England) and, with my preferences for myth and magical realism, I found this one for Taiwan. It was $3 on Kindle, and I strongly recommend checking it out.

Up until around 75%, this was a delightful read. After the brief framing where a son is looking at his father's old journals and drawings, we are immersed in the boyhood of the father living in an isolated cabin in the Taiwanese mountains with his own father and the spirit of his grandfather in the wind. They are somewhat near a small village, so there are seasonal fairs happening and regular visits from a nearby mentally impaired neighbor girl named Lotus who helps with the chickens.

The descriptions of nature and wildlife are lush and wonderful, and the folklore of the region is integrated seamlessly through the eyes of our child narrator. Everything has hints of magic from his perspective, and it is a pleasure to read. He especially likes bears. Most of the chapters are just little bursts of his life - things like identifying bird calls, searching for eggs, catching insects... and it's awesome. There are some tragic things that happen, but through the eyes of a child they take on different, more background, dimensions.

Sensitive readers might want to look up content warnings. Around 75% there is such a jarring shift that I was left shaken. It's brief, but man I'm going to be thinking about it for a bit.

The rest of the book is still very good, just not quite as lovely. It loses some cohesion near the end, which is the only reason I'm deducting 0.5 stars, but overall highly recommended!

As the title says, NOT the book/series you most want to see on screen, but the one that's so popular you are surprised you haven't heard anything about the upcoming production. (I'm aware that there might actually be negotiations ongoing with the authors that we just aren't hearing about yet, or that I/we might just be out of the news loop)

For me it's Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff. With how popular the series is, and how popular Vampires are in media, I can't help thinking it would be a natural for a movie/s, or an 8-10 episode TV show.

Which series has you expecting to hear about an upcoming production?

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!

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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.

Looking for works that have really ornate, flowery prose like that of Lord Dunsany. From my limited reading I haven't yet found anyone who writes fantasy prose similar to him or as good as him. I have read/know of Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake, Italo Calvino, Borges(loved), Lewis Carroll, Lord Dunsany, Ursula K Le Guin (Loved Earthsea), Hans Christian Andersen, Hope Mirrlees.

There is also Clark Ashton Smith who otherwise would be the most fitting for my taste with his decorative prose and big words but his stories often get grotesque in a way that I just don't enjoy. I like fantasy to have this tone that feels dreamy, delicate, fragile in a beautiful way, which Dunsany does really well. Some of the best examples are his stories The Quest of the Queen's Tears , Miss Cubbidge and the Dragon of Romance from The Book of Wonder. Another favorite of mine is The Giant Poppy from Fifty-One Tales which is short enough to add here

THE GIANT POPPY

I dreamt that I went back to the hills I knew, whence on a clear day you can see the walls of Ilion and the plains of Roncesvalles. There used to be woods along the tops of those hills with clearings in them where the moonlight fell, and there when no one watched the fairies danced.

But there were no woods when I went back, no fairies nor distant glimpse of Ilion or plains of Roncesvalles, only one giant poppy waved in the wind, and as it waved it hummed "Remember not." And by its oak-like stem a poet sat, dressed like a shepherd and playing an ancient tune softly upon a pipe. I asked him if the fairies had passed that way or anything olden.

He said: "The poppy has grown apace and is killing gods and fairies. Its fumes are suffocating the world, and its roots drain it of its beautiful strength." And I asked him why he sat on the hills I knew, playing an olden tune.

And he answered: "Because the tune is bad for the poppy, which would otherwise grow more swiftly; and because if the brotherhood of which I am one were to cease to pipe on the hills men would stray over the world and be lost or come to terrible ends. We think we have saved Agamemnon."

Then he fell to piping again that olden tune, while the wind among the poppy's sleepy petals murmured "Remember not. Remember not."

I haven't been able to find anything like these, his stories don't have much plot, thrill or action but they have this very mystical, otherworldly vibe. Like in the examples, there isn't much of a story but I enjoy the turn of phrase and the feeling that it evoked is pure magic and wonder.

Have also heard a lot of praise for Susanna Clarke so I'm going to give her stories a try too.