I wanna read something that’s fucking brutal with fighting and sex and all the things, but also WELL WRITTEN (so NOT George R.R. Martin, I can’t stand his shit). I want Lord of the Rings on crack and steroids.
Another vote for anything Steven Erikson or R Scott Bakker
NK Jemisen’s the fifth season was amazing. It won a Hugo. Then the sequel was amazing and different and won the Hugo.
Then the last book in the trilogy was crazier and won the Hugo.
Truly wild magic and a very very brutal world.
Is it necessary to read the previous four seasons as well or can you skip those?
Heh, nice one.
Lies of Locke Lamora is beautifully written gritty fantasy. Thus far there are 3 books in the series.
I’ve never read the Warhammer 40K books so I can speak to the quality of writing, but the series definitely matches the genre of interest.
I really enjoyed reading 40k books when I was younger, but they’re generally shit writing. The kind of complete schlock that is good when you want to turn off the brain.
Richard k. Morgan’s foray into to fantasy “the steel remains” trilogy might meet that requirement. He’s the guy who wrote the altered carbon books, so it’s basically hard-boiled pulp fiction applied to swords and sorcery fantasy. Similarly Joe Abercrombie’s books operate similarly. Genre is… Grimdark I think.
Steven Erickson’s “Malazan book of the fallen” series also would meet the definition, but watch out—there’s a ton of them, and they can be a bit narratively challenging sometimes.
Man I got stuck on like book 4 of Malazan I think, it’s been a long time. Still have the books though, I should take another stab at it.
I’m still slowly working my way… think I’m in book 7 maybe? I sometimes find it hard with series where they change focuses and stories a lot, and malazan does that every book (the whole changing location every other book thing) and I also sometimes have trouble keeping track or who all the characters are, and who is dead, alive, or only sorta dead. But they are very high quality, even if I don’t always understand what is going on. Anyhow there’s so much of it I just dip in and out and will read other stuff for a while—definitely a marathon series haha
The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie is a fine example of grimdark high fantasy. It isn’t overflowing with sex scenes, but carnal relationships are definitely in play.
I’ll add it to the list! Thank you!
I don’t like what he does with his characters. Poor characters of Joe Abercrombie’s world!
I loved this and the other trilogy of his that I’ve read, brutal and dark certainly, but his character writing is mint. I need to read more of his stuff!
I’m no stranger to dark fantasy but reading best served cold even I was like “God damn, he’s going there too?” So that’s a +1 from me
And it definitely ticks the box for “fucking brutal.”
TIL there’s a sub here for books.
Terry Goodkind wrote the Sword of Truth series beginning with The Wizard’s First rule in 1994, with 17 books in the main series and I believe still ongoing. Not much sex, but it has the brutality down, and is very well written.
Love the series, read it multiple times. It seems to get a lot of hate but I don’t get why. I like the story, hate the villains, and can get invested in the characters. Plus it’s very adult. My favorites series hands down.
There are two aspects to it, one the books, and second the author. Author isn’t very likable, if you read some of his interviews you will understand. His opinion about himself, about fantasy, and general readers (and authors) of fantasy can be a bit annoying. As for the books, they sometimes have very stupid writing.
It has been a long time since I read the series, but one scene that I remember on top of my head, there was a woman (or group of them), who has to escape / pass through the whole army, so they go topless, cause then all the men in army will not be looking at their face and won’t recognize them.
There were many other things like that.
First off, that scene isn’t so they don’t recognize their faces. It’s to look like spirits and scare/shock them. They were a small army trying to use crazy tactics, I don’t see what’s so wrong about that. I’ve read it multiple times and I don’t remember a point where they go topless implying no one would ever look at their face if they were topless.
As for the author, I don’t know much about him, but I like the books. And way I think Michael Jackson is a bad person but I can still enjoy his music.
I absolutely understand why people hate it. on lemmy, probably because of themes that could be interpreted as being anti communist. In the real world, because of how it mocks religion quite viciously, and promotes critical thinking.
Also multiple strong female characters who are well written, that really pisses people off.
Lol, the “strong female characters” and critical thinking of The Sword of Truth series. Might as well push Atlas Shrugged because “it’s got a female author”
i haven’t actually read Atlas Shrugged, probably should considering how often it’s referenced in discussions on literature.
It’s hard to get through… it’s huge, but keeps bludgeoning you with the same cartoonish ideas over and over again until you’re just exhausted. Kind of worth reading, just because it does come up in discussions so often, but don’t necessarily expect to enjoy it.
Goes weird and hard to follow after the 4th book. Even the 4th was a bit of a drag
I regret that I have but one downvote to give. Wizard’s First Rule is literally the worst book I ever read. (A lot of people do seem to like it, though.)
Wizard’s First Rule is the only tolerable book, if barely. They’re all thinly veiled (not thinly veiled) fetish writing, or high school level political theory.
At a certain point it’s clear that Terry fired enough editors that the remaining ones stopped trying.
Yeah Wizard’s First Rule even had a decent stopping point at the end, iirc? That or by the third or so. Good enough read if you’re an edgy teen.
I’m going to choose to interpret your comment as charitably as possible, and that your library is the best curated on the planet. What have you been reading?
Hah, I did mean it in the spirit of good discussion. (Though maybe I also feel like I have a sacred mission to keep the unwary from inadvertently Goodkinding themselves!)
I’ve actually been having a hard time getting into anything new lately for some reason, but I recently reread C. S. Friedman’s Coldfire and Magister series (serieses? trilogies), which are kind of dark, but not so “gritty, gorey” that I thought they’d be a good recommendation for this thread. The former in particular is excellent, and they’re both fairly unusual takes on fantasy.
Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Thomas_Covenant
Cenotaph Road series by Robert E. Vardeman. More sci fi than fantasy, but fantasy adjacent sci-fi.
I’ll look into it. I’m a little sc-fi’d out at the moment, but if it’s adjacent, it might do. Thanks for the recommendation!
Covenant is fantasy, so that might be the ticket
The Gap Cycle is SciFi, though. Its fairy fuckin dark.
Do you like swords and sorcery? Sounds more like that genre than high fantasy. Not that I’m the genre police.
I didn’t even know that was a thing, so yes, I’ll take it!
Check out the work of Fritz Lieber especially his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Series. They are short stories but compiled into books now. Great intro to sword and sorcery.
Also the book series as a huge influence on DnD since Gary Gygax was a big fan
Cool. It’s mostly older stuff but here’s some info:
If you’d be up for modern fantasy you might enjoy Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, or American Gods.
For high fantasy, Brando Sando has violence aplenty but not sex. I really like the Stormlight Archives.
I also wouldn’t write off the Shattered Sea series by Joe Abercrombie. Yes, they’re labelled YA but it just makes them easier to binge.
The Black Company by Glenn Cook is pretty dark. It’s about a band of mercenaries taking part in a world war where there are basically no good guys. The first book stands well on its own, but it is part of a trilogy.
Gods yes, awesome series for sure.
I’ll add it to the list!
The world and the story is interesting, but for some reason I didn’t like how the book is written. Have only read the first book though, got the whole trilogy as omnibus, so will eventually get to the next two books.
While I enjoyed the whole trilogy, IMO the first book is definitely the best. If you didn’t care for its style, you probably won’t enjoy the other two.
They both have some DOPE set pieces tho
Thanks for the info!
Mark Lawrence - Prince of Thorns. Loose fit but it scratches that itch for me anyway. Maybe it will for you too.
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I didnt like the ending, but yeah. I guess the follow on books are good too but I haven’t tried them.
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I’m with you, the ending of the 3rd book deflated me and actually lowered my opinions on the first 2 books. I’m curious whether the follow-up books do anything to fix it, but I can’t find the motivation to read them now.
TBF I actually meant the ending of the first book. I haven’t gone back to the series to finish it. I expected bloody nine content starting book two and it wasn’t.
Logen is in all 3 books of the trilogy, and plays prominent roles in all of them. It’s just a matter of the constantly shifting perspectives.
I lied, I finished the trilogy.
Logan jumps out the window in the end and I’m like “fuck. Thats it?” And then it’s all kids and idk if I want to continue.
SPOILERS FOR BOOK 3 HERE:
Yeah… I’m stuck on the idea of continuing, but the end of book 3 basically feels like instead of the world being a place that is mutable and changeable, it’s instead a deconstruction of the concept of heroism and would rather say that people are themselves, that they can’t be changed, and that the wizard has everyone dancing in his palm.
My friends say it continues to be good… But I got really attached to Logen and, surprisingly, Glokta. He might be my favorite character of the books so far and I kinda assume they are both gone? Makes it hard to want to keep going.
They don’t fix it but they’re good. Really enjoyed Best Served Cold.
I came here to recommend The First Law trilogy. It’s the definition of gritty
I remember a book series called “something of Krondor” or “Krondor the something” that was really violent and brutal. They made some RPGs based on it too, but I don’t think they were ever popular; I have never encountered anyone else who ever read the books or played the games.
Read 'em in highschool and I haven’t really thought about it since which is why I can’t really remember the complete title or who the author was.
Krondor the Betrayal by Raymond E Feist
All his books are great and most are connected in one big world (though you don’t have to read them as one epic series to enjoy them). Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master are commonly 2 of my top recommendations for people getting into fantasy.
A bunch are on sale on Kobo right now too.
I have never encountered anyone else who ever read the books or played the games.
Well now you have. I played (and finished) Betrayal at Krondor.
That game was fun, but it was really big and easy to get bogged down by like halfway through it. I started it a lot but never managed to get through it all.
Might I recommend the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks?
“Malazan: The Book of the Fallen” by Steven Erikson has probably got what you need.
The main series is 10 books long, and they are amongst the most violent, brutal, but ultimately very well-written series I’ve ever (so far) read (still on Book 5).
Books 2 and 3 were too dark for my tastes but I plugged on through and I’m loving it. Great characters, wonderful dialogue, and way less obsessed with Food as GRRM
Saving this for future references as well
I’ll definitely check it out! Sounds like what I’m looking for!
I bounced off of book 1 multiple times but just finished it last week and it is fantastic. The book just drops you in the middle of everything and largely lets you piece it together rather than give you a fresh faced character that everyone explains everything to. 50-150 pages was when I started to feel grounded and like I understood the world well enough to say I liked it.
Malazan is my favorite fantasy series but it ruined other fantasy for me. I’ve found nothing else that can compare in the scope, breadth, world building, and detail.
The world was developed by these guys as their tabletop rpg setting in college. The series takes place over hundreds of thousands of years but is written with the density of a short story.
I’d recommend keeping Tor’s re-read blog handy if you start getting lost. There are chapter summaries and discussions by both a first time reader and a rereader which are spoiler free but include foreshadowing and things to pay attention to. The user discussion below each post could contain spoilers though.
https://reactormag.com/columns/malazan-reread-of-the-fallen/?WT_mc.id=10586
I listen to audio books while I work and have been hunting for new long stories to listen to. I’ll definitely be grabbing this one.
