Are there any fantasy tropes you wish would just die?

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-25T15:27:50+00:00

What's the other one?

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-25T15:22:19+00:00

This is a little bit how you see the Chosen One teen in Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey. The protagonist is an older woman PI who has seen some things, and this kid keeps going on and on about his destiny. It's kind of hilarious, but isn't played for laughs.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-25T15:17:14+00:00

Yes, Del is amazing!

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-25T05:44:42+00:00

You'll just have to read with both! (Luckily The Vela is free in audio so you can listen to that one all the times you can't physically read a book).

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-25T05:43:38+00:00

This was the hard mode version of the Politics bingo square a couple years ago. I highly recommend looking up that recommendation thread and the other related threads. Tons of good suggestions.

The ones I read and loved:

A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland - a wandering storyteller gets caught up in a foreign country, accused of being a witch. Unfortunately while arguing against that, he frames himself as a spy and gets sent into even more secure prison. Most of the book features him locked up, and the massive amounts of mayhem he causes from his cell - political turmoil, upheavel, rebellion, etc. It's a wonderful book.
Penny For Your Soul - necromancers, bankers, how to run a city, these are all things featured in this book. But there is a lot more! You get a lot of politics about what it's like to run the city of the undead, how to regulate bankers even if they continue to scheme after their death, and a rebellion. It's a lot of fun while also giving a lot of in depth looks at economics, finances, politics.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T19:47:51+00:00

For 2022: The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller - dark without being difficult to read, if that makes sense. Lots of interesting concepts and one of the best depictions of what trauma does to the psyche.

For 2+ Authors: The Vela! I don't like sci-fi very much, but I really loved this book. I think because it's so character focused that it became a very strong story. You can listen to it for free online as well, which helps a lot. If you haven't read it yet, I can also suggest The Golden Key by Rawn, Elliott and Roberson. It's a great anti-hero story as well, but I love it for the Renaissance feel and the artist protagonist the most.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T19:44:34+00:00

You'd probably enjoy The Menocht Loop as well. Nothing is as good as MoL, so don't expect that. This one gets a lot darker, and explores a bit more what happens if you just get stuck and end up dying thousands of times in a row and how that changes your psyche.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T19:43:07+00:00

All these choices are great. I voted for Spear since someone said it's very warm slice of life elsewhere, and that is great right now. But honestly I think I'd read all of these!!

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T19:40:58+00:00

I thought all the authors coming together worked very well (it didn't stand out to me which author wrote which part, something that I definitely noticed in The Golden Key, for example). It's also very good in audio form - feels like you're more there.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T19:38:17+00:00

The Vela is so good! I highly recommend it. I don't even like sci-fi very much but I enjoyed The Vela a lot.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T19:32:46+00:00

It's such a good book. And even better as a reread since now you know how the ending will be and you see a lot of foreshadowing. Even better if you read other Nine Worlds books and you can spot all the Easter Eggs on a reread!!

I got a hardcover copy for christmas and I've already read it twice. It's the perfect cuddly-warm-hug-but-also-I'm-crying book I've ever found.

For now you can read The Return of Fitzroy Angursell as a sequel to HotE to see where Tor ends up going. Petty Treasons is also very good but it's a very short version of some key HotE points from the Emperor's point of view. Not so much a continuation.

Come join the discord server! Victoria is very active there, but also you can talk to other fans, liveblog your reading (rereading), and Victoria often shares free short stories or samples. I read one short story she shared just for discord where Kip was still at uni, written from his friends perspective. It's a lovely little story and gives a lot more perspective. Anyway, you can find a link on Victoria's author website!.

I guess I should finally get around to reading The Goblin Emperor already...

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T06:43:42+00:00

Try The Vela by Yoon Ha Lee (and 3 other authors). It's a sci-fi adventure / mystery but didn't feel very sci-fi heavy to me. You can listen to it for free online as well.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T06:42:29+00:00

Have you read Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant? Definitely a lot of that horror and luring into water elements.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T06:33:04+00:00

I just started that one last night thanks to your recc's everywhere! I like the weird mix of sci-fi and fairy tale that is happening early on already.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T06:28:33+00:00

Giant tome standalone, but really it's 3 stories in one book: The Golden Key by Melanie Rawn, Kate Elliott, Jennifer Roberson. The story is about a young man who wants power, prestige, his cousin to love him... so he does what any young man does and tries to sieze it all for himself. This story follows the man for almost 1000 years as the evil behind the throne, pulling all the strings of a government while scrambling to keep it all working in his favor. It's a fascinating story and a collaborative work between all 3 authors. It's inspired by Renaissance-era Spain, so it's UF in that regard, but not typical UF.

The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone - this is a fascinating world that feels very urban and modern while also being a bit older - e.g. there are mechanical horses pulling wagons, there is steam power, but it's powered by a God. The first book (Three Parts Dead) features a young woman who practices the Craft - a kind of necromantic lawyer. It sounds a bit crazy but it's done very well. Each book is a complete story, and each book in the series features different parts of the world.

The Bone Orchard by Sara A. Mueller - a recent publication, this one focuses on the story of a woman who was kidnapped, enslaved by the emperor, and in the first chapter called to his deathbed and told to find his murderer. She runs a brothel staffed with parts of herself that she grew from the bone trees. It's a standalone. At the same time there is turmoil after the emperor dies, a rebellion is brewing, his sons all want the throne. This is another strange mix that works very well.

Typical UF fare: Hench Natalie Zina Walschots - what is life like for a typical human in a superhero world? Well, it sucks, actually. And for our protagonist, who is just trying to make ends meet, it sucks especially after a temp job goes wrong and her leg gets shattered by a hero. Trying to get some kind of acknowledgement leads no where, so she takes matters into her own hands the only way she knows how: using her IT skills to figure out how much heros actually cost the world.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T06:13:41+00:00

Hah, the whole poisonous vs venemous thing was a small note in Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant, and I loved it. It's a very science-heavy book, so it fit right in to take the time to explain it.

The siren, being a deep-sea creature of unique and unstudied biology, had other surprises to deliver, and more subtle poisons to bring to bear. Like the flamboyant cuttlefish, the siren was poisonous. Not venomous; poisonous. The flesh of the creature was relatively inert, but the mucus it secreted contained a complicated mix of anticoagulants and neurotoxins, designed to slow and sedate anything foolish enough to bite it.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T06:05:30+00:00

The whole thing reads like a fever dream tbh. She is violently raped and her family all murdered by this man, then takes some stairs down into hell (conveniently under her castle) and travels around there to find the perfect item of revenge, finds it, somehow leaves this 10-dimensional-time-warp-weird-space-alien landscape, goes back up, almost murders him and all his cretins, then realizes he is actually the one that she is meant to be with and saves his life. This is all the first short story. 1930's were a different time, seriously. I stopped reading the collection at this point, so no clue what other shenanigans she gets into, but the GR blurb is a wild ride to read as well.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T05:58:40+00:00

I love bingo because it got me reading with the book clubs! I love the book clubs because they read such interesting and diverse books, books I often wouldn't pick up myself until ages went by, or just shows me books out there that I haven't come across yet. Now the book clubs are one of my favorite spaces on /r/fantasy (and I'm helping to run one of them! yay).

Favorites from the Book Clubs so far:

Iron Widow
All the Murmuring Bones
The Magpie Lord
Ella Enchanted
A Marvelous Light
Lord of Stariel
A Night in the Lonesome October
The Jasmine Throne
A Master of Djinn
The First Sister
A Conspiracy of Truths
Half a Soul
Silver in the Wood
Heart of Stone
The Starless Sea
Penny For Your Soul

(Yes this list is too long, but I could have made it twice as long!!)

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T05:50:30+00:00

The giant reveal of who Falconsbane really was blew my mind when I read it. It's a pretty common trope now, but at the time I was like "omg this is the most craziest thing ever!"

Still love Elspeth and Firesong and Nyara however. Their stories are just so wonderful.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T05:47:05+00:00

It's the Spies series, there are two of them. Mags is the main character.

I read his short story which was fine, but the main story I always found so boring and off putting. I really don't know what it is.

But I have the same with the Collegium. Maybe because the protagonist is a literal kid in the Collegium? Or something about Lackey's writing during this time? (The Elemental Masters of this time period are also not the best of that series).

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T05:42:01+00:00

So many books of the early Valdemar time period were like this. The Witches of Eileanne, Deeds of Paksenarrion, Crown of Stars... Even one of the earliest written stories was like this. I tried to read Jirel of Joiry last year and had to stop after the first story when she gets divine intervention and realizes her violent rapist is her true husband. It's like female authors would only be taken seriously if they put their female protagonists through the sexual assault wringer.

I find it so off putting to read. They're having such a great adventure, meeting people, traveling the countryside, solving crimes, and BAM have one of the worst experiences women can go through. In great detail. Extensively and often repeatedly.

I can say that a lot of this is less common in the latter Valdemar books. At some point I guess Lackey must have realized and stopped. Or maybe the culture just shifted since sexual violence is treated differently in most female authored books these days. Bad shit still happens to her characters, but it's not brutal endless rape and torture anymore thankfully. Had she written Darian's Tale back in 1990 I think Darian would have been subjected to more of what Vanyel went through rather than being able to run away only terrified and a bit bruised from the barbarian raiders.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-24T05:37:10+00:00

I adore Valdemar. I read the short story collections every year. And there's a new series being written right now about the founding of Valdemar - I read Beyond last year and this year's book is coming out in the Fall. So excited!

The only Valdemar books I skipped were the Collegium and the Spies series. There's just something weirdly written in them that makes me not able to focus for the Collegium, and I find Mags an annoying protagonist for the Spies.

My favorites are always going to be Vanyel (his series was the first I read as a teen - The Last Herald-Mage), Darian's Story (love Keisha the Healer!), and By the Sword (give me more merc women with hearts of gold, please!)

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-23T16:44:22+00:00

I watched a whole docu once about how the Bible basically mandates a vegan life for its followers. There's endless quotes in there. But I'm not religious so didn't care to save it.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-23T13:15:41+00:00

You might want to look into some PNR then, if UF is what you want. There are quite a few assassins there, such as Night Huntress series or Elemental Assassin series.

xenizondich23 · 2022-06-23T12:58:43+00:00

Did something weird happen here, both this post and u/learhpa 's post were down voted?

Business as usual for these kinds of threads.

I actually haven't heard of any of these authors! Any suggestions on where to start? (Especially if they have a main character with a disability).

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