Hi guys, so I’m dying to find my next epic super-long fantasy or scifi series. I’m currently reading Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb and I love it! But I need another fantasy series so I don’t get burnt out. Time and again, I’m recommended a new fantasy series and it ends up being absolutely shit. For example, the Poppy Wars. Interesting premise, female heroine. TERRIBLE WRITING. Here’s what I’m sick of:
1. Manic pixie dream girls
2. Abusive relationships framed as goals
3. “Not like other girls” girls
4. Bad “chosen one” cliches (though genuinely well-written ones are welcome)
5. Badly written characters in general
6. Gritty and depressing in a contrived way. Whiny loser main characters are not relatable to me, they’re pathetic and annoying. (I’m looking at you, Brent Weeks)
7. PLEASE no sneak attack Christianity (also Brent Weeks 🤬)
8. No YA
9. Finished series or series likely to be finished soonish.
TIA 🥹
by alleeele
2 Comments
You might try T. Kingfisher’s books (she also writes more kid-oriented books under her real name Ursula Vernon). In all the books I’ve read so far (with an exception of A Wizard’s Guide to the Defensive Baking where the heroine is like, 14; edit: still well-written and worth checking out), her heroines are mature and well-written.
I can also recommend Martha Wells. Her Raksura series are fantastic, and while the main character is male, books have some very interesting gender dynamics. Worldbuilding is truly unique. The first book is called *The Cloud Roads*.
*The Memories of Lady Trent* features a great female protagonist but isn’t a typical high fantasy. It doesn’t have any magic, but it features dragons. The main character studies them. First book is called *A Natural History of Dragons*. Series are very well-researched from the anthropological point of view.
Can’t also go wrong with Luis McMaster Bujold. *The Curse of Chalion* and *The Paladin of Souls* are fantastic and can be read as standalones, but I recommend reading Curse, then Paladin.
You want non-sexist tropes and a book written by a *male* writer who has a healthy and feminist attitude to women?
Then I rec RJ Barker’s fantasy books, which are almost as well-written as Hobb’s and there can be no higher praise.
He’s written two full trilogies, The Wounded Kingdom and The Tidechild, and he’s on his third now.
Of these two, I’d say The Tidechild one is the better; it has a fabulous female MC though she is not the main POV, which is a male character. Barker serves up a lot of blood, action and violence – equal opportunity for both male and female! – but none of it is sexist, there’s no rape, and I can’t tell you the relief that is, to be able to read a book safe in knowing that female characters may get violence enacted on them but the same sort of violence and at the same rate as the males; there’s no female-specific abuse. Plus, this book is so good,, the world-building is great, there are sea-dragons, there are adventures with pirates…I loved it.