I’m 20 years old and haven’t read a book for many years until recently picking up the hobbit. I know the hobbit is aimed towards children, but I like the simplicity of it. Obviously I’m not looking for books with pictures and stuff (I think some copies of the hobbit might have pictures but mine didn’t) but I would like to find books that are fast paced and preferably in a fantasy type setting. Thanks 🙂
by SuperAwesomeDude100
11 Comments
Also something I forgot to add, I would preferably like a book that is around the same length has the hobbit (around 350 pages) I don’t mind it being more or less
Fred Saberhagen’s *Empire of the East* and its sequel series _Book of Swords_ are all fast, pulpy, easy-to-read fantasy with some fun fantasy worldbuilding. It’s a long series, but the individual books are usually around 200 to 250 pages. They’re set in a dark fantasy world that is actually Earth about 50,000 years in the future, and figuring out what happened to technology and where all the magic came from is one of the driving mysteries of the books.
Matt Colville’s _Priest_ and _Thief_ are similarly short, pulpy stories, though they are as much hardboiled detective novel as fantasy. They follow a down-and-out former adventurer grappling with PTSD as he gets called out of retirement for one last job: investigating a murder in a cloistered group of paladins isolated deep in the forest.
The Redwall series by Brian Jacques, basically an anthropomorphic Hobbit, there are feasts, battles, feasts, adventures, feasts, puzzles and more feasts. The audiobooks are well done they have a cast, the author even does a few roles.
if you like pirates, treasure island is sick. not really fantasy but totally scratches the same itch.
You might really like The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. It can be read as a children’s book about an adventure quest — but for someone your age it’s also full of unendingly clever wordplay, and perspective-shifting wisdom that has lots of people, including me, gifting it to people we care about and rereading it at any age.
Theft of Swords by Michael J Sullivan
The first book in The Once and Future King by T. H. White. It’s the original for The Sword in The Stone and the writing is so good.
You might like The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, Stardust by Neil Gaiman, and Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones.
*The Thief of Always* by Clive Barker and *Stardust* by Neil Gaiman are both absolutely wonderfully told modern fairytales.
The Oz series! There are so many of them
And not the same tone, but you may like The Magicians? Not sure if it is to your taste though