Fantasy books and series I’ve read and liked:
- Inheritance Cycle (and almost everything else Paolini has written; Fractal Noise was ehh)
- Stormlight Archive (all out books)
-Tress of the Emerald Sea - Codex Alera
- Fairy Tale
- Wheel of Time books 1 and 2 (need to finish)
Slightly less related books I like:
- Hunger Games Trilogy
- Good Omens (probably counts as fantasy but feels different)
- Hitchhiker’s Guide
I’m looking for something hefty but with a bit of humor, definitely adult fantasy. Preferably something with a good audio adaptation. Good world building with varied and interesting cultures, magic systems, and queer/disabled rep are also huge plusses.
by Altruistic-Umpire-24
6 Comments
Samantha Shannon’s Roots of Chaos series – the Priory of the Orange Tree and A Day of Fallen Night. Tons of queer rep, dragons, and fantastic world building (no idea how good the audio adaptation is though!)
Not a series but I think you would love Imajica by Clive Barker. It’s by far my favorite book by him.
Barker himself is gay and writes queer characters often. This book contains several.
Every single one of your criteria is met with flying colors by Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series (beginning with [Assassin’s Apprentice](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77197)), so much so that I was expecting it to be in the “books I’ve read and liked” list on the top of your post. Great queer and disability rep, interesting magic system (two interesting magic systems, actually), fairly hefty at 16 books, most of which are 500-600 pages at least if not more, good humor, and imo quite an enjoyable audiobook performance, although the different trilogies are narrated by different people.
The series is written in self-contained trilogies and has some of the best world-building and character development I’ve ever read. I hope you enjoy as much as I did, if you choose to give it a shot.
No audiobook yet, but [The Hands of the Emperor](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/af2bba9c-8f41-4a3e-b87a-8532a44ccb67) by Victoria Goddard is wonderful and very very long. It’s a beautifully written slice of life book about the personal secretary to the emperor of the world, with a heavy focus on platonic relationships. There’s also queer rep (and the main character definitely reads as on the aroace spectrum), and I don’t remember if there’s disability rep in the first book, but there definitely is some in the sequel.
Richard Morgan’s *A Land Fit For Hero’s* trilogy has some good world building and certainly some adult gay moments.
I’m going to suggest The Greenbone Saga by Fonda Lee. It’s a solid urban fantasy with some mlm discovery.
– Jade City
>The Kaul family is one of two crime syndicates that control the island of Kekon. It’s the only place in the world that produces rare magical jade, which grants those with the right training and heritage superhuman abilities.
>The Green Bone clans of honorable jade-wearing warriors once protected the island from foreign invasion–but nowadays, in a bustling post-war metropolis full of fast cars and foreign money, Green Bone families like the Kauls are primarily involved in commerce, construction, and the everyday upkeep of the districts under their protection.
>When the simmering tension between the Kauls and their greatest rivals erupts into open violence in the streets, the outcome of this clan war will determine the fate of all Green Bones and the future of Kekon itself.