Hey!
I typically spend a lot of my free time gaming – I love cinematic games (games with immersive stories) like Red Dead Redemption 2, Ghosts of Tsushima etc.
I am very into ‘dark fantasy’ and in the gaming world love Elden Ring / souls games in general, and I also am a big Fallout fan (I have a big interest in nuclear related things).
I’d love to start reading books with the things I like in mind (wish there was an Elden Ring or Red Dead book)! I’m also okay with romance elements too.
If there’s any fellow gamers or dark fantasy lovers about, I’d love to hear your suggestions!
Thank you
by laurxn97
5 Comments
Try Prince of Thorns and it’s follow up books. It’s fantasy and you will also get a surprise at the end which you might also enjoy (if I mention it will be a spoiler).
The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. The first book is The Blade Itself
Oh man! You have so many directions you could go. Easily you could just dive into The Witcher series. You could go the litRPG route where the characters grow in power throughout, just like a video game, like “The Cradle Series” by Will Wight. Dungeon Crawler Carl would be fun for you. You want to go Dark Fantasy, that’s complete, I would recommend something a little Sci-Fantasy that is fast paced and more geared towards a gamer mind, Pierce Browns Red Rising series is on crack! The first book is original story, little slow, but it’s short, the next two books put you on a rocket ship of action, emotions and a nice plot with great cast of characters! If you want a D&D feel with straightforward plot, great characters, amazing creatures and good humor, read Nicholas Eames series called The Band, first book is Kings of the Wyld and it’s a fantastic journey book that can be read alone, but the second book Bloody Rose is fantastic as well with totally different cast of characters.
G.R.R Martin helped write Elden Ring so you may want to consider The Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones). Brandon Sanderson is one of the best known world building contemporary fantasy authors so you may want to check his stuff out too (no nuclear stories though).
Well, on the gaming side – Bioshock: Rapture is really good and Mass Effect has a few novels by the write that lead the writing team for ME 1/2. There are also the Witcher books, which are darker fantasy iirc.
Otherwise, there are a lot of options but it’ll depend a bit on your comfort in reading. The way writers write can affect enjoyability a lot.
For dark fantasy – The First Law Trilogy by Joe Ambercrombie is a standout. I really enjoyed The Poppy War series by R.F. Kuang as a darker fantasy as well. T. Kingfisher writes shorter novels that are dark fairy tale style books.
For non-dark fantasy that could be good for a gamer to jump into – The Arcane Ascension series by Andrew Rowe could be worth looking at. He draws a lot of video game inspiration in his books. I’m also going to drop looking into Brandon Sanderson. His writing style is intentionally meant to be very accessible so a lot of newer readers find him.