Please recommend fantasy books for adults 🙏

[ChillysWaterBottle]

Hallo hallo

Can people recommend me their favourite fantasy novels for adults please x (no YA, I loved it when I was younger but I've finally outgrown it). Any sub genre, type, plot lines etc I don't mind at all.

Many thanks!

I'm off to find the A J Aalto books then, as I've read most of the other authors you mention 😁

This is a great thread for my TBR pile 😁

Terry Mancour
Jim Butcher
John Flanagan
Pandora Pine
Jordan Castillo Price.

I loved the codex of alera

@squarecircled Touched is the first book. I think there are 6, inc some short stories too.

Thanks DrM, am off to check!

Ursula LeGuin - Left Hand Side of Darkness is brilliant, as is the EarthSea series, there are many others of hers too
Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London series
Paul Cornell - Witches of Lychford series is very good
Luke Smitherd - the Stonemen series
Mark Hayden - The King's Watch series
Clare North - the 15 lives of Harry August, The Ends of the Day
Deborah Harkness - The Discovery of Witches series

Babel: An Arcane History by R F Kuang
Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch

Kate Elliott's fantasy novels - she has written several series, I think I liked her 'Crown of Stars' series best.
She writes sf too, but the only series I have read is the Jaran series, which is a curious sf/fantasy crossover.
She is an American writer, doesn't seem to be well known in the UK.

I'm glad to see lots of love for Babel by RF Kuang. I bought that for DH's birthday and have been considering reading it myself. I'm not good with books that require thinking, though.

If you like stories which get more and more glum and all your favourite characters get killed off try the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen Donaldson.

Another vote for Robin Hobb amd Deborah Harkness. Also, Joseph Lallo book of Deacon series

The Name of the Wind

The Way of Kings

Kingslayer

Basically anything Brandon Sanderson

Raymond E feist - The Magician
Juliette Marillier - Daughter of the forest Series (not strictly "fantasy" but based on Celtic legends - beautifully written with a fair bit of romance)
Victoria Aveyard - Red Queen (more towards science fiction but brill)

Another vote for Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas - amazing series!

It's led me on to A Court of Thorns and Roses and the rest of that series by the same author. I'm only on book 2 so far but loving those as well

Accidentally deleted:
Vera Chapman
Josepha Sherman
Joy Chant

My first big read, aged 7, or 8 George MacDonald "The Princess and the Goblin", followed later by reprints by Ballantine books in the early 70s of his adult books, an influencer of many, the obvious like Tolkien and Lewis, but also Neil Gaiman. The list of his admirers on Wikipedia could provide possible names to read.

@squarecircled, Lois McMaster Bujold's Vor books are a fabulous mix of all those things

I read Discovery of Witches before I knew they were going to make a tv series of it. I enjoyed it, but I think you have to be in the right mood - it's long and very little happens, despite being full of witches, vampires and daemons oh my!

I can highly recommend The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A Chakraborty

Robin Hobb, times a million. I’m not a regular fantasy reader but those had me completely hooked.

For pure filth, the ACOTAR series. Randy fairies.

Second the recommendation for Robin McKinley, especially Sunshine, also Patricia McKillip, Martha Wells (more famous for Murderbot but her Rakshura series and new one Witch King are good), Rachel Neumeier (the griffin ones), and T Kingfisher (though I avoid her horror as the Twisted Ones was pure nightmare fodder)....

Im going to recommend some old but good ones.

One very interesting series is the Incarnarions of Inmortality by Pier Anthony.
Each book centres on a person who takes up the role of eg Death, War, Time. The stories weave together so well. Time lives his time backwards compared to others so it is v clever the way that is woven in as you read through the series.

Lord Valentine's Castle by Robert Silverberg is great.

And there are always the classics....stranger in a strange land is of it's time but a good read.
And my personal favourite is I will fear no evil, by Robert Heinlein. A near-future story about a rich man who wants to live on and pays for a body transplant. He ends up being surprised by the body he is transplanted into and then finds that the conscience of the donor is still present (when I read the Host - much better than the film- it reminded me a lot of this book worth the inner conversations going on).

The George RR Martin series that A Song Of Ice And Fire that Game of Thrones is based on at brilliant. Even if I've seen the TV serious, the books are different and very easy to read.

@LovelaceBiggWither
Really?? Off to look into those right now! Thank you 📚

The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss. I’ve been waiting years for the third book and it finally looks like it’s coming. Amazing writer.

This. The first one of the trilogy is my favourite book of all time. Just incredible world-building, characters and plot.