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Any fantasy series recommendations?


Elias

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I'm looking for inspiration for designing a magic system with philosophical underpinnings, a la Sanderson's cosmere, and I've come to the conclusion that the best way to find it is to read books (shocker, I know). I've read all of Brandon's cosmere books, which I collectively consider one magic system with many interpretations, as they all share the same philosophical foundation, namely Plato's Theory of Forms. I also stumbled upon the Prince of Nothing series and the subsequent Aspect-Emperor series by R. Scott Bakker, which has a magic system focused on leveraging logic and/or creativity to overwrite reality. Now I'm reading Dune while I wait for the third book of the Aspect-Emperor, which didn't arrive with the other three, to be delivered so I can read that. But beyond that, I'm starting to run dry on fantasy series with interesting magic systems.

I've read all the cosmere books (of which I am now an avid fan), the Wheel of Time, R. Scott Bakker's series, and Harry Potter, though the last one is a bit of an interesting case in regards to magic systems. If anyone has any recommendations for fantasy series with interesting, unique systems of magic, I'd love to hear about it.

P.S. I'm not sure if this is where a post like should go, this just seemed like the "miscellaneous" forum, so if any mods know of a better place for it, I would not object at all for it to be moved there.

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Ah, R Scott Bakker... good stuff, though I feel the magic system is more based on the "power of creation" you see in far more classic treatises on magic. The logic/creativity are just methods to wield it if you can access it. (That's my interpretation, anyway) 

As far as further suggestions, the Broken Earth Trilogy by N K Jemison is pretty good and has an interesting magic system. 

Some science fiction can give you ideas as well, since sometimes you can have bonkers stuff happen based on physics interpreted for the sake of story. Cixin Liu's Three-Body Problem trilogy is really neat for this. Well, the last book, Death's End, is for your purposes, but you should really read the entire thing anyway! 

I've only read the first book so far, but The Poppy War by R F Kaung might also be of interest

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2 hours ago, Orlion Blight said:

Ah, R Scott Bakker... good stuff, though I feel the magic system is more based on the "power of creation" you see in far more classic treatises on magic. The logic/creativity are just methods to wield it if you can access it. (That's my interpretation, anyway)

I had the same thought, as in all my reading, it seems the most common characteristic of hard magic is that it has a discernible power source (Investiture in the cosmere, the One Power in Wheel of Time, light in Shadow of the Conqueror, the Force in Star Wars, etc).

This as opposed to magicks like those in Harry Potter or the Magician trilogy, the former of which seems to be separate from physics completely and the latter of which is described more as taking advantage of “glitches” in reality.

Edited by Elias
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You might try some Roger Zelazny, his Chronicles of Amber series was an earlier incarnation of the Eastern mysticism inspired magic of the Wheel Of Time (similar but different), and the first 5 books are really good. Also, his sci-fi quasi spiritual tale of super beings that are somewhat incarnations of Hindu deities on a colonized planet, Lords of Light is great, and Jack of Shadows is a bizarre romp in a truly dark and strange world, with interesting magic that is of the well described but unexplained variety.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Powder Mage by Brian McClellan. Sanderson had him on a live stream a while back so I thought I might check it out. The first book was brilliant. The magic is cool and subtle, and I love all of the characters. (No it's not just because it includes my username in the title.) Warning it has a lot more swearing than Sanderson, but beyond that it is just as clean.

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If you're looking for something based on old medieval beliefs and such, the Dresden Files is an Urban Fantasy detective novel that takes old legends about Fey and the power of names or circles and uses them interesting twists. However, it is far from clean (although light on swearing).

Also, the Kingkiller Chronicles is a good book with slightly physics based magic is very good. It is also just a little bit dirtier than Warbreaker, although the second book especially has some innuendo. Unfortunately, the other doesn't seem to be planning on writing the third in the near future.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Seconding Kingkiller. Would also recommend the Discworld series, by Terry Pratchett.

EDIT: Whoops. Just reread the OP, and while I'd still recommend Discworld as a great fantasy series, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who wants solid magic systems.

Edited by Robin Hatter
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  • 3 months later...
On 11/5/2021 at 9:04 PM, #1 Taln Fan said:

I can’t speak for the whole book, but I just started The Wizard of Earthsea and I’m loving it.

Ursula K. Le Guin is phenomenal.

I read A Wizard of Earthsea for the first time just last year and it was incredible to realize just how influential that book has been.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/23/2022 at 11:59 PM, HippoPhileus said:

I mean The Lord of the Rings is an excellent trilogy, and I would suggest it to EVERYONE who hasn't (and has) read it.

Damn.. I was going to recommend this.

Anyways. The Mistborn Saga by Brandon Sanderson is a excellent fantasy collection. 

Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson consists of 10 books, and all of it is brings out depth and beauty and far limits of imagination. But it isn't for the weak hearts.

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  • 4 months later...
On 4/6/2022 at 4:19 AM, Derek R said:

Damn.. I was going to recommend this.

Anyways. The Mistborn Saga by Brandon Sanderson is a excellent fantasy collection. 

Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson consists of 10 books, and all of it is brings out depth and beauty and far limits of imagination. But it isn't for the weak hearts.

I should probably mention that I've read all of Brandon Sanderson's books save Legion. He's the one who inspired me to actually pursue writing as a career, and it's specifically his cosmere that inspired me to want to create a shared universe with multiple consistent magic systems. I realized that all my favorite magic systems have philosophical foundations, so that's what I'm trying to create. I'm going back to college after an abortive first year specifically to learn what I need to know to make it good, as at the moment I'm kind of flailing around in the dark.

As far as being weak of heart, I've read Bakker's Prince of Nothing and Aspect-Emperor books, and those are downright nihilistic, they're so brutal and anarchical. Yet I enjoyed them. Short of actual, pretty severe psychological horror, I doubt there's any series I could get recommended that would be too dark or extreme for me.

Oh, and as far as LOTR, while I haven't read the books themselves (the syntax is just too archaic for them to be anything but exhausting for me to read), I have the history of Middle-Earth practically memorized, I'm such a big fan. I've wasted hours just trawling through the One Wiki to Rule Them All.

Edited by Elias
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  • 2 months later...

Bumping this to say Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett is extremely good and has a really cool magic system called Scriving, where by writing commands on objects you can rewrite or hack reality, like making a copper sword believe it's made of steel, wood believe it's stone, or wheels on a carriage move by themselves by making them believe they are on an incline when in reality they are on flat ground. Brandon said good things about the books which got me interested in them. There are three books right now as of this comment, Foundryside, Shorefall, and Locklands. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 11/12/2022 at 0:58 PM, Zurvanite said:

Bumping this to say Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett is extremely good and has a really cool magic system called Scriving, where by writing commands on objects you can rewrite or hack reality, like making a copper sword believe it's made of steel, wood believe it's stone, or wheels on a carriage move by themselves by making them believe they are on an incline when in reality they are on flat ground. Brandon said good things about the books which got me interested in them. There are three books right now as of this comment, Foundryside, Shorefall, and Locklands. 

This sounds very similar to Forging...

Having said that, I'm a little surprised that this post hasn't had everyone jumping on it. Off the cuff, just to mention one or two possibilities: The Belgariad by David Eddings, and a little more modern, The Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks. IMHO, the latter doen't come anywhere near the quality of the former, and is considerably dirtier. But the magic system is very well fleshed out. The former is highly recommended.

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  • 3 months later...

Not sure if it's necromancy, but I saw this post while looking for something else.

Firstly I hope you enjoyed The Unholy Consult. At first I was super disappointed by the ending, but as I thought on it more I came to appreciate it. Secondly, I love that you were reading Dune while waiting for it to arrive. I have always thought of Kellhus as the fully realized version of what Paul could have been. I loved Dune, but found Frank Herbert's writing a bit week. It is one of the only things that I have ever thought turned out better as a movie.

As for a book recommendation, as long as you don't mind reading an unfinished series, I would highly recommend The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It tends towards the darker side of fantasy but, as you mentioned above, nothing can compare to the absolute nihilism of Bakker's Earwa. The main character is a bit of a Marry Sue, but the magic is very interesting in my opinion.

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4 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Firstly I hope you enjoyed The Unholy Consult. At first I was super disappointed by the ending, but as I thought on it more I came to appreciate it.

I actually loved the ending. I really loved how Kellhus' perspective and that of the Consult Dunyain were so fundamentally opposite, yet both eminently logical. Kellhus leaves Ishual and immerses himself in the Gnosis, the consummate power of arcane reality, and so logically comes to the conclusion that the Outside, the ultimate realization of the arcane, is a source of godlike power. The Dunyain captured by the Consult immerse themselves in in the Tekne, the consummate power of mundane reality, and so come to the conclusion that that the Outside is something to be dreaded and feared.

And when the No-God is resurrected, my first thought was "how the hell are they going to kill it now, if sorcery doesn't work and all the spears of light have been drained and lost" only to realize that, with the Carapace no longer bearing Chorae, sorcery can now be used against the No-God in battle. And I especially loved how soul-crushingly shocking yet brutally logical the manner was that the No-God eviscerated the sorcerers of the Ordeal as they turned to annihilate the pursuing Sranc: just whip up all the Chorae arrows in a gale wind and fling them at the wall of sorcerers protecting the men's retreat.

Bakker's series is unironically one of the best I've ever read. I would put him up there with Tolkien and Sanderson in terms of how much thought-provoking material there was for me to dive into. The ending of Unholy Consult changed just enough to make the current crisis fundamentally different from the First Apocalypse the characters talk about while keeping the gut-wrenching impact you'd expect from an abhorrent god being reborn and unleashed on a world that is not prepared to stand against it.

 

As for Dune, the thing I struggled with most was keeping track of which character's POV Herbert was writing from. I put that down to being written in 1965, and thus I can mostly forgive it. And while I don't think I'll be coming back around to the next books in the series for a bit (my interest in things waxes and wanes according to, near as I can tell: what movies and shows I've most recently watched, what video games I'm currently playing, the phases of the moon, whether Mercury is aligned with Sirius and Alpha Centauri according to certain trigonometric formulas, and whatever eldritch deity or cosmic abomination has most recently brushed past my temporal or parietal lobe but not my frontal lobe), I do think it will be well worth it to finish someday, seeing as it is one of the seminal works of science-fiction, in much the same way The Lord of the Rings is one of the seminal works of fantasy.

 

There. Treatise over.

Edited by Elias
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  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, stormform wert said:

the summoner series by taran matharu is pretty good. lotr and pokemon vibes.

I've actually already read that. Maybe I should reread it when I'm done with my reread of Bakker.

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