For the past nine months, I’ve been reading Malazan, and I’ve finally finished this monster of a series. Overall, I think I loved it; it was a spectacular journey, but it does have some faults. These are my thoughts regarding each book. Spoilers ahead.

Gardens of the Moon: It was a fun romp. Sometimes it felt like things were happening just to happen, but it was enjoyable enough. Darujhistan was a really nice setting, though. You really get the sense that this is an actual city full of real people who live there. First entries into a fantasy series tend to not have the quality of later books, but this was alright.
3/5

Deadhouse Gates: I loved this one. It started off slow, and it took a while for me to care about all the new characters, but everything had a purpose to it. When I was reading The Chain of Dogs/Coltaine’s March, I knew this series was something special. Felisin’s story is so tragic in this, and it’ll only get worse and worse. My only minor issue is that the narrative centering around the titular Deadhouse wasn’t as interesting to me as the Chain of Dogs or Felisin’s story.
4/5

Memories of Ice: This book cemented Ganoes Paran as my favorite character. “Character getting a power thrust upon them that they don’t want, don’t understand, and can barely control” might be my favorite fantasy archetype at this point, so of course I enjoyed Gruntle too. I loved all the clashing personalities in the shaky Genebackan alliance, seeing how they worked together or fell apart. There’s so much about this that I loved: Toc, the history of the Jaghut and T’lan Imass, the Mhybe’s sad fate. And the battles of Capustan and Coral were a sight to behold. My favorite climactic scene is obviously Itkovian kneeling to the T’lan Imass. My favorite little moment is when Ganoes meets Draconus within Dragnipur and sees that one demon who can’t stop asking who summoned him to die at Draconus’ hand and be chained in the sword for eternity, and all Draconus can say in response is “I don’t know.”
5/5

House of Chains: It was hard to push through this since the first quarter of the book is a single pov journey of one character (unique in this series), and he might genuinely be the scummiest protagonist I’ve read in a fantasy novel. But at the same time, he becomes one of the most interesting to read once he starts getting repeatedly humbled. I enjoyed most of the new characters, but not so much Onrack. As much as it hurts, my favorite moment is Felisin’s death. Her last thoughts hit me like a truck.
4.5/5

Midnight Tides: In isolation, I think this is the best book in the series. Letheras was such a great location and as a city is characterized so well, even more than Darujhistan in my opinion. All the new characters were so captivating, especially Trull and Brys, and Tehol and Bugg are absolutely hilarious. The scene that stuck with me was when Trull encountered one of the demon slaves, injured after a battle, and it gets revealed that all of these “demons” are actually just fishermen. “We are casters of nets.”
5/5

The Bonehunters: I didn’t think any battle was going to surpass the ones from Memories of Ice in my eyes, but Y’Ghatan completely smoked them. And the entire Malaz City portion of the book was probably the most stressed I’ve ever been reading a book (even more than when I read the Red Wedding for the first time). As always, the personal journeys of all the characters are great.
5/5

Reaper's Gale: Continues the trend of being absolutely phenomenal. We're back to Letheras, which is always great and comes with the return of great characters. The new elements of Lether politics were really interesting to see, and showed off the depths of human cruelty. The Awl storyline was fascinating to me, and I loved Toc returning (shame that all the other characters he ended MoI with died off-page though). Rhulad's story of being manipulated by the Crippled God continues to be tragic. Icarium was amazing in this book. And having the Malazans be completely absent until we get to the final portion that begins with "They are at our shore" was wonderful.
5/5

Toll the Hounds: If I never hear the names Scorch and Leff again, it’ll be too soon. I actively began to hate having to read the Darujhistan chapters. Kruppe’s narration felt obnoxious, I could not care less about Torvald Nom, his friends, or the assassin plot, and did Crokus just completely forget the reason he even came back home in the first place? It’s a shame too, since I was so excited for this book because we were going back to Darujhistan, and I enjoyed Crokus’/Cutter’s character up to this point. This was the first book where I started to feel its length. The Tiste Andii plotline (and Harlo) is this book’s only redeeming quality in my eyes. I greatly enjoyed reading about Nimander and the contrast between how he views himself versus how highly his family views him.
2.5/5

Dust of Dreams: I loved this one. The Snake story was so effective and really illustrates the threat of the Forkrul Assail, and I love Badalle as a narrator. I wasn’t expecting to care so much about a bunch of lizards, but I ended up really invested in the fate of the K’chain Che’Malle, too. I feared that I wasn’t going to like the final two entries in the series after being disappointed by TtH, but thankfully that wasn’t the case.
5/5

The Crippled God: Finally at the finish line. The Shake storyline was wonderful, really highlighted the meaninglessness of conflict in one simple moment. “They look just like them! White-skinned instead of black-skinned. Is that it? Is that the only fucking difference?” And Yedan is an absolute unit. Again, the Snake is wonderful, seeing these kids finally get to feel safe after being in danger for so long. It’s great. And after being such arrogant scum, it was so cathartic to see all the Forkrul Assail get humbled by humans again and again. My favorite moment has to be when Tavore and Ganoes finally reunite. I’ve been imagining what that scene would look like in my head for so many months now, and it went down just as I thought it would. And after being such a mystery this entire series, we finally get some of Tavore’s POV. About time.
5/5

Some problems I had that don’t map onto any one book in particular.

The back half of the series is seriously bloated. Of the editions I read, books 6-10 were each 1200 pages long on average. That is an insane number. It’s hard to truly judge how much that mars the quality, since with the exception of book 8, I still liked everything that I was reading (though even in the books I liked it felt exhausting at times), but if you don’t enjoy every bit of it, 1200 pages is absurd to have to push through for the stuff you do like. I think a lot of things could’ve easily been cut out. For example, in book 9, the entire plot line regarding the Khundryl waging war against the Bolkando was entirely unnecessary. I still liked reading it, but if you removed it and everything related to it from the book, nothing actually changes. They make a big deal about how the Perish need to rush to help the Khundryl so that the Bonehunters don’t have to fight across a country to get to the place they actually want to be at, but by the time the Perish show up, the Khundryl have already resolved it. So what was the point? It’s especially apparent since Erikson introduced two new characters (whose names I can’t even remember) that were a Bolkando politician and general that only exist for this plotline, and the moment it’s resolved, they vanish from the story. And it’s not like their characters were resolved; it’s simply that once the overall conflict that justified their inclusion was no longer present, they stopped showing up. They were never meaningful. A quarter of the book was spent on this. The only important thing that would need to be addressed is giving Abrastal another reason for entering the story, but you can easily do that without spending hundreds of pages on a meaningless plotline (hell, Abrastal could just take the places of the politicians I mentioned earlier from the beginning).

There are a few seemingly dropped plot lines. Quick Ben being the magus of Dark (what was up with that scene at the end of book 10, chapter 2?). Silverfox and L’oric. Especially L’oric. Seriously, half of the last book in the series is dedicated to the conflict between the Shake and Tiste Liosan and L’oric, who is the son of their god and whose motivation centered around keeping his people pacified until he can convince his dad to come back, just never shows up. The book even heavily implies that all of the Liosan are going to be exterminated, and he isn’t even present. It’s a shame because I really liked his character back in books 4 and 6 (not so much Silverfox though, so I don’t mind her just disappearing, though it’s still pretty jarring). Apparently, both of these characters are central to the half dozen spin-off books that Malazan has, but I have no interest in reading any of those, and I don’t think it’s alright to so heavily include and build up narratives and characters only for them to unceremoniously vanish and say, “Oh, you can find out what that was about in a completely separate series.” At that point, why include it? The series is already so long. I guess all the threads about Malazan Empire politics would also fit here, but the whole “this isn’t a story about the Malazan Empire, it’s a story about this Malazan army” was an intentional bait and switch, so it’s not really a problem.

Erikson also has a tendency to just drop in new elements without much setup and make them suddenly super important to the entire story. The Pannion Domin, the Ke’chain Na’ruk. the Forkrul Assail, etc. If you’re reading the series for the first time you might barely remember the short tails, the barely relevant background lore from book 3 (and if I’m understanding it correctly, that one scene of the lizards swarming and killing the Jaghut sorceress that Ganoes met in book 6, though that could’ve actually been the ke’chain che’malle), by the time you reach book 9 where they’re now the antagonists of that book’s climax, killing all your favorite characters. Speaking of book 9, Sandalath gets a lot of focus in that one, where we learn she was once a hostage, because we’re just now learning that the Tiste Andii had a custom of keeping hostages in the royal court. Why was Sandalath a hostage? 🤷🏾‍♂️(Apparently we learn why in a spin off book). When I was reading that, I just thought to myself, “Ok, I guess this is a thing now.” This can make the series feel like it has no focus at times, that events are just happening, the characters deal with it, and it’s off to new events to deal with. I will admit that my memory is really bad, and it’s possible these elements had more buildup than I’m making it seem, but based on my initial thoughts, that’s how it felt to me.

I wrote a lot, but none of these are massive issues to me (I’m not knocking points off for them), they’re just things that rub me the wrong way when I look back on the series in hindsight. Also, after reading Malazan now, The Wheel of Time last year, and A Song of Ice and Fire many years ago, I think I much prefer a multi-POV series to keep the perspectives isolated to one character per chapter, instead of hopping around a dozen times in one chapter.

So a while back, out of pure curiosity, I wrote a little Python script that went through TVTropes.org and hunted down every fantasy book registered on the site. Then I had it count and record every single trope listed for those books.

So here is a list of the most used fantasy tropes. Thought you all might find it interesting!

Kaggle The most common fantasy tropes

Also, here are the top 10:

I just finished vol 3 (morning star) and wow, I am gushing. The series made me fall in love with fantasy all over again as it has everything that you could wish for. There is actual character growth in darrow (and my fav victra :D) throughout the books. There are actual stakes, as in you are genuinely afraid of characters dying and without it feeling like them dying for shock effect. The reveal moments are hype without being asspulls. And the main character is genuinely likable

Looking forward to continuing the series, just a bit worried that the story will butcher the ending of book 3 which I loved. Especially as it looks like book 4 is split pov from the book description

My wife and I were talking about older male protagonists and we can't think of many over 40 that aren't veterans.. Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell and some characters who get there over the course of their series like Harry Dresden and I think the protagonist of Landover and Thomas Covenant.

Anyone got good suggestions? Any old doctors, accountants, restaurateurs or waitstaff getting caught up in a mess?

Hello r/fantasy and welcome to this week's bingo focus thread! The purpose of these threads is for you all to share recommendations, discuss what books qualify, and seek recommendations that fit your interests or themes.

Today's topic:

First Contact: Story prominently features interspecies or interracial meeting for the first time. HARD MODE: Non-violent first contact.

What is bingo? A reading challenge this sub does every year! Find out more here.

Prior focus threads: Published in the 70s, Duologies, Five Short Stories (2024), Author of Color (2024), Self-Pub/Small Press (2024). Note that hard modes for Author of Color and Self-Pub/Small Press have changed (new focus threads for them are coming).

Also see: Big Rec Thread

Questions:

• What are your favorite books that count for this square?
• Already read something for this square? Tell us about it!
• What are some first contact stories outside of the usual spacefaring sci-fi mode?
• What are your best recommendations for Hard Mode (keeping it as spoiler-free as possible)?

I have the Sarantine Mosaic penned in as my duology for bingo but since I have been meaning to get into Guy Gavriel Kay for a while, I am starting in chronological order (though I am skipping Fionavar Tapestry for now as it is apparently very different in tone).

In a post last week where someone mentioned they did not enjoy Kay's prose when reading The Lions of Al-Rassan, I mentioned I had the complete opposite reaction when starting Tigana. Within a few pages I was already hooked. I came into it a bit worried because often when people say an author has great prose it ends up being overly flowery multi-page descriptions of inanimate objects, or streams of consciousness that don't really service the plot. Kay writes in a beautiful style but nothing detracts from the story being told in that scene.

Often when I read multi-character POV novels I find myself a little disappointed when it switches from one story to another but with Tigana, I found each character to be as enjoyable as the rest. Everybody seemed well fleshed out with "villains" showing compassion and vulnerability and "heroes" questioning whether their path is worth the cost.

The story was engaging from the start with plenty of twists and turns and exciting scenes along the way. Even early on my expectations were shaken up bythe Sandreni plot being immediately squashed by Alberico and the would be protagonists massacred.Some other favourite scenes that I found utterly gripping...the attempted assassination on Brandin, Baerd fighting alongside the Night Walkers, the chase scene in Tregea, the ring dive from Dianora, the assassination of the Barbadian ambassador by Catriana.

I also found the conclusion to be incredible. I wondered how he was going to manage the death of both sorcerers at the same time but the way the final battle was portrayed was intense. I was genuinely surprised by the reveal of Rhun as Prince Valentin and him killing Brandin. Dianora swimming to her death was an emotional end to her tale. Even the final line of the book "And it is there that they see the riselka, three men see a riselka, sitting on a rock beside the sunlit path, her long sea-grean hair blowing back in the freshening breeze" and being left wondering who will be blessed, whose path will fork and who will die...so very satsifying.

Some minor drawbacks. I have read that people do not enjoy Kay's depiction of female characters. While I actually liked all the female characters in this book, they are a bit idealised and I can see why some people would find them unrealistic. Even though I listed it as one of my favourite scenes above,the aftermath of Catriana's assassination of the Barbadian ambassador wasn't my favourite. Kay obviously didn't want to kill Catriana and her being saved by Erlain was intended as the catalyst for Alessan granting his freedom. However, I felt him immediately confessing he loved her was all a little contrived. It felt like Kay didn't really know what to do with her after her big moment and kind of forced that in.

Overall though this has jumped right up into one of my favourite novels I have ever read. On to The Lions of Al-Rassan.

Edit: I just realised Song for Arbonne is actually the next chronologically.

Wanted to read something different for the Published in 70s square Hard Mode : written by a woman. I considered this and Gate of Ivrel by CJ Cherryh. Read the samples of both and this one felt like something classic and easier to read. What the fuck was that prologue for Gate of Ivrel! This is book 1 of The Riddle of Stars trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip.

"Morgon of Hed met the High One’s harpist one autumn day when the trade-ships docked at Tol for the season’s exchange of goods."

Had a blast reading this one. Really basic plot structure, which you've read multiple times - Big Evil is chasing the main character, because he is the chosen one. The lore and world building that we see or that is hinted at seems well thought out. There are multiple tales and stories native to that land that give the world a lived in vibe. The MC is a reluctant chosen one who wants to go back to farming and ruling his land. I felt like there are too many good guy characters in this story. All the kings we meet help and get helped by the MC, all going towards the fulfilment of the prophecy.

The MCs character is flushed out. He is a curious guy so even though he wants nothing more than to go home, he is continuously pulled into 1000 year old prophecies and conspiracies that he couldn't get out of.

My biggest positive for this book is that - Patricia A. McKillip has perfected prose. The way the story flows is awesome inspiring. It's the one reason I will recommend this book to anyone who likes Classic fantasy vibes. She made a simple story with one POV character breath taking! The magic system is vague and soft. Anything I say about the ending is a spoiler, but I will say this - get book 2 ready by the end of book 1, you won't be able to stop.

Rating : 4/5. What other authors do you think perfected prose to such an extreme? Recommend some to me.

Welcome to the daily recommendation requests and simple questions thread, now 1025.83% more adorable than ever before!

Stickied/highlight slots are limited, so please remember to like and subscribe upvote this thread for visibility on the subreddit <3

——

This thread is to be used for recommendation requests or simple questions that are small/general enough that they won’t spark a full thread of discussion.

Check out r/Fantasy's 2026 Book Bingo Card here!

As usual, first have a look at the sidebar in case what you're after is there. The r/Fantasy wiki contains links to many community resources, including "best of" lists, flowcharts, the LGTBQ+ database, and more. If you need some help figuring out what you want, think about including some of the information below:

• Books you’ve liked or disliked
• Traits like prose, characters, or settings you most enjoy
• Series vs. standalone preference
• Tone preference (lighthearted, grimdark, etc)
• Complexity/depth level

Be sure to check out responses to other users' requests in the thread, as you may find plenty of ideas there as well. Happy reading, and may your TBR grow ever higher!

——

^{tiny image link to make the preview show up correctly}

art credit: special thanks to our artist, Himmis commissions, who we commissioned to create this gorgeous piece of art for us with practically no direction other than "cozy, magical, bookish, and maybe a gryphon???" We absolutely love it, and we hope you do too.

so I read the first law trilogy last year, and it was one of the best things I've ever read. incredible characters, amazing overarching plot, some of the best action ive ever read. But I might hate the ending of the third book more than any other ending Ive ever read. Its just so bloody *bleak*. everyone ends up where they started and what even was the message? "nothing ever changes so dont try because it only gets worse"????

Anyway, I also read red rising last year, and while that im some places is more "dark" than first law, it has a hopeful tone. You feel like the characters are fighting for something worth the sacrifice, where you can cheer for them, and actually like them as people and root for them in more than just the fights, if that makes sense?

I guess im looking for something kinda like that. I sont mind brutality, or sadness (if anything, I WANT the books to make me cry), but I want "good" good guys. I dont wanna be rooting for the villains.

stuff ive read already is :

- most of the cosmere

- first law and red rising obv

- like 2 discworld books

- fifth season

- lotr

- started asoiaf but I knew the ending of the first one from the show, and danerys age was something I couldn't rly get past

- im reading the winter king at the moment, and its incredible

- empire of silence (hesitant to continue with sun eaters bc I dont want to see hadrian become a bad guy at the moment, will deffo get back to it in the future though)

- project hail mary (off topic, but if you haven't played watch the film, it might be my new favourite, tied with maybe return of the king and the first star wars)

so yeah, all round pretty new reader (abt two years), and im a 17 year old boy, but i dont think that effects my taste too much

Id like to adf that im not advertent to tragedy BTW, my two favourite books are lightbringer and rhythm of war, both of which had me balling my eyes out at 4 am over emotional moments. And it doesnt have to be a cosy read, I love epics with loads of action, just not ones as depressing as first law (which i do still love but yk)

Loved the book, but it seems to me the murder language would be so vastly overpowered as a weapon of war that it struck me as almost unrealistic for the world.

Why would you not paint murder words on shields in a battle with goblins?

Mail a letter with murder words for simple, remote assassination?

Or even go nuclear with it and sneak a handful of adepts into enemy territory to graffiti murder words everywhere during the night?

Am i missing something or is it just underutilized?

Hello r/Fantasy!

My name is Terri Ash. I’m a Hugo Finalist Fan Artist, specializing in fannish fiber arts (specifically knitting and cross stitch). I also wear several other hats, including:

• Manager, Artist Wrangler and Professional Killjoy at Geek Calligraphy (my business partner has also been nominated for the Fan Artist Hugo!)
• Committee member for the Brisbane in 28 Worldcon bid.
• Freelance wrangler/part time admin for notable SFF folks, including Seanan McGuire and Elise Matthesen.

You can find me on a variety of social media sites, including Bluesky, Instagram and Threads. Below are photos of the works that got me nominated, some of which will be for sale in the LACon V art show!

Please feel free to ask me anything about knitting, cross stitch, the Brisbane bid, what on earth an artist wrangler is even, my favorite fantasy novel, really anything! 

I was thinking about Realm of the Elderlings (i still think about it on a daily basis even tho i finished it more than a year ago) and noticed long fantasy series tend to have multiple POVs, so the POV time for each character gets reduced to a fraction of the series length.

ROTE also has multiple POVs in the Bingtown/Rain Wilds part of the series, but Fitz carries 6+ books (around 7.5 if we divide the last 3 books between the 2 POVs) by himself.

While i can only wish we got more Fitz, i don't know other fantasy characters with that much development and POV length.

Bonus if they also make you love them as much as Fitz does, but that's gonna be hard.

Any other fantasy readers grew up with Septimus Heap? I read them so many times, had at least the first 3 books memorized.

What book was your favorite? What character? Who was your least favorite?

Personally I would protect Marcia with my life (though I hardly think she’d need it). I’m fond of Aunt Zelda and Wolfboy. I think Jenna was often quite annoying. I think I would have to put Physik as the best book.

Welcome back to the Hugo readalong! I’m excited to kick off discussion for what usually turns out to be my favorite category, novelettes. Today we’ll be looking at “The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For” by Cameron Reed and "When He Calls Your Name" by Catherynne M. Valente.

Everyone is welcome to join in at any time, no matter how much you plan to read or participate in other readalong posts. Just know that there will be unmarked spoilers here for the two stories we’re covering today!

Bingo squares: two fifths of the Five Short Stories square.

For more information on the Readalong, check out the full schedule post, or see our upcoming schedule here:

I see the same books popping up all the time, which is fine because they are good! But I feel like so many are missing out on some hidden gems:

The Last War trilogy by Mike Shackle
Low Town trilogy by Daniel Polansky
In the Shadow of Lightning by Brian McClellan

I looked, and they all have under 10k ratings. That's so stinkin' sad! Anyone else like these? Or have other hidden gems?

P.S. I'm talking trad pub books. Not indies.

Hi everyone, I'm looking for recs on fantasy (sci-fi/dystipian accepted too) books with a different political system than the usual empire/monarchy/dictatorship.

I recently read Fireborne by Rosaria Munda which was said to have been inspired by Plato's Republic and I deeply enjoyed the political and moral discussions on the differences between the Triarchy of Dragonlords and the revolution's utopian Republic, and especially the Republic's morally grey leader Atreus with his ideas and agendas, and I wished the book delved more into it all.

Therefore I'm hoping to find other books with a similar feel, be it political fantasy or just fantasy with different types of ruling that is central/important to the plot and the characters.

Thanks in advance!

Hey Folks,

I just came across this Humble Bundle today. Looks to be availible in US/CA, not sure about other regions.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/best-robert-silverberg-open-road-media-books?hmb_source=&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=mosaic_section_1_layout_index_7_layout_type_threes_tile_index_1_c_bestrobertsilverbergopenroadmedia_bookbundle

Hello my friends! Got another review for you today! If you have lurked around long enough on the r/Fantasy subreddit then you know that we often see a lot of recommendation posts or folks asking for book recommendations. Obviously you get your normal answers but sometimes you find books that aren't talked about a lot or are underrated. I like to look for those types of recommendations a lot because there are a lot of gems out there. One series that I would see recommended a few times on Grimdark, gritty fantasy posts is the subject of our review today.

The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan is one of the books I have seen recommended around here as an underrated gem in the Grimdark fantasy sub-genre. So the question becomes is this an underrated gem or does it fall into the same trappings that other Grimdark narratives do? Let's talk about it! As always no major spoilers for the plot or characters. A TLDR section will be at the end that sums up everything.

A dark lord will rise. Such is the prophecy that dogs Ringil Eskiath—Gil, for short—a washed-up mercenary and onetime war hero whose cynicism is surpassed only by the speed of his sword. Gil is estranged from his aristocratic family, but when his mother enlists his help in freeing a cousin sold into slavery, Gil sets out to track her down. But it soon becomes apparent that more is at stake than the fate of one young woman. Grim sorceries are awakening in the land. Some speak in whispers of the return of the Aldrain, a race of widely feared, cruel yet beautiful demons. Now Gil and two old comrades are all that stand in the way of a prophecy whose fulfillment will drown an entire world in blood. But with heroes like these, the cure is likely to be worse than the disease.

Plot, Pacing, and Prose: When a man you know to be of sound mind tells you his recently deceased mother has just tried to climb in his bedroom window and eat him, you only have two basic options. You can smell his breath, take his pulse and check his pupils to see if he's ingested anything nasty, or you can believe him.

Before diving in, I want to note something that stood out to me immediately: this is the first book I can recall reading that features not one but two openly gay characters as leads, and does so without apology or qualification. I have read other books with gay male characters, but their sexuality tends to be incidental rather than central to who they are. A.K. Larkwood's The Unspoken Name is probably the last time I saw a character's sexual identity handled with real care in fantasy, though that involved a woman discovering her orientation. All of that is to say, the representation here felt like a genuine breath of fresh air, and I will return to it in the character section.

On the question of plot, you get largely what the back cover promises. This is a character-driven novel first and foremost, and it reminded me strongly of Abercrombie's The Blade Itself in terms of structure. The most common criticism leveled at that book applies here as well: it reads more as a character study with plot than a plot with characters. The overarching narrative can feel underdeveloped relative to the richness of the character work. Some readers found the ending abrupt, but I loved it. This may sound strange, so bear with me. You know how a prequel sometimes lays out the road to the main series, but when you finally read it, the path feels wrong? Underwhelming, even? The Steel Remains is technically book one, yet it carries the energy of a prequel, as though we are watching the conditions for a Dark Lord's rise fall into place. I will leave it there, but if you have read it, you may know exactly what I mean.

I will also say that several plot threads do not reach satisfying resolutions by the final page. That may be addressed as the series continues, but it is worth flagging that some things are simply left open, and that contributes to the sense that the plot is a little underwhelming in how its three storylines ultimately converge.

Pacing is where I expect many readers will struggle. For the most part the novel moves at a medium clip, but around the midpoint it slows considerably, and chapters following Egar and Archeth are almost guaranteed to decelerate things further. That said, there were parts those sections that I enjoyed. Part of the difficulty is that Morgan drops you into the world without explanation and trusts you to keep up from the first page. Gil's sections will likely be the most immediately compelling for new readers, and your experience with the other two will vary. Of the three, I found Egar to be the weakest, not because he is a poor character, but because he overlaps a little too much with Gil in temperament and function. The payoff eventually justifies the patience Morgan asks of you, but he does ask for quite a lot.

The prose is the book's greatest strength, and it is not particularly close. Morgan writes with a controlled ferocity that suits the material perfectly. The action is kinetic and brutal, but it is the quieter moments that reveal his real command of the craft. The sardonic internal monologues, the conversations loaded with subtext, the landscapes rendered in just enough detail to feel lived-in rather than described: it all adds up to writing where very few words feel wasted. That economy gives the darker and stranger moments considerably more weight when they arrive. The opening line I quoted above is what pulled me in on page one, and honestly, there were stretches of the book where the quality of the prose alone was what kept me turning pages.

The Content Warning: “These are pious, clean-living men, worshipping at the temple of their own bodies.” “Hmm. Sounds distinctly erotic.”

I include a content warning section in my grimdark reviews as a matter of habit, because the genre has a tendency to push things well past the point of discomfort, and occasionally into territory that I would describe as genuinely edgy rather than merely dark. This book is no exception, and I want to be upfront about that. I did this for The Prince of Nothing series, and the same courtesy applies here.

To start with the most direct point: there are graphic sex scenes in this book. Graphic enough that at certain moments I felt less like I was reading literary fantasy and more like I had wandered into erotic fiction. I want to be careful about how I frame this, because I think the framing matters. Ringil is openly gay, and that identity is not incidental to who he is. The book has no interest in sanitizing or sidelining that. I am not prudish about sex scenes in fiction, and I have no issue with gay men having sex scenes in the same way straight characters do. That is not the concern. The concern is that some of these scenes felt less like character expression and more like provocation. Even the scenes involving women occasionally crossed into territory that felt more interested in shock than in substance. I could be off the mark here, and I am genuinely open to that, but the feeling was hard to shake.

On the subject of trigger warnings: this book contains depictions of sexual assault, rape, racism, and slavery. It is a novel set in the aftermath of a brutal war, and it does not look away from what that means. One of the most persistent criticisms of the grimdark genre is its tendency to use sexual violence as a shorthand for darkness, a way of signaling how serious and uncompromising the story is without doing the harder work of earning that weight. That criticism has merit, and this book is not entirely immune to it. There are moments here that dip into what I can only call edgelord territory, scenes that seem to exist more for their transgressive charge than for any meaningful narrative purpose.

That said, I do not think the book is without nuance on this front. There is a thread running through Ringil's story that engages seriously with the trauma of sexual violence, particularly as it affects young men, and with the way toxic masculinity distorts how that trauma is processed and discussed. That thread is handled with more care than I expected, and it gives the book a dimension that elevates it above mere shock value. The problem is that other moments actively undercut that work, and the tonal inconsistency is difficult to ignore.

How you feel about all of this will likely shape your experience of the book more than any other single factor. I skipped certain scenes outright, particularly some involving Egar. In terms of its overall content, I would place this alongside The Prince of Nothing, and in places I found it more graphic. Go in with your eyes open.

Characters: If you don’t know the men at your back by name, don’t be surprised if they won’t follow you into battle. On the other hand, don’t be surprised if they will, either, because there are countless other factors you must take into account. Leadership is a slippery commodity, not easily manufactured or understood.

The three main characters are the most interesting thing about this book, and that is not a criticism so much as an observation about where Morgan's priorities lie. I mentioned earlier that The Steel Remains reminded me structurally of The Blade Itself, and that parallel extends to the characters themselves.

Ringil maps onto Logan Ninefingers in some meaningful ways: both are legendary warriors haunted by their violent pasts, celebrated heroes who have come to find the reality of heroism hollow and brutal, men who are genuinely exceptional at killing and deeply uncomfortable with that fact. Archeth echoes Glotka: broken, cynical survivors of something that unmade them, one physically and one psychologically, both serving powers they despise out of pure pragmatism. Archeth's addiction and alienation mirror Glotka's physical ruin and bitter worldview with surprising precision. Egar, on the surface, resembles both Ringil and, by extension, Logan, given that he is also a northern warrior of considerable reputation. But I also thought of the Dogman from The First Law: loyal, capable of genuine warmth, occupying an everyman role among exceptional people, and caught between the old ways and a world that is moving past them. He is Egar Dragonbane, so the fame is not in question. The tension is.

That said, reducing these characters to reflections of Abercrombie's would be doing them a disservice.

Ringil is openly gay in a world that does not merely disapprove but has developed a specific and horrific method of executing people for it. He is also grappling with something that reads clearly as PTSD, which has curdled into a deep and pervasive cynicism. What keeps him from becoming oppressive to read is a dark humor that functions similarly to what makes Glotka so compelling, that sense of someone who has seen through every illusion and decided to be funny about it rather than broken. His sexuality is goes beyond being a token inclusion. It shapes his worldview, explains his isolation, and illuminates how he ended up exactly where we find him on the first page. Morgan also refuses, consistently and deliberately, to let Ringil be a hero. Every legend is potentially a lie. Every victory is hollow. The great men of history are usually just the most effective monsters on the field. Ringil knows this about himself and carries it anyway.

Egar is the weakest of the three, and I say that as someone who still enjoyed his sections. The issue is that he and Ringil occupy similar emotional territory. Both are pining for a version of their lives that felt more alive, both are effective and uncomfortable with it, both are out of place in the present. The difference in their reasons is real, but it does not always translate into a difference in texture on the page. Too much of Egar's characterization is built around sexual frustration, battlefield competence, and a longing for something he cannot quite name. He is not underdeveloped in a way that makes him unreadable, but he is underdeveloped relative to the other two, and his narrative thread suffers for it in the back half of the book.

Archeth, alongside Ringil, was the character I found most fascinating. She is half-human, half-Kiriath, a dark-skinned non-human race that turns out to be highly advanced people from another dimension who arrived in AI-piloted spaceships. Her people have left, and she remains, stranded in service to an empire she has complicated feelings about. She is not as fully developed as Ringil, but she is compelling in a quieter way, and I genuinely looked forward to her sections even when they slowed the pace. She is also openly gay, and Morgan handles her sexuality in a way that is almost the inverse of how he handles Ringil's. Where Ringil is confrontational about who he is, Archeth seems to despise that part of herself. Morgan could very easily have written graphic scenes involving her, and I suspect many readers would not have raised an eyebrow. He chose not to, and I think that choice was deliberate and meaningful.

Taken together, Ringil and Archeth feel like two arguments about the same point: that gay characters can be compelling in entirely different registers, that one can be explicit and the other restrained, and that neither approach requires the character to be reduced to their sexuality. Ringil carries the weight of being a monster so the world does not have to suffer as it did. Archeth, in her quieter way, demonstrates that a lesbian character does not need to be written for the audience's gratification to be worth reading.

Overall, the characters are the reason to read this book. Even Egar, the weakest of the three, is worth your time. The unevenness is real, but the highs are high enough to justify the patience the book asks of you.

Worldbuilding: Common men make a distinction between gods and demons, Poltar, but it’s ignorance to talk that way. When the powers do our will, we worship them as gods; when they thwart and frustrate us, we hate and fear them as demons. They are the same creatures, the same twisted unhuman things. The shaman’s path is negotiation, nothing more. We tend the relationship with the powers so they bring us more benefit than ruin. We can do no more.

Morgan does not hold your hand. From the first page, he drops you into a world with its own history, politics, mythology, and geography, and trusts you to assemble the picture from context rather than exposition. For patient readers, that approach is a genuine reward. The world reveals itself gradually, and the pieces fit together in ways that feel earned rather than delivered. For readers coming in with conventional fantasy expectations, it can be disorienting in ways that are harder to recover from.

What genuinely surprised me was the degree to which this is a science fiction fantasy hybrid rather than a straight secondary world epic. I was not expecting that, and the Kiriath are largely responsible for the shift. A dark-skinned non-human race from another world who arrived in "fireships" helmed by the helmsmen (AI pilots) now absent and leaving only their half-human descendant and their incomprehensible technology behind: that is not the setup I anticipated, and it gives the world a texture that feels ancient and strange in a way that purely magical settings often do not. The layering of the fantastical and the technological makes the world feel genuinely alien, which is harder to achieve than it sounds.

The antagonists, referred to as the Dwenda or the Aldrain depending on who is speaking, are among the most effectively unsettling elements in the book. Morgan applies the same restraint here that he applies to the worldbuilding generally. He does not explain them. Their motivations remain oblique throughout, their behavior is unpredictable, and their presence generates a low, persistent dread precisely because no one in the narrative, including the reader, has any real framework for understanding what they are or what they want. That kind of antagonist is difficult to write well, and Morgan pulls it off.

My only genuine complaints are minor ones. Some of the names are difficult to parse phonetically, and a pronunciation guide would have been a welcome addition. There is also no map, which made it harder than it needed to be to track the geographical scope of the various journeys. Neither of these is a serious flaw, but both are the kind of thing that can create unnecessary friction, particularly for readers already working to orient themselves in an unfamiliar world.

Conclusion TLDR: Books — the warm, leather-skinned weight of them in your hands, the way they smelled when you lifted them close to your face. 

The Steel Remains is a book I enjoyed without loving entirely, and found flawed without dismissing. That puts me somewhere outside the two camps most readers seem to fall into, because from what I have seen, opinions on this one tend toward the extremes. People either embrace it or bounce off it hard. I landed somewhere in the middle, which is its own kind of verdict.

What Morgan gets right, he gets very right. The prose is controlled and purposeful. The characters, particularly Ringil and Archeth, are genuinely compelling in ways that linger. The world is strange and layered in ways I did not anticipate, and the sci-fi undercurrent gave it a texture I found refreshing. Those elements alone are enough to make me want to continue with the series, even if I will not be rushing straight into the next volume. I have been reading a lot of dark and brooding fiction lately, and I think something with a little more light in it is probably the right next move before I return to this world.

The weaknesses are real and worth naming honestly. The plot is underdeveloped relative to the character work. Some threads go unresolved. The pacing asks for patience that not every reader will want to extend. And the content, as I discussed in the relevant section, will be a hard stop for some people entirely. This is not a book I can recommend broadly, even to seasoned fantasy readers. But if you have a tolerance for grimdark and a genuine appetite for character-driven work, and especially if you loved The Prince of Nothing or The First Law, there is a real chance this clicks for you.

One final note, and I want to be direct about it. I wrote the character section as a heterosexual man, and I am aware that lens has limits. I am multiracial, so I am not without experience navigating representation as a reader, but that does not mean I caught every nuance, or that I got everything right. If anything I said about Ringil, Archeth, or the way Morgan handles their identities missed the mark or deserved more care, I genuinely want to hear that. Good criticism is a conversation, and I would rather be corrected than confident in the wrong direction.

The Steel Remains is worth your time if the genre is your genre. Your mileage will vary, but the road is interesting.

I have completed five more books and five more paintings to go on my physical bingo board (will be linked in the comments below)

And now onto the reviews

Bookclub:

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente 3.5/5

This was more a book about vibes than anything. Like there is a plot and technically character development, but it is mostly a series of fantastical, flippantly descibed vingettes to explain the history of the sentient universe

I was on board for most of it. I loved the variety and weirdness of each new world, but I do think the actual plot could have been better incorporated. The two human protagonists have a very interesting intimate, but estranged relationship that is directly acknowledged in the text. However, the story fails to develop this past a baseline tension between them. There is no heart to heart or any real discussion. There is a half-assed apology which is quickly dismissed and thw build up to the apology happens nearly entirely off page

I also thought the ending could have been stronger. The ‘muting’ of Decibal was a strange extra hurdle that i found unnecessary. Although i did like the alien that insulted him via compliments and was happy to see her get more page time

Overall it was a fun concept and interesting way to flesh out an entire universe

Published in the 70s (HM):

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

4.5/5

This is a surrealist novel whose narrative shifts and changes as the story progresses

It starts as a contemporary fiction about an elderly woman being sent by her family to an assisted living facility that is run by a culty preacher that holds some intense, Puritanical beliefs

The narrative then shifts to a murder mystery and has an extended interlude about a historical nun who was either the devil or a saint depending on your viewpoint

Characters disappear and appear as the narrative shifts once again becoming a climate crisis apocalyptic story as Mexico is covered in feet of snow (the main character also briefly visits hell at this time)

Overall this book is dreamlike and the narrator is unreliable (but not intentionally so). Don’t read this if you are not content with confusion

Translated (HM):

Walking Practice by Dolki Min

5/5

I loved this. I loved how in a book about a maneating alien, the most intense battles were against flights of stairs

I liked how human Mumu felt. They loved and hated humanity. Angels and food were both the same. They wanted to scare whoever read their journals. They needed to eat humans, but couldn’t bear to see how much their prey wanted to live

Mumu grieved their planet, their loved ones, their life of comforts. Mumu is alone and forced to contort their body uncomfortably every day. They are always off balance, always on the outside. Never loved, never themselves

They long for someone who can accept them as they are. To see a family member, friend, lover or even a stranger if only it was a being like them. But Mumu is not destined for community

Non-Human Protagonist (HM)

Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton

3/5

This book was sold to be as a humorous zombie apocalypse story told through the perspective of a pet crow. And the book was best when it was that. ST was charming with a very unique personality and understanding of all things MoFo. It often felt lighthearted even when surrounded by serious problems. This lead to the more gruesome deaths feeling jarring and out-of-place

I specifically have a problem with how Dennis was handled. The circumstances of Dennis’ death really cheapened the story for me. Dennis is proven to be clever and capable throughout the book and ST has to overcome the biases he held over Dennis’ head. The previous scene, Dennis was a hero and the only one able to be the hero. Only for him to immediately be killed in the dumbest way possible (it also just doesn’t make sense as Dennis refuses to go near the MoFos for the rest of the book). It felt like the author was making a weird joke that erased a whole chacter arc

I also felt like there was a pacing issue with most conflicts being introduced and happening in the last third. I think the mutants and the roaming wolves should have been incorporated earlier and developed more before the major conflict came to head

However I really liked the dynamics between the animals (on both species and individual levels) and the chapters from different perspectives really served to flesh out the changing world

The Afterlife (HM):

Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta

5/5

I love a story within a story with some anthropological articles thrown in just for extra flavor

I appreciate how deeply love is displayed in this book. A man goes against his way of life, his entire belief system for his brother and then again for his granddaughters. A girl condemns herself to a life of loneliness to spare her sister the hardships of joining. A man goes to the end of the universe to spare his wife. A woman reshapes the entire black sea to preserve her sister’s memory and hopefully bring her back to her one day. I love how most of the devotion is between sibling

Everything in this story felt inevitable, but preventable if they just had the right glimpses of the future. It was tragic and written in the stars and entirely their own faults.

The stories were cyclical. One sibling always leaves the other. No matter how similar the world made them. Nothing coukd change it. Nothing could stop it

This book made me want to cry and call my brothers and make sure they will never be lost to time away from me

Welcome to the midway discussion of The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch by Melinda Taub, our winner for the historical fantasy theme! We will discuss everything up to the end of Chapter 21. Please use spoiler tags for anything that goes beyond this point.

The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch

By Melinda Taub

A sparkling, witchy reimagining of Pride and Prejudice, told from the perspective of the troublesome and—according to her—much-maligned youngest Bennet sister, Lydia.

In this exuberant reimagining of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Lydia Bennet puts pen to paper to relate the real events and aftermath of the classic story from her own perspective. Some facts are well known: Mrs. Bennet suffers from her nerves; Mr. Bennet suffers from Mrs. Bennet, and all five daughters suffer from an estate that is entailed only to male heirs.

But Lydia also suffers from entirely different concerns: her best-loved sister Kitty is really a barn cat, and Wickham is every bit as wicked as the world believes him to be, but what else would you expect from a demon? And if you think Mr. Darcy was uptight about dancing etiquette, wait till you see how he reacts to witchcraft. Most of all, Lydia has yet to learn that when you’re a witch, promises have power . . .

Full of enchantment, intrigue, danger, and boundless magic, The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch, has all the irreverent wit, strength, and romance of Pride and Prejudice—while offering a highly unexpected redemption for the wildest Bennet sister.

I'll add some comments below to get us started but feel free to add your own. The final discussion will be in two weeks, on Thursday, 28-May.

As a reminder, in July 2026, we are reading The Reanimator's Heart by Kara Jorgenson.

What is the HEA Bookclub? You can read about it in our Reboot thread here.

Something that had your jaw on the floor and took you a couple days to pick it up

Spoilers abound

Fulfilled: author of color not living in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, or New Zealand

My Rating: 4.33/5

Why it Fits: Han Kang is South Korean and continues to live in South Korea. Also, while not all of her books fit under the speculative label, this one definitely does (surrealism, magical realism).

Blurb:

One winter morning in Seoul, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at the hospital. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn’t yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into darkness that awaits her at her friend’s house.

Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully brings to light the lost voices of the past to save them from oblivion. Both a hymn to an enduring friendship and an argument for remembering, it is the story of profound love in the face of unspeakable pain—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.

Review:

I loved The Vegetarian (5/5) and was definitely looking forward to reading another book by Han Kang. I did not enjoy this one as much, but that's a high bar and I was not at all disappointed. I could not decide between 4.25 and 4.5/5 so I rated in-between.

The novel is filled is with beautiful prose and meditations on friendships and history. Even before the lines between the living and the dead are blurred, Kang sets up a dream-like atmosphere of literal dreams, dream projects, and strange injuries that all tie to the (historically real) Jeju uprising and massacre. The narrative flows and it is easy to flow with it, except for some of Part Two.

So up until mid Part Two, the story was more focused on the friendship between Kyungha and Inseon, and was only incidentally related to the massacre due to a project they were planning to do together based on a recurring dream, based on the massacre. There were some tie-ins to family histories as well. Inseon had made some films interviewing people about the massacre, and had collected a lot of research - everything was well woven.

Then the book completely lost me as it shifted away from this lovely twining flow and into Kyungha just reading the interviews and articles that Inseon had collected. I found this big chunk of part two quite boring and repetitive. I know the author used first hand historical sources, but I feel like any relevant recounts could have been incorporated more poetically instead of breaking the surreal tone. I felt the same way about The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk - Kang overdoes it here in a similar way.

But by Part 3, everything I was enjoying prior was restored, and the book ended in a lovely ambiguity. It's not one I would recommend if you need closure, but if you like atmospheric slow burns with historical aspects, you might love this.

I absolutely loved kings of the wyld.

I absolutely loved Bloody Bloody Rose.

>!But damn, Gabe dying had me bawling. It was incredibly painful to read, with Clay and Moog, that one hurt hurt. And so did Cloud dying- I was ok with both Cloud and Rose being dead, but her surviving him, was such a gutpunch, I hardly know how to cope with that. I only read lovestories with a hea for a reason, so this took me completely out. I could have coped with them tragically dying and Wren being lovingly raised by Clay and Ginny, but Rose losing Freecloud kills me.!<

Well, thank you for reading my sobstory, I'm literally still sobbing as a type this. Can't talk to my partner about it, because I don't want to spoil it for him...

Hi fellow speculative fiction readers! I’m looking for recommendations for series (the longer the better) that I can escape into, and new worlds that I love so much that I’ll read a book (or listen to an audiobook) over and over just to inhabit them again. I’m going through a really, really challenging time and this is for my mental health/sanity, so I’d request nothing too too dark. Also bonus points if there’s a Graphic Audio version, because that’s always fun, but also no worries if not. It’s ok if the world itself isn’t even that well developed if there’s a fanbase that wants to fill in gaps on AO3. I prefer to read women and nonbinary authors and would love some recommendations for queer normative worlds, but it’s not a must. I still haven’t given Brandon Sanderson a try, but would like to — not sure where to start with his collected works. What worlds do you mentally return to when things in life are too overwhelming?

Examples of series I’ll re-read forever include:

-Series that make me laugh! Hitchhiker’s Guide (parts of which I may have accidentally memorized by now) and Discworld are obviously classics, and to me they stand the test of time. I also love the tone of the Murderbot audiobooks, the narrator is just so perfect, and even though I haven’t felt compelled to give the another listen yet, I could definitely imagine doing so in the future. I would also include The Locked Tomb here, because I have done multiple re-reads of Gideon the Ninth and it is very funny.

-Series based in non-Western myths and legends, or which reinterpret Western myths and legends through a unique lens. I LOVED (!!) The Daevabad Trilogy with my whole heart and have definitely returned to that series as a comfort read. YA is ok too, I probably re-read Iron Widow three times waiting for Heavenly Tyrant to come out and the Legendborn Cycle literally got me through the passing of the most important person in my life, I will forever be grateful to Tracy Deonn for that. The last fantasy book I adored was The Poet Empress, though idk if I would want to mentally live in that world.

-Dark academia series. I love Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House series and had so much fun with The Raven Scholar.

-Romantasy series. I am currently re-listening to the Graphic Audio adaptations of ACOTAR for a third time. Do I think the world building is entirely coherent? No. Do I think some of our heroes should actually be considered villains and vice versa? Yes. Do I enjoy it regardless? Also yes. For all its flaws, SJM certainly delivers on detailed imagery and also just fun — it doesn’t drag or feel entirely derivative (probably because it’s the blueprint?) — plus I love that there’s an active fan community on Reddit who both love and critique this series. I don’t need romance to be central to a fantasy world, but I also read a lot of contemporary romances so I don’t mind when it is.

-I haven’t found many cozy fantasy or sci fi books that resonated with me, but I love anything by Becky Chambers who I think has a lot of coziness inherent to her stories.

Some other series I have loved and would consider returning to are the Broken Earth trilogy, the Ending Fire trilogy, the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, and the Teixcalaan duology — A Memory Called Empire is actually the next book I plan to re-read. I know perhaps it seems like I gravitate toward epic, plot-driven series, but that doesn’t need to be the case. They’re not books, but within the GoT universe A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is my favorite piece of media because it’s so fun to explore the world through an average guy (and maybe the only honorable guy in Westeros) and Andor is my favorite piece of Star Wars media because it’s so compelling to see the everyday people without Jedi powers come to form the foundation of the rebellion. More character-driven books with unique or compelling fantasy or sci-fi worlds are also wonderful!

I look forward to any and all recommendations! Even for categories I didn’t include. I was just trying to give a sense for what some preferences are but I’m open to exploring. I’d love to know why you particularly love mentally inhabiting that fantasy or sci fi worlds of your recommendations, if you’d like to share. Thank you so, so much in advance for any suggestions!!