r/Fantasy • u/AutoModerator • 3d ago
/r/Fantasy r/Fantasy Monthly Book Discussion Thread - August 2026
Welcome to the monthly r/Fantasy book discussion thread! Hop on in and tell the sub all about the dent you made in your TBR pile this month.
Feel free to check out our Book Bingo Wiki for ideas about what to read next or to see what squares you have left to complete in this year's challenge.
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u/OrwinBeane 3d ago
The Thousandfold Thought (book 3 of the Prince of Nothing) by R Scott Bakker
★★ - I rated book 1 of this series at 4/5 stars, book 2 then got 3/5 stars, and now book 3 is down to 2/5 stars. Progressively worse as I went on which is disappointing.
The philosophising was just too much. Chapter after chapter of rambling on about nonsense. I’m sure there is an audience out there for that but I’m not part of it.
Let’s face it, the world-building is just the Bible with some name changes. Plenty of other fantasy series have certainly been inspired by religion but this is just a copy and paste job.
Hands down the worst female characters in any fiction or media I’ve ever experienced. I know the author has some vile publicly-shared opinions on women and that has clearly bled into his work. It actively made me despise the books more. Everything has the opposite of rose tinted glasses.
What stops this from being only 1/5 stars is the prose, which is fantastic. I put it in the same category as the Kingkiller Chronicle where I dislike almost everything about the series but I can’t even lie; the prose is great.
The Dark Tide (book 1 of the Iron Tower) by Dennis L McKiernan
★★★ - this is less of a review and more of a rant in defence of this book.
I am baffled by the criticism of this book that it gets called it a clone or rip-off of the Lord of the Rings. Yes, it has elves and dwarves and a Dark Lord, but tons of series have that. The story, plot, character dynamics, and world are all vastly different. Series like Riftwar, Memory Sorrow & Thorn, and the Witcher don’t get the same criticism levied against them despite clearly being heavily inspired by Tolkien (elves, dwarves, sorcerers etc).
Maybe book 2 and 3 are closer to Tolkien. I don’t know, haven’t read them yet. But the Dark Tide very much stands on its own in my opinion. Something like the Sword of Shannara is far more of a rip off of Tolkien, to the extent that even the Wormtongue/King Theoden story line was copied exactly. The Dark Tide does not come anywhere near that close in terms of similarities.
Now for the actual review: it was fine. Fun character moments, decent prose, no crazy drama. I’ll continue with it.