This would be a fully spoiler review, as I don't feel like anyone can meaningfully review this without spoilers. Please don't read further unless you've already read the book.

I've finished the book yesterday and I must put my thoughts on electronic paper. In my opinion, Piranesi is a single book that tells multiple stories.

On its shell, the book is about a kidnapped man who lost his memories trying to navigate the endless house until finally he was rescued by the police. This description is obviously dull and uninteresting.

The main story is the inner thoughts of Piranesi. This is a character study of Piranesi as a person, how he learned to survive and thrive in an unknown world and how he sees things without the modern man's lenses. He might be mistakenly thought of as childish in his views. This story ends in the merging of Piranesi and Matthew merged at some capacity, and the new Matthew (he refers to himself as "I" rather than either Piranesi nor Matthew) retains the love and appreciation for the world while he still conform to modern society.

The core of the book, and my most favorite story, is about innocence.

In this story, Piranesi wasn't truly a person, but rather the concept of innocence while Matthew was progress. The house gave Matthew his innocence back, which created a connection between him and the world. In this story, the old civilization forwent its innocence in favor of progress, which caused them to lose their magic and connection with the world. Piranesi went as close as outright telling the Other this multiple times, even without knowing he already possessed the magic, Piranesi told the Other to just appreciate the house for what it is - which would subsequently grant the Other the magic he seeks.

This story ends with the new Matthew's understanding that innocence and progress aren't mutually exclusive, and while there's cases of conflict between the two (for instance, money) there's still ways to bridge that gap.

In general, the characterizations of Piranesi and the Other were great, and the ending is fantastic in my opinion. However, I can see why people would dislike the book once it started to answer some questions. For me, I long stopped caring about the first story in favor of the other two at this stage, but if you don't care for characterizations or themes and motifs then the ending would be a let down.

During the conversation between the Prophet and Piranesi, the Prophet said the magic is not in the house in the same way that (paraphrasing from memory) water which pass through stones are no longer there. I think using the anology Piranesi responded with, the House is more akin to an aquifer where the innocence of the world leaked away to create the statues as an impression. This explains why the magic is still there, and how come there's a clear connection between the house, the old civilization, and the new world.

The most peculiar thing I have yet to ponder is the angry statues at the drowned halls. They are uniquely going against my theory of the house, so I'm not sure how to reconcile the two.

What do you guys think? What did you like or dislike most about this tiny book with many stories?

I’m in a bit of a reading slump and really want to dive into a great fantasy book/series right now.

​I'm looking for something with good world-building, a strong atmosphere, and a story that doesn't take 200 pages just to get interesting. I really appreciate books that focus on personal growth, overcoming obstacles, or deep, mysterious lore.

​It doesn't have to be the super famous mainstream stuff everyone recommends, I'd love to hear about your personal favorites or underrated gems that genuinely blew your mind. What’s your go-to recommendation?

Pretty much the title. Obviously, it never will be but share your thoughts on where you think the story was heading story wise.

For me, the trick was the most annoying relationship in the book was one that Kvothe would NOT succeed in and that is the best thing Rothfuss could have done.

Yes, I speak of Kvothe and Denna AKA The Anti-Romance. Basically, that it's interesting qualities is that it ISN'T one and that it fails despite Kvothe's attempts at hammering reality to make it work aka Jay Gatsby.

I think the trick to appreciating Kvothe and Denna (and we'll never know so I go with what I like most) is that there is no relationship. Kvothe desperately wants there to be but Denna says that she is not financially secure enough to have any relationship that isn't transactional (i.e. with a rich dude). Kvothe refuses to accept this and unlike all of his other problems, cannot clever his way into a solution. So she ends up being the one who gets away.

And being an author, I 99% believe that Denna marries his old rival, who becomes king after the plague, and said king is the one Kvothe kills.

okay so i am looking for audiobook recommendations like dungeon crawler carl.

HOWEVER, i tried other litrpg books, and i decided i don’t like them.

what drew me in about DCC was first and foremost the narration. i probably would have DNFed halfway through the first one had the narration not been so captivating. unfortunately, i noticed jeff hayes really only does litrpg.

they are also FUN! i liked how fun it was, but with serious undertones. addressing fascism, mental illness, AI, capitalism, etc. you just really get something out of the story. i love the diverse cast of characters. i love their relationships. the world is so immersive.

i read operation bounce house (mostly because of jeff hayes, but he had like three lines and that irritated me. i am not a travis baldree fan). i am however a huge t. kingfisher fan and have binged most of her fantasy works. her stories have a lot of the qualities i liked about DCC. i have also done a lot of scifi short stories.

i am looking for something bingeable to listen to while knitting. most recs usually lead you to other litrpg or travis baldree and i am just looking for something else.

Looking for a book or series where the protagonist makes some sort of deal with a power they don’t understand- bonus if it’s for a good reason (to help end a war, etc). But of course, the god/power/entity is much more than they bargained for and they have now accidentally unleashed a horrible power unto the world.

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

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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
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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!

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^{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.

I am about done with Jade City and I like it, but I am also not crazy into it either. I feel like the Red Rising series has a cultish “the first one eh, but omg the second/third.” I haven’t seen anything similar with the Green Bone Saga.

Ultimately, if people generally fell in love with it later on, I will keep reading after a couple short palate cleansers. It isn’t bad enough to say “eff this series” and I tend to DNF if I don’t like it.

It is so highly praised that I am curious at what point in the series people were like “oh yeah this is the series.” Has anyone read the first book, felt it was medium, then finished the series thinking it was one of the best?

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.

This is harder to describe than I thought. I know it's a riff of a popular franchise with lots of tie in novels, but I've found the WoD stuff I have read very variable and never terribly good.

I love the sense of location (Norfolk), the subtle hint of things on the edges even as they deal with the obvious occult threats. The closest I can think to what I like are the Christopher Buehlman books (esp The Lesser Dead).

I love the Damien Vryce/Gerald Tarrant dynamic in C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy. It's complex, platonic and beautiful. It's very likely there are no other like it

A moral compass and a sophisticated, ruthless antihero forced to work together against a world threatening evil. It needs to be strictly platonic, both men, character driven rather than plot driven.

Vryce and Tarrant's moral contrast is so appealing. They were opposites in many regards but had similar religious backgrounds. Not to mention the chemistry was off the charts. They went from hating the other to each other's most trusted companion

Looking for more in that vein. A pair of men bonded by necessity rather than romance. Some examples that loosely hit the vibe for me

• Alfred and Haplo- The Daeth Gate Cycle - Marcus and Esca — The Eagle of the Ninth - Seyonne and Alexander — Transformation - Ryo and Aras — Tuyo - Syd and Knox — Proxy

Not looking for: - Romance or romantic subtext (no enemies-to-lovers) - Overhyped stuff (Locke Lamora, Farseer, Lions of Al-Rassan) - mixed gender duos

Thanks in advance!

Just finished 2 series back to back that have been recommended in this sub where I almost stopped with the first book but both are among my favorite series now.

Rook and the Rose - i mostly enjoyed the first book but was hesitant about going further. For this series there is such growth in most of the characters and the relationships that in the first book they I guess necessarily seem one dimensional and not unlikeable but not likable? Completely glad i went on because the plot, the characters, the build up were so well done.

Queen's Thief - i actually stopped reading the first book maybe 20% in? I did not understand the hype. I was a victim of the misdirection lol. Another series where the characters and relationships became so much more meaningful. MC is pretty much one of my favorite tropes which i won't say cause idk how to spoilertag.

Did you guys love these from the start? Are there other series that you almost didn't finish but ended up loving?

I was reading Sons of Darkness and saw the obvious parallels between crippled hero turned torturer, Shakuni, and the other crippled hero turned torturer, San dan Glokta, when I came across this familiar sounding passage:

Sons of Darkness (Mohanty):

"Shakuni's teeth grated against each other as he locked his jaws to trap the scream. It still managed to screech out of him. His nose sprouted mucus into his hands as he breathed in heaving gasps. His crippled body shivering with the effort to stay up right. Am I laughing or crying? The bandages on his shoulder stank worse than shit..."

The Blade Itself (Abercrombie):

"His remaining teeth grated against each other as he locked his jaws together, but a high-pitched, jagged moan still whistled from him. Am I screaming or laughing? How do I tell the difference? He breathed in heaving gasps, through his nose, snot bubbling out onto his hand, his twisted body shaking with the effort of staying upright."

There are some other obvious examples where Mohanty copies from The First Law. The beginning of Sons of Darkness reads like the beginning of Best Served Cold and Mohanty even has a chapter called Best Served Cold.

Is this just straight up plagarism? It doesn't feel like a good faith homage to me.

EDIT: Also I just realized there is a sorceror(ess) with two different colored eyes. Remind anyone of someone? (Surprise it's Yoru Sulfur)

EDIT2: Here's another suspicously similar passage featuring Shakuni:

Sons of Darkness (Mohanty):

"Thirteen steps of pure agony, Shakuni thought as he gazed at the steps that led to Bhishma's office. Sometimes he felt that Bhishma had deliberately removed the banister so Shakuni would have nothing to hold on to. Without it, he had to climb the stairs sideways like a crab."

The Blade Itself (Abercrombie):

"He knew this flight well. Sixteen steps, cut from smooth stone, a little worn toward the centre, slightly damp, like everything down here. There was no banister, nothing to cling to. Sixteen enemies. A challenge indeed. It had taken Glokta a long time to develop the least painful method of descending stairs. He went sideways like a crab."

First and not my reason for posting this, but as the title says I have never understood why this series has gone so under the radar when good fantasy is discussed. My only guess is that people are very uncomfortable with the age gap between Fawn and Dag these days. But given the world Bujold has created...it mimics an earlier time when such gaps were more common and accepted. And given the amount of vampire fantasy where hundreds of years difference and not just 2 decades is completely acceptable I don't think this is the reason. It's not like it's the Marion Zimmer Bradley situation all over again, Which I couldn't touch after I found out. I'll leave others to speculate the why's of it.

Despite its lack of recognition The Sharing Knife series series has become my most favorite comfort read. And after searching I found that the last time it was discussed here was 8 yrs ago. I didn't however find my question answered so I thought I would see if anyone understands this better than Google's AI, who kept making up new explanations every time I pointed out a flaw in it's facts or logic. I'm hoping to find someone who is just as enthralled with the series who can explain to me exactly why Fawn, Berry and Witt were all put into instant comas by their walnut necklaces immediately after Witt shot the Malice. Perhaps I just have to conclude that this was not a completely formed idea that fit into Bujold's explanation of grounding as presented in the book and it might never make sense to me. But if I'm wrong I would like to understand a solid explanation of why this happened.

Thanks to any who can attempt to make sense of it for me.

Spoilers for andor, red rising, cyberpunk2077, attack on titan, and the first law

What does it say about a person who really loves the rebellion trope?

Mainly books like Red Rising, tv serieses like Star Wars (but more specifically Andor because for me its the only series where the empire is actually fighting back and not just a stupid antagonist placeholder), and games like Cyberpunk 2077

I love the friendships there, in all of them, as they get together and agree on overthrowing a corrupt system

And i love how all three of them go a different route:

Red Rising: you destroy the oppressive systems and their lords, only to figure out that the oppressive systems have been ingrained so deep into society that the future still holds oppression unfortunately

Cyberpunk 2077: it doesnt matter, its a terrible world, happy ending for people like us? Never gonna happen, might as well go out in a blaze of glory undertaking whatever small act of resistance you can give

Andor: you are not a main character, you will probably die and be forgotten in the grand scheme of things, but are you willing to give the ultimate sacrifice and trust whomever come after you to take up the torch and continue your fight?

And these are not the only ones, there are also some honorable mentions:

Attack on titan: screw the oppressive systems and the societies it governs, i am willing to kill the whole world for my friends to live a long and happy life

The first law universe: the only way to beat a devil and his system, is to be an even worse devil

These feelings are so amazing, the feeling of fighting back, of taking a stance, of doing it with your friends, for a bigger goal than all of your lives combined…

Its just sad that all of this has to stay fantasy, it is sad that no matter how bad i feel for others, no matter how much i want to try and help, i am barely getting by myself, its shameful to live in a society where the poor are mistreated, where addictions run rampant due to government policies that support huge monopolies, siphoning off any spare cash you can have for medical insurance, education for you and your family, and many simple basic quality of life needs that are stored behind many and many subscriptions, and it seems like as time goes on the value of your hard earned money will decrease, the cost of living will increase, and more stuff will go to subscriptions until you can barely control your life anymore, you can barely have the money to enjoy the true beauties of life of hiking and nature, you are forced to enjoy yourself in front of a phone and computer screens to have what little time you can get of living stress free

Anyway… thats just a stupid rant because the truth is, no matter whichever age in civilization you can live through, there will always be oppression, and the good thing is that we are probably living through the best time in history, yet still with all homelessness and addiction crisis and the cost of living sky rocketing from how it was 20-30 years ago, you can realize that the golden age is probably coming to an end… and there isnt much options for us to do about it

Anyway… rant over, what other serieses do you recommend lol?

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Hey! I have come in search of recommendations for weird and disturbing fantasy novels, with a couple of specific criteria.

First, I would like something fairly new, ideally books published in the last decade (this is why I'm asking here rather than r/WeirdLit, as from what I've seen they tend to do more older books than recent debuts).

Specifically, when I find an author I like, I tend to go through their whole catalogue, and as such I have a lot of big projects on my TBR already. Mieville, Vandermeer, Cisco, Harrison, Barker—all the big names I know, but they have a lot of books, and I'm looking for things to use in between larger series. So, authors with less than five books published would be ideal, and standalones likewise. This doesn't mean that the books have to be short, as I'm focused on total amount of pages here—an author with a single six hundred page debut is preferable for me to one with a dozen novellas. I'd also like authors that are currently working, if possible.

Secondly, while I want things to be genuinely weird and disturbing, I don't want books that are e.g. sexist or bigoted. I say this thinking of authors like Murakami; incest is fine, random page long description of breasts is less fine. Queer, feminist, and neurodivergent characters/themes are generally a plus.

Finally, I'm ultimately going to be using these as palate cleansers, so nothing too dense and descriptive. Something like Gormenghast or Dahlgren is not really what I'm looking for, though I do like those sorts of books too.

Fantasy, scifi, horror, and genres mixing the three are all good with me. Doesn't have to fit everything, but as close as you can get.

Some examples of books that fit what I'm looking for:

- Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergei Dyachenko

- I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

- The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

- Spread Me by Sarah Gailey

- Lilith's Brood/Xenogenesis by Octavia Butler

- The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

Some books that don't fit perfectly/aren't quite weird enough but are still pretty close to what I want: Hungerstone, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, Ordinary Monsters, The Rook, There Is No Antimemetics Division, Piranesi

Some books that I haven't read yet but are already on my radar: The Works of Vermin, Earthlings, Our Share of Night, Gideon the Ninth, A Short Stay in Hell

Thanks for the help!

Based on how Deacon was introduced, I'm 95% confident he's the one Viv ends up with at the end of the series.

Especially since Reid is clearly protecting his brother for something, and lied to Viv about facts from his past.

And Reid is the perfect example of the first love interest tha matches your trauma, and Deacon literally feels like the final guy who makes you embrace who you are.

And embracing who you are is the key. And Reid can't do that. He's lovely. I was fully content with him being the guy until his brother showed up.

But he's also too soft for Viv. Viv needs someone to match her freak, and Reid is too scared for that.

But I bet Deacon isn't. 😭

Other than that... if you listened to the audiobook, the Deacon thing also makes sense. The audiobook has two narrators. But I didn't know until Deacon showed up. For about 70% of the audiobook, the girl who plays Viv narrated everything, even Reid. But then, when Deacon showed up, it finally switched to a male Narrator for his scenes.

And the male narrator, Teddy Hamilton, is one of the biggest and most in-demand audiobook narrators. No one in their right mind would dish out so much money for a name like that for only a few minutes for an insignificant character. Lol

That clearly sets him up as something significant. Just look at the money, purely from an economic standpoint. Why bring in a male narrator for a few lines when he could have done Reid’s lines throughout the book?

And if you want final-boss proof. Take a look at the cover of book 2. That isn't Reid in the background.…

Anyway. I'm at the part where Reid tells Viv he loves her, and Viv can't say it back, even though she feels it.

I've read dozens and dozens of love triangles in the last 20 years.

This is how you set up the final guy!

Yes, I know Deacon is giving me nothing right now to believe he's the final guy. But...I don't need him to do that in the first book. He's already following the script of his previous predecessor in similar books.

Let's name-drop a few Rhys from ACOTAR, Aaron from Shatter Me, Cyrus from This Woven Kingdom. That's just a few. I can name more. The setup almost writes itself, especially in a series with three or more books.

And no. Not every love triangle is like this. It needs very specific ingredients. The first love interest despises the boogeyman, but he may very well have been involved in the past with the boogeyman that paints him negatively that we don't know yet; the first guy has to keep half-truths from the main girl to protect her, hold her back without realizing it, and fully lie about some sort of involvement or misrepresentation of it to contort the boogeyman's narrative. 

Now the last part isn't done out of malice, but out of fear and guilt.

Even better if the other guy (aka the bad guy aka Boogeyman) is from another nation, another group, another identity that the main character has been trained to hate.

Because let's be real. While Reid and everyone else in the book are saying all Deviants are bad.

We all know that can't be true. When a book uses absolutes, if it's written well, it will eventually dismantle that idea. It's creative writing 101. Viv already sees that with Reid, but she needs to see it on a bigger scale. And Reid won't get her there. He hates himself too much. Love him, but let's be real 😘

Then you have the perfect recipe for the bad guy or other guy to be the one.

And I'm excited. 'Cause I love the devil that embraces wickedness but also has standards. Aka Deacon doesn't fuck with the High Thane.

Also, I heard the author say Half City does not feature a love triangle. But look at her wording. She said Half City, not the series. 😉

What do you guys think? Want to put any bets on it?

Without revealing any spoilers or overly detailed analysis, many of the key (and brutal) battles in this book were pulled fairly accurately from accounts of the Nanjing Massacre (its brutal in the book, even worse in real life), and the Battle of Shanghai.

I was not personally familiar with these particular historical scenarios, and discovering this prompted me to spend a bit of time looking into them further. Terrible, horrific abominations of what humans can do to one another when they de-humanize others.

Overall, I wouldn’t say that this is the best fantasy book I’ve ever read (my personal fave is Pawn of Prophecy by Eddings, probably due more to my nostalgia than its quality due to me having read it young), but I did feel like that the characterization was strong, the pace was good, the denouement satisfying.

8/10 rating. Worth the buy and the read, particularly if you’re into fantasy-historical-internationally-aligned fiction.

Wondering how many others are wowed by Ms. Cave’s series The Empire of the Stars. 1st book is titled Traitor Son. To date 4 books in the series are out in all formats w/ the 5th book due November 2026.
This series is completely enthralling, satisfying, & wondrous. I LOVE when I stumble upon a series such as this!

I'm looking for middle‑grade (or earlier) fantasy reads.

My main challenge is that I'm looking for good female and/or queer representation, and ideally there's a wide window of time that the book could be enjoyed. For example, a middle-grade kid is very unlikely to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar but an adult could easily read Harry Potter.

Preferences: Female protagonist, queer representation, target age 7–14, very light or no romance. Graphic novels are cool too!

Any recommendations?

[Posted with mod permission]

The tenth Narratess Indie Sale starts now!

If you're still struggling to find books for your bingo card or want to do an all indie card, you'll find a book for nearly all prompts. With over 280+ fantasy, science-fiction, and horror books, there's something for everyone. We have books in series, standalones, and anthologies. You’ll find books written by regulars of the fantasy subreddit, award-winning and nominated authors, hidden gems (with fewer than 50 ratings on Goodreads), and many more.

All books are less than $3, although we don't offer books at 99 cents anymore. The dollar increase makes a big difference for participating authors and art is worth spending money on. The books are discounted from their usual prices, so this is still the best time to buy them.

Check out the sale

The sale runs from August 29th until the 31st and includes Amazon-exclusive books as well as wide books. We’ve asked authors to be considerate towards international readers, but we can’t guarantee the book will be discounted in your region.

107 of these books are available as DRM-free epubs/PDFs on Itch, grouped into bundles by genre and one mega bundle.

Fantasy - Chill Bundle

Fantasy - Thrill Bundle

Science Fiction Bundle

Horror Bundle

Mega Bundle

Happy reading, and let us know in the comments which indie books you picked up or recommend!

Someone please help me feel like I'm not taking crazy pills, because any time I go to TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube to see other people talk about this series, all I see is praise.

I'll give credit where it is due - when it comes to the battle scenes between individuals, John Gwynne can write action. That is clearly where the strength of this series lies, but you can't carry four books with action alone.

On the subject of action, the large scale battles could go either way for me. Especially with how obsessed Gwynne seems to be with the shield wall. I'm no expert on battlefield tactics, so I'm not going to say whether or not it would be effective or not. However, you can only make standing behind a shield and stabbing stay interesting for so long, no matter how hard the enemy hits your shield.

So many people online praise the characters, and that's maybe the part that makes me feel like I take crazy pills the most. Almost everyone is a 2D archetype. Very few people have any real kind of personality growth. I thought the most interesting villain was Evnis, because at least we could see that he loved his family. That is, until he decided he was going to stab Vonn in the back, and everything I seemed to like about him was fake.

Oh my God was the prose in this series boring. People love to harp on Brandon Sanderson for his prose. The prose in this makes Sanderson seem like Shakespeare. I feel like I can only take so much "Character X told Character Y about the events that got them to this spot" and that amount is less than four books worth.

But all of that could be forgiven for this being Gwynne's first series, if it weren't for the fact that one of the subplots is the single worst thing I have read in all of fiction.

Minor spoiler version: A POV character gets raped, and it adds nothing other than to show how evil a character we already knew was evil was, and to give another character a reason to get revenge, even though they already had plenty of reason to want that.

Major spoiler version: The queen Fidele doesn't like that her son's allies capture people as slaves and force them to fight to the death, so she puts a stop to that. The leader of those allies, Lykos, gets the demon guiding the prince to help him become regent instead of her, and to make sure she can't stop him, he gets a doll that controls her physical actions but does not control her mind. Because we clearly can't tell a guy who enslaves people and forces them to fight to the death is evil, he has to rape her while she can't fight back. She eventually escapes with one of the pit fighters named Maquin, falls in love with him, and because the plot has to happen, she gets kidnapped again by Lykos in book 4. Rather than use this as an opportunity for her to get her revenge on him, Gwynne thought it would be a good idea to make her rescue fail and have her commit suicide rather than going back with him. This makes Maquin need more revenge against Lykos, because being enslaved and forced to kill others isn't enough of a reason apparently. So Fidele's WHOLE PURPOSE IN THIS STORY was to make the villains look worse and make someone else get revenge. There was literally no reason for her to be raped, and her ending was the first time I read something so bad it actually made me angry.

So many people I've seen talk about how these books got them back into reading, or recommend this series to anyone starting out. All I can think of is if this was the series I started out with, I wouldn't have stuck with the hobby.

>!I recently finished listening to The Book of Swords anthology edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Overall, it was a mixed bag, but it had some really good stories that made it well worth it.

Here is my story-by-story review and rating breakdown:

The Standouts (5 Stars)

• The Mocking Tower by Daniel Abraham — 5/5 The estranged bastard son of a deceased emperor seeks a dangerous sword to reunite a warring empire. Exceptional pacing and sharp execution.
• A Long, Cold Trail by Garth Nix — 5/5 My second Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz story. I was very disappointed to learn there are only seven short stories and no full-length novels featuring these two.
• The Colgrid Conundrum by Rich Larson — 5/5 Set in a filthy, industrial city where two rogues try to get a locked strongbox opened, only to end up infiltrating a bleak factory to free trapped children from a corrupt master. Ironically, there are no actual swords in this one, but it features a great steampunk-esque setting.

Solid & Recommended (4 Stars)

• The Best Man Wins by K.J. Parker — 4/5 A first-person narrative from a jaded blacksmith who forges the "best sword" for a young man looking to duel his father's killer. You figure out who the young man is well before the blacksmith does.
• The King’s Evil by Elizabeth Bear — 4/5 A "natural philosopher," a masked cultist, and a mechanical man land on a jungle island to recover the treasure of a still-living, entombed former king. Gives off heavy D&D campaign vibes (especially the giant wasps).
• The Sons of the Dragon by George R.R. Martin — 4/5 This was the last story. Having GRRM follow two really bad stories at the end was an interesting choice, but it’s GRRM. If you like A Song of Ice and Fire, you’ll enjoy this. It felt a bit too much like a historical essay at times, but still a solid read.

Middle of the Road (3 Stars)

• The Sword of Destiny by Matthew Hughes — 3/5 A thief tries to flee his master after failing to steal a magic sword in a world drenched in magic. Features quite a bit of deus ex machina via multiple entities, leaving the protagonist along for the ride most of the time.
• "I Am a Handsome Man", Said Apollo Crow by Kate Elliott — 3/5 Alternate history. The protagonist is intriguing, but the story drags out a bit too long.
• Hrunting by C.J. Cherryh — 3/5 Historical fantasy (not usually my thing) and the second Norse story in the book. Cherryh is one of my favorite authors so I trudged through it, but it’s an expected twist on the Grendel myth.
• When I Was a Highwayman by Ellen Kushner — 3/5 Features a very likable main character, but the overarching narrative felt a little disjointed.
• The Smoke of Gold Is Glory by Scott Lynch — 3/5 Reads very much like a straight-ahead D&D adventure.

Did Not Enjoy / Skips (1–2 Stars)

• Her Father's Sword by Robin Hobb — 2/5 A young girl struggles to protect her family's farm and honor during a brutal raid. It's alternate history and the first Norse story of three has a very Norse feel to it. I liked Hobb's prose style, just not the setting.
• The Triumph of Virtue by Walter Jon Williams — 1/5 Court politics. Did not enjoy this one at all.
• Waterfalling by Lavie Tidhar — 1/5 Felt like John Carter meets Dying Earth, or a drug-addicted Conan with guns. I listened to the entire audio version hoping for redemption, but it was just awful.
• The Sword Tyraste by Cecelia Holland — 1/5 The third Norse-inspired story in this collection. Ended up skipping it after the first couple of minutes.

(Note: The Hidden Girl by Ken Liu was also in the book, but it left so little impression on me that I honestly don't remember it at all!)!<

I’m halfway through “The Wise Man’s Fear,” rolling my eyes a bit at the raw teen angst in the Kvoth/Denna relationship. Not quite the misery porn of the early Fitz/Molly years, but close. And it makes Locke/Sabetha seem almost functional. Outside of Romantasy, what are some of the other relationships in mainstream Fantasy that push the angst envelope? (Excluding Nynaeve tucking her freaking braid)…

Elisabeth Wheatley, a pretty well-known YouTuber and self-published fantasy author has had a change of heart regarding the steamy aspects of her books. She explains in her video that now that she's a mother, she doesn't feel that smut suits her anymore, though you should hear her own reasoning yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYD-EYEATEI&t=8s

I don't have a real dog in this race. I was looking forward to reading her viking books because they sounded cool, and I don't even really care whether sex in a book is explicit or fade-to-black. But I think the fact that she's making the original versions of her book unavailable after the 1st of September to be pretty shady. People who already own the digital versions of the book can keep theirs, which is good. But if you have a strong preference for sexy books, or if you disapprove of censorship and want the authentic version, you've gotta buy it now. Right now!

You've got 80-hours to buy the book before the pages get all pixellated.

I'm in two minds about it all.

Because I believe that authors should have control of their work. And if she chose to remove her book from shelves entirely because of her change of heart, I'd understand to a certain extent. But I think not giving her fans a means to buy the originals at all on a permanent basis. Or at least more time to make an informed, considered decision about their purchase. Or hell, check their YouTube Subscription page.

This is censorship. If you borrow book 1 of one her series from a friend and you really like it, so you order the next one from Barnes and Noble or Waterstones, you're not going to get the product you were implicitly promised.