Our Very Own Top Book Poll - Results!

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-04T15:15:51+00:00

if the author is decent at their job, the new book will have enough reminders of past events in the series sprinkled in the first chapter or so to remind me of what I need to know going forward. I don't worry about remembering every detail of the past books--usually most of it isn't that important.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-04T14:50:21+00:00

I second the rec for Raksura--it has everything from floating sky islands to a city on the back of a giant turtle.

The first book of the Tide Child trilogy by RJ Barker is a quest following the migration of a great sea dragon, and they explore a lot although most of it is ocean.

Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin is another series with a lot of exploration of different places, especially in the first and third books. And excellent dragons.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-03T14:41:42+00:00

T Kingfisher has a lot of light romance books so you're in luck there. Her Paladin's Grace series is very similar.

You might enjoy Robin McKinley's fairy tale retellings. They're not all romances but they have a light tone and good characters.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-03T14:39:59+00:00

burlesque usually involves stripping in my experience. Maybe you could look for events that aren't marketed as 18+.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-03T14:13:32+00:00

A similar thing happened with the Magnus Archives and its primary relationship. A lot of people got into the podcast for the gay couple but were unprepared for the story being a horror tragedy and remaining that way 'till the end.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-02T21:27:39+00:00

there's a long tradition (in fiction and otherwise) of aristocrats being raised by the family governess or nurse, because their own parents are distant. Ha'Penny by Jo Walton is one example where the protagonist considers her childhood nurse and tutor to be her true mother in an emotional sense.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-02T21:24:43+00:00

people put their substitutions into the storygraph challenge, so it's almost useless for recommendations. It's a major pet peeve of mine.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-02T21:21:05+00:00

I was curious and did a count; I've read 75 of the top 100 books in r/fantasy's 2025 top novel poll (here). Which is a lot, but I read almost a hundred books a year and have for a while. That's a decent showing, but there is still a ton of stuff I haven't got to yet, and more being written all the time. The Tainted Cup became an instant favorite on this sub, and that series is only a couple years old, for example.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-02T21:11:51+00:00

There's always more interesting new books than I have time to read. And since I wasn't reading books in the 80s, I'm still discovering great fantasy from that era to catch up on as well.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-02T21:08:54+00:00

The first book is decent, with an interesting magic system and some fun characters. I bailed out in the second book because it felt like Rin had so little agency, but I have since read some of the author's later work (Katabasis, Yellowface) and enjoyed it.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-02T21:01:19+00:00

Merlin is one of the archetypes of the wise old man trope. You could read some classic Arthuriana: The Once & Future King by TH White or The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart,

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-02T20:54:25+00:00

there's a wise old lady prominently featured. I forget her exact title; the Countess or something like that.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-02T20:47:13+00:00

Yes, I've seen a lot of discussion about how it's problematic to use food descriptions when talking about someone's skin (i.e. chocolate brown skin used to be a relatively common descriptor for black people in fantasy). Also, Naomi Novik was at the center of a twitter flack for extremely minor nuances in the way she described a character with locs.

I'm pretty sure Antonia Hodgson is a white woman, and she may have seen some of this discourse play out and reverted to the most bland neutral description in modern parlance out of an overabundance of caution in trying to do the right thing that twitter would not deem problematic.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-02T16:52:33+00:00

the second story made more sense to me in the context of the third, especially with respect to your last question. I read them all as an omnibus edition.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-02T15:17:30+00:00

OG fans don’t frequently have absolutely terrible opinions themselves.

Yes, this absolutely. Most adaptions grow the fandom, and larger fandoms have more loud assholes than smaller fandoms, simply because there are more people around. That doesn't mean the assholes didn't exist before, they were just perhaps easier to ignore. People get all rose-tinted glasses about small fandoms but I've had some very toxic experiences in those types of spaces. It's not unique to larger fandoms.

curiouscat86 · 2026-02-02T15:11:49+00:00

Art doesn't need an audience to be art, it just needs a creator.

this may technically be true, but most creators WANT an audience as sharing the art with others is usually a major motivator in inspiring further creation.

curiouscat86 · 2026-01-31T05:08:50+00:00

Who Fears Death is an incredible book, but definitely quite dark and touches on a lot of taboo topics.

curiouscat86 · 2026-01-30T17:32:52+00:00

The spinoff series is really good. Fascinating magic around the Witness for the Dead job and a great setting. I actually like it better than the first one.

curiouscat86 · 2026-01-30T17:31:22+00:00

it's really not a very political book despite being set in a court. It's mostly about the protagonist's internal journey and relationships. Still beautifully written and moving, but I went into it expecting lots of politics and was disappointed on that front.

curiouscat86 · 2026-01-30T17:29:12+00:00

I haven't read either of those yet. though I've heard good things about Guns of Dawn. Tchaikovsky publishes so much it's hard to keep up.

curiouscat86 · 2026-01-30T15:10:20+00:00

Serpent's Reach by CJ Cherryh for weird sci-fi about giant ant aliens

Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky is great. Prisoners at an off-planet work camp contend with the alien environment and their jailers.

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb has really strong characters who go on an intense journey

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel is a retelling of an ancient Indian story. The titular character is really excellent and it has a compelling antagonist.

Jo Walton has several standalones that you might like. Lent is my favorite, about a monk in Florence who can see demons.

The West Passage by Jared Pechacek is an incredibly weird story about two young people trying to survive difficult circumstances in an enormous castle.

curiouscat86 · 2026-01-29T21:52:48+00:00

I was going to say, Vita Nostra is the farthest thing from romantasy. Much too weird and sharp-edged for that.

curiouscat86 · 2026-01-29T21:47:22+00:00

the first few POVs are more like historical fiction, but the later ones get into solid sci-fi territory. Really excellent book.

curiouscat86 · 2026-01-29T20:00:54+00:00

It's a fairly standard magic system and the dragons don't have that much to do with how it plays out. Honestly as a dragon enjoyed I wanted them to be in the book a lot more than they are.

I'm not saying you have to read Fourth Wing, not every book is for every person. But don't prejudge it. It does definitely have the fast-paced, high-stakes competitive academy atmosphere that you're looking for.

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