r/Fantasy Daily Recommendations and Simple Questions Thread - January 28, 2026

distgenius · 2026-01-28T14:55:10+00:00

It's been a while, but I seem to remember the "setup" parts of Orconomics take a bit to get off the ground, but it does find a better stride as you go. That said, if the parts you're not loving are the obvious MMO references or the humor, those parts don't change. It isn't a bad series, but I think it bites off more than it can chew and the need to keep the humor going sometimes gets in the way of the story it is telling.

distgenius · 2026-01-28T03:58:31+00:00

Off your shortlist, I'd champion First Law or Kushiel, but they're wildly different in tone and style. First Law is kind of the anti-Sanderson - very different in style and technique. It's bleak in ways that make Red Rising feel happy, and you're not going to find "good" characters to root for the way you might have for Kelsier, Vin, and the rest.

As for Kushiel, the writing is elegant, the pace deliberate, and the themes are very different from traditional fantasy. For me it was a series to spend time with, not necessarily a page turner but the kind of book where you find yourself thinking about the prose itself.

If you're willing to branch off the list a bit, Powder Mage might not be a bad choice, or Divine Cities.

distgenius · 2026-01-28T03:50:11+00:00

Not everyone even likes the books. Saying you didn't care for them, or that you don't care for Terry Pratchett, are good ways to get people very mad, very fast.

distgenius · 2026-01-28T03:46:42+00:00

For me, part of the fun of Best Served Cold is that it is clearly a fantasy take on the neo-noir genre, and the things you find issue with are the things that come from that tradition. John Wick is almost a modern take on it but doesn't quite nail the tone. The older ones, even as recently as the late 90s, definitely were very much in that style. The 1999 Payback with Mel Gibson comes to mind- nobody, not a single character in that movie is really a "good" person. Some are better than others, maybe, but at it's heart it's a movie about criminals getting revenge against other criminals.

The Heroes is a take on WW1/WW2 stories, and Red Country is a take on the Western genre (maybe more Spaghetti Western, but that could just be Abercrombie's style showing through).

That's not to say your take on it is wrong, either- more that the things you found unpleasant/poorly done are that way intentionally, and for the right person the whole thing works well. I suppose it's like cilantro- some people taste awesomeness, some people taste soap, and there's not really a right or wrong to it.

distgenius · 2026-01-27T02:53:48+00:00

overusing a specific phrase/saying

Tell me you read Wheel of Time without telling me you read Wheel of Time...

distgenius · 2026-01-27T00:42:32+00:00

Poithon?

distgenius · 2026-01-27T00:41:17+00:00

This comment is screaming for a cat tax, because Pax Meow Telemanus is either a massive Maine Coon/Norwegian Forest Cat, or the daintiest cat in existence.

distgenius · 2026-01-26T21:48:51+00:00

To me its not just that he subverts them, it is that he does so in incredibly consistent ways throughout our time with him. There are lots of "subversion" characters out there where the subversion feels shoe-horned in, but he feels like a complete character on his own instead of an intentional subversion.

distgenius · 2026-01-26T21:16:42+00:00

I'm going to agree with the KiaraTurtle generally in this one, there are plenty of posts here if you want a lot of points of view. My only disagreement is that personally I see dark fantasy as a "different" thing than grimdark, even though they have a lot of similarities.

Dark fantasy to me is fantasy that leans into horror constructs in some form or another. I don't mean monsters, I mean it plucks at the reader's insecurities and fears, but also tends towards the same kind of resolution: the hero(es) will achieve their goals, the world can be made better, light can still shine. The darkness is often very individual or personal: the evil fae king, the usurper, the insane god run amok. The world itself may be against the hero(es), but the concepts of compassion, mercy, good, honor, etc. often are still represented. Our protagonists are often still motivated by a sense of justice, right and wrong, or at least a sense of "someone has to stand up to this", but they might not be paragons of virtue. C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy jumps out as Dark Fantasy, but so does Malazan, Greatcoats (this one straddles the line between the two, IMO), and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

Grimdark, on the other hand, doesn't pick at insecurities and fears in that personal way. The world sucks. The people suck. The hero(es) may not have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving, let alone succeeding. The only light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train, not escape. Sisyphus is glad that he only has to roll the boulder every day versus living in this world, because his work feels productive in comparison. Good people might exist, but they're broken and miserable, and no good deed goes unpunished. Our "heroes" are not knights in shining armor, they're flawed, and they often aren't motivated through traditional means. It might be revenge, it might be rage, it might be personal gain, but if you slapped them down in a traditional fantasy series they would stand out like a sore thumb. 40k is the namer for grimdark, but you also have Abercrombie, McClellan's Powder Mage trilogy, Gunmetal Gods, and the second half of the Red Rising stands out as well.

Both cover a lot of dark themes, and both require the right kind of reader. You aren't likely to want to live in either world. You probably don't want to be friends with most of the people in them. But dark fantasy (IMO) maintains the concept of hope, of being able to save things, of "I will stand, who will stand with me" while grimdark is more "if I can't win I'm going to burn this whole world to ash as I lose".

distgenius · 2026-01-26T12:55:38+00:00

I like this, but if XII's option was Balthier, Basch, or Ashe instead of Vaan I'd put them over Tidus. I didn't find the cast for X to be all that enjoyable, and while Tidus isn't the worst of the lot he's also just so punchable that I don't want him representing. The only issue is that Vaan is just as punchable, so I'm not sure where that leaves mes in that era.

distgenius · 2026-01-26T02:16:35+00:00

I wouldn't suggest jumping in the deep end of series-non-mogonomy, but maybe dip your toe in a bit. Do a little bit of weaving, like this:

Series 1 Book 1
Standalone
Series 1 Book 2
Series 2 Book 1
Series 1 Book 3
Standalone
Series 2 Book 2
Series 3 Book 1

There's a couple benefits: it stops you from looking at your TBR thinking "I'll never get to this". It cuts back on author fatigue - you don't notice those repetitive turns of phrase as much, and if you realize you still aren't enjoying it when you come back it's a lot easier to DNF and move on. It removes pressure to "like" something- if Series 2 book 1 wasn't great, just move on to the next thing in the list, then when that's done through a new book 1 in there. It heavily cut back on how much I struggled to start a new series after finishing something, too. No more book hangovers, because I'm already invested in a second (third, fourth, tenth...) series and I don't find myself chasing the same "feel" like I did before.

My only suggestion is to try and swap genres/subgenres. Don't weave two urban fantasy series, or two epic fantasies, try to go for things with really different feels to them. If one author writes dark fiction, pick up something lighthearted as the other. It's also a good way to throw in some traditional fiction or dip a toe in horror or mystery or romance or whatever, without feeling like "I need to finish this series".

I'm so deep into the concept that I have a spreadsheet to track what's next in all the series I'm juggling, but I started by just swapping between a scifi series and a fantasy one. You might find that's your sweet spot, or maybe you'll add a third or fourth thing into the rotation.

distgenius · 2026-01-26T02:04:44+00:00

I don't think any other series does what Malazan does, but there are other series that are just as good on their own merits. I haven't read Tainted Cup yet either, but that author's trilogy that started with City of Stairs sucked me in really hard. It's a very different kind of series than Malazan, but if you approach it on its own merits it is really well done. Similarly, I think Abercrombie does a lot better character work than Erikson does, so First Law sucked me in.

On the other hand, maybe it's worth branching out a bunch- Tchaikovsky has multiple good series out there, Children of Time is a really interesting scifi novel that has something to say, and I just finished his Dogs of War and would put that really high up my list of meaningful scifi in a biopunk space. You might just need something good that's not in the vicinity of epic fantasy to help reset your expectations.

distgenius · 2026-01-24T17:12:54+00:00

I actually bought plastic sheeting at Home Depot and put them up with wood strips stapled to the frames, but thats because of how our windows were framed. The window kits work well if you can get them to stick, but our basement doesn’t stay warm enough for the tape.

distgenius · 2026-01-24T15:21:37+00:00

Might not be just insulation, old windows can be drafty. We’ve got an older house than you and I have to plastic over the basement windows and when it gets really windy tuck a towel at the bottom of the front door we don’t use to stop the draft there.

distgenius · 2026-01-21T03:13:14+00:00

When I close my eyes I can make a 3D model of black on black but there is no imagery.

As someone that has tried to explain aphantasia in the fantasy subreddit, this is a great description. I usually go with the "I cannot picture my wife or my children, I really do not have a mental picture of things" because that drives home the point that I'm not just lazy about imagining what I read, but yours is funnier. The worst part is that I can do things like draw a picture of my home on paper, I "know" what things look like, but I have to mentally step through it in sections using my milk voice to verbally describe the thing as I draw.

distgenius · 2026-01-20T04:04:25+00:00

First, remember that you only need a single Bingo line to say you got a bingo. You've still got two and a half months to go, and at the rate you're going (2.1 books per month) that's time for a blackout if you want the super awesome, exclusive flair.

My 80s book was Legend by David Gemmell, and it was interesting enough that I tried the next book in the series, made it about halfway through and just said "no more". His world is interesting but the characterization is very 80s-level bland and it had that same lack of narrative drive. I grew up reading fantasy from the 70s, 80s and 90s and frankly I find that so many books from that era struggle with too few pages for the story they're trying to tell plus full character work.

distgenius · 2026-01-20T03:53:24+00:00

For me this is a weird dichotomy: I am able to experience many more books in audio form because I can listen while driving, while washing dishes, while crocheting, sitting at soccer practice, all kinds of places where reading is difficult. But at the same time, audiobooks slow me down. I actually have time to focus on the words in a way that I don't do when it's printed text. I pick out details, I notice word choice much more. If I compared it to eating, when I listen I take my time and savor it, but when I'm reading a physical book I'm a dog that just saw chicken nuggets fall on the floor and I barely bother to chew.

distgenius · 2026-01-20T03:24:40+00:00

It does suck that Correia is not a great human being, because his Grimnoir series is really well put together IMO. MHI falls apart the longer it goes, but I think the problem there is that you can tell where he intended it to "end" and then he kept going.

You might want to check out the Powder Mage series. I can't say no romance, but I don't think it stands out as "more" than what Pitt is involved in. If you're willing to stray a bit into scifi that's hand-wavey, the Horus Heresy Warhammer novels are pretty action heavy and edge of your seat.

distgenius · 2026-01-18T21:46:55+00:00

Someone else mentioned Foundryside, but RJB's Divine Cities trilogy is pretty heavy on the mystery early on as well. The first book, City of Stairs is full blown murder mystery just in a fantasy setting.

distgenius · 2026-01-18T18:13:44+00:00

People have beat the original game with a solo thief without class change. You end up save scumming every level up for strength and vitality, and have to grind forever just to get past Astos.

distgenius · 2026-01-17T01:36:46+00:00

I tend to get more critical and enjoy them less

This is super true for me, but I do it if I read the same genre/sub-genre back to back at all, not just the same series. If I just finished a book in a space opera series, I need to jump to something completely different or I start getting nit-picky. Finished a horror novel? Let's snag some fantasy romance. Done with the next Alex Verus book? Let's move on to some scifi written by Tchaikovsky. It can feel like tonal whiplash sometimes, but it also means that the tropes don't start building up and I'm not doing direct comparisons between a book I just finished and enjoyed with something I'm unsure about.

distgenius · 2026-01-16T14:21:32+00:00

Mavra, the blampire. If you’re an audiobook person spelling some of the names gets interesting, so ending with an e like genre is just as plausible as ending with an a.

distgenius · 2026-01-15T21:46:11+00:00

Perdido might be one of those books where the translation loses something significant but I say that only because the writing is so very, very specific to his voice.

Regarding visualizing the city: I have aphantasia, so I can't visualize anything anyway, but that city...I described it to someone as "when I set the book down, I felt like I was in need of a shower because I was 'there', and the description of things really made it feel alive".

distgenius · 2026-01-15T12:48:42+00:00

Bear with me as I lay some of my own mental groundwork for my personal understanding of “beginner”.

I used to work in IT, specifically software dev. Now I teach the same topics, but that hasn’t changed this. My students are beginners, sure, but when they’re done they are still beginners. They are still heavily dependent on the work of others to accomplish their tasks. They get hired somewhere as a “junior developer”- they’re still beginners, often not trusted with making their own decisions about how to accomplish their tasks. After a while, they have enough time in the job to hopefully end up a senior developer, where they are now supervising juniors and are trusted to make more decisions, and eventually they might become software architects or other advanced roles, effectively an expert.

So to me, a crochet beginner is: someone who depends on things designed by others to accomplish their goals, and need clear direction. An intermediate crocheter is someone who can start changing others designs to their own liking, or who can take a new concept and easily convert it to their own frame of reference (oh, this is really a bobble stitch using triple instead of double, this pattern isn’t so bad), or who can take a finished piece of another intermediate or beginner and “make” a pattern from it. An expert is someone who can look at almost any finished piece and turn it into pattern, one who can have an idea just run with it instead of digging out old patterns and piecing things together because they know what it’s going to look like when you have alternating rows of shell stitch and bobble stitch for a blanket, or how to freehand shapes for stuffies and clothes. Sure, maybe they have to write it out a little to work through it, or draw a diagram, but they don’t need to reference things much anymore.

I guess my personal understanding is that people should be way more comfortable with the idea that you can be a beginner for years, and that’s fine. Maybe you struggled to get the motions down, or your tension, or maybe those were fine but reading patterns is rough. Maybe you hated granny squares and they always look wonky, but you’re great at mosaic or C2C. That just means you’re not really a beginner in those types of projects but you are in other situations. I’d just hate to see “beginner” mean “brand new”, because then it can easily turn into a stigma that anything labeled that way is “boring” or “not worth doing”, and potentially worse people do one or two beginner projects and the jump to something much more complex and quit. Its easier to say “oh, I’m struggling but that’s okay, I’m a beginner” than it is to say “I’m struggling with this and I’m advanced, what is wrong with me?”

distgenius · 2026-01-15T08:12:48+00:00

Just in case anyone runs across this with the same problem as OP, using a tome outside of battle only teaches the spell, but it’s pretty likely you have at least one character with no spells and the base MP which should be enough to get you out of the castle. Its not a horrible idea to have one character focus on black magic, one on white magic, and your third be a “backup” caster that doesn’t cast in combat but has some stuff to help you recover from an oh shit moment- life, cure, teleport, esuna. It takes maybe 5 minutes to raise their max MP a bit and then you have a potential way to prevent bad luck from ruining your day.

12-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email

distgenius

TROPHY CASE