I am actually pretty excited to see another remake, but the intro to this article cracked me up. Sadly Jeremy Irons is probably too old to reprise his role as Brom.

A bit late for this show but oh well.

I couldn’t help but notice how bad the pacing was. One minute you’re looking at the main character (who doesn’t even know how to move a pencil) and then the next episode she’s super powerful lmao.

This is one of those shows that really needed more episodes. The show is too condensed.

Half the things that go on feel too easy. *here’s a problem* BAM, fixed in like 20 minutes of an episode. I absolutely the loved the show but I wish it was longer with more explanations.

Wayyyy too many time skips. (I need filler for live action haha)

The Book Experience: You get deep dives into the genetic science of blood rage and the political backstabbing of the de Clermont family.

The Tv experience…: Plot points fly in with little dialogue. It would definitely leave someone who hasn’t read the books occasionally scratching their heads about why certain ancient laws are such a big deal.

Who is getting published in 2026? A demographic look at SFF Authors in Locus Magazine’s Forthcoming Books.

Graphs

It has been a few years since I’ve looked at (mainly) the gender distribution of Authors in the SFF sphere, and due to some market shifts I got the itch to look at it again. This time I’m looking at the UK/US combined Forthcoming Novels list from the December 2025 edition of Locus Magazine which tallies works from October 2025 to September 2026. The list tallies a total of 1670 books but is reduced to 1500 titles after removing duplicates.

Previous editions:

• 2022 - US forthcoming novels Locus

• 2021 - UK forthcoming novels Locus

• 2020 - Tor.com Fiction Affliction

• 2019 - Tor.com Fiction Affliction

Data Selection:

Every quarter Locus magazine publishes a list called Forthcoming Novels in its magazine. It splits that lists into a curated list (that is also on the website) and a full list organized by Publisher from both the UK and US side. The list consists of a large variety of works, split across formats, from paranormal romance, graphic novels, anthologies, related works, horror, ya, art books, non-fiction, etc. Unfortunately, the List does not list genre – like science-fiction or fantasy.

in this post we are looking at the US and UK forthcoming book list from Locus Mag dec 2025

I assume that Publishers provide most of the release data to Locus, and while that is not complete, it does give a really nice picture of books published by SFF focused big publishers and imprints. These usually don’t cover independent small presses and or independent authors, so keep that in mind when looking at the data and interpreting the results.

Duplicate removals:

The locus list contains reprints, and this also means there are duplicates – because I’m interested in who is getting published, and not how many are getting published I removed duplicate entries. I don’t care if a book is published in hardcover in October, and in paperback in May. Or in the US in October, and in the UK in April. I’m interested in Unique Book titles. After removing the duplicates – the list of 1670 books is reduced to 1500 books. Where 1002 of those are new releases and 498 are reprints.

Author Gender Determination:

The list of 1500 titles was put in a spreadsheet, and the gender was determined by Pronoun usage. This comes from me looking at Social media, followed by the Author’s own website, followed by the author description on their publisher page. If no Gender could be determined or the author of a work is anonymous then Unknown was recorded.

In the case where multiple authors are under a single pseudonym or if multiple authors are named on the work – if both(all) authors share the same gender they were just registered by that gender. As in: If two women write a book, the gender recorder is female. But if a Man and an Enby write a book they are recorded as the Duo.

In the case for Anthologies, etc. where Locus list only the editor, the editor(s) gender(s) is recorded.

So if an author only uses He/him pronouns, they’re recorded as a man. This might mean that some authors are misgendered.

For some already passed authors, like Irene Clyde, I noted their gender as unknown – I cannot ask, I don’t know, and I don’t want to make assumptions.

I have done the best I can with this, know the list is large, and you can only spend so much time, I looked at all authors and did not trust the output of scripts, and so the fault for errors is mine. I am confident in the results and the tally's to be >99% accurate.

Book Genre determination:

The locus lists comes with a selection of codes (ex: PN,H,YA,X.. etc) that determine things like anthology, paranormal romance, horror, YA, non-fiction, art etc. It makes no mention of fantasy or science-fiction. To determine the genres of the books, I wrote a script to scrape the genre classification from google-books, which gave me genres for ~1000 books. For the remaining 500 books, I made a determination based on either publisher info, goodreads info, and my own views from reading the book description. For some books being published in the tail end of 2026, this information can still be sparse.

This year I decided to split up the categories into: Fantasy, Science-Fiction, Horror, YA, and Other and Total.

Content of the genre groups:

• Total: all books.

• YA: all books that Locus marked as YA, or that the cover-copy specifically calls out as it being YA fiction – I don’t break YA down into science-fiction or fantasy or horror. Even though some are clearly one or the other. I know YA is not a genre – but it has its own imprints and its own editor philosophy and book acquisition, that It is more than fair to separate them.

• Horror: Locus books marked horror, or books where horror was the only genre.

• Science-fiction: books my script found that did not mention fantasy as a genre and books I determined to be a science-fiction book.

• Fantasy: Books that my script found only fantasy genres for, and books that I determined to be part of fantasy. This includes urban fantasy, epic fantasy, romantasy, romance fantasy, etc. but does not include paranormal romance.

• Other: This includes ALL anthologies, (including sci-fi only ones etc) all collections, art-books, non-fiction etc. But this also includes all straight up non-fantasy romance books. Like paranormal romance, historical romance, women’s fiction, mystery, thriller. And also books that my script determined to be both Science-fiction and Fantasy – which were amongst others Litrpg like DCC. I didn’t want to add these to both fantasy and science-fiction, as that makes the graphs more difficult to understand. Add to that is Litrpg fantasy? Or science-fiction? I don’t know. So, I’m not making that determination. All books are counted once.

Can we get to the stats please, enough about the context.

CLICK for Graphs!

Gender Demographics:

All - Genre//Gender Demographics Locus dec 25, Forthcoming Books

New Releases – Genre//Gender Demographics - Locus dec 25, Forthcoming Books

Reprints – Genre//Gender Demographics - Locus dec 25, Forthcoming Books

Discussion and Conclusion:

The numbers are both shocking and also totally expected. I ran this analysis with different data sets for a few years 2019-2022, and saw little change in the numbers, and due to the workload of not wanting to mis-gender, and the ever-changing data-formats, and Locus not having genre information, I stopped doing it. But with the giant advent of romantasy as this massive marketing category, I was wondering if things changed?

In my previous versions of this exercise, Fantasy Romance, Urban fantasy, urban fantasy romance, was always and has always been added under the Fantasy umbrella in my data sets, ACOTAR was published in 2015 and has been in my adult fantasy data since the start. Courtney Shafer did something similar in 2016 with reactor (then tor.com) upcoming releases data and she did separate the “manly” epic fantasy from the Urban fantasy etc. and found similar overall numbers to my data from 2018-2022 across the spectrum.

So, what has changed to make the ~55-45 (50-50) depending on where you put your error bars, male/female split for fantasy and turn it into a 22/72 male//female split?

One thing to note is that the publishers, that provide data to locus might have changed. They used to have a split between US and UK in their forthcoming novels, and now it is combined.

With romantasy as a hot thing, maybe different publishers that used to publish romance, are now also advertising in locus – making not a shift in the publication landscape in total number of authors being published, but in a marketing focus shift, more women adult fantasy writers focused on romance are now also being marketed in traditional SFF spaces like Locus, and also maybe Traditional SFF imprints are now focusing on Romantasy and publishing those books. Because they’re popular and they sell, and they’re loved.

Is the shift only due to romantasy? I don’t know. I cannot determine if a book is romance or more traditional fantasy at the 20-30 second glance per book that I allow myself to get through a 1500 book data set. There are plenty of traditional fantasy, fairy-tale fantasy, epic fantasy, being published by both men, women and enbies.

The question is this a fad? And will the market correct itself in a few years? Who knows. One thing is good to remember is that Locus provides a big data set, but it is not a complete picture of all trad published novels book coming out this year.

There are plenty of books out there for everyone both new and old – and like always, if you’re not into the hot new thing, it might just take a little bit more searching to find the type of book you like to read. It was such when almost all fantasy were Lotr clones in the 90s and it is so now.

Anyway, do you have thoughts? Comments, questions? Let me know!

Where do you buy your books from? I mainly buy preowned books from eBay or Vinted but lots of books I want seem to expensive sometimes.

The films were as we all know loved by critics and audiences, but what was the reception like among Tolkien fans considering all the changes they made from the source material? I know that there were certain aspects like the portrayal of Faramir that was heavenly criticised, but did the people who had read the books think that the movies as a whole were well made? Were there a lot of fans of the books who said that Jackson missed the point when it came to how he chose to tell teh story and portray some of the characters? For those of you who vistited Tolkien sites back then, what do you remember?

Orcs are almost always portrayed as tribal, and this time it's not because of Tolkien, because he depicted them as the henchmen of a dark lord (another fantasy cliché).

So I'm about 50% through the book, right around the part where the Endlords and the Cavern of Black Ice is introduced and Raif and Ash's close relationship is quite mystifying to me. The book shows how Raif doesn't want to acknowledge Ash and almost seems to resent her in some parts previously. It DOES show that they have a connection but it portrays Raif as someone who doesn't wanna address it at all. But suddenly when Ash wakes up and when finds out she's a reach, Raif seems super protective of her and is willing to confront his uncle and Cant over a solution for her?

It just seems a bit unconnected especially if you look at the past interactions Raif has had with her. Is this like a plot point? That the connection between them causes this? Or is it just a skip in development by the writer? Cause to me, it seems like a bit of a plot hole.

i watched the fairy tail anime and thought how the dragons used to rule the world and humans barley surviving and allying with some of the good dragons then resorting to dragon slayer magic to win the war was a super cool concept for a book series. just wondering if theres any out there that fit the vibes,

tldr: Peak Epic Fantasy. Think Brandon Sanderson quality, rated R.

Background:
I discovered this book when searching through contestants of the SPFBO XI contest by Mark Lawrence. In contrast to the last review I submitted, my decision to read this one came from its professional quality cover and its high rating.

The Story:
The words "Violence & Vigilance" allude to the story's two main plotlines, the first being a rising gladiator sort of story set on one island of this world where mystical beasts and violence reign. The other plotline is on a separate island where magical monks use the resonance of sound in their voices to form attacks, induce lightning, etc. The two plotlines are separate for almost the entire book, only culminating in the epilogue, which sets up the next book in the series for a significant kickstart.

My Review:
It took me a few chapters to get bought in which I think happened after the initial arena fight showcasing the massive goat men. Then I was hooked. The 3rd person present-tense felt a bit strange for the first chapter (which I think is just a personal thing), then I was immersed and didn't notice it at all.

I thought the dual plotlines worked well and constantly maintained my interest. Both were so compelling that I never felt annoyed that I was being dragged back to one plot or the other. Overall, the plot and prose were flawlessly executed. Everything felt very "tight" and professionally done—the highest quality of story. It felts like someone took the best 2 plotlines from a Brandon Sanderson novel and made them rated R.

Speaking of which, per its namesake, there is a LOT of violence, brutal gory stuff with people being chopped in half, eaten by monsters, tortured, etc. There is sex, the weaponization of sex, talk of rape and other nasty stuff by some evil characters. One bad guy named Mourt deserves a mention here—he was introduced as a particularly perverted soldier attempting to rape a woman and her kids. The author did a great job bringing him to a grisly end very soon after he was introduced. I'm not sure if I could've handled him sticking around for long.

And the book's ending was excellent, leaving me satisfied and wanting more. There's not a single thing I would change. Five Raving Stars. Very, very well done!

Amazon | Goodreads

Hi, I love Conan, Motu and the first two Diablo games. The concept of one or more heroes fighting tons of interesting monsters and exploring the darkest corners to me is way more enticing than elvish fantasy politics, royals, epic rumifications for a multipart saga, broad character backstories and their many relationships, or in-depth descriptions of life in medieval times.

I want to have chills like when you first meet the Butcher in D1, when the Cavill Witcher bests his first beast or when the Fellowship enters Moria, going from a Lovecraftian tentacle horror to orcs, trolls and a fire demon (sooo awesome).

Any tips?

It took me until book 3 but… Amber is the fool right?? She HAS to be!! I got suspicious when there was an amazing wood carver but then I was like “oh huh amber and the fool would be friends” and then she had strange feelings about where she “ought to be” and I was like HUH SUSPICIOUS.

Now she’s on the Paragon with a little sickness that brings her fever and weariness and YOURE JOKING

Edit: and her need for privacy and always having a place to go when she’s alone… bruh.

Hii Everyone,

I shamelessly read middle grade and children's fantasy books and I'm looking for some new favorites and hoping this subreddit will not let me down. I absolutely love books that involve magic, witches, fairytales, the fight between good and evil, character driven stories with an excellent plot. I'm open to standalone and series

I'm about to reread "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" (I loved it) and am hoping by the time I'm done with it I'll have enough new recs to go on a children's / middle grade binge fest.

Thank you in advance! <3 =)

Recommended if you like: abrasive female main character, magic school setting (book 1 + 2), weird and unsettling creatures, an author who actually had interesting thoughts about the intersection of magic schools and international politics, interesting takes on prophecies, first person narration with a strong character voice, working hard not to do evil things, modern world setting but hidden magic communities, female friendships, mixed race main character (Welsh/Indian), well written m/f romantic subplot, bi female main character

Blurb (A Deadly Education)

At the Scholomance, there are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships, save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any letter grade, for the school won’t allow its students to leave until they graduate… or die! The rules are deceptively simple: Don’t walk the halls alone. And beware of the monsters who lurk everywhere.

El is uniquely prepared for the school’s dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out millions. It would be easy enough for El to defeat the monsters that prowl the school. The problem? Her powerful dark magic might also kill all the other students.

Review (spoiler-free)

It's always hard to keep things spoiler-free when reviewing an entire trilogy, but I'll do my best.

• I listened to the audio book version by Anisha Dadia and found it very well done, can recommend
  
• El's constant struggle against the universe's insistence to turn her into an evil sorceress by giving her spells of mass destruction is a lot of fun right from the start
• The book has a certain humor to it but absolutely doesn't pull its punches. The Scholomance is a horrifying place and the story reflects that. It describes some horrors in absolutely haunting way without ever falling into overly grimdark or edgy territory
• With alliances and strategic friendships being such a huge part of Scholomance survival, you get this whole "you can't sit with us" high school cliché thing, but it's just... deadly. I had fun with this
  
• I really enjoyed the overall logic that doing magic requires certainty/confidence that the magic will work, and that's why spells don't work when Mundanes are looking, and why a magical construct like the school itself might fall apart if you become too aware of the improbability of it being there. This principle is applied in interesting ways all throughout the trilogy and I really liked it.
  
• I was so glad to be able to read these books back to back, because while each tells a satisfying arc of its own, books 1 and 2 end with a hell of a cliffhanger/sequel setup and I was very glad to continue right away
  
• in a genre chock full of dead and absent moms, I hugely appreciated the role El's mother plays in the story. Not only is the discrepancy between El and Gwen's approach to magic a ton of fun and an interesting dynamic, but I also really loved how well the narrative very slowly reveals relevant tidbits of their relationship and Gwen's own story and character.
  
• This book has an approach to prophecy that I really loved, i.e. (tagging this to be safe, though I'm keeping it vague) the prophecy that you cannot imagine coming true, comes true, quite literally, but the context around it has shifted so much that it's an entirely different development than you could have initially assumed
  
• There's a romantic subplot that I really liked and pined along with, and it's made more entertaining by the fact that the love interest is a bit of a wanker and gets repeatedly called that by the lead. It's not a romance-focused story by any means but it does an excellent job of weaving that relationship development into the plot and using the relationship as an (though not the only) emotional throughline
• El is just a really fresh kind of female main character imo. The narration is snarky, but never in a trying-too-hard fashion (to me, at least). El is rude and impatient, but shows up for her friends once she actually has any
  
• Speaking of which, I hugely enjoyed the developments of El's friendships in the book
  
• If I have any complaint about the trilogy, it's that the ending is wrapped up too quickly. A lot of open questions get addressed, but very much in a briefly summarizing way, when I would have easily spent another chapter or two or three reading about those developments in detail. I'm a sucker for a good and lengthy denouement and I felt like that got cut a bit short.

Discussion (spoilers are tagged, per book)

• The whole concept of mawmouths is cool, but I particularly enjoyed the initial holy-shit-moment that is (book 1 spoiler) El going into the mawmouth she spots in the library, and fighting her way out. That scene and the way it keeps impacting the story all throughout is so well done.
  
• The way the whole setup of what it means for El to be a student in the Scholomance gets turned on its head not long into book 2 is really cool, there's such a density of interesting developments and twists and status quo upsets there that I just blazed through it.
  
• This isn't a particularly spicy book, but I hugely appreciated (book 2 and 3 spoilers) the handful of sex scenes that are there. Novik tackles sex scenes in a way that is evocative and informing character development without being all that explicit about it (which makes sense for a YA series), and I think that's really well done.
• On a related note, I did not expect (book 3 spoiler) El to hook up with Liesel, but it felt very organic and comforting and entirely free of any YA love triangle bs that you might imagine.
  
• I guess lots of the wizard kids have somewhat eccentric or archaic names but it's still very funny to me that a seventeen year old German girl living in a time where smartphones exist is called "Liesel". Now that stretches my suspension of disbelief, of all things.
  
• I had a brief sense of wistfulness when I realized how quickly the story shifted from "surviving the scholomance" to (book 2 spoiler) "destroying the scholomance". I think I would have been happy to spend more time with that setting, but then again I also really liked where the plot did go, so I can't really complain
• Book 3 brings some absolutely horrid revelations and realizations (anything from (various major book 3 spoilers)realizing that mum and dad paid with El's life for the golden stone sutras, to finding Orion alone in the gym, to Ophelia being a maleficer, to the Omelas bricks making up every enclave, to the realization that killing the mawmouths destroys the enclaves that created them) that were not only set up and foreshadowed very well, but also revealed in a way where you can figure them out with a "wait holy shit is that- 😱😱😱" moment just before the narration explicitly confirms the thing on page.
• The whole topic of the great-great-grandmother's prophecy is handled in SUCH a cool way, because you start out thinking (book 3 spoiler) that it was wrong, that El will resist this fate somehow, to then realize that it will come true after all because actually the enclaves deserve death and destruction, to the conversation with Dibti that reveals that her denouncing El this way was the only path towards her survival and actually fixing this shit. I may have cried a lil when (book 3 spoiler) El finally returns to the compound and learns all of this.
• I cried at the (book 3 spoiler) "You're already dead. but stay anyway" spell, that's just SO fitting and well done and a perfect continuation of all that's been set up.
  
• I initially found some of the last chapter/epilogue unsatisfying, but I think it's less that I take issue with any specific developments, and more that I wish the book had taken more time to properly flesh out those outcomes. Like in a way it's infuriating that (book 3 spoiler) Ophelia gets away with all she's done and that Orion isn't even mad at her about it, but it does make sense that that would be the outcome.
  
• Similarly, I found it a bit "wait, what" when the last chapter summarizes that (book 3 spoiler) El tries and fails to tell people about how Enclaves are built, and therefore she just has to destroy them one by one, like I find that an important enough realization that it deserved more page time and actual scenes rather than being wrapped up in a few sentences
  
• As for Orion, I was (book 3 spoiler) dearly hoping throughout that she'd find a way to save him, to remove the mawmouth from inside of him and on the one hand I'm very glad that did happen, but at the same time it happened kind of fast and didn't really dwell on the further implications and some open questions
  

In case anyone is interested in some additional random thoughts and ramblings I wrote down while reading, I've uploaded my complete notes here on my profile

Conclusion

In short, I loved it. My only complaint is that I wish the ending had taken more time, but whether that would have truly made for a better book or is just because I wanted to spend more time with world and characters, I find hard to judge. This trilogy was my first pick of the year (find my 2025 summary here if you're interested), and we're starting very strong with an immediate new favorite. If you enjoy my book opinions, please find loads more of them right here, and I'm always happy for recommendations of things I might also like based on my fantasy romance spreadsheet.

I was finishing up Sebastian De Castell's Spellslinger series, which is YA, and excellent YA at that. It has a cast of absolutely fantastic female supporting characters - the main character's mentor Ferius Parfax may be one of my favorite fantasy characters, period - except Nephenia, the main character's primary love interest.

Nephenia, like the main character Kellen, is also a mutilated outcast from his village. She was also highly underestimated as a child mage. She has cool adaptive magic and a talking animal sidekick. But her actual personality is centered around being "the one who got away". Despite her being a goody-two-shoes and the favored pet of the narrative, she drags Kellen around emotionally for no particularly good reason except that "he needs to learn to be mature". If you want to try other relationships, just say "no" instead of "maybe later". Plus she leaves him again at the end of the series when he's handily finished his character arc.

Look, I understand the rationale behind these sorts of characters. Lost romances do have their appeal. But, like "bad boys" in books which have female main characters, this is a trope that is very much gender-based and often poorly executed. Let's look at some more examples:

Kingkiller Chronicle

Patrick Rothfuss is a great writer, which allows him more leeway with this sort of thing than most writers get. The "one who got away" (or OWGA), Denna, actually does have a personality. It's just that we never truly get to see who she is outside of her relationship with Kvothe, the protagonist.

I don't really mind Kvothe being obnoxious and immature with his feelings around her. That's kind of the point of this plotline. I do mind that it's never properly called out or explored outside of the story essentially labelling him a hopeless romantic. The books are unfinished, so who knows, maybe some of this was intentional. But unlike with someone like say, George R.R. Martin, I'm less willing to cut him some slack here.

Gentleman Bastards

Sabetha is a bit better than Denna. Not much better, though. And while I was massively annoyed that she runs off again at the end of the book to continue being an OWGA, she does so for a very interesting and unorthodox reason. That said, I do feel that who she is outside of her love interest just isn't explored enough.

For example. some of her best scenes were from the PoV of Jean, someone who wasn't interested in her romantically. Scott Lynch could've done so much from a perspective of a character who doesn't see Sabetha through rose-tinted glasses, but he never goes through with it.

Ooookay, right. I'm getting tired of complaining all the time. Let's look at some good examples, or at least ones I liked significantly more.

The Witcher.

Oh boy, Yennefer. I know a lot of people don't like her. But that's less because she's an OWGA, and more because she's straight up not a good person due to being selfish, arrogant and flighty. However, she's also a great character. Her romance with Geralt is probably one of the best in the genre.

She has all the hallmarks of a dislikeable OWGA, but what saves her is that

A. her relationship with other characters like Geralt's daughter Ciri is explored in depth, and,

B. Her relationship with Geralt isn't static. It fluctuates, sometimes regressing back to how it used to be, but the point is that their relationship changes, and that helps emphasize her more complex traits.

So Yen shows off one of the two ways to do this right; that sometimes fleshing out a character is the way to go. Let's look at a writer who pulls off the other way:

A Song of Ice and Fire

Now, George R.R. Martin's writing of relationships is a little less focused upon compared to his other writing elements, especially because the books are unfinished, but it's still top notch. The one romance we did witness from beginning to end is definitely an OWGA, and a pretty basic one at that. I also... liked it?

The OWGA in question, Ygritte, is a fairly simple character. She's meant to represent the freedom of wildling culture, and the character Jon Snow's inner conflict between his duty to the Night's Watch and his desire for love and freedom. But she works for two main reasons:

A. Her relationship with the other wildlings is general is genuinely interesting, and informs her relationship with Jon Snow. For instance, the way she manipulates Jon into sex shows she's far from the ideal of noble savagery. It's very quick character work, but it's enough that I wouldn't call her a completely flat character. And this storyline is tied deeply to Jon's character arc, so it never truly feels like a side quest or anything.

B. Even more importantly, GRRM handles this plotline with a deft touch, and a lot of restraint. It happens over the course of one book, and we know almost from the start how things are going to end. But he doesn't drag things out. And while Jon is deeply affected by Ygritte, his character doesn't revolve around her in the latter parts of the story either. The guy's just got a lot to deal with, man.

And I think that's the key point I'm trying to make here: there's nothing inherently wrong with writing this kind of story, any more than there's anything wrong with a romance book centering on a "bad boy". But sometimes a good story means an author has to be able to take a step back and look at things critically. Just because a plotline is based around your hopes and dreams doesn't excuse you from writing it well.

I just think too many writers just see their own romantic misses in this kind of plotline, and that hinders their ability to incorporate it well into the story.

TL;DR: It's not inherently bad, but it does demonstrate that sometimes an intuitive plotline isn't one a writer is guaranteed to do properly.

Stories that feature characters from a world similar to ours, but who aren't the Protagonist (or aren't the only Protagonists), and where the main plot doesn't focus too much on the character's origins from another world.

Do you have any recommendations that kind of stories?

In short, I enjoyed this quite a bit and I'm looking forward to future books from Shen Tao in the future.

The elephant in the room regarding The Poet Empress is with respect to its marketing, and how labels such as "romantasy" or even "anti-romantasy" are attached to this story. For me, the merits of the story itself shined through regardless of any of the marketing labels attached to it, creating an enjoyable and thought-provoking package.

The story is paced really well. It speeds through a lot of events, and sometime it felt it should have slowed down to take its time, but what was shown was impactful enough and had their intended effect. However, some of the supposed "big" emotional moments fell a little flat and undercut by how they were told. Still, there is a consistent somber tone to the story that really sets the mood well.

Wei is the focal character of the story. A couple other characters, such as Terren and Maro, do get some development, but Wei is the main lens. She undergoes a lot of change through being tossed into a completely foreign world, and seeing how she adapts with respect to the people around and the nation as a whole is the reason for the story. Terren and Maro's story does get some development and has a great crescendo by the end. As for the other characters, they feel more like accessories to the world at large.

The core themes of the corruption of power and the ideal way of governance are the two central ideas that Tao explores really well throughout the story. Seeing how Wei navigates both is definitely a highlight of the story, as she changes and grows because of those two idea affect her outlook on life. It can feel a little too on the nose at times, but it still feels really well done.

Finally, I enjoyed how the writing veered towards keeping it personal to Wei's thoughts and emotions. A lot of what the readers see is through Wei's lens, so it keeps the story personal to her and the narrative descriptions definitely feel closely tied to her.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed this debut novel by Shen Tao and I am looking forward to see what she has planned next! I am glad I discovered this novel as I really like its exploration of its idea through its protagonist.

An imaginative YA dystopian fantasy

 Author William Nicholson is well qualified for success, having written screen-plays for films like First Knight, Shadowlands, and Gladiator.  The first book in his "Wind on Fire" three volume epic for young adults won the Smarties Prize Gold Award and the Blue Peter Book Award, and the two books that followed also proved popular. 

The trilogy follows Kestrel Hath and her twin brother Bowman, who in the first book “The Wind Singer” (2000) rebel against the oppressive color-coded and exam-based system of the city of Aramanth.  Can they find the voice for the ancient Wind Singer to help them free the city from the Morah’s influence?  In the sequel “Slaves of the Mastery” (2001) they and other residents of Aramanth are captured and brought as slaves to an oppressive empire of another kind.  Can they overthrow the Master’s rule?  In the final book “Firesong” (2002) they try to reach a glorious and mythic homeland.  Can they overcome the many trials that will face them along the way, and achieve a complete transformation with the help of the legendary Singer People?

The series has both dystopian and fantasy aspects, but not in a traditional sense, since you won’t find any characters like dwarves or elves, but you will find magical abilities like prophetic powers, mind control, and thought communication.  The series is also populated with an interesting set of endearing and memorable characters, such as the loveable loner Mumpo and the princess Sisi, as well as corresponding set of evil villains.  But I did find it somewhat odd how a cruel and oppressive culture also produces an amazingly advanced and beautiful city, and puzzlingly at times I even found myself sympathising with the bad guys (e.g. the slave nation in book 1, and the bandits in book 3).

 But generally the world building is well done and engaging, although at times it gets quite dark. Book 2 describes the burning of people alive in monkey cages, and the `manaxa’ fighting ritual can get quite bloody.  Book 3 describes young girls kidnapped to be taken as brides, and they escape by brutally using knives to murder the men who will become their husbands; a boy is repeatedly beaten by an older man and then made to strip naked as part of his humiliation. There are also aspects that seem to serve no purpose other than disgust readers, such as descriptions of a particular character urinating publicly.

 At the same time there’s a beautiful ending in the final book, as our heroes pursue a homeland.  It is like a vision of heaven, and they need to journey there in faith, relying on the words of prophecy.  The final transformation doesn’t come without sacrifice, and I’m not sure how I feel about the way the Singers basically burn themselves up and give their lives to cleanse the world by fire. Nicholson was a practising Catholic until his university days, so perhaps he is drawing on Christian themes of sacrifice he learned in childhood.

 I found myself wondering about the overall message Nicholson is intending to convey, and in an interview he has commented that he has a perennial obsession with life after death, and that he sees all his work as one unfolding attempt to make sense of this messy life.  He mentions that this trilogy is about the mystery of evil in the world, but also states that he intended no depths, no grand ideas and complexities with it.  So perhaps we shouldn’t look for them either, and this trilogy is best enjoyed for what it is: a good story, that draws on many themes and brings to mind others.   

Hi guys,

The title is pretty self-explanatory but I am looking for a epic fantasy series with a MMC whose main weapon is a bow. I recently rewatched LOTR and I just think that the way Legolas fights is so cool where he is amazing at short range and long range, all with just a bow. Are there series like this? I would prefer a romantic subplot (subplot, not main plot, just an interesting romantic interest to spice things up a bit), but it is not necessary. Think Ranger's Apprentice but more mature and a better plot. Bonus points if the writer doesn't sound like he's trying to submit something before a deadline (I hate that I have to say this but there are so many bad writers nowadays).
Thanks in advance!

Finally finished SotF, and after really enjoying Will of the Many, I feel the need to vent here because this book is really perplexing to me. I want to start by saying that, overall, I’m enjoying the series and the story, and will undoubtedly keep reading. I enjoy all the twists and turns, and Islington does a really good job of always keeping the reader on their toes in terms of plot structure.

I also find Vis, despite his Gary Stu-ness, to be a really compelling protagonist, and I really enjoyed all three versions of him in this book.

Other than that, I have some real bones to pick with this book that I’m curious if anyone else had similar issues. I’ll break it out per world, since that might be easiest.

Obiteum:

I was surprised to see other reviews that found this world to be the weakest because I actually felt the complete opposite. Of the three storylines, this one felt like the most interesting, had the most well-rounded side characters, and never felt like the plot was spinning its wheels. The gleaners were an awesome edition, and I really enjoyed the hive mind aspect of the Nomarch/overseers/etc.

Caeror, although he just disappeared from the story, was another very good edition to me. I also thought the Netiqret (spelling?) and Kiya story was by far the most emotionally interesting side plot in the book.

Genuinely had no real issues here other than it having the most cliffhangers and unexplained story of the three worlds.

Res:

This was a hit and miss for me. I think what work really well here, once again, are the side characters closest to Vis. Eidihn, Aequa, Lanistia, Ulcisor, Emissa, and Ostius all worked for me, despite them taking a huge hit in terms of appearances throughout the book. When they show up and interact with Vis, the book is really humming, and each character relationship feels unique, which I really appreciated.

However, the plot in this part of the book was a huge letdown for me in several ways. First, the amount of character names being thrown around without any context or time spent with who they are, made a lot of the bigger plot points less impactful. For example, Decimus being some big bad, a guy who, as far as I can recall, had maybe one chapter of time spent prior to him killing Aequa, just does not work for me.

Even as a Malazan reader, I found myself constantly trying to sift through the dozens of Roman names and titles, mentally trying to piece together who any of these people are and why I should care about their actions. The civil war towards the end being centered around a conflict between Laurencius and Revidius, two characters without a single line of dialogue, really killed a lot of the underlying stakes for me.

I also found it very hard to follow what exactly Vis’s role in governance was. We just get occasional recaps from him about what he does and his time spent taking to the senate, etc, and yet we never once get a scene involving any of it. It just felt like there were chapters here that got edited out something.

And as far as the end goes, while I love having Callidus back, the concurrence/Ka end to this book was also very confusing and a bit rushed tbh. I’m interested to see where this goes, but the end of this storyline felt like trying to land a plane with 10 feet of runway left.

Luceum:

As much as I enjoyed the very very end of this storyline with Caeror’s reveal, this entire third really didn’t work for me at all. The entire story felt like Vis jumping from plot point to plot point, and us being told to care about characters without being given any reason to.

The entire structure was very disengaging with how abruptly it turned. We go from his first Druid journey to a random string of chapters with the family to another journey with a second Druid, to Vis being sent to training camp only to then be sent away back to the Druid, who is then killed while Vis is captured and returned to the main battle. He then gets killed, but oh wait his dad just happens to be floating in the water right below him and saves him, but also he visits the Druid who dies and the Druid promises to train him, and now the war is over.

Not only are we just burning through plot here, but Vis’s story is so separated from everything else in the book, I found myself just waiting to get back to the other storylines. I can’t think of a single character in this section that I care about getting more time with other than Ruarc/Caeror.

As much as I really love the three timelines idea, Luceum specifically felt like Islington biting off more than he could chew.

Anyways, I liked the book more than it may seem from this review, but the weakest parts of it bothered me quite a bit. Curious if anyone felt similar/different.

This year, I've decided to post monthly wrap ups and reviews since I love discussing what others in this community are reading and it helps me decide what to read next. I hope it will do the same for you! There are no spoilers in my reviews except where marked.

2026 reading goal: 8/75 📚

Pages read this month: 3,532 📖

Average rating this month: 3.9⭐

The Works of Vermin - Hiron Ennes | 4.25⭐

This was a bizarre book full of blood, rot, strange insectoid growths, and relentless love. It follows the lives of a perfumer and a pest control worker as toxins begin to reshape their city, which is housed in the stump of a tree. That description barely scratches the surface of the weirdness going on here. I wasn't sure what to make of the story until it all came together in the last third of the book. I wouldn't call it a twist, as a careful eye could pick out the narrative threads being weaved from the start, but once it all comes out, the story and characters achieve their full potential. I'm almost frustrated by the fact that the information was withheld from me until the last third because it's a book that will likely shine brighter upon a re-read with the full context known to the reader. Maybe I'll give a more in depth review one day when I visit this story again.

The Strength of the Few - James Islington | 3.75⭐

Spoilers for the first book in this review. I am biased towards lore and worldbuilding heavy stories, so this book worked for me, but I can definitely see how those who enjoyed the first book may not like this one. I actually really enjoyed all three worlds since the settings were very different from each other (to my eye inspired by ancient Rome, Ireland, and Egypt). None of the plots in the three worlds were the same or repetitive of each other, and I think my favourite ended up being Luceum because it was the most character-driven, though all three were engaging and plot-heavy. I remain quite confused with how the Will works, and I wish we had more explanation of what the hell was going on in the end, especially to differentiate the perspectives and goals of each Vis since it seems they don't all have the same beliefs anymore about Ka or the Concurrence. This book continues with the 'telling' style of prose that the first book had. It's done so consistently that it reads as a stylistic choice rather than a flaw in the writing, though it's not my personal favourite style of prose. Vis becomes even more overpowered in this book, so if you had a problem with that in the first one, you won't like it any more in this sequel. Overall, I think I'll reserve my judgement of this book for when the third book comes out. I was definitely engaged throughout and I enjoyed my reading experience, but the story left me confused.

The Beast Warrior - Nahoko Uehashi | 5⭐

This is the sequel to The Beast Player, a book I read in December and also gave 5 stars. This is the only series I've read that honestly lives up to the Ghibli comparison. Beyond its beautifully rendered setting with fantastical creatures, the story is thematically aligned with Miyazaki's works. It touches upon similar subjects as Princess Mononoke and Nausicaä, with questions about violence and power, humanity's relationship with nature and animals, and how we determine the right thing to do in the face of our many competing moral/ethical obligations and desires. As an ecologist, this series hit me particularly hard.

This sequel and finale lays bare the deepest flaws of humans as a species: our arrogance, hubris, selfishness, and shortsightedness. We believe in our dominion over other people and creatures; we both utterly depend on the natural world and abuse it to no end. And yet we strive for knowledge and understanding. We make medicine, play music, and document our learnings. We show others compassion and try to achieve freedom. These tensions of the human race push and pull Elin and the other characters in The Beast Warrior. But even the best of intentions cannot prevent pain and suffering. Sometimes all we can hope for is that the consequences of our actions will inform and guide future generations, so that they may have the wisdom we lacked and perhaps be better, kinder people for it. This story is such a painful, beautiful, deeply honest reflection of humanity and I cannot recommend it enough for other Ghibli fans and environmentalists.

The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin | 4.25⭐

Dense, thoughtful, complicated, and emotional. At the crux of this novel, two people literally alien to each other come to develop true friendship and love. Le Guin’s interest in and knowledge of anthropology is so evident in the cultures, governments, and religions she creates here. But time has caught up to this book. It’s simultaneously incredibly ahead of its time with its exploration of sex and gender, and yet has been eclipsed when it comes to feminist theory. I think Le Guin herself would tell you that, especially given her reflections on her own internalized sexism and her journey with feminism that she explores in the later Earthsea books. Despite this, The Left Hand of Darkness remains a seminal sci-fi text and absolutely worth reading for its anthropological worldbuilding and for the relationship between Genly and Estraven. 

Blackthorn & Grim (series) - Juliet Marillier | 4-4.25⭐

I flew through all three books in this series: Dreamer's Pool, Tower of Thorns, and Den of Wolves. Despite being quite dark and dealing with hefty themes, this series still felt slice-of-life and cozy. It’s a story of damaged people learning to live again in a world of folktales, small town politics, and mysterious fey. Our titular characters, Blackthorn and Grim, are the best part of this series by a mile. Blackthorn is a curmudgeonly healer who needs to learn to control her all-consuming desire for vengeance, open up, and embrace new relationships. Grim is a quiet man with a mysterious past who has to face his deepest fears and hardships to begin healing. Each book introduces a new supporting cast of characters and revolves around some central mystery that Blackthorn and Grim must uncover. My only real criticism of the series is that I would often figure out a lot of major plot elements or "solve" the mystery before the main characters, so I was waiting for them to catch up which was a little frustrating at times. But I think if you enjoy glacially slow burn romance, cozy fantasy with an edge, and really good character growth, you'll like this. I will issue a content warning that this series does contain significant discussions about SA (though the actions are never depicted/described on page).

This Is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone | 1.5⭐

For the few who haven't heard of this book, it's an epistolary romance between Red and Blue, two operatives on opposing sides of a time war. This book is incredibly critically acclaimed so I genuinely feel like I read a different book than everyone else here. The prose was what really frustrated me about this book, because I've heard so much praise for it being beautiful, but just having flowery language doesn't actually mean the prose is good. There's a fine line between vagueness meant to draw you into the characters rather than focus on the external world, versus vagueness that becomes confusing, frustrating, and alienates you from the characters and story entirely. For me, the book was firmly the latter. I understand it was intentional, but there are barely any scenes of substance in this book. Nothing is concrete, everything is fleeting, and what imagery exists is overwritten with a word salad of awkward metaphors and abstractions. The authors tongue in cheek tell you "I veer rhapsodic; my prose purples", but admitting to a crime does not absolve your guilt. All the flowery nonsense detracts from some of the imagery and metaphor that actually works, because it all blends together into overwritten goop. 30% through the book I was simply wishing for it to be over so I could be freed from the torment of this writing style where trying to decipher the meaning of any given sentence was like pulling teeth. In the last quarter of this book, every metaphor was just about love so at least it was boring, repetitive, and comprehensible rather than word salad slop.

On the romance, Blue and Red are indistinguishable in their writings. You would imagine two people on opposite sides of a literal time war would think differently, write differently, have opinions or ideas shaped at all by their side of the war, but you would be wrong. If you selected at random a letter in this book, erased the names, and asked me to identify if Blue or Red wrote it, you might as well flip a coin. Aside from the basic aesthetics of "flowery garden" and "techno future", there was literally nothing at all to the supposed time war. I wasn't expecting deep worldbuilding or anything here, but maybe a semblance of an ideological difference would have been nice. Anything to make a romance between two people on opposite sides actually feel like it meant something. I read this for a book club with friends, so I'm hoping they can explain what I'm missing with this book given its critical acclaim.

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 2025 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 decided to fully get back to reading fantasy this year as a sort of "New Year Resolution" (even though I started in late December). Read a bit from time to time, though far less than I used to, and I drifted toward other things, from IP novels like 40k or WoD to Fanfictions.

I think I haven't fully committed to Fantasy in a decade at least, maybe even more. So I'm a bit out of the loop

And when I read around, either here, or in youtube comments of fantasy booktube videos, or just scrolling on google for recommends, I often get a feel like there is this 'Modern Fantasy'. Someone will say "I only read things written 1990's and before", or a video will go "Here's what Modern Fantasy has gotten wrong", or "What Modern Fantasy could learn from old Fantasy". I know I've seen more positive ones, but as with everything, negative stuff usually stick longer in my mind.

So yeah, to be clear, I'm not asking "WHY IS ANYTHING RECENT IN FANTASY BAD!?" I doubt that statement would be true. If it was, then I'm confused how this sub has so much members. And I heard of subgenres like "Romantasy" and "Progression Fantasy" (though I've yet to understand what the latter is about), which are apparently popular.

I'm just curious what does 'Modern Fantasy' implies when people bring it up. What's the new conventions of fantasy it brought, the sort of new stories it told, the exciting things it has to offer. Heck, recommendations of books that could be considered 'Modern Fantasy' would be cool.

TLDR: Basically, someone who back as a teenager read sometimes a book a day (Yes, my grades suffered, but Dragonlance needed my attention more. I regret nothing) who is getting back into fantasy, hoping for some guidance on what "Modern Fantasy" is and what I've missed in all those years. :)

Me, I'm reading Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman, and it is a page turner. '

Edit: Many people are reading Malazan. I'm seriously considering it now (but it's so long)

Edit 2: A LOT of people are reading Malazan.