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Fantasy Series

Sandersons StormLight Archive series is excellent but its not even halfway through the series, with 3 books so far, maybe wait 10 years for that. :)
 
Second vote for the Witcher series. Also the Watch books by Sergei Lukyanenko. If you dig Russian stuff you've probably already read them.
Bernard Cornwell does some pretty good dark ages 'historical' fiction which might as well be fantasy books. The Warlord Chronicles (Arthurian, Complete) start with the Winter King and are a great read. The Saxon Chronicles (ongoing, Alfred) are more formulaic and Uhtred is kind of a dip****.
Warhammer pretty much defines grimdark and some of the earlier novels are surprisingly readable. The Vampire Genevieve (Written by Kim Newman under the alias Jack Yeovil) and the Felix and Gotrek series (Bill King) are worth hunting around for.

Richard K Morgan has written some fantasy. I read the Steel Remains and didn't think it was a patch on his Kovacs stuff, YMMV.
If you liked Banks and Morgan I'd point you towards Alastair Reynolds and Neal Asher. I can recommend the Skinner where Asher invents an entire ecosystem and then intersperses the story with vignettes of how vicious the local fauna are. Read those sections in a David Attenborough voice for extra enjoyment.:D
 
Pumpkinstew said:
Second vote for the Witcher series. Also the Watch books by Sergei Lukyanenko. If you dig Russian stuff you've probably already read them.
Bernard Cornwell does some pretty good dark ages 'historical' fiction which might as well be fantasy books. The Warlord Chronicles (Arthurian, Complete) start with the Winter King and are a great read. The Saxon Chronicles (ongoing, Alfred) are more formulaic and Uhtred is kind of a dip****.
Warhammer pretty much defines grimdark and some of the earlier novels are surprisingly readable. The Vampire Genevieve (Written by Kim Newman under the alias Jack Yeovil) and the Felix and Gotrek series (Bill King) are worth hunting around for.

Richard K Morgan has written some fantasy. I read the Steel Remains and didn't think it was a patch on his Kovacs stuff, YMMV.
If you liked Banks and Morgan I'd point you towards Alastair Reynolds and Neal Asher. I can recommend the Skinner where Asher invents an entire ecosystem and then intersperses the story with vignettes of how vicious the local fauna are. Read those sections in a David Attenborough voice for extra enjoyment.:D
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I'll have a look at Witcher. I read the first couple of Watch books but something about it just didn't vibe for me (couldn't really put a finger on why) and I gave up.

I read the Cromwell Sharpe series (and just finished the bloke who wrote the Ghengis series) and I did enjoy them. I fancy the fantasy series from the Ghengis author bit with only 1 book published I'll wait.

Read Gotrek and Felix until William King stopped, really enjoyed them.

I've heard a lot about Reynolds. I tried Asher but I wasn't a huge fan, I may revisit though.


Thanks for the tips everyone!
 
The first two Witcher books are short stories that give Geralt some back story - the real story is from book 3 to book 7, all one continuous story that covers Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer

The long story should tick all your boxes as it's definitely dark and all of the heroes are varying shades of grey
 
Picked up Last Wish, the first witcher book and I'm hugely impressed at around halfway through. Thank you for the recommendation!
 
Historical fiction rather than fantasy but really good books:
David Gemmell's Troy trilogy
Conn Iggulden's Genghis series and Emperor series are very good too
 
dirtychinchilla said:
That's a real shame. A lot of the books don't even mention his name. I love him <3
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I keep getting stuck on book 3 when he turns into an absurdly whiny **** bag. Is it possible to keep reading the series and skip book 3?

I actually like Hobbs writing it's just Fitz I can't get away with.
 
No1newts said:
I keep getting stuck on book 3 when he turns into an absurdly whiny **** bag. Is it possible to keep reading the series and skip book 3?

I actually like Hobbs writing it's just Fitz I can't get away with.
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Well he ages throughout the series, so he matures I suppose, but he still fights constant internal battles. You might be able to skip book 3, but I doubt it.
 
:p

Everyone keeps recommending Hobbs and looking for some way to avoid the worst of Fitz, I don'ind not reading it but everyone always recommends it.

To be fair I'm happy enough with Witcher for now then I'll be moving onto Sandman Slim and with my limited reading time that will get me through a long period before needing to contemplate whether or not to relate Fitz again.
 
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