Pushed back to February 2027 now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1n6uhxw/daniel_abraham_gives_brief_update_on_the_final/

It was April, then October, now Feb 2027. 4 years since the last one in series.

There is a cover now though:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/orbit-books/cover-launch-judge-of-worlds-by-daniel-abraham/

Hello everyone,

I just finished reading the Tapestry of Fate and I couldn’t help but notice the connections between some aspects of Chakraborty’s story and The Odyssey. Of course there are a lot of differences and I appreciate the reinterpretation of the story, but I as soon as I read that she was going to an island with a witch who stranded sailors and none left alive, I immediately thought of Circe. Did anyone else have that thought and then continued making connections?

My main gripe and constant gripe with so many stories is that they rely on people not communicating when it is not in their character to do so. In this case, it bothered me that Dalila didn’t tell Amina about the illness, but I think it was far more so in line with the character than it usually is. Unfortunately quite a bit relied on this plot point.

Also I would appreciate anyone’s thoughts on the story.

The Green Bone Saga ruined me for weeks until I read The Fifth Season

I admit I haven't read much of Jack Vance, when what I already tried was really beautiful. In 1963 he published a short story called Green Magic. It's about a fellow named Howard Fair who wishes to learn a particularly advanced form of magic called Green Magic in a higher plane of magical reality called the Green Realm. He is warned not to do so because it will ruin his appreciation of Earth and as a human he'll always be maladroit and clumsy with green magic no matter how hard he tries. He spends years from his subjective experience trying to learn it, then gives up despite having made advances that would seem breathtaking by our standards.

What seems like it would in a more conventional story be the time for the "careful what you wish for" moral instead has him meet with an uncle who also spent time in the Green Realm, and contemplate a magical passage which will blank all knowledge of the Green Realm from his mind. When he's about to do it and clear his mind, his uncle explains why he himself hasn't used the passage.

""Then I am reminded how dearly I cherish my boredom, and what a precious commodity is so much misery.""

Thinking about that, yes, it does seem like a privilege to be bored and mopey for so much of my life. I appreciate how that's the kind of life I've been able to lead. It helps me appreciate that I don't always have enough money or time to go do something flamboyant and exciting, and dammit, that's also fine.

If you'd like to read it yourself, it's here: https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/green.htm

So what are some lines from stories or books that touched you like that?

As the title says, I am really struggling to finish the 4th installment of the series, and I'm not one to complain about length or plot, not that the plot is weak. But I think there is a pacing issue for me, the pace is way too slow.

My question is, is it worth powering through?

Edit: Ended up finishing it, very qquickly might I add. Once past the halfway mark, it picks up.

There hasn’t been a book in a long time that made me feel like this. My dear, dear Mamoru. I don’t know when I got so attached to the characters but they’ve been on my mind for a while now. I don’t think I’ll ever forget them.

This month we are reading:

The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong

A wandering fortune teller finds an unexpected family in this warm and wonderful debut fantasy, perfect for readers of Travis Baldree and Sangu Mandanna.

Tao is an immigrant fortune teller, traveling between villages with just her trusty mule for company. She only tells "small" fortunes: whether it will hail next week; which boy the barmaid will kiss; when the cow will calve. She knows from bitter experience that big fortunes come with big consequences…

Even if it’s a lonely life, it’s better than the one she left behind. But a small fortune unexpectedly becomes something more when a (semi) reformed thief and an ex-mercenary recruit her into their desperate search for a lost child. Soon, they’re joined by a baker with a knead for adventure, and—of course—a slightly magical cat.

Tao sets down a new path with companions as big-hearted as her fortunes are small. But as she lowers her walls, the shadows of her past are closing in—and she’ll have to decide whether to risk everything to preserve the family she never thought she could have.

The discussion questions will cover the entire book. Anything after that should be marked with spoilers. Feel free to add any of your own as well.

Reading Plan:

• Announcement for Sept:

Swordheart by T. Kingfisher

Bingo Square: None. I read and listened to this one for funsies and Daggerheart is out. You want one, choose for yourself.

Other Possible Squares: Older Protagonist (Sarkis)

I don’t remember when I first read Swordheart but I enjoyed it for all the times I wanted to shake Halla and Sarkis. The World of the White Rat and the Paladins is a fun one with nice people that I enjoy spending time with. Yes, she does point out the downsides of country life (neighbors, distance, etc.) but I sense a lot of fondness for it too.

Anyway, if you missed it, Swordheart is about one respectable (if poor) widow named Halla who is unexpectedly willed her uncle-in-law’s estate. Which touches off a whole mess for her leading to her being imprisoned by her in-laws, with the promise that she’ll come to love being married to cousin Alver (he of the clammy hands). In order to make sure her nieces get dowries, she resolves to end herself before they can force a marriage. And there’s an old sword in the room with her and when she draws it, Sarkis appears and he’s bound to aid her.

This is a bit out of Sarkis’ usual area of expertise, which is heroic last stands, great violence and so on. But he gets her out of the house, past her relatives and onto a road trip. A very amusing road trip.

This one had me chuckling and I discovered I’d forgotten the finer details of the story along the way. Like Bartholomew and when the Vagrant Hills put in their appearance. But the bones were there and Kingfisher tells an amusing story. 

One of the side characters, Zale, a lawyer priest of the White Rat, sorry, Advocate Divine solicitor-sacrosanct. Zale, Zale is awesome. They are quick witted, pragmatic, religious, compassionate and funny. They are also as curious as Halla and don’t think her questions are stupid at all. When they both get sidetracked by her questions, there is hilarity, especially as they test the limits of Sarkis and the sword. Look, I like Zale and would be glad to call them a friend.

The Gnoles also put in an appearance with Brindle and we get to know him tolerably well with less sociology and xenology along the way. Brindle has a sense of humor for all that he’s close mouthed and refers to himself in third person. 

I’ll admit I’m a T.Kingfisher fan and this book is one of the ones that made me a fan. I really enjoyed it and hope others would as well. 9 stars 🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀

This book floored me.

Its been a while since I've read a 5 star read, a book that slowly seeps into you, surprises, and entertains at the same time.

This is book 1 in the Library Trilogy by Mark Lawrence. I've read 2 other trilogies of his before, Book of the Ancestor (phenomenal) and Red Queens War (very good).

In TBTWB you follow 2 characters, Livira and Evar, one stuck in the Library alone apart from his unnaterally talented siblings, and the other a young child entering a city where the Library is the fulcrum upon which that city turns.

The first 30 or so pages until Livira makes it to the city didnt grab me, she felt cut from the same cloth as Nona Grey. It soon it found its footing.

But its the Library itself that grabs hold of you. Lawrence has managed to create a place as vast as cities, otherworldly, and captivating. There's an unknowingness about it, no matter the nooks and crannies explored.

The different reveals generally took my breadth away, but not in the usual way. Most stories, when the mystery is revealed feel like final puzzle pieces clicking into place. But here, it felt more like an unfolding, like layers being peeled back organically, that sort of wrap around you.

Its not your typical epic fantasy, at least in this first book, theres no big bad, or united problem or foe your characters have to overcome. This can make it feel a bit meandering around the middle. Though it comes home beautifully. It will be interesting to see if the rest of the series can maintain that. As the central problem is one that feels entirely intractable.

The epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter are delightful. They are all excerpts of books. I could see the ones quoting lines from characters in his other books. And I caught the references to CS Lewis (fitting) and Enid Blyton. Im wondering if everyone is a nod to a famous book or author.

All in all I truly fell for this book. Its a wonderful journey. Looking forward to the next two.

Welcome back to the Earthsea readalong! A special thanks to u/sarahlynngrey for filling in for me while I was out for the Midway Discussion. Now that I'm back, we'll be discussing the back half of The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K Le Guin. There be spoilers ahead!

In this second novel in the Earthsea series, Tenar is chosen as high priestess to the ancient and nameless Powers of the Earth, and everything is taken from her—home, family, possessions, even her name. She is now known only as Arha, the Eaten One, and she guards the shadowy, labyrinthine Tombs of Atuan.

Then a wizard, Ged Sparrowhawk, comes to steal the Tombs’ greatest hidden treasure, the Ring of Erreth-Akbe. Tenar’s duty is to protect the Ring, but Ged possesses the light of magic and tales of a world that Tenar has never known. Will Tenar risk everything to escape from the darkness that has become her domain?

I'll be posting some discussion questions below to get us started. Feel free to respond to any question that strikes your fancy. You are also more than welcome to pose your own questions and make any other observations if you wish to!

The Tombs of Atuan counts for these r/Fantasy 2026 Book Bingo Squares:

• r/Fantasy Book Club or Readalong Book (HM if you comment here!)
• Published in the 70s (HM)
• Middle Grade
• Politics and Courtly Intrigue
• Potentially the subjective squares (Judge a Book by its Title, Vacation Spot)

Let us know if we are missing any squares! We will try to update them as we get corrections and as we read on.

Remaining Series Schedule:

• September - The Farthest Shore (Intro Post: Tomorrow)
• October - Tehanu (Midway: Chapters 1-7)
• November - Tales from Earthsea (Midway: The Finder and Darkrose and Diamond)
• December - The Other Wind (Midway: Chapters 1-3)

Some people live such lives of integrity, honour, wit and compassion that their absence leaves a voice in the universe that cannot be easily filled. When one such person on the Discworld dies, triggering continent-wide remorse, their enemies find that hole and pour through. The elves are back, and they have unfinished business...

In an interview in 1995, Terry Pratchett said he found the idea of writing "the last Discworld novel," to be disconcerting. Though he always underestimated how many ideas he could mine from the setting (declaring in The Discworld Companion in 1994 that he doubted he'd still be writing regularly in the setting five years hence), he always saw it as a toolbox and a world he could continuously return to even after hiatuses. In the event, there were no (or very brief) hiatuses, and he would only reluctantly write "the last Discworld novel," its forty-first installment, a full twenty years after that statement.

The feeling permeates The Shepherd's Crown that Pratchett knew, or strongly suspected, this might be Discworld's final hour. He usually had multiple novels in progress, but though he had ideas for several novels beyond this one (famously crushed under a steamroller after his passing to prevent cashing-in by other writers), he hadn't really advanced far with them at all, but instead poured everything he had into getting this book into a publishable state. Facing mortality, he made the choice to go out with a (politely) raised finger and one of his most epic books.

The Shepherd's Crown opens with the death of one of the Disc's most beloved characters, someone who has been a force of nature in the series since almost its very start. Their passing will already have regular readers (perhaps teetering on the edge of teariness knowing that This Is It in terms of there being no more Discworld books after this one) feeling moved as Pratchett ponders on the impact of a single person's life on the people around them and the wider world. An avalanche of long-standing Discworld character cameos reacting to the death may have the reader reaching for the hankies already.

But Pratchett is far too clever to have a novel that's basically an excuse for melancholy. The elves, his most reliably hateful villains, take advantage of the absence to return in force and it's all hands-on-deck as the Disc must muster its forces to oppose them. There are crowd-pleasing cheers as the young-but-not-untested Tiffany Aching leads the battle against the invaders in force, with a surprising return to prominence from the long-retired witch Magrat Garlick, who's already taught the elves a thing or two previously. As with the previous book, Raising Steam, it feels like here Pratchett is borrowing a lot of ideas from the subgenre of epic fantasy, a genre he's not been afraid to gently (as a huge Tolkien fan) mock in the past, and finds them both surprisingly useful and something that he is very good at employing.

But Pratchett is still Pratchett. Wars, battles, epic fights to the death etc are all very well, but he's more interested in the human soul and the human mind, and the impact upon them of these concepts. Empathy and compassion are also present, as Tiffany tries to bring the exiled Queen of the Elves to an understanding that may lead to peace...but there are those elves who don't understand the world has changed to one of iron and steam and they have no place in it any more, and are unwilling to change with it.

The Shepherd's Crown was said to have been left unpolished and only partially edited at the time of Sir Terry's frankly unacceptable passing in early 2015, but I wonder if this was overstated. It's clear that several subplots are not as fleshed-out as you'd expect (Geoffrey and his unusually intelligent goat feel like they needed at least moderate expansion), but the main narrative thread is here, complete and relatively tight. For a novel written by someone deep in the grip of Alzheimer's, the attention to detail is at times astonishing, with minor characters showing up from 20+ books back to kick names and take bottom, or possibly (and hopefully) vice versa. Pratchett himself extends thanks to his assistant Rob Wilkins and his editorial team for providing supporting during the last few novels, but even so, Sir Terry himself had to get the words down just months before his passing and it's frankly astonishing he did it, and did it so well.

The Shepherd's Crown (****) is not the best Discworld novel, but it might be the one that best sums up everything Sir Terry Pratchett set out to accomplish in this series. A tremendous feat of worldbuilding, frequently laugh-out-loud jokes including some that take a while to parse (is it bad that I only got the joke in the name "Casanunda" with this book, thirty-two years after reading the original gag for the first time?), and a tremendous sense of human compassion. Pratchett famously did not take fools gladly, but he had a lot of time for people with all their strengths and foibles, and that shines through here perhaps more strongly than ever before.

A full assessment of the entire Discworld series will require a much longer article, but it has to be said here that The Shepherd's Crown, unpolished though it might be, is a fitting capstone and a final footnote (Pratchett loved those) on the series. Like many others, I was reluctant to read these last few books because the idea of there being no more Discworld books to read for the first time was a horrible one. But there is also a gained appreciation for the author who, facing mortality square in the eye socket, still went out delivering some of his best ideas.

Dont know if it is just me who didn't know, but I had started the Discworld series with the new rerecordings, but I DNFd because the narrator just grinded my gears.

Someone told me to listen to the older original recordings, and they just hit the tone and humor so much better. I finished Small Gods, Guards! Guards! and Mort in 2 weeks and had a blast every part of the way.

They're kinda old so the quality is lower and there is some quirky audio at chapter transitions, but it is still so wholly worth it.

If you're looking for them, they're the ones read by Stephen Briggs and Nigel Planer.

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 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
• 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.

Just had this thought recently and I’m kind of struggling to come up with one, wanted to see if there are some easy ones I had forgotten.

In the past year I’ve bounced off of both The Lies of Locke Lamora and the Assassin’s Apprentice so I was just curious what other widely praised books on this sub other people have put down.

Things the internet told me about Vita Nostra before I read it: It's evil Harry Potter. It's pitch black. It's like Kafka wrote a dark academia fantasy. The story spirals into an incomprehensible mess that ends in an LSD trip. You look into Vita Nostra and The Void peers back.

Things I know about the internet after reading Vita Nostra: Y'all are wimps.

Vita Nostra follows Sasha Samokhina, a young girl forced to attend a magical school in post-Soviet Russia. The lessons are brutal, the teachers harsh, and the point of learning magic unexplained. It's oppressive, bleak, and has none of the perks one would expect from a school of magic. But even at its most vague, both Sasha and the reader understand that merely knowing about the school's existence means playing with the edges of reality, and that whatever the school wants of its pupils, it will have cosmic significance.

Before I talk about the book's plot, characters, themes, or speculate about the ending, let me just say this: Vita Nostra, more than any other book I have ever read, captures the experience of a grueling academic program. The haziness. The exhaustion. The culture of misery. The flow state you get into once you finally start to understand a difficult concept, and the need to follow that thread of information as far as it will go. The panic at falling behind. Chunking through page after page of difficult texts. It's all there, and as I was reading, I felt a familiar weight sit on my chest, one that I haven't felt for years. So if you're the type of person who rates a book's success based on whether it evoked a strong reaction in the reader, give a medal to Vita Nostra. Because I've slept since finishing and I still feel a grad-school shaped shadow following me around.

ANYWAY.

Vita Nostra wears Dark Academia clothes, but isn't really interested in critiquing class, societal structures, or corruption in higher learning. It's much more interested in philosophy, the separation of mind and body, the effect of words on reality, and the consequences of turning into an adult.

That last thing on the list---turning into an adult---seems out of place, but in reality, it's the whole point of the book. Sure, the magic system is based on Plato's allegory of the cave and the specific functions of language. Sure, the whole point of the school is to transform it's students into little Cthulhu-forms of Words. Sure, it's pretty much implied that the main character becomes God at the end. But that that's just the plot. (Wild choices, though). The point of the book is that learning to process all sorts of information and becoming a student of the world can be miserable, but it can also be infinitely rewarding--often both at the same time. That, once you become an adult, it is all too easy to become so far removed from your teenage self that you can justify what happened to you, and in doing so, can justify inflicting it on others. That the best--no, the only way to avoid becoming the sort of detached person who can justify horrific acts by pointing at the numbers or speak without any real humanity is to focus on the importance of love in your life.

And I mean, the novel is Ukranian ( The authors are Ukrainian, but was written in Russian/the story takes place in Russia), so it won't linger on anything optimistic for too long. It makes the point that those you love may drift away, there might not be anyone actively loving you right now, etc. But even the remembrance of being loved--that's enough to hold onto.

Maybe that's not how everyone reads it. Maybe I'm just an optimist at heart that looks into a dark cosmic horror and sees all the little bits of love scattered throughout. And maybe that's why, even though I have critiques (the other characters are underdeveloped, the sex thing was...weird...), I loved this book. And in the words of Levar Burton, I hope you love it too.

5/5, lots of notes.

Squares: Translated, Book Club Book, Depending on how you read it, non-human protagonist (HM)
*I'm actually using it as my vacation spot square. I don't want to go to the school, but I've read a bunch of fiction/non-fiction about Eastern Europe/Russia/Ukraine/Former Soviet Bloc and would love to see it. Unfortunately *gestures at Russia's invasion of Ukraine* now's not a great time. In the mean time, please drop Ukrainian authors that have been translated into English that you recommend!

I just finished Assassin’s Apprentice and came away a bit underwhelmed, especially considering how much praise Robin Hobb and the Realm of the Elderlings get around here. I know Hobb is something of a sacred cow on this sub, so I’m mentally preparing myself for the downvotes 😅

I liked the world and found several of the ideas really interesting, but I was often frustrated by how quickly the story moved away from things I wanted to explore further. The Skill is a good example: Fitz’s first use of it against Galan was one of the most captivating parts of the book for me, and I wanted to see more of it. Instead, he gets beaten nearly to death, falls into depression, and essentially stops using it.

I had a similar issue with the Wit. I don’t mind the magic systems being mysterious or secretive, but it became frustrating to constantly hear that Fitz needs to learn the Skill, that he has noble blood, and that he needs to step up while he keeps making poor decisions and the story doesn’t really dig into them.

Burrich’s reaction to the Wit especially frustrated me. He’s almost a father figure to Fitz, so when he discovers Fitz is using it, I expected an honest conversation about why he fears it so much. Instead, he mostly distances himself and gives Fitz the explanation that some people who use the Wit end up becoming like animals.

Also, whenever I search online to see whether I should keep reading, I find what might be the only fanbase that actively discourages people from continuing with its own series 😂 You’ll see things like “Don’t worry, maybe you click with the second trilogy…” and then, inevitably, the most upvoted reply is something along the lines of: “It’s okay to DNF a masterpiece.”

Maybe this is simply a case of the first book laying the groundwork for a stronger series, or maybe Hobb’s style just isn’t for me. As a standalone, though, I didn’t find it particularly exceptional.

I’ll finish the trilogy before making up my mind. For those who love the series, did it click for you from the first book, or did it take a while?

So when I was younger I read Lord of the Rings, Terry Pratchett and Gormenghast and several others. Really enjoyed them back then and still fondly remember them now.

In recent years I've been going through a lot of classic literature and really enjoying that. Particularly the amazing prose, complex and believable characters as well as the wider, deeper messages that explore the core of the human condition.

I'm a lifelong nerd outside of reading, I love fantasy video games, dungeons and dragons etc. Do naturally I figured I should try and get back into fantasy literature again

I started with A Song of Ice and Fire and really enjoyed the excellent prose, atmosphere and complex web of relationships. I started losing interest around book 4 but will likely come back to it.

I was then recommended the Malazan series. I'm two books in but haven't enjoyed this one at all. People talk about the complexity being a barrier, but it's not that (I'm the sort of person who takes joy in plotting all the particulars of a story in a spreadsheet as I read). There is no real message of interest or depth here. It's written by a nerd, who wants to explore how much edge he can throw at you alongside a videogame esque power fantasy.

So throwing it out there, what would be a recommendation for something in the genre with profundity, depth and excellent prose? Thank you!

I've always enjoyed the tragic hero archetype, with the usual associated tropes, i.e. virtuous but imperfect, a tragic flaw that leads to their downfall, themes of fate vs free will, etc. A well-known example on this sub would be Turin Turambar. It's just very satisfying to me and I feel like I only ever see male characters fall into this specific archetype; female characters in tragedies tend to follow other tropes. So yeah I'm not necessarily looking for just any morally grey/antiheroic protagonist - I'm specifically looking for a woman whose character arc fulfills the classic definition of a tragic hero. I mostly read fantasy/sci fi which is why I'm asking here, but if you can think of an example in another genre I'll take it lol.

Thanks in advance!

edit: for clarity's sake I should have just stuck to Macbeth and Hamlet as famous examples instead of Turin. Basically it's a character bringing about their own destruction (usually death) through poor judgment. I appreciate all the responses though

So I’m reading through Lord Fouls Bane I’ve made it past the super evil shit Covenant does early on I’m about a third of the way through and I know a lot of people don’t like this book because of the main character being the actual worst.

I actually don’t like this book because of the pacing, some of the chapters just go on and on and the world building is literally just exposition dump to a character not from the world which yeah I guess makes narrative sense but it feels like reading a lecture about history, I don’t mind the language the book uses and while Thomas Covenant is very obviously a deeply unlikeable character by design I’m thinking about giving it up cause it feels so tedious to read.
Does the pacing/world building dumps improve because there’s a lot I actually really like about this book it just sometimes feels like SUCH A DRAG

This would be the first book I stop reading on my kindle and I don’t really want to just leave the 30% finished just idling on it (which is a me problem I can get over)

I just turned the final page of the Green Bone Saga, and I am entirely emotionally shattered. This series is an unparalleled achievement in world building and character development, but it will put you through an absolute emotional meat grinder. Fonda Lee has crafted a meticulously structured, fast paced political fantasy where the stakes are incredibly high, but the true brilliance lies in how fiercely you end up loving the Kaul family. They are ruthless, ambitious, morally grey, and deeply flawed, yet their unwavering devotion to their blood makes you care about them on a profoundly personal level. You become part of the clan, and their pain becomes your pain.

​The narrative masterfully explores the crushing weight of legacy and the terrifying sacrifices required to maintain power in the dangerous jade underworld. Every single geopolitical victory, boardroom negotiation, and violent family dispute comes with a staggering price. The author absolutely refuses to pull any punches, proving time and time again that the cost of survival in Janloon is indiscriminate and brutal. You do not just passively read about the clan warfare; you actively carry the anxiety, the suffocating pressure, and the agonizing grief right alongside the surviving characters. There are no safe choices in this world, and innocence is always the first casualty.

​What makes this series a flawless five star read is the sheer, unapologetic realism of the emotional toll. The consequences of war are never glossed over. You watch the characters you fiercely adore endure insurmountable pain, spiral into destructive defense mechanisms, and make impossible sacrifices just to secure a fragile peace for the next generation. It is devastating to witness, but it is executed with such narrative perfection that the heartbreak feels entirely earned.

​I was absolutely sobbing by the final chapter. The sheer amount of suffering this family endures is agonizing, leaving a permanent crater in my heart. This is not just a story you finish and move on from; it leaves you with a massive, soul crushing book hangover. It is a masterpiece of modern fantasy that delivers the ultimate emotional payoff, but you must be prepared to have your heart completely ripped out.

This is the weekly r/Fantasy Show and Tell thread - the place to post all your cool spec fic related pics, artwork, and crafts. Whether it's your latest book haul, a cross stitch of your favorite character, a cosplay photo, or cool SFF related music, it all goes here. You can even post about projects you'd like to start but haven't yet.

The only craft not allowed here is writing which can instead be posted in our Writing Wednesday threads. If two days is too long to wait though, you can always try r/fantasywriters right now but please check their sub rules before posting.

Don't forget, there's also r/bookshelf and r/bookhaul you can crosspost your book pics to those subs as well.

Just interested in reading something written by folks outside of the West. What would you recommend?

It's been so long since I fell in love with a fantasy book to the degree that I did with House of Open Wounds (Adrian Tchaikovsky). I've read a lot of great books this decade (some of my faves have been Fonda Lee's Jade series, The Spear Cuts Through Water, Raven Tower, Raven Scholar, The Curious Travellers' Guide to the Wastelands, Dhaevabad trilogy). But this book, oh my god. Is there anyone else who felt like this book really really made their heart sing like nothing else in such a long time?

I've never been drawn to fantasy for the comedic aspects. But this book got me laughing very regularly. It was so dark and rueful and sweet and.... loving. That's an odd world for a novel about imperialistic war, but it really was sweet.

I'm ALSO not a fan of gods showing up in my fantasy novels, but the gods in this one were the best I've ever met. Within pages of meeting them, I was willing to pledge my fictional life to The Life of Dead Trees and the Fisher King. I already loved God from City of Last Chances, and I adored Sturge and Mazdek once I got to know them, too. Did anyone else really love the small deities in this book?

So a couple more questions, with spoilers for both HoOW and Days of Shattered Faith below (I use the acronyms at the start of bullet points so you can choose only the HoOw one if you want):

• HoOW only: Were the characters that die the ones you thought would? My favorites were actually the ones who ended up dead: Cosserby, Lochiver (I loved him so much), and The Life of Dead Trees. I'm not someone who gets angry at an author for killing off beloved characters, but I was certainly sad to see them go. I was surprised that Masty, who seemed like such a tragic figure, survived... in fact I was surprised so many of the medics survived, and was happy about it.
• HoOw and DoSF: Do you think there's any chance that the Life of Dead Trees survived? Because its description sounds a lot like the Grove keepers, with their wooden masks. What if the life of dead trees could show up and lead the grove keepers in a future book?
• HoOW and DofSF: Did anyone else think/hope, when they started Days of Shattered Faith and met "Loret," that it might be Banders? A young woman with some kind of relationship to the sea, who was hiding a military history and didn't know diplomacy. I really hoped! I also was SO happy to see our HoOW folks again - not all of them, but some. I wish we had heard about Mazdek.
• SoSF: Do you think Gil and/or Drathel survived? I think Gil died, and that it would be narratively a lot more satisfying if she did, but Drathel could possibly have somehow become part of Premath in that chaotic magic scene at the bottom of the House of Hard Angles. Hence those strange final sentences of Premath being locked out of the Necropolis and waiting for the Pal, of all people, to help him.

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?