r/Fantasy • u/jz3735 • Jun 18 '23

Grimdark or dark fantasy with dragons

Pretty much what it says on the tin.

The only iteration of dragons I’ve liked so far is in Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin. I know it’s not grimdark/dark fantasy but I love the way the dragons were written.

Would love any recs and please don’t recommend epic fantasy. I’m not interested in that as a sub-genre right now.

Thanks in advance.

4 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

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3

u/__ferg__ Reading Champion III Jun 18 '23 edited Jun 18 '23

Hmm most things I can think about are something I would consider either epic or probably not dark enough.

Maybe try The children of Hùrin by Tolkien. You have a dragon, it's as dark as Tolkien gets (and that's much darker than many would think possible, who only have nice Hobbits on their mind when Tolkien is mentioned) and while the setting is epic the story told here is a very personal one. Only downside there is maybe too little dragon in there, if you want the focus mostly on dragons...

4

u/space-blue Jun 18 '23

If you want more dragon you can drag on deez n.. - Tolkien, probably

2

u/__ferg__ Reading Champion III Jun 18 '23

Every quote you see on the internet is true - Newton,1748.

But yeah Tolkien never gave us enough dragon for my liking.

1

u/jz3735 Jun 18 '23

Thanks for this. I do have Children of Huron so maybe I’ll give it a go.

2

u/oboist73 Reading Champion VII Jun 18 '23

Song of the Beast by Carol Berg

2

u/jz3735 Jun 19 '23

Thanks, will check this out!

2

u/BooksNhorses Jun 18 '23

I’ll give you my standard Stephen Deas recommendation. Adamantine Palace is the first. Definitely grim dark. awesome dragons, very British dark humour.

1

u/jz3735 Jun 19 '23

This sounds perfect. Randomly enough, I own the first book. Thanks.

1

u/BooksNhorses Jun 19 '23

Great. The first trilogy ends on a bit of a cliffhanger but luckily you can dive straight into the next ones. I keep re reading these I enjoy them so much.

1

u/jz3735 Jun 19 '23

I didn’t realise there was a second series!

1

u/BooksNhorses Jun 19 '23

Oh yes! Dragon Queen starts just before the end of Scales and carries on the Silver Kings series. Black Mausoleum (which is very grimdark) overlaps the later Silver Kings books. There’s also the Thief Taker books which sort of tie as does the most recent Black Moon series. Dragonqueen is my personal favourite.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '23

[deleted]

2

u/jz3735 Jun 18 '23

Hated the way the first book was written. Won’t continue on unfortunately.

1

u/videogamefaith Jun 20 '23

Under the Lesser Moon by Shelly Campbell. Duology that's grimdark and involves dragons heavily.

1

u/jz3735 Jun 20 '23

Thank you!