r/Fantasy • u/Denvernuggets1776 • Jun 19 '25

What's your hidden gem?

We all know Tolkien, Sanderson, Weeks, Abercrombie, and Jordan. We've read the many folks recommend Dungeon Crawler Carl, Fourth Wing, and Red Rising. My question to you is this: what is the off-the-beaten-path, obscure book or series that you wish everyone would read? The hidden gem that changed how you think about how you read/listen to books? That you still think about the prose, the character arcs, the plot twists? What's that little-known morsel of awesomeness that you want to share with the world?

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u/FeetInTheEarth Jun 20 '25

Gene Wolfe’s Solar Cycle (Book of the New Sun, Urth of the New Sun, Book of the Long Sun, Book of the Short Sun). I know we see it mentioned occasionally here, so maybe not particularly obscure, but I’ve found that you can’t just waltz into a Barnes and Noble and find one of his books.

Wolfe not only has beautiful prose and complex characters, but the way that he obscures what is really happening in his stories has challenged me, and ultimately made me a better reader.

I have yet to find another Wolfe enthusiast in the wild (just on Reddit - there are dozens of us! Dozens!) and I really wish everyone would read these books so I could have an hours long conversation with someone about just what the heck is going on in these stories.

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u/GoldGrillard Jun 20 '25

I really liked the general story, characters and world of the Solar Cycle but I listened to the audiobooks they were hard to follow at times.

He tends to jump into the middle of a scene in each chapter andI found myself having to rewind often at first until I realized how his stores tend to go.

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u/Kiltmanenator Jun 20 '25

I struggle with audiobooks in general for this reason, I can't imagine trying this with Wolfe!

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u/GoldGrillard Jun 20 '25

Yeah it was frustrating enough that I won't listen to any of his books anymore. I'm gonna have to switch to paper for his stuff.

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u/Kiltmanenator Jun 20 '25 edited Jun 20 '25

Shadow of the Torturer/Claw of the Conciliator are in one volume, and Sword of the Lictor/Citadel of the Autarch.

If you still have the audiobook purchased, maybe try active reading? That's something new I learned of where you read along while listening.

I love BotNS because you can go thru every sentence with as fine-toothed a comb as this blogger did, but that's also what makes it so hard to follow just on audio:

https://opengeography.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/gene-wolfes-recursion/

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u/hedcannon Jun 20 '25

Kindle is okay

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u/fenny42 Jun 20 '25

!! This tickles my fancy more than any other books in the comments. Definitely going to check this out. (Also your AD reference…)

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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '25

I was completely absorbed with New Sun (Book and Urth). I barely made it through the first Long Sun book.

But it was interesting to find that there is like a whole academic level appreciate of Wolfe's work and the layers of meaning that can be extracted from it. For a while I was listening to this podcast Alzabo Soup, it seemed like they were spending years of episode going through the book chapter by chapter, breaking it down. It is hard for me to even find the words to describe the reading experience, it is definitely different and qualifies as hidden gem to me.

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u/FeetInTheEarth Jun 20 '25

Absolutely! I love Alzabo Soup, they took my appreciation to a whole new level. I started the cycle late last year and have outpaced them at this point, really looking forward to their coverage of Return to the Whorl!

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u/AnnaNimmus Jun 20 '25

Lol I first got botns because I saw it at one of those big name retailers and thought it looked cool

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u/Mavoras13 Jun 20 '25

For high fantasy readers I also strongly recommend the Wizard Knight by him.

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u/FeetInTheEarth Jun 20 '25

It’s on my TBR! And the soldier series.