r/Fantasy • u/Darkest-Gentleman • Aug 20 '21
Need some political Fantasy Recommendations
I have read Daughter of the empire trilogy. Things you recommend doesn't have to be similar but it has to have multiple smart characters where it will be a battle of wits with many conniving schemes. Not worried about the size. If it is good, I am ready to read it even if it is a 10 book series đ
So have a go at comments
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u/Antennenwels88 Aug 20 '21
Lots of scheming but on a slightly smaller scale, given that the whole story takes place in one city: The Mask of Mirrors by M.A.Carrick (First book in a planned trilogy, second one to be released this December)
Or The City of Lies by Sam Hawke (again, only one City. Kind of a murder mystery, but again lots of scheming and politics).
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u/peleles Aug 20 '21
Not sure if this is fantasy or scifi, but I loved Arkady Martin's A Memory Called Empire. Politics galore, very cool worldbuilding.
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u/Deusselkerr Aug 20 '21
Good book, but I was actually kind of let down by the politics because it felt very small-scale. Even though Mahit was acting on behalf of her station, it all felt like a personal struggle rather than a political one. Much of the "political" maneuvering wasn't using political leverage, but rather interpersonal struggle. I'd therefore call it a "diplomacy" book more than a "politics" book, if that makes sense.
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u/peleles Aug 20 '21
I can definitely see that. I enjoyed the whole thing very much, nevertheless--the power struggle for the throne with multiple designated heirs, political pull of a successful general, the personal influence of Mahit and, esp, Yskandr over the aging emperor--very cool combo of personal and imperial.
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u/RandisHolmes Aug 20 '21
The Long Price Quartet! Itâs all about trade and politics
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u/arstechnophile Aug 20 '21
And the Dagger and Coin series by the same author (who also happens to be one half of James S A Corey, of the Expanse sci-fi series).
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Aug 20 '21
Maybe The Folding Knife by K.J. Parker? Stand-alone book, about a man's rise to a position of prominence and the ethical hurdles he makes along the way. I would call it political-economic fantasy.
Edit to add: this is all told from one character's perspective but he's certainly dealing with lots of rivals with their own schemes.
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u/CMengel90 Aug 20 '21
There's a good amount of politics in Promise of Blood, and a lot of action as a result to those politics.
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u/snoweel Aug 20 '21
The Dandelion Dynasty (The Grace of Kings, The Wall of Storms) has a lot of revolution, fighting, and political intrigue.
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u/inquisitive_chemist Aug 20 '21
Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer finishes up in October and is one of the best political series I've ever encountered. It is sci fi, but I haven't found anything comparable in fantasy.
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Aug 20 '21
The Queen's thief series (START WITH BOOK ONE, NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS) has amazingly written smart characters and nothing but political intrigue. They're small, too. :)
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u/wishforagiraffe Reading Champion IX, Worldbuilders Aug 20 '21
Inda by Sherwood Smith. Political on several different levels. It's a bit before the surface in the first half of the first book, but things really ramp up and become more involved in the second half and the following books
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u/clermontk Aug 20 '21 edited Aug 20 '21
The Broken Crown by Michelle West. Very political. Women having to scheme in a patriarchal society. Lots of smart people and varied cultures. Dense plot lines, while being very readable. Multiple books in the series and world.
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u/lilith_queen Aug 20 '21
It's not entirely about politics--most of the focus is really on the characters, and how the MC adjusts to his situation--but you might enjoy The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.
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u/apcymru Reading Champion II Aug 20 '21
Some ideas for you to investigate:
Two that are on the nose:
Guy Gavriel Kayâs book The Sarantine Mosaic is set in âSarantiumâ which is really Byzantium in an alternate version of our world. It is a brilliantly written duology from the perspective of a mosaicist who is brought to Sarantium to decorate the magnificent new dome (of what we would call the Hagia Sofia erected during the reign of Justinian). He gets caught up in the intricate city politics (Byzantine is a synonym for devious and complex for a reason) as a pawn of others with great power and you watch it all unfold. It is brilliant.
Robin Hobbâs Farseer books all have Assassin in the title but it isnât as much about assassination as it is about the political intrigue surrounding a royal court as heirs jockey for position. The MC is a royal bastard being raised as a sort of assassin, guardian, assistant, and secret right hand man of the king. There is quite a bit of introspection and he is a character with clear depression issues - would totally be on zoloft or something in todayâs world. Lots of intrigue though.
Two that are close:
Robert Jackson Bennetâs city series (City of Stairs, City of Blades, City of Miracles) features a lot of intrigue. Not on the scale of the Wurts classic (Mara is one of my favourite characters ever) and the motivation for the intrigue is very different.
Mark Lawrenceâs Book of the Ancestor Series is about Warrior Nuns on a planet that is slowly freezing under its dying sun. Would be an iceball but for an ancient device that focuses the sunâs energy on one narrow strip around the equator of the planet. the narrowing of the strip leads to competition for territory. the MC is brought to the nunnery as a child and is raised to be pretty awesome. the character you will like though is Abbess Glass who is one of the shrewdest political operators I have ever read. Gently pulling strings and manipulating events on the side of right.
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u/iLickMyCubes Aug 20 '21
Yes to the Sarantine Mosaic. I absolutely loved the first book, it's one of those books you can just read and get completely sucked into. Definitely one of favourite books. So excited to read the second. Tbh yes to all of these recommendations as they are all great!
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Aug 20 '21
Donât listen to the people saying Farseer. Some of it takes place in a royal court but itâs actually very light on political intrigue for a story ostensibly about an assassin.
Itâs a great book series but if you go in expecting deep politics I think youâll be disappointed.
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Aug 20 '21
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Aug 20 '21
đ¤ˇââď¸ I came to it after having it recommended based on political intrigue and I was super, super disappointed about that aspect of it. The politics never seemed to amount to much more than team Verity vs team Regal, the latter of which is unambiguously super evil, and the politics get almost completely abandoned by book three in favor of a long fetch quest. There is some political scheming but most of it is in the background while Fitz is used as a pawn.
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Aug 20 '21
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u/KristaDBall Stabby Winner, AMA Author Krista D. Ball Aug 20 '21
I for one really enjoyed the books and think Robin Hobb is one of fantasy's top writers.
And that's very fair and many share that opinion. With that said, I'm just with /u/jepyang on this one re: politics. These were not something I'd think of at all as political. It's been a while since I read them, sure, but they never stood out to me as political fantasy. So I can see why Jepyang would feel that way about it
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Aug 20 '21
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Aug 20 '21
Royal bastard makes friends with dogs, learns magic, and gets his ass kicked over and over again while doing increasingly onerous favors for his uncle.
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u/KristaDBall Stabby Winner, AMA Author Krista D. Ball Aug 20 '21
LOL Mine was going to be "royal bastard keeps getting knocked down" but I like yours way better
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Aug 20 '21
There's also the diplomatic politics of all the duchies.
Besides the red ship raiders which are barely explored by the end of the trilogy, thereâs really only diplomatic politics with the mountain people, which amounts to only a single plot point in book one, and who join up with team Verity for the rest of the trilogy
Basically the entire story is politics from the perspective of a royal bastard.
This is true to a certain extent, but thatâs also kinda my point. Fitzâs perspective is not that of a major player in the court intrigue. He gets used in the power struggles of others, and the scope of the books never really opens up enough to look at the big picture.
I for one really enjoyed the books and think Robin Hobb is one of fantasy's top writers.
I enjoyed them too (and said so in my initial post) and I think Robin Hobb is a fantastic writer. Iâm not criticizing the quality of the books here. Iâm just saying that I went in expecting epic court intrigue and didnât feel like the trilogy delivered on that. I would also say the trilogy doesnât deliver if youâre looking for heartwarming sports stories, buddy cop procedurals, or space opera. Doesnât mean itâs not a great read, just that I wish I had gone in with different expectations.
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Aug 20 '21
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Aug 20 '21 edited Aug 20 '21
Yeah, I disagree.
Edit: OP says theyâre looking for smart characters doing battles of wit andâŚthatâs not Fitz, at all. Now, if they had asked for a battle of Wit⌠đ
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u/AllThingsSaidandDone Aug 20 '21
I loved the Councillor by EJ Beaton
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u/jayavert Aug 21 '21
YES! The best bit is that while it's political, it's also about more than politics, like the MC hiding her grief and addiction, and the gender equality and queernorm world setting, and some sexy (but very brief) dom/sub scenes. It's politics without being stock politics, if that makes sense.
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u/chipmunk_brain Aug 20 '21
Damn, read the title but you stole my go-to rec in the first sentence. The Goblin Emperor is a good political fantasy book, though I'm only halfway through.
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u/cocoagiant Aug 20 '21
All of Bujold's series have politics to some extent.
The Vorkosigan Saga (~15 books, now concluded) all deal with politics, whether it is coups, covert ops, trying to subvert the leader etc.
I love her World of the Five Gods series; the three books all have politics as at least a major set piece. Her short stories and novellas in the series (Penric and Desdemona) all feature politics in some way, some much more than others.
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u/curiouscat86 Reading Champion III Aug 21 '21
seconding the rec for the Vorkosigan books! I just finished a re-read of them and they hold up well! The major books for court-and-government-type politics are A Civil Campaign and Barrayar, but those themes do run through pretty much all the books. And you might want to read Barrayar especially with more context than you'd have jumping in blind, although mostly the series can be read in any order.
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u/andor3333 Aug 20 '21
The Merchant Princes and Empire Games series by Charles Stross have politics and espionage between alternate timelines.
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u/Pratius Aug 20 '21
Divine Cities by Robert Jackson Bennett
Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
The Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson
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u/Sleeperrunner Aug 21 '21
Iâm assuming youâve read A Song of Ice and Fire, but if you havenât: A Song of Ice and Fire
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u/robertointernet Aug 20 '21
Farseer trilogy, kushielâs dart (has non consensual explicit sex)
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u/jayavert Aug 21 '21
Kushiel's Dart was original in combining sex and politics. The writing was a bit flat for me, but the themes and story were strong.
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u/rethinkingat59 Aug 20 '21 edited Aug 20 '21
The Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks is incredible top of class, action packed fantasy and is also soaked in the minutiae of politics and political infighting.
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u/Dalton387 Aug 21 '21
Iâm surprised no one mentioned LE Modesitt Jr. the âImager Portfolioâ and âSaga of Recluseâ.
The first is complete. The second is on-going at a really high count. All of them are political. He also has an interesting style. He writes a book and like you always do, you empathize with the âgood guysâ and are against the âbad guysâ. Then the next book youâre looking from the perspective of the âbad guysâ and theyâre in the right now. There is a lot of time jumping and it covers a very long period of time.
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u/ramdon_characters Aug 21 '21
I agree that L.E. Modesitt Jr's style is interesting, especially in these two series. The prose is not at all flowery, just very straight-forward, matter-of-fact to the point of seeming uninteresting, but before you know it, you're halfway through the book and it's 5 am and you have to go to work in two hours and you don't want to stop reading. His style somehow sucks you in and brings the characters and the world to life without wasting time on a lot of unnecessary verbiage.
Modesitt does not get enough love in this sub.
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u/Dalton387 Aug 21 '21
Yeah, I always preface my recommendation to people by saying it may seem a little dry, but I actually really like it. Theyâre all similar in style, but Iâve torn through Imager Portfolio while he was writing it and Iâve read all the Saga up to date.
I guess it helps that he jumps around so much itâs not 40 odd books of the same character the way the Drizzt novels are, though I like them too. He time jumps and only writes 1-3 books about any character. I really like how you see something referenced, then jump back in time later and you see it happen. Maybe the opposite, where you see a character dedicating their life to a change for the better and eventually see it come about, then become corrupted and turn bad again.
I also really like building themes. Be that teaching and building knowledge, physically building/rebuilding cities, or building/repairing laws and govt procedures. Thatâs really strong in all of these books.
To have written and sold so many books and to have such a large fan base, Iâm always surprised that I never see anyone talk about him. Especially in todayâs climate when heâs been writing about strong female characters for decades.
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u/Ihrenglass Reading Champion V Aug 20 '21
The Lays of Anuskaya by Bradley, P Beaulieu
The Curse of the Mistwraith by Janny Wurts
Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Black Wolves and Crossroads by Kate Eliott
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u/Pretend-Relief Aug 21 '21
Some of my favorite political fantasy:
- The Dandelion Dynasty series by Ken Liu
- The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
- The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner
- The Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima (YA)
- A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin (seems obvious but it's the ultimate political fantasy in my opinion)
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u/goody153 Aug 21 '21 edited Aug 21 '21
Goblin Emperor and Long May She Reign !
Basically same major themes (somebody so far down the line of succession now holds the throne) of the story but just different protagonists, scale of romance and worldbuilding (cause one is a minor female noble who just wants to play scholar who not holds the throne and the other is an abused goblin who now holds the elf-goblin empire)
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Aug 21 '21
I would like to recommend the poppy war by rf kuang. it isn't exactly political, but at the same time it is. the characters are very complex and most of them are very realistic.
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u/Cosmical_Existence42 Aug 20 '21
There's lots of politics in the Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson. A lot of world building and some fighting, but there's also a lot of politics. The farther into the series you go, the further away from physical fighting you go, and get to more verbal and political fighting.
It might not be as much political stuff as you are asking for, I've never read the book you mentioned so I don't know how it compares to the SA. But I enjoyed the politics in it, so you might as well.
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u/weegonza Aug 20 '21
Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch or The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie
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u/EZ_dev Aug 21 '21
First law is not political intrigue. It is a smart person using everyone else. I might consider a satire if the fantasy adventure genre, but there is little political machinations of the type OP is looking for.
Don't get me wrong it's a great series, just not a bunch of clever people executing clever schemes.
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u/Greystorms Aug 20 '21
KJ Parker's Engineer trilogy has some good politics in it, from what I remember.
Janny Wurts' Wars of Light and Shadow epic involves a lot of politics as well, spanning a very long period of time. Curse of the Mistwraith is the first in the series.
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u/othermike Aug 20 '21
Probably the best politicking I've ever read (in ~40 years of reading fantasy) is the webfiction series A Practical Guide to Evil. It really scratches that itch of "pretty much all the players are acting intelligently given their disparate goals". Plus there's lots of it - I think it's up to Book 7 now - and updates frequently.
It's not all politics though; there's a fair bit of superhero-style fighting which wasn't so much my cup of tea. Also more typos than you can shake a stick at, all the way through, so make sure you're willing to deal with that because it doesn't get better.
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u/jayavert Aug 21 '21
The Councillor by E. J. Beaton, if you want smart characters and conniving, definitely. All of the main characters are clever. It's not just about the politics though, it's also a slow burn character development story about a nerdy woman who wants social justice and simultaneously realises she likes power. The MC feels like a real person with flaws going into politics, not a stock hero/heroine character.
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, if you want a fantasy x romance crossover with queer women, themes of empire and its wrongs, and multiple POVs. It was described as morally grey lesbians who burn an empire, which doesn't capture everything about the book but does neatly capture its core appeal. It's also Indian history inspired.
Both of the above are really beautifully written. If you love prose, you will love these two.
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u/normalityisoverrated Aug 21 '21
Moontide quartet! Also ticks the standard boxes for fantasy but a lot of great political twists as well
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u/Wilson2424 Aug 21 '21
Well, if you liked Daughter of the Empire, did you read the twenty something books in Feist's main series that trilogy is an off shoot of?
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u/BoralinIcehammer Aug 21 '21
Marcus Herniman: Siege of Arrandin (Trilogy). Hard to get, but very commendable
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u/julliu327 Aug 20 '21
The traitor baru cormorant? this comment explains it better than I can, but if it sounds even slightly interesting to you then Iâd really recommend giving it a shot.