[QuickTidal]

Read two Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson books back to back: FROST BURNED and NIGHT BROKEN, and while both were solidly good, NIGHT BROKEN was better overall. This series took me a long time to get to enjoying it at the same level as I do DRESDEN or KATE DANIELS, but it's there now so I'll definitely be continuing.

Starting (local Canadian author) SHEN TAO's debut THE POET EMPRESS tonight. I'm excited for more Chinese-themed fantasy!

[Abyss]

LEGACIES OF BETRAYALLLLLL

[worry]

What the heck!

[Tiste Simeon]

Started reading "Purge of Ashes" by some guy called Joe Monty or something

[JPK]

Abyss, on 08 June 2026 - 01:36 PM, said:

Abyss, on 03 June 2026 - 02:07 PM, said:

... so CHILDREN OF STRIFE it is! Two chapters in, loving it. Already enjoying more than CHILDREN OF MEMORY, this is more concrete without losing the wild elements from that story.

Also, GIANT MANTIS SHRIMP ASTRONAUT!!!!!!!!

follow up to note that the GIANT MANTIS SHRIMP ASTRONAUT character is now like my favoritest fictional character EVER.

I had to go back to find this post cause I've finally started this audiobook and you were not wrong, Cato is THE BESTEST.

[pat5150]

After finishing James S. A. Corey's The Faith of Beasts, which was better than I expected, I'm now reading Stephen King and Peter Straub's Other Worlds Than These.

It's good to be back in Mid-World!

[QuickTidal]

QuickTidal, on 09 March 2026 - 03:51 PM, said:

Finished DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL....um...I don't understand the praise.

This book is like listening in on your 9 year old brother and his friends giving a 13 hour play by play of their video games while also interjecting their 9 year old opinions on what is cool and funny.

Might be easier to keep track of all the dungeons, bugs, weapons, random players, coloured dots, boxes, potions, spells, goblins, training guilds, levels, staircases, floors, etc if they weren't noted every few paragraphs, on every page, FOREVER.

Like I'm a fan of LitRPG, THE CRADLE series is awesome...(as an example)

But this series is not for me.


Bonus annoyance: Also, finding out that for story reasons Carl stays in a pair of heart-adorned white boxer shorts for the entire series...will never not irk me as a reader. Just no. I got the initial deadpool-equse joke of him being in them when the world first ends and stuck in them for book 1....sure?...but the fact that he remains in them for multiple books is utterly insane.

What are you all smoking?

Sigh.

Prepare yourselves for another patented "I was wrong" post people.

I had a copy of book 2 CARL'S DOOMSDAY SCENARIO on ebook I got a while back and decided to just try it.

This book is night and day different from the first book. The first book felt like a video game parody, while this one has felt like it's a video game parody inside of which Dinniman is building something truly cool...this book is leaps and bounds better than that first book. I care about the characters here, and the descriptions of items and whatnot is lessened (but still present) and there is more going on beneath the surface.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but after book 2, I'm in for the rest of the series. Book 1 should not exist as the "sell the series" book to readers, as it's a pale lame comparison to book 2.

[Slow Ben]

 QuickTidal, on 13 October 2026 - 04:07 PM, said:

 QuickTidal, on 09 March 2026 - 03:51 PM, said:

Finished DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL....um...I don't understand the praise.

This book is like listening in on your 9 year old brother and his friends giving a 13 hour play by play of their video games while also interjecting their 9 year old opinions on what is cool and funny.

Might be easier to keep track of all the dungeons, bugs, weapons, random players, coloured dots, boxes, potions, spells, goblins, training guilds, levels, staircases, floors, etc if they weren't noted every few paragraphs, on every page, FOREVER.

Like I'm a fan of LitRPG, THE CRADLE series is awesome...(as an example)

But this series is not for me.


Bonus annoyance: Also, finding out that for story reasons Carl stays in a pair of heart-adorned white boxer shorts for the entire series...will never not irk me as a reader. Just no. I got the initial deadpool-equse joke of him being in them when the world first ends and stuck in them for book 1....sure?...but the fact that he remains in them for multiple books is utterly insane.

What are you all smoking?

Sigh.

Prepare yourselves for another patented "I was wrong" post people.

I had a copy of book 2 CARL'S DOOMSDAY SCENARIO on ebook I got a while back and decided to just try it.

This book is night and day different from the first book. The first book felt like a video game parody, while this one has felt like it's a video game parody inside of which Dinniman is building something truly cool...this book is leaps and bounds better than that first book. I care about the characters here, and the descriptions of items and whatnot is lessened (but still present) and there is more going on beneath the surface.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but after book 2, I'm in for the rest of the series. Book 1 should not exist as the "sell the series" book to readers, as it's a pale lame comparison to book 2.

Yay!

1 is the weakest. Best news for you is Doomsday Scenario is usually considered the 2nd weakest. It only gets better.


I just finished a reread of the whole series. Enjoyed the second read just as much.



I’ve had The Steel Remains in my trp for about a decade. Giving it a go.

[JPK]

QT, it only gets better from here. But I'd say that book 1 is necessary as a setup for what Carl & Donut are dealing with in the dungeon and it sets up so many pieces for later. It's a lot like Storm Front in that regard.

Some people have some issues with the game framing of book 3 - The Iron Tangle - but it's meant to be confusing. It's a tangle for a reason. This is where a lot of the bigger picture stuff starts to shift into focus as well as where you start to get the supporting cast payoffs.

I'm happy you decided to give the series another shot, now we just need to get Abyss on board.

[QuickTidal]

I have placed books 3-5 on my Christmas list for family, so hopefully I'll get some of them.

[Maark Abbott]

Tiste Simeon, on 03 October 2026 - 01:54 PM, said:

Started reading "Purge of Ashes" by some guy called Joe Monty or something

Oh yurrr. Purge them asses.

It's good to see that book's name getting about again. Joel had the roughest time out of probably all of us who'd signed with Realmwalker (I was able to step away as I'd not been published yet) so seeing the book out in the wild on people's feeds is very heartening.

[Morgoth]

The Tainted Cup series by Jackson Bennet has been fantastic, and I am happily starting on China Mievilles latest, The Rouse. I do struggle to find new authors in the current market however. Romantasy - though undoubtedly a boon for the publishing industry - has not been at all convincing despite several attempts. And outside of that genre I can't seem to find a lot of new names.

[Macros]

did you ever read the low town trilogy by Daniel Polanski?

Its not new, but I think you'd like i
but yes, upon reading that statement I am trying to wrack my brain to think of new authors and stuff I've read recently. Maybe a few recos from here and anything Adrian Tchaovski or Seb De Castel write

[HoosierDaddy]

Finished Dungeon Crawler Carl 8, Parade of Horribles. It's only the second time in the series where I felt a drop. The other was 5 to 6 (Butchers Masquerade to Eye of the Bedlam Bride). Both explainable by the content being less "epic fantasy" and more "episodic", I think.

Still a good book. Still laughed out loud many times, and had to explain to someone in the airport that what I had just read was terribly sad but ridiculously funny and that's why I was laughing aloud.

Not sure where 9 and 10 are going to go from where we left off. Interested to see what happens.

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 15 October 2026 - 12:57 PM

[Morgoth]

Macros, on 15 October 2026 - 11:53 AM, said:

did you ever read the low town trilogy by Daniel Polanski?

Its not new, but I think you'd like i
but yes, upon reading that statement I am trying to wrack my brain to think of new authors and stuff I've read recently. Maybe a few recos from here and anything Adrian Tchaovski or Seb De Castel write

I haven't tried that, I don't think. De Castel and Tchaovski I know well, and to be fair they've been writing for more than a decade at least at this point.

[polishgenius]

Morgoth, on 15 October 2026 - 10:21 AM, said:

The Tainted Cup series by Jackson Bennet has been fantastic, and I am happily starting on China Mievilles latest, The Rouse. I do struggle to find new authors in the current market however. Romantasy - though undoubtedly a boon for the publishing industry - has not been at all convincing despite several attempts. And outside of that genre I can't seem to find a lot of new names.

There's loads of new non-romantasy stuff*, but to some extent you have to be willing to take a chance on algo recs via goodreads and (for me) Kobo, I've discovered. Started doing that a little while ago and it got me a bunch of good reads outside of the hype machine.

Also just regularly comb upcoming lists and reviews from outside the tik-tok-ish crowd. I got a bunch of good recs from a HelloFutureMe vid that'd never have crossed my path otherwise.




*well, there's loads of non-romantasy stuff that is also hyped and all over the bookstores, but it's mostly cozy fantasy, which I assume isn't what you mean.



Because I'm me, I'm just gonna throw in a few that I've caught in the last few years that may have gone under the radar around here:




Kalyna the Soothsayer: a terrific rogue of a main character who gets caught by her own desparate half-con and dragged into a big, dangerous, political situation. I've seen nobody mention it or the sequel, and even though they both stand alone as stories, I really do want them to get enough traction to get the rest.


The Warden, by Daniel M. Ford: there is both a romance and cozyness in it, but what it really is is a feel-good but old-school swords-and-sorcery adventure set around a frontier village.


The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan: to be fair, this got a massive publisher push, but since it hasn't broken through here and it's so good it deserves to, I'mma mention it here. It bears a little resemblance to The Devils, kinda, but in my opinion is quite a lot better. Genuinely brilliant.



A Song of Legends Lost by MH Ayinde. If you want really truly epic fantasy, African and African-diaspora writers and settings are a good place to look right now. Rogba Payne's Song of Godhunters series is my favourite, but this one is really good too, and has a few hints of Malazan about the scale and the way it unveils things. Definitely the most traditional-fantasy among this list (aside from maybe Kalina) in its style if not setting. eta: that's not true, The Warden definitely is. But aside from that.


The Girl With A Thousand Faces, by Sunyi Dean. Something completely different, as it's about a ghosthunter in Kowloon Walled City. This one did also get some amount of hype this year, but I discovered it via 'like this' on Kobo, so... I'm putting it here. It's bonkers, but really good.


The Secret Market of the Dead by Giovanni M. Feo. It's... um, mad? It's a kind of Italian-flavoured fairytale magic type book, but that doesn't do it justice.



I could go forever lol, but I felt the need to chuck a few out there just coz it makes me sad when people miss out on great fantasy and think the genre's dying just coz of the balkanisation of recommendation sources. It is harder to find stuff, but it is there.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 17 October 2026 - 05:28 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

Mark Lawrence has, IMO, been knocking out of the park each time he has released something new.

Plus he pops into his thread here every now and then and tells Macros that he's a loser (that may just be my interpretation of it tbh)

[Tatterdemalion]

Maark Abbott, on 15 October 2026 - 07:28 AM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 03 October 2026 - 01:54 PM, said:

Started reading "Purge of Ashes" by some guy called Joe Monty or something

Oh yurrr. Purge them asses.

It's good to see that book's name getting about again. Joel had the roughest time out of probably all of us who'd signed with Realmwalker (I was able to step away as I'd not been published yet) so seeing the book out in the wild on people's feeds is very heartening.

Thanks m'guy. I need all the sympathy the world has to offer. ALL OF IT. GIVE NOW.

But yes, healthy reading Tiste Simeon. I hope it suits you.

I'm reading The Red Knight by Miles Cameron now. I feel obliged to given the man's wonderful charity on my behalf, but also I'm really enjoying taking on a fantasy novel more grounded in history than most I read. It's teaching me things even if I prefer crazy worldbuilding and impossible possibilities.

[Tiste Simeon]

 QuickTidal, on 18 September 2026 - 01:47 PM, said:

 QuickTidal, on 15 September 2026 - 06:26 PM, said:

 Tiste Simeon, on 15 September 2026 - 05:36 PM, said:

 QuickTidal, on 15 September 2026 - 05:22 PM, said:

 QuickTidal, on 25 August 2026 - 11:10 AM, said:

 Tiste Simeon, on 25 August 2026 - 10:14 AM, said:

 Macros, on 24 August 2026 - 06:33 PM, said:

I bounced off Malice, didn't like it at all

Huh fair enough. It's not groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination but it's fun and entertaining imo.

Yeah, I dug MALICE too...but I took too long between MALICE and the second one so I bounced off the section one as I'd forgotten everything.

Last night I was on one of my used book (overstock) websites I check frequently, and was able to get RUIN and WRATH (for cheap prices) to complete the quadrology on my shelf, so I may have to seek out a summary of MALICE now so I won't bounce off the second one and I can finish the series properly.

It's not long since I read it so feel free to ask anything haha

Will do, thanks man!

Started back into VALOUR (even though mu copy is the stupid American one spelling it without the 'U') and this time it wasn't as hard to get back into the various POVs...so let me know if I have this straight as you recall it Tiste:

Spoilers for Book 1 of THE FAITHFUL & THE FALLEN

Spoiler

-Evnis helped another country and queen (Rhin?) overthrow the Arda king and murdered a bunch of people who stood in their way.
-Corban escapes this fate with his wolf, and a bunch of people from his village, including his mom, the blacksmith/weaponsmith, the stablemaster, Evnis' kid, his best bud, and a witch with a crow...they think both his father and sister are dead, the father is, the sister isn't.
-Cywen (the sister) stayed behind with her love interest who seems to have thrown in with the bad guys? She thinks she's been abandoned.
-Nathias is the noble scion of what seems to be a sort of Roman Empire-styled kingdom, thinks he is the chosen one, but is actually being manipulated by the main bad guy.
- Veradis is Nathias' main man but has begun questioning what his man is doing and Is seemingly a good person?
-Nathias sent a bunch of warriors including Veradis led by some pirates (Calidis) and a dissident giant to a giant city in the forest to capture a fabled axe?
- On the way they encounter and co-opt the help of the Gadrai (giant hunters?) including grizzled veteran Maquin, and his main man Kastell...but the pirate dudes ambush the Gadrai when it becomes clear they won't help steal this axe, killing Kastell...Maquin and two of his fellow Gadrai realize the trick and escape from them.
- the giants seem to want to re-invade the human lands to reclaim what they think is ancestrally theirs?
- there are demons and angels fighting in the mortal realm and moving events too.

Is that everything? I think that's where it stands at the beginning of VALOUR. Let me know if I've missed anything or misconstrued anything.

I'm very sorry I missed this somehow. You're mostly right.

Spoiler

Cywen was thought to be dead because she wrestled a guy called Conall off the city walls. She is now a captive of Nathair/Veradis.

As to the giants and the angels/demons essentially there's a long prophecies war coming and people are taking sides even if they don't realise it. Nathair thinks he is the Bright Star, the human avatar of the good God. There are some questions about this belief.

It's not a very complex story so I think you'll pick it up fairly quickly.

[Tiste Simeon]

 QuickTidal, on 02 September 2026 - 01:37 PM, said:

I’m reading THIS KINGDOM WILL NOT KILL ME by Ilona Andrews (first book in the Maggie the Undying trilogy), and holy fuck is it good. 

When urban fantasy authors (Kate Daniels series) try their hand at epic fantasy, I feel like they often struggle, but goddamn if they don’t manage it here with aplomb and ease.

Sell it to you? Okay, a woman from our world is mysteriously transported into the world of her favorite unfinished gritty fantasy series with all the knowledge of two of the three books of that series that WILL happen, and discovers very quickly that if she dies, she gets resurrected (she doesn’t know how many times or why though) and must find a way to survive there.

It’s fucking great. I got sucked right in.

And in other news I started this and it is, as advertised - very good!