I read The Goblin Emperor and Witness for the Dead awhile back, and I really liked them (especially The Goblin Emperor, I loved Maia as a protagonist). Do you have any book recommendations with protagonists who are kind? I miss that. Doesn't have to be the same genre. Thank you!
Oh gosh. Um. Thanks for the ask and I'm glad you liked the books! I'm still waiting for my library to put Grief of Stones into circulation. For me, and probably for you by the sounds of it, one of the things that makes the books so great is that you don't see pure kindness in a protagonist very often. I'll give it my best shot though!
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett - A novice monk who's quite happy tending a garden and getting in nobody's way suddenly finds himself the only person who can speak to his god (who is currently a tortoise). Everyone else is too busy playing politics, converting people, and heating up the pokers to believe anymore.
The Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones - A sorcerer and his family are elected to represent Evil in the annual "let's play fantasyland for the people from Earth or else" show. His secret mission is to end the show forever—but he's really bad at being bad.
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley - A government clerk is saved from a terrorist attack only because he got a watch in the mail. His mission to find out who sent it and why leads to all manner of life changes.
honestly, the main character dynamic in any Pulley novel is "kind, gentle, sort of lost man meets aggravating and mysterious stranger, they heal each other", and I'm a sucker every time.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - A man determined to explore the infinite House he lives in (and maybe help the new albatross family) discovers there's an awful lot about himself and House that he's forgotten.
Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree - An orc, newly retired from adventuring, moves to a river town to start a coffee shop. She's not always the nicest person, but she tries and it's an incredibly kind and gentle story.
A Man and His Cat by Umi Sakurai - An aging teacher and a cat who's grown up in a cage find their forever home together.
A Green and Ancient Light by Frederic Durbin - A boy is evacuated to live with his grandmother and discovers a mysterious garden with a riddle and a faun.
I have Heard Good Things about the Murderbot books by Martha Wells and Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers as well, but haven't read them so can't rec them for sure. I also have a hunch you might enjoy the Temeraire books by Naomi Novik. They don't fit the kind protagonist request even if Lawrence is a fundamentally decent person and tries his best to do right, but they're a very hopeful series about striving for human dragon rights and reconsidering perspectives.
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You know when you finish a book and you want to read more like it?
One of the many things librarians can do for you is make you something called a read-alike list—a list of books that are similar in some way to the book you enjoyed and so there is a good chance you will also like.
Librarians can refer you to read-alike lists for books, series, and even authors!
The following is a read-alike list for Harry Potter enthusiasts featuring the first book in six series that fans of the boy wizard might also find right up their alley:
Fablehaven by Brandon Mull – For centuries mystical creatures of all sorts hid away for safety in a secret sanctuary called Fablehaven. Today, the refuge survives as one of the last strongholds of true magic. Wondrous? Absolutely. Exciting? You bet. Safe? Definitely not.
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke – What if you had the power that when you read aloud from a book what you read about leapt off the page and became real? When Meggie’s dad accidentally reads a powerful villain into existence, she’s thrust into an adventure the likes of which she’d only read about in books.
Magyk by Angie Sage – The night he is born, Septimus Heap is kidnapped by the midwife who delivered him and lied about him being dead. That same night, Septimus’ grief-stricken father finds a baby girl abandoned in the snow and takes her in to raise her as his own. But what happened to Septimus? And who is the mysterious little girl?
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs – “After a family tragedy, Jacob feels compelled to explore an abandoned orphanage on an island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers disturbing facts about the children who were kept there…”
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan – When Percy Jackson found out he’s the son of a Greek god and got sent to demigod school he thought his life got complicated. Turns out that was actually the uncomplicated bit. Now he and his friends have to go on a road trip across the US to try to prevent war breaking out among the gods.
The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell – Herein is the tale of a young boy Wizard and a young girl Warrior who have been taught to hate each other like poison and the thrilling tale of what happens when their worlds collide.
Do you have any recommendations for books similar to things like The Raven Cycle, The Scorpio Races, and American Gods?
Thanks for asking! Sorry it took me a couple days to get back to you.
American Gods - Try The Changeling by Victor Lavalle, which is the closest thing I've read to the mood and sensibilities of AG, except it's heavier on fairy lore than gods and from an #ownvoices Black perspective
And while I haven't read any Stiefvater so I might be somewhat off the mark…
The Raven Cycle - Check out The Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy by Laini Taylor (dark fantasy, complex world, great characters), The Monsters of Verity duology by Victoria Schwab (more of the same, but a more contemporary setting), or The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix (lighter tone, lots of British folklore, ensemble cast)
The Scorpio Races - Look at the Trylle trilogy by Amanda Hocking. I found it fast-paced and compelling, with a good blend of romance and politics, and focused on a part of European folklore that doesn't come up as often. You might also like her Watersong books, for similar reasons, though I never wound up going past book one. No murder-horses for you, though, sorry.
A read-alike is, as its name suggests, a book which you might like if you’re looking for books similar to one you liked. Read-alikes can be paired together based on similar plots, settings, pacing, language (e.g. old-timey style, a similar writing style to another author, lots of name drops [think Tolkien’s works or Game of Thrones kind of thing], etc), and more.
Finding you read-alikes is one of the jobs librarians can offer, but if you’re shy about asking for help with this or just want to be able to independently search for your next read, the following three resources are some of the best to get you started:
Likewise
Likewise is an app available for Android and iOS where you can get recommended read-alikes by both the app and other users. You can also make recommendation lists (e.g. “If you liked At Home by Bill Bryson you might like...”) and a saved list of books that caught your fancy. What’s more, you can also look for “watch-alikes” for movies and tv and “listen-alikes” for podcasts (you can even look up restaurants and places!)
Goodreads
Goodreads is a great site for reading nerds to bookmark. You can search for read-alikes without an account, but if you have one you can then save the book in your Bookshelf (which basically consists of whatever lists you want to create).
You can search for read-alikes in two ways. The easiest method is by typing in the book you want read-alikes for into the main search bar and look at the top right corner of the book’s individual page, where you will see the covers for various books liked by people who also enjoyed the same title you did.
The second method can be a bit more hit and miss. You click the browse button at the centre to of the screen, and choose Lists from the dropdown menu.
Once there, there is a search bar on the top right corner where you can type in your book’s title and see what other books are listed with them in the site’s many book lists.
NoveList Plus
NoveList is a paid service that many libraries pay for which is usually found in the “digital services” section of a library’s website (if you can’t find it, ask your friendly local librarian if your library has the service and if so, how to access it).
NoveList is a fantastic resource for finding read-alikes for themes, genres, writing styles, and so on. It’s actually so good that it’s a go-to resource for librarians when helping patrons find a new book to read.
To search for read-alikes for a specific book, type in the title of the book you want a read-alike for. Once you’re in the book’s page, you can find read-alikes listed on the right side of the page. If you find a book you like, you can even click on a link to see if your library has it in its catalogue!
If you’re interested on finding a read-alike based on genre, your best bet is to click on the Browse Genres buttons when you scroll down the homepage.
If you have any difficulties navigating the service or want to learn how to search through the service like a pro, NovelList has an button on the topmost banner (How Do I?) to help you surf the site as well as better understand how read-alike suggesting works.
If you’re looking for suggestions for a child or teen, if your library has NoveList K-8 that might be a better place to start, as it functions much the same as NoveList Plus does but the books are all for teens or younger.
i’m trying to branch out and read outside my genre (fantasy) do you have any book recs for someone whose heart is in fantasy but needs to see what else is out there?
Hi anon! Thanks for the ask! Fantasy’s such a wide genre, and this is such an open ask, that I’m mostly going to be recommending books with similar feels or themes from other genres, to push you a little outside the fantasy bubble and introducing you to different genres and types of storytelling. If you have a favourite subgenre or trope or author, I can maybe get a little more specific or offer read-alikes.
Also, I don’t know if you knew this before asking, but fantasy is my favourite genre too, so some of these recs are books that pushed me out of the genre as well, or that I found familiar-but-different.
And this is getting long, so I’m going to throw it under a cut to save everyone scrolling.
Science fiction
the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - This is space opera, which means it’ll have fairly familiar plots except with science-y things instead of magic. There’s an heir with something to prove, heists, cons, and mysteries, attempted coups and assassinations, long-suffering sidekicks, and a homeworld that’s basically turn-of-the-century Russia but with fewer serfs. It was one of the first adult sci-fi books I read and genuinely liked.
The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey - I finished this recently, and the second book of the trilogy just came out. This is post-apocalyptic sci-fi, but not grim or particularly complex. (Some SF gets really into the nuts and bolts of the science elements; this isn’t that.) Basically, Koli’s a teenager who wants more than his quasi-medieval life’s given him, and finds himself in conflict with his village (and then exile) because of it. I could see where the story was going pretty much from the start, but I loved the journey anyway.
The Martian by Andy Weir - This doesn’t have much in common with fantasy, but it’s my go-to rec for anyone who’s never read science fiction before, because it’s funny, explains the science well, and has a hero and a plot you get behind right away. In case you haven’t heard of it (or the film), it’s about an astronaut stranded on Mars, trying to survive long enough to be rescued.
Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh - This is an alien first contact story, about a colony of humans in permanent quarantine on an alien planet. The MC is the sole social liaison and translator, explaining his culture to the aliens and the aliens to the human, and working to keep the peace—until politics and assassins get involved. It’s been over a decade since I read this, so my memory’s blurred, but I remember the same sort of political intrigue vibes as the Daevabad trilogy, just with fewer POVs.
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor - One from my TBR. It looks like dark fiction about women, outcasts, and revenge, which sounds very fantastic and the MC can apparently do magic—but it’s post-apocalyptic Africa.
Speaking of political intrigue and sweeping epic plots, the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey has both in spades. Rebellions, alien technology, corrupt businesses, heroes doing good things and getting bad consequences, all that good stuff. It takes the science fairly seriously, without getting very dense with it, and will probably register as “more sci-fi” than my recs in the genre so far.
Oh, and Dune by Frank Herbert is such a classic chosen-one epic that it barely registers as science fiction at all.
Graphic novels
It’s technically fantasy, but assuming you’ve never picked up a graphic novel before, you should read Monstress by Marjorie Liu. Asian-inspired, with steampunk aesthetics, and rebellions and quests and so many female characters. It’s an absolutely fantastic graphic novel, if you want a taste of what those can do.
I’d highly recommend Saga by Brian K. Vaughan. It’s an epic science fiction story about a family caught between sides of a centuries-long war. (Dad’s from one side, Mom’s from the other, everyone wants to capture them, their kid is narrating.) It’s a blast to read, exciting and tense, with hard questions and gorgeous tender moments, and the world-building somehow manages to include weaponized magic, spaceship trees, ghosts, half-spider assassins, and all-important pulp romance novels without anything feeling out of place.
Historical fiction
Hild by Nicola Griffith - Very rich and detailed novel following a girl growing up in an early medieval English court. It’s very fantasy-esque, with battles and politics and changes of religion, and Hild gets positioned early on to be the king’s seer, so there’s “magic” of a sort as well.
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry - A widow goes to the Victorian seaside to heal and reawaken her interest in biology. Slow, gentle, lovely writing and atmosphere, interesting characters and turns of plot. Doesn’t actually deliver on the sea monster, but still has a lot to recommend it to fantasy readers, I think.
Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin - The late-medieval Jewish pirate adventure you didn’t know you wanted. It’s funny and literary, full of tropes and set pieces like “small-town kid in the big city” and “jail break”, and features the Spanish Inquisition, Columbus, the Fountain of Youth, and talking parrots, among other things.
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett - A thousand pages about the building of a cathedral in England, mostly focusing on the master builder, the monk who spearheads the project, and a noblewoman who’s been kicked off her family’s land, but has several other plots going on, including a deacon with political ambitions, a war, and a boy who’s trying so hard to fit in and do right.
Sharon Kay Penman - This is an author on my TBR, who comes highly recommended for her novels about the War of the Roses and the Plantagenets. Should appeal to you if you liked Game of Thrones. I’m planning to start with The Sunne in Splendour.
Lady of the Forest by Jennifer Roberson - Either a Robin Hood retelling that’s also a romance, or a romance that’s also a Robin Hood retelling.
Hamnet & Judith by Maggie O’Farrell - A novel of the Shakespeare family, mostly focused on his wife and son. Lovely writing and a very gentle feel though it heads into dark and complex subjects fairly often. A good portrait of Early Modern family life.
Mystery
There’s not a lot of mystery that reads like high, epic, or even contemporary fantasy, but if you’re a fan of urban fantasy, which is basically mystery with magic in, then I’d rec:
Cozy mysteries as a general subgenre, especially if you like the Sookie Stackhouse end of urban fantasy, which has romance and quirky plots; there are plenty of series where the detective’s a witch or the sidekick’s a ghost but they’re solving non-magical mysteries, and the genre in general full of heroines who are good at solving crimes without formal training, and the plots feel very similar but with slightly lower stakes. Cozies have become one of my comfort-reading genres (along with UF) the last few years. My intros were the Royal Spyness novels by Rhys Bowen and the Fairy Tale Fatale books by Maia Chance.
If you like your urban fantasy darker and more serious, and your heroines more complicated, try Kathy Reichs and her Temperance Brennan novels. Brennan’s a forensic anthropologist, strong and complicated in the same ways of my fave UF heroines, and the mysteries are already interesting, with a good dash of thriller and a smidge of romance.
Two other recs:
Haunted Ground by Erin Hart - The first of four books about a forensic anthropologist in Ireland, who’s called in when the Garda find bodies in the peat bogs and need to know how long they’ve been there. They’re very atmospheric—I can almost smell the bog—and give great portraits of rural Ireland and small-town secrets, and since not all the bodies found in each book are recent, they also bring interesting slices of the past to life as well.
A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger - This is essentially a medieval thriller about a seditious book that’s turned up in London. I liked the mystery in it and that it’s much more focused on the lives of average people than the rich and famous (for all that recognizable people also show up).
Classics
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift - I swear this is actually one of the first fantasy novels but few people ever really class it as such. Basically, Gulliver’s a ship’s doctor who keeps getting shipwrecked—in a country of tiny people, a country of giants, a country of mad scientists, a country of talking horses, etc. It’s social satire and a spoof of travelogues from Swift’s time, but it’s easily enough read without that context.
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - Another, slightly later, fantasy and satire! Even more amusing situations than in Gulliver’s Travels and, while it’s been a while* since I read it, I think it’ll be a decent read-alike for authors like Jasper Fforde, Genevieve Cogman, and that brand of light British comic fantasy.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare - Also technically a fantasy! I mean, there are fairies and enchantments, for all it’s a romantic comedy written entirely in old-fashioned poetry. It’s a pretty good play to start you off on Shakespeare, if you’re interested in going that direction.
On the subject of Shakespeare, I would also recommend Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, and King Lear, the first because it’s my favourite comedy, the others because they’re fantasy read-alikes imo as well (witches! coups! drama!).
the Arthurian mythos. Le Morte D’arthur, Crétien de Troyes, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, etc. - I’ve read bits and pieces of the first two, am about 80% sure I read the third as a kid (or at least The Sword in the Stone), and have the last on my TBR. Basically, these stories are going to give you an exaggeratedly medieval setting, knights, quests, wizards, fairies, high drama, romantic entanglements, and monsters, and the medieval ones especially have different kinds of plots than you’ll be used to (and maybe open the door to more medieval lit?) **
Beowulf and/or The Odyssey - Two epics that inspired a lot of fiction that came later. (There’s an especial connection between Beowulf and Tolkien.) They’re not the easiest of reads because they’re in poetry and non-linear narratives, but both have a hero facing off against a series of monsters and/or magical creatures as their core story.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - The first real science fiction novel. It’s about the ethics of science and the consequences of one’s actions, and I loved seeing the Creature find himself and Frankenstein descend into … that. It’s also full of sweeping, gothic scenes and tension and doom and drama.
* 25 years, give or take
** There are plenty of more recent people using King Arthur and associated characters too, if this "subgenre” interests you.
Other fiction
Vicious by V.E. Schwab - I don’t know if you classify superheroes as science fiction or fantasy or its own genre (for me it depends on the day) but this is an excellent take on the subject, full of moral greyness and revenge.
David Mitchell - A literary fiction writer who has both a sense of humour and an interest in the fantastic and science fictional. He writes ordinary people and average lives marvelously well, keeps me turning pages, plays with form and timelines, and reliably throws in either recurring, possibly-immortal characters, good-vs-evil psychic battles, or other SF/F-y elements. I’d start with either Slade House, a ghost story, or Utopia Avenue, about a ‘60s rock band. Or possible The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which I fully admit to not having read yet.
Devolution by Max Brooks - A horror movie in book form, full of tension and desperation and jump scares and the problems with relying on modern technology. The monsters are Bigfeet. Reccing this one in the same way I’m reccing The Martian—it’s an accessible intro to its genre.
Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson - Contemporary fiction with a slight literary bent, that doesn’t pull its punches about Indigenous life but also has a sense of humour about the same. Follows a teen dealing with poverty and a bad home life and drugs and hormones—and the fact that his bio-dad might actually be the trickster Raven. Also features witches, magic, and other spirit-beings, so I generally pitch this as magic realism.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones - Another Indigenous rec, this time a horror novel about ghosts and racism and trying to do the right thing. This’ll give you a taste of the more psychological end of the horror spectrum.
Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia - A good example of contemporary YA and how it handles the complexities of life, love, and growing up. Follows the writer of a fantasy webcomic who makes a friend who turns out to write fic of her story and who suddenly has to really balance online and offline life, among other pressures. Realistic portrait of mental health problems.
Non-fiction
The Book of Margery Kempe - The first English-language autobiography. Margery was very devout but also very badass, in a medieval sort of way. She went on pilgrimages to Jerusalem, was possibly epileptic, frequently “saw” Christ and Mary and demons, basically became a nun in middle age while staying married to her husband, and wound up on trial for heresy, before talking a monk into writing down her life story. It’s a fascinating window into the time period.
The Hammer and the Cross by Robert Ferguson - A history of medieval Norse people and how their explorations and trade shaped both their culture and the world.
A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor - Travel writing that was recommended to me by someone who raved about the prose and was totally right. Fermor’s looking back, with the aid of journals, on a walking trip he took across Europe in the 1930s. It’s a fascinating look at the era and an old way of life, and pretty much every “entry” has something of interest in it. He met all sorts of people.
Tim Severin and/or Thor Heyerdahl - More travel writing, this time by people recreating historical voyages (or what they believe to be historical voyages, ymmv) in period ships. Severin focuses on mythology (I’ve read The Ulysses Voyage and The Jason Voyage) and Heyerdahl’s known for Kon-Tiki, which is him “proving” that Polynesians made contact with South America. They both go into the history of the sailing and areas they’re travelling through, while also describing their surroundings and daily life, and, yes, running into storms and things.
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