I’ve been reading basically since I learned how to, and I’ve always loved fantasy stories that I could imagine myself in, with stuff going on in every corner of the world, everything fleshed out so thoroughly that the reader just understands how things work and has that world playing in their mind long after they’ve put the book down. I also love stories with well-written characters, where mistakes happen because of who they are, not because of an idiot ball, because nothing launches me out of a story faster than an idiot ball. And this kind of story is what I hope to have written myself.
I love this story because it's awesome, simply put. You have a man who’s spent literal lifetimes in combat, marching into his last hurrah, conquering the monsters of a world more dangerous than any he’s ever been in. He’s smart, intelligent, and, above all, badass. And so are the monsters he fights. It never feels boring or slow; nothing is superfluous, just an endless wave of awesome, and the monsters are just perfect.
I mean, this series has the best “big monster fights” I’ve ever read, to the point where I’d unhesitatingly call it a masterclass in how to write them. I’d have read this series for that alone, but, you know, I read it because it’s overall amazing.
After making a deal with a mysterious immortal, he was sent to a new world in hopes of gaining the offered reward - a chance at a better life with his family. However, Keith failed to realize that this deal did not come with an expiration date, no matter how many times he died.
After dying for the dozenth time, Keith renegotiates with the immortal. This new deal will see him sent to the world of Raiah - a world filled with monsters, cowardly monkeys, and a system of magic very similar to the fantasy…
I love this story because it is everything that a magical school and otherworld story should be. I’ve read the entire book series about five times and will immediately start reading a new book in this series when it comes out, even if I’m in the middle of reading something else.
It’s a world that functions perfectly in every aspect; everything established in one book is a part of every other. There are no magic cure-alls that are ignored because they could resolve the plot in an afternoon, and every person is using the exact same magic system. No handwaving, no, “the author didn’t feel like explaining,” just a wonderful world where you get to explore and figure things out alongside the main character. It’s easily my favorite story of all time.
The first book in the bestselling Schooled in Magic saga, a fantastic combination of Harry Potter and Lest Darkness Fall, reissued for a new audience.
In another world, very different from ours and yet populated by people very much like us, a powerful necromancer casts a spell to bring him a Child of Destiny, with the intention of sacrificing the child for power. To his surprise, his spells brings him Emily, a lonely young girl from our world with a deep knowledge of history, a talent for magic, and a willingness to apply concepts from her old world to her…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I love this story because it feels so awesome to read through it. It’s a story about a single man against the world, except that man starts out at the very bottom with nothing save knowledge, training, and an unbreakable will.
No fight is ever fair not just because his enemy is stronger, but because for every plan they’ve made, Micheal has a thousand. I’ve read this series like three times, and never regretted it.
If you could turn back the clock and fix all the mistakes you ever made, would you?
For Micheal Care, a swordsman that could only be considered a middling warrior in Humanity's Last Army, the answer to that question would be quite simple.
Yes. A million times yes.
Humanity has fallen, wiped out after being warped away to a new reality, the mystical 7 Layers.
Humanity's goal had been simple. Make it through all 7 Layers and reach Heaven.
Humanity failed.
Humanity died.
Micheal Care's memories have been transported back into his past self thanks…
This is the biggest, most overwhelmingly awesome fantasy story I’ve ever read, bar none. I started reading it and kept doing so non-stop for probably well over a month. It’s so good that I basically did nothing except read, go to class, and do the usual self-care.
It’s a story about a thousand people from Earth scattered across a vast fantasy world, and you really get to see every nook and cranny of this world across the series. Because this is an ancient world, every nook and cranny actually has something fascinating to find. I just absolutely love this story.
(This novel is the e-book version of the free web serial. You may read the entire ongoing story at wanderinginn.com free of charge.)
“No killing Goblins.”
So reads the sign outside of The Wandering Inn, a small building run by a young woman named Erin Solstice. She serves pasta with sausage, blue fruit juice, and dead acid flies on request. And she comes from another world. Ours.
It’s a bad day when Erin finds herself transported to a fantastical world and nearly gets eaten by a Dragon. She doesn’t belong in a place where monster attacks are a fact of…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
I love this story because it’s everything both a time-loop and a superhero story should be. It’s got fascinating powers that are both complex and internally consistent; I always go, “Oh, that makes sense.” When things are explained further, it always makes sense, and that also means that everything has a weakness. And the characters are just so much fun; I absolutely adore them.
There's all kinds and even the silly ones are never one-note jokes, they’re just being themselves and they just feel so real. I read this three-book series in less than a week, probably at the cost of getting some of my own writing done, because it’s just so damn good.
Ryan "Quicksave" Romano is an eccentric adventurer with a strange power: he can create a save-point in time and redo his life whenever he dies.
Arriving in New Rome, the glitzy capital of sin of a rebuilding Europe, he finds the city torn between mega-corporations, sponsored heroes, superpowered criminals, and true monsters. It's a time of chaos, where potions can grant the power to rule the world and dangers lurk everywhere.
Ryan only sees different routes; and from Hero to Villain, he has to try them all. Only then will he achieve his perfect ending... no matter how many loops…
My book is a story about a man who returned to the modern day from a future where humanity has gone extinct and uses his knowledge to avert future catastrophes.
This is a book that I wrote according to the Toni Morrison quote, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” It’s a book that I wrote based on all the core ideas that make the books on this list so amazing, primarily, a competent badass for a main character you can cheer on in a living world that you can just imagine yourself in and keeps living in your head long after you’ve put the book down.
Dr. Elise Marquette has spent years burying the past—until the past refuses to stay buried.
Hired to join Earth’s first interstellar contact team, she hopes the vastness of space will finally offer distance from the ghosts of war and the wounds left by a mother who never let her be…
A brilliant scholar, ancient libraries in danger due to war, suppressed women’s religious history, and a renegade monastery.
A doggedly determined Sofia Papandréou pursues evidence for women in leadership in early Christianity in the dusty corners of libraries, long ignored. Or worse, actively hidden away to deny women their heritage…
