35 books like Paksenarrion Series combo volumes

We need more characters like Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter, the daughter of a sheep farmer who joins a mercenary company to avoid an unwanted marriage. Moon, who served as a Marine in Vietnam, gives us a perfect hero’s tale. Paksenarrion (“Paks” for short) doesn’t set out to garner fame and glory, but she works hard at what she does, and her moral compass is firmly attuned to a sense of justice and truth. Paks captures everything we want in a hero, and Moon’s understanding of infantry, siege, and melee tactics filters through in subtle yet powerful ways, from details like foot soreness on the march to how most sieges end with rebellion within the gates. Sheepfarmer’s Daughter literally has it all. Go read it today. 

I picked up The Last Wish after playing the Witcher games and listening to the soundtrack, but what surprised me is how funny it is.

Yes, it is epic fantasy in every sense of the word, but Geralt’s dry humor cuts through the blood and curses, and his conversations with Dandelion had me laughing out loud. What makes it great, though, is how Sapkowski flips fairy tales upside-down, twisting familiar stories into something darker and sharper.

I enjoyed the way morality blurs—there are monsters, sure, but the humans are often MUCH worse. It’s a book that asks hard questions about society under the guise of swords and spells.

While hungry for really any fantasy book, I got into the Dragonrealm series just after it had gone out of print, so I had a lot of fun and rushes of victory scouring all the secondhand bookstores to find any book I could, even out of order. It’s a little dated and cheesy now, considering that the main character’s name is Bedlam, but if you can find a copy, it’s a fun trip down memory lane.

I watched Avatar, The Last Airbender, when it first came out. I waited diligently in front of the TV for the commercials to end and for the story to continue every week for three whole seasons. I watched The Legend of Korra and fell even more in love with their world. So naturally, when I found out that there was a book about Kyoshi, I snatched it up.

It did not disappoint! It’s set in the same world, divided into nations based on their elements, and these elements are always multiplying in such a way that keeps the story intriguing and lends strength to its characters.

I laughed out loud and had moments of deep philosophical reflection, normally at the same time, with this book. I loved the clever and deep meanings and parodies of faith and the divine. I think that this book taught me to always take things with a pinch of salt, and I started thinking critically because of it.

I could not stop reading it and devoured the other books in the series and I think this is one of my favourite authors. I am inspired to emulate some aspects of the author’s thinking and this book is why. 

I was enthralled by this book. If memory serves me correctly, C.J. Cherrryh was awarded the title of Grand Master by an SF organization for this book and it’s obvious why.

The scope of the story universe she has created is mind-boggling. The characters are believable, and the action makes your heart beat faster. There are scenes in the book that make you want to see them in a movie. I can say that this book and her style of writing has had a bigger impact on my own writing than any other author.

If military SF is your thing, you’ll love this book.

Chock full of great characters, political scheming, spaceships, and conflict, Elizabeth Moon’s terrific space saga features a strong, believable female protagonist in Heris Serrano. As the story begins, Heris has been forced to resign from a space fleet she’d lived for, banished to what she believes to be a dead-end job on a private cruiser. The layers of intrigue that underly the action and interactions throughout the story are beautifully realised, and the characters are all recognisable individuals, distinct, human, flawed, each looking for a path to follow. A page-turner that will have you looking for Book 2 (Sporting Chance) as soon as you’ve read it

Unlike Corinne Duyvis and Maya MacGregor, Elizabeth Moon is not autistic, but she based this protagonist, Lou Arrendale, on her son, who is on the spectrum. Not only is Lou an excellent and well-realized character, but this book also brilliantly tackles a subject that has long been a point of conversation in the autism community—a cure for autism.

In the book, a cure has been developed, and Lou must take it or risk losing his job. Lou, however, doesn’t want to give up being who he is. This is how most people in the autism community, like myself, view the concept of a cure. I appreciate how Speed of Dark argues for that position, celebrating autism as a unique difference in brain wiring rather than a defect. 

Maya MacGregor, like Corinne Duyvis, is autistic, and like Corinne, Maya nails this aspect of their protagonist, Sam Sylvester. Sam is also non-binary, so there are multiple forms of minority representation in this book, which I love to see.

Unlike On the Edge of Gone, which features an end-of-the-world scenario, this book is more grounded, focusing largely on Sam’s struggles to find their place at a new school in a new town while confronting demons from their past. That’s not all the book has going on—there are also paranormal elements and a thirty-year-old mystery waiting to be solved. I found these aspects of the book to be intriguing as well.

If you are a fan of alt-rock and alternative history, then this book is for you. It features two MCs: Beth, a Riot Grrrl fan from the 1990s, and Tess, a time-traveling scientist from the future, both of whom are trying in their own way to fix the past. Beth is dealing with the aftermath of using deadly force to defend her friend from a rapist while Tess is hellbent on changing the timeline to fight the "Comstockers” – a group of men who used time travel to change history and remove all women's rights, especially those of the reproductive sort. Newitz manages to thoroughly entertain while telling a riveting story that deals with admittedly heavy subject matter.