60 books like Riftwar Cycle: Legends of the Riftwar

This is the first book in a series that goes on and on, following the life of a couple of characters as the world changes around them. Spanning two different worlds, this first book builds up a number of characters you want to keep reading about. As the series continues through time, new threats to the two worlds introduce new characters. What I like most about this series is it keeps moving the worlds forward instead of stagnating.

I’ve always had a fascination with prophecies and the ubiquitous role they play in works of fantasy—it’s a tried-and-true literary device, and I don’t think there is another series that embodies the principle of fate better than Eddings’ Belgariad series.

The title of this first book sets that up most perfectly. From the first few pages, I was instantly drawn into this world, which takes the concept of uniquely varied traveling companions to a whole other level.

Not only are the characters all well fleshed out with personalities and motivations that kept me invested the whole way, but the book (and series) was also replete with another thing I love so much about fantasy novels—going on a grand, action-filled journey through numerous, fascinating locations.

What moved me is how much it means to belong to the Acoma estate.

Nacoya with her sharp wisdom, Keyoke with his unyielding honor, Arakasi with his chosen allegiance, even the grey warriors—they all belong to something bigger than themselves. When danger hits, the fear ripples through everyone. When triumph comes, it lifts all of them.

A big draw of the book was seeing people pull together not because they’re supposed to, but because they genuinely care. The Acoma isn’t just a political house; it feels like a place where being needed gives everyone a kind of quiet dignity. 

The medieval Polish backwoods community feels startlingly alive—crude, superstitious, and the rest of it.

The Okoits, and later Conrad’s people, are rough villagers who drink, farm, and then get up the next day and do it again. At the same time, their sense of being part of a genuine community is unmistakable. 

Frankowski doesn’t just portray a functional medieval society in an alternate timeline; his engineer protagonist builds one, bolt by bolt. There’s this no-nonsense optimism coursing through the story: the conviction that one can literally make a better world equipped with nothing but grit, crudely smelted iron, and the guts to try.

What stuck with me is how this villager society absorbs innovation in a matter-of-fact manner. It’s messy, uneven, and wildly productive. You don’t have to co-sign every norm of its community to be impressed by how solidly it holds together. 

Mammoths grazing outside the protagonist’s dwelling—yeah, that was love at first sight.

And the lived-in environment? Homes carved into colossal, cultivated trees, and people served by public, stackable electric vehicles—yes, please. The land thrives, and no species has been driven to oblivion.   

Sawyer’s parallel-Earth Neanderthals truly appealed to me: the emotional restraint, the honesty, the structural elegance of their culture. Even their norms around maintaining a sustainable population are handled with startling clarity—seasonal, communal parenting. 

No prisons, no poverty, no religion weaponized into hierarchy. Life runs on calm confidence, as if evolution took a gentler branch, and society—as it’d scaled up—managed to keep its soul. 

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.

I felt awe-struck stepping into Gaea’s hollow world—where zeppelin-sized blimps glide through a sky inside the giant, planet-like being, and forests and rivers hang overhead. Gaea feels both grand and intimate: cathedral-scale biology paired with tavern-table camaraderie. 

And then there are the titanides. Their society feels hand-tooled—full of music and unpretentious sensuality. No posturing, no greed, just beings who live in balance. The centaur-like titanides dwell beneath a colossal tree hung with lanterns… and it all feels alien and warm and cozy and wonderful. 

This urban fantasy about angels blew me away. I liked it so much I had to read everything in the series as soon as it was available. It was completely different to anything I had read before in regard to the storyline. It is so well written you can easily picture the characters and the scenes and you feel you are part of the story as you read. Each character is unique and you just want to keep finding out more and more about them.

This is the first in the Blood Jewels series, all of which you will want to read again and again. The characters are so addictive you just want to keep reading about them. The story draws you into a world you can lose yourself in and the way magic works doesn’t rely on spells, but on the strength of the person wielding it. You won’t be able to stop yourself from reading every book in the series. For me, the sign of a good book is it contains a character to fall in love with. This has a few.

Straight up, Dungeons and Dragons players pulled into the fantasy world they were playing the game in! Considering I was playing D&D multiple times a week when I found these books (and this book includes the first three of the series, The Sleeping Dragon, The Sword and Chain, and The Silver Crown), I was entranced! Then the author did a few things I’d never thought of. He brought in a guy in a wheelchair who entered a body of his character who could walk. He also later introduced gunpowder, and guns that used magic to fire bullets. The ideas were new and fresh to my teenage mind, and I was fascinated!