88 books like The Chronicles of Amber

This book epitomizes all the qualities a hard science fiction story should have, and which many fail to achieve. I found the theme enthralling - men turning themselves into gods, and the scenario frighteningly plausible.

I love this story because it deals with real characters and doesn’t spare their flaws. I sympathized with the main character, a man prepared to battle heaven for freedom, shunning the mantle of godhood. This novel not only entertained but also forced me to think, something I relished.

Once started, this work is difficult to put down and I nodded with satisfaction when I turned the last page.

I’m a fan of Dune because it feels larger than science fiction and more enduring than almost any genre label can contain.

I admire the depth of Frank Herbert’s worldbuilding, the strength of his prose, and the narrative weight carried by his characters and ideas. I return to books like this because they helped define what speculative fiction could become.

I also value Dune as a work of its own time. I do not want foundational novels rewritten to imitate modern language or contemporary storytelling habits. I want them preserved, studied, and experienced as they were written. To me, the best way to keep a genre alive is not to alter its past, but to let new authors build upon it with voices of their own.

This series of linked novels and stories—start reading at An Alien Heat—would also be called SF. They deal with time travel, the end of human civilization, and all kinds of other science-fictiony ideas. But the science is blurred almost into invisibility: the people living at the End of Time have little to no idea of the eons that have passed before them—nor do they much care about the past, except as a source of themes for their decadent parties. (Their ignorance of historical fact is also where a lot of the humor comes from.) The End of Timers have power rings that draw energy from the “ancient cities”, and with them can basically do magic—rearrange geography, create and destroy apparently living beings, and change themselves into any shape they want. So science is way back on the back burner; what we have instead is essentially a society of idiot… show more.

When I read this at 17, I bounced off it, surprising since I'd loved every previous Zelazny. It wasn’t until a reread in my thirties that it finally clicked, becoming a favorite book by a favorite author. In retrospect, I didn’t yet have the depth of experience to see beneath the surface simplicity to the brilliantly conceived complexity visible to the reader with a bit more knowledge and breadth of literary background.

Wit shines on every page, from dialogue to description to an offbeat chapter-a-day structure highlighting each night in a most singular October.

The wild includes plenty of murder and mayhem as a cast of sorcerers that includes Dracula, Rasputin, and Burke & Hare are all colliding in a struggle for the power to shape the world through the once-a-century Lonesome October.

The weird stretches from the story of a most sympathetic serial killer to the way it's told… show more.

Any fans of The Three Musketeers or fencing are going to love the action in this series.

It’s a bit more stylized and cinematic than the previous two, making it feel slightly less realistic, but that is also part of its charm. I loved that it’s written in first-person point of view, with an amazing narrative voice, so when the main character is in a swordfight, the reader gets almost like a running analysis and commentary of the fight from the perspective of an elite fencer with years of experience to draw on.

And it’s hilarious too. I loved that these books can make you laugh and hold your breath in the same scene. I also loved that the author does an excellent job constantly raising the stakes of each fight. The characters are often wounded, tired, outnumbered, or forced to fight at a disadvantage, making the reader constantly wonder… show more.

An absent-minded, modern-day scientist is pulled out of time, finding himself in a medieval England of a parallel universe. He is mistaken for a sorcerer and starts using his knowledge to make a name for himself.

I know all of that may sound cliche, the story is anything but.

I was especially drawn to the big bad of the story, who is so powerful that he can hear that narrator and start to argue with him in some great fourth-wall-breaking moments that turn out to be more than just humorous exchanges.

I found this to be a fun series that really plays around with some common fantasy concepts and has fun with it all, not taking itself too seriously.

The Keys to the Kingdom is another oft-overlooked series, which I recommend to anyone I can.

I’ve yet to meet anyone else who’s read it. This is the series that made me fall in love with magic systems and worldbuilding. I’ve always enjoyed fantasy more than other genres—something about magic existing in the grass and little monsters hiding behind the trees just made sense to me—but it wasn’t until reading this series that I realized a fantasy world can be more than just a setting.

Magic and the way the world functions can be characters in and of themselves. Whenever I need inspiration for building an intricate, interactive world, I reread this series.  

Master of the Five Magics delivers exactly what the title suggests. Hardy creates not only one, but five distinct and well-thought-out systems of magic. Each discipline is different from the next in practice, application, and style. The mechanics of how each of the systems functions is logical, precise, and adheres to a well-planned set of rules. The reader explores the world of magics through immersive storytelling and the reader can enjoy the journey without the perception of having attended a university course on the subject material.

The trilogy is seen as ahead of its time and is often credited as having influenced later authors as they explored the subject of magic in fantasy in their own writings.

This one is a little more faded in memory. It's about a man and his companion giant spider as they travel a road of interdimensional gates. He starts off as a swordsman, barely able to get spells to function, and through luck and design becomes one of the most powerful existences in the multiverse. After six books, that is.

Aside from a rollicking good time following this hero and companion spider on their adventures I learned a bit of about pacing. How to bring a character from low power to high power and not get lost in the ‘fantasy’ of power tripping. Like many other of my favorites, it was one step along the path of infinite possibilities.

This is the first in a long-running, action-packed science fiction series starring Miles Vorkosigan. He is brilliant, driven, ambitious, hyperactive, and neurotic. He also suffers from a chronic disability that makes him unfit for military service on his home planet. This is why he takes to the stars for a life of adventure and excitement under the pseudonym Miles Naismith, Admiral of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries.

This book is our introduction to Miles and shows the birth of the Naismith persona, and it is fabulous fun on every page. I devoured this series like potato chips.