Here are 7 books that Artifact Space fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a writer of true crime, which makes me keenly aware of the credibility of police procedural books. I also write crime fiction and am drawn to series that provide an interesting and thought-provoking protagonist in the framework of excellent writing. I survived an attempted abduction as a child and have had an interest in crime books since then, starting with the Jane Withers mystery my dad brought home from Goodwill and, of course, the Nancy Drew series.
I was intrigued by Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec.
He and his team of investigators travel to the hamlet of Three Pines to look at a routine hunting accident and find the clues that convince them that it is murder. Along the way, they meet a cast of eccentric characters in the village who add a bit of humor to the story.
Gamache’s integrity and quiet courage, along with his family life, provide an intriguing premise for the series.
In Still Life, bestselling author Louise Penny introduces Monsieur L'Inspecteur Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec, a modern Poirot who anchors this beloved traditional mystery series.
Winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards.
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain…
The Blade in the Angel's Shadow delivers a compelling fusion of dark magic, espionage, and philosophical tension between chaos and order.
A heretic swordswoman, cosmic entities using humans as pawns, Elizabethan occultism, time travel, and the apocalyptic ambitions of the Angels? It’s bold, unsettling, and fiercely imaginative.
Exceptional! Mad, pacy, original, violent and poetic biopunk
The most exciting book I’ve read for a while. It takes the style of cyberpunk, and makes that into something completely fresh and new.
Set in a post-eco-collapse London, the story centres on Charlie and her crew of bio-activists, who are pulled into a plot to assassinate the loathsome Ghost, a corporate bioscientist-for-hire.
The action proceeds at breakneck speed, laced with the darkest of humour and a sense of moral outrage. Our protagonist’s crew put everything on the line.
Green takes a (punk?) poet’s pleasure in assembling a gorgeous, funny, impactful sentence, making this book a pleasure to read.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE DRAGON AWARDS 2025 FINANCIAL TIMES' BEST SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS OF 2024
Charlie and Parker are punks by night, biohackers by day, living in the stuttering decay of near-future climate-collapse London.
They pay for the beer they don't steal with money from their sketchy astronomy site Zodiac Code, while Charlie's bio-bespoke augments equip the criminals, punks, and eco-warriors of London. They have to deal with disgruntled clients, scene kids who don't dig their band, and a city that's run by corporates and criminals. Their world is split into three factions: Green - who are still trying to save…
My name is Thomas Tarasios and I'm a fantasy author. I was a huge fan of the Final Fantasy games growing up, particularly I to IX, and as a voracious fantasy reader I've made it my business to find novels that deliver that 'Final Fantasy feeling' (eccentric ensemble cast, adventure, hard magic system, grim yet fun, etc.), scouring the web, message boards and Reddit for recommendations on this topic and reading the suggested books. When it came time to write my own fantasy series, I set out to write as if it were an original Final Fantasy game—a fan novelization of an awesome new Final Fantasy game that doesn't actually exist as a game!
I love this book because it’s basically The Blues Brothers combined with Dungeons and Dragons. How did Nicholas Eames ever come up with that concept, and make it work so well?
In this breakneck madcap quest, retired hero Clay Cooper sets out to get his original adventuring ‘band’ back together one by one in order to go on one last mission to save his daughter. The jokes had me guffawing, the action had me riveted, and the structuring left me open-mouthed.
It reminds me of Final Fantasy because once again we have an eccentric ensemble cast going on an adventure quest with magic and monsters galore…but not only that: Eames is also on record as a Final Fantasy fan and names some of his characters after Final Fantasy characters, along with sticking in some other Easter eggs related to the franchise.
'An outstanding debut which will make you laugh and cry and hold your breath. This is a book that has it all' - K. J. Parker Clay Cooper and his band were once the best of the best - the meanest, dirtiest, most feared and admired crew of mercenaries this side of the Heartwyld. But their glory days are long past; the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk - or a combination of the three. Then a former bandmate turns up at Clay's door with a plea for help: his daughter Rose is trapped in a city…
The Blade in the Angel's Shadow delivers a compelling fusion of dark magic, espionage, and philosophical tension between chaos and order.
A heretic swordswoman, cosmic entities using humans as pawns, Elizabethan occultism, time travel, and the apocalyptic ambitions of the Angels? It’s bold, unsettling, and fiercely imaginative.
I’ve been writing fantasy for two decades now and still, I can’t resist a foul-mouthed rogue with a grubby soul. They’re usually the most entertaining characters to write and in the long days of plugging away at a book, they’re often the ones that remind you what’s so fun about the job. When I started Stranger of Tempest it was (pretty much solely) with that in mind – I wanted a disparate band of crazed, badass idiots to go on an adventure with and see where it took me. Of course, as I got to know them I found there was more to their tales than that, but it was fun right to the end!
Chel isn’t a man cut out to be a hard-nosed mercenary, but he falls in with a badass crew and the resulting exploits and squabbling prove highly entertaining for the rest of us even if he’s miserable throughout much of it! It’s a simple tale of being chased across the country by assassins, all told with foul-mouthed and engaging aplomb, so what’s not to love?
Dark, thrilling, and hilarious, The Black Hawks is an epic adventure perfect for fans of Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch.
Life as a knight is not what Vedren Chel imagined. Bound by oath to a dead-end job in the service of a lazy step-uncle, Chel no longer dreams of glory - he dreams of going home.
When invaders throw the kingdom into turmoil, Chel finds opportunity in the chaos: if he escorts a stranded prince to safety, Chel will be released from his oath.
All he has to do is drag the brat from one side of…
I’ve been writing fantasy for two decades now and still, I can’t resist a foul-mouthed rogue with a grubby soul. They’re usually the most entertaining characters to write and in the long days of plugging away at a book, they’re often the ones that remind you what’s so fun about the job. When I started Stranger of Tempest it was (pretty much solely) with that in mind – I wanted a disparate band of crazed, badass idiots to go on an adventure with and see where it took me. Of course, as I got to know them I found there was more to their tales than that, but it was fun right to the end!
The Raven is your classic band of mercs, a found-family of warriors caught up in world-ending levels of chaos. This is much more 90s style fantasy and unashamedly so – serious, sword-swinging, spell-casting stuff. As a result, you have to buy into that a bit given how the genre has changed, but at the same time, the series is all about the consequences of actions rather than any pretence about happily ever after so there’s real meat to it.
ELITE, UNSTOPPABLE ... AND HIRED TO DO THE UNTHINKABLE
The Raven are an elite. Formed of six men and an elf, they're swords for hire in the wars that have torn their land apart. For years their only loyalty has been to themselves, and to their code.
But that time is coming to an end. The Wytch Lords have escaped and The Raven find themselves fighting for the Dark College of magic, on a mission which soon becomes a race for the secret location of Dawnthief. It's a spell - one created to end the…
I’ve been writing fantasy for two decades now and still, I can’t resist a foul-mouthed rogue with a grubby soul. They’re usually the most entertaining characters to write and in the long days of plugging away at a book, they’re often the ones that remind you what’s so fun about the job. When I started Stranger of Tempest it was (pretty much solely) with that in mind – I wanted a disparate band of crazed, badass idiots to go on an adventure with and see where it took me. Of course, as I got to know them I found there was more to their tales than that, but it was fun right to the end!
The oldest book on the list and easily the most influential I’d suggest, the Black Company’s effect on fantasy goes way beyond books about mercenaries. The prose style isn’t for everyone (including me, I do find his style off-putting at times) but this is fantasy without dreamy illusions written by a man who knew first-hand what soldiers were really like. It’s grim and it’s dark, but he’s not playing for cheap or lurid shocks any more than he’s idealising anything.
This was a LONG book - 774 pages, with a fairly small font.
I thought it was excellent. Really enjoyed it.
I've known about the book for a long time but was put off by knowing that there are a great many (20?) point of view characters. I tend to prefer a small number of (often singular) points of view, and to get to know that/those character/s very well.
Contrary to expectations, the large field of points of view worked very well for me. The eponymous Red Knight's point of view gets a significantly larger number of pages than any of the rest, and helps glue it all together, as does the fact that all of the points of view are involved in the same drama, many of them in the same place, the rest converging on it.
Forget George and the Dragon. Forget Sir Lancelot and tales of Knightly exploits. This is dirty, bloody work. This is violent, visceral action. This is a mercenary knight as you've never seen one before. Twenty eight florins a month is a huge price to pay, for a man to stand between you and the Wild. Twenty eight florins a month is nowhere near enough when a wyvern's jaws snap shut on your helmet in the hot stink of battle, and the beast starts to rip the head from your shoulders. But if standing and fighting is hard, leading a company…
