Books like Daughter of the Drackan

I do not think any list relating to fantasy books would be complete without an entry from David Gemmell, a true gold standard of the genre. Legend is another book I first fell in love with as a teenager. I loved the simple enough premise: countless enemies at the gates of a fortress, and if the fortress falls, the Drenai Empire falls.

The story also introduces what I believe to be one of the most iconic heroes in heroic fantasy, the Deathwalker—Druss The Legend. While there were battles like nothing I had ever read before it was the interaction between the characters and the fellowship of the embattled defenders which brought me into this world fully as I read. The expert craft of the story made me really care about each of the characters and their fate. 

There is an expertly realised villain in Ulric, the leader of the enemy,… show more.

Brave mice defend a monastery from marauding pirate rats! An evil snake haunts the forest, eating gentle beasts!

Redwall is a medieval Viking tale populated by animals. But what animals! Speedy hares with bottomless appetites evoke British Army captains. Quarreling shrews must pass around an object to speak at the council, reminding us of The Lord of the Flies. We meet tiny sparrows who follow a Spartan warrior ethos, and Friar Tuck-like fieldmice who cook great feasts that will make you salivate.

Yes, it’s a young adult book, but it’s also one of the reasons I became a writer in the first place. Let me throw down a glove here: the vitality of Redwall’s characters equals anything found in Dickens, Dumas, or Stevenson. 

Sidenote: the first piece of fiction I produced was an imitation of this very title, fulfilling an elementary school assignment. I folded ten pages of… show more.

A kind of perfect dystopia. The fractured storytelling is as compelling as the characters and greater narrative itself. Sleepwater Beat has a comic book level of action and appeal while also feeling incredibly intellectual and relevant to today’s hot topic issues. Again there is a healthy dose of minority repression on display in the cast of charters presented in this book. Hutson’s Sci-Fi is just as dark and gritty as her fantasy.

Despite being a work of fantasy the level of research and authenticity has to be gravely respected. The storytelling is organic and feels effortlessly natural while still delivering a compelling mix of action and intrigue. Students of Celtic history will eat up the genuine feel that Nicholas is able to produce in her work from cover to cover.

Ascendant chronicles the journey of a blind dragon destined for destruction because of his handicap and the boy who saves him, against the law and against all odds.

They form a powerful bond that should only exist within the highly regulated ranks of dragon riders, drawing enmity from all sides, and the sacrificial love and devotion between them swiftly drew me into the story. Add to all this a cook protagonist whose skills with food enhance dragon magic, and I was sold.

Though Ascendant incorporates many classic fantasy tropes, it still felt fresh and engaging, and its length meant I had time to dive deep into the characters and world—one of my favorite things to do!

Fireborne is the first book of a YA crossover fantasy series called The Aurelian Cycle trilogy.

The primary narrators – dragon riders Annie and Lee – are best friends born on opposite sides of a class uprising and civil war that ripped their lives apart. Annie and Lee’s world is complicated. There are no easy choices or untarnished heroes – including Annie and Lee.

By telling this story through two very different points of view, Munda forces us to draw our own conclusions about right and wrong. She doesn’t make it easy. I can’t promise you won’t throw the book across the room in outrage at least once, but you will chase after it and keep reading until the (not that bitter, I promise) end. 

Adventure Quest, and Artix Entertainment’s games as a whole, were a formative part of my childhood and play a big role in what I write now. When I found out that a novel was made in that series, I had to check it out. Set in Adventure Quest, this novel follows the tale of a character who loses his home to a dragon attack, and sets out on a quest to find the dragon in question, while learning how to wield the magic that he is capable of using. It puts a fun spin on an old kind of story if you ask me!

Dragon Mountain is fast and cinematic, full of excitement and thrills. It’s the story of a group of children at a holiday camp, who find a secret entrance to a world of dragons. There are battles and races and high-speed chases. I’ve always loved stories with a training session segment where the character learns new skills and, really, who wouldn’t want to learn to fly a dragon?

Barczak’s work belongs to that realm of poetic fiction that is occupied by Robert E. Howard and Janet Morris. Veil of the Dragon plays out like a vivid nightmare. This is the kind of fantasy novel that makes you want to pause in the middle of the paragraph you’re reading, go back to the beginning, and read out loud just to see how the words sound. Poetic fantasy takes you to another level.

My children loved The Park in the Dark by Martin Waddell, believing it was set in a park near our house. Now our grandchildren enjoy it too, There might or might not be scary things in the darkness, but 'me, and Loopy and Little Gee' are heroes who look after each other, swing, slide, dance, jump and chase all over the place, until the thing comes! (It’s a train….) 

The three race back to bed Where we ought to be, me and Loopy and Little Gee, safe as can be, all three. The gentle rhyming text comes to a happy conclusion and Barbara Firth’s delightful illustrations show us it’s three soft toys, not children, sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night.