Books like David Mogo Godhunter — picked by fans

I read this book after a long, dull period when I couldn’t seem to find anything to read that sparked my interest. Trail of Lightning picked me up, whirled me around, and made me fall head-over-heels in love with speculative fiction again.

Set in a bleak, post-apocalyptic world, it’s brutal and gripping, but where there should only be sadness and despair, there are unexpected moments of un-looked-for kindness. This isn’t a light read, and it isn’t exactly happy—but there’s a beautiful optimism underlying the bleakness, that after all, even in the worst of circumstances and at the worst of times, people can be kind. 

I’ve only said this once about a book: this is the sort of indie work that traditional publishers should be salivating over but would never have the courage to publish. There is such a wealth of emotion and reality in Heretic’s Guide. It’s a quiet, deliberate but fraught story of a human who doesn’t realize how much he needs the help of the godly being he befriends, or that the godly being needs him just as much. Fair warning that it’s a hefty story that’s more cerebral than action-packed, but the mystery, compelling dialogue and wondrous worldbuilding makes this one of my favorite books of all time. (Also the sequel to this duology is even better. Just saying.)

I walked away from reading this book with my imagination completely on fire. I can promise you’ll never look at wax quite the same after reading this book. It takes the pollution of a post-industrial world but filters the premise through magic and god wars. The politics are juicy and the characters come from all walks of life.

This book was a serious inspiration for me when my debut novel was in an earlier draft. Tracy crafts this cool theology where “God” is a scientist and the world his Experiment, but not everyone agrees on whether that Experiment should be allowed to run free. What if God gets tired of playing and throws out the ant farm, or decide it’s not working…? The Nine centers on a motley-found family of characters, many of whom have rich backstories with each other that we get bits and pieces of, which is like catnip to me as a reader (and writer).

A classic from the eighties, The Initiate is the start of the Time Master Trilogy. (Nothing to do with Doctor Who!) A powerful young sorcerer finds refuge among the Initiates, scholar-sorcerers who serve the seven gods of Order, but the seven outcast gods of Chaos, their ancient counterparts and enemies, claim Tarod for their own. Tarod’s journey into himself is a dark one. Politics, magic, friendships betrayed, and gods you really do not want to put any faith in or reliance on taking an active part in events as Chaos tries to take back control of the world it once ruled in a reign of terror. I’ve loved this series and reread it I don’t know how many times. 

I have a tender spot for heroines who experience such strong emotions that they’re prone to being tossed by their own inner tempests. (I…ahem…might resemble that last comment). Romy had to make a wretchedly hard choice to protect her brother and the fallout separates her forever from the man she loves. She’s a determined, fiery woman and her diligence helps her survive in a city where her magical gift is forbidden. Her past could easily have made her bitter, but she fights with hope for second chances and a ferocious love that makes me adore her! When Romy teams up with other magically gifted people for a complicated heist, she’s consistently kind, unifying, and bravely vulnerable. I just love her!

Guy Gavriel Kay is widely known and admired for his sweeping, epic fantasy novels, all set in fantastical version of real historical countries—but before he turned to that genre, he wrote the Fionavar Trilogy. 

Think Lord of the Rings with critical differences: the characters all have a wry sense of humor and an appreciation of irony and many of those characters are women, strong, intelligent, fierce, complex women. Kay also goes for broke as a storyteller here; you can almost hear him wondering, “Can I pull this off?” And he does it every single time.

What if there was a computer program that reduced every single thing in the world down to a set of numbers? Sounds mathematically boring. But what if by changing one number you could suddenly be six feet tall? Or levitate? Martin Banks has, by spending far too much time on the internet, discovered that program. And made himself rich. Which gets the authorities snooping around and next thing you know he’s fleeing to the middle ages, where several other mathematical types have taken up residence. They know the secret of the program and have made themselves wizards. And Martin becomes a wizard in training to learn these skills. Which is all well and fine, until one wizard starts to turn evil. I am a geek. I admit it. And this send up of geek culture had the perfect geekish vibe for me.

I had to include this first Harry Potter book because Harry is the epitome of a gifted child and I loved these books from the first.

When my own book, The Meme Machine, came out in 1999, someone rang me excitedly to tell me that my book was number 5 on Amazon!!! (There were not so many books listed on Amazon in those days!!).

I was so thrilled that, of course, I had to find out what the top four were. And guess what – they were the hardback and paperback versions of the first two Harry Potter books, which I’d never even heard of. I bought them immediately and never looked back, receiving each one in the post on its publication day.

What terrific books they were and are.

You want epic—you got epic! Belgarath becomes the disciple of the god, Aldur, and struggles to learn not only magic, but humility. Belgarath the Sorcerer is a late book in Eddings’ epic series, and if I recall correctly, it should be read after The Belgariad and The Mallorean (both of which are 5-book sequences). I’m pretty sure that reading about these hugely powerful gods and their disciples seeped into the developing inspiration for Kiranis, with its gods and prophets and grand schemes. There’s something deeply welcoming about this book, which is in 1st person as Belgarath tells his tale, especially following everything that happened in the preceding 10-book cycle. This is my favourite Eddings character, and he is more alive than those you might think were the central ones. From this book, I learned that true character development is an evolutionary process, and you just have to be patient… show more.