Books like The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps — picked by fans

Mythago Wood is the kind of book that pulls you in and settles you down for a great, blanket-comfy, rainy-day read.

Concerning Ryhope Wood, an ancient, primeval forest in England that seems bigger the deeper in you go, it explores human psychology, both personal and collective, particularly the ideas of Carl Jung.

The forest somehow uses human psychology to create “mythagos,” complex unconscious creations built upon human memories and myths, and our hero Stephen Huxley is compelled to learn the secrets of the wood, whether or not he makes it back out alive.

As psychologically astute as it is thrilling, Holdstock’s book won the World Fantasy Award in 1985 and launched a successful series of fantasies that’s even more widely respected today.

For a more traditional take on fantasy, Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria is lovely and immersive, a fascinating new world worthy of Ursula Le Guin and Gene Wolfe.

Reportedly, she created Olondria from a combination of regions in Turkey and North Africa, and it feels absolutely fresh and instantly powerful. A teenage merchant becomes haunted by the ghost of a young girl and must find a way to put her to rest.

But the story is really about the power of books and stories and language itself. It’s a love letter to adventure and open seas, harbors, and alleys, and snowy mountains in the distance.

Ms. Samatar holds several advanced degrees in language and literature, including Arabic and various African dialects, and you can feel the joy of her verbal artistry dancing on the page.

Stranger is not to be missed.

Crowley is the author of the timeless classic Little, Big, of course (which is also essential reading), but his novel, The Solitudes, began a tetralogy that explores history, alternate history, and the grand Hermetic framework which contains it all.

Centering around a historian working to connect an alternate imagined world, Ægypt, with the real one today, Crowley’s readers take a deep dive into the Renaissance world of Giordano Bruno, Doctor Dee, Shakespeare, and others, while simultaneously exploring the arcane world of the present.

It feels strangely akin to something Umberto Eco might come up with if he ever wanted to write fantasy.

As with any Crowley novel, the prose is absolutely gorgeous—a masterclass of beautiful, thoughtful writing. This series has been unjustly overlooked. Give it a try.

There’s a valid argument to be made that Shadowland is perhaps more of a horror novel than fantasy, but it’s never really out-and-out scary.

It’s certainly more magical than bloody, concerning two friends in the 1950s who spend a hallucinatory summer at an uncle’s place in the Vermont woods. And man do things get weird.

After a long, lovely prelude at a boarding school, Tom and Del have to navigate their failing friendship and the strange happenings in the woods, but most of all they have to look out for Del’s uncle Cole, an old-school magician who, it turns out, is far from an avuncular old guardian.

Full of fairy tales and fables and wonderful digressions (with Straub, the digressions are often the point), Shadowland feels timeless in a way Stephen King never does. It might be the best book I’ve ever read.

I fell for this book like a leprechaun for gold. The world and characters are colorful, and the magic is based on color. From a sensational sensory standpoint, Warbreaker lifted my spirits to a magnificent place. 

I am drawn to this book because of the wondrous world and storytelling that revolves around the true spirit of femininity. I love books that reach for the highest virtue of the noble spirit, and Warbreaker did not disappoint. We watch as the two heroines use the true power of femininity to draw out the best in masculinity forces, thus calling them to their destiny. Talk about a story that embraces the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

The prose in this book felt like a wolf bite. Stories of destiny and power are juicy, and this has it in abundance. A young woman, Red, sacrifices herself for the good of all to the Wolf of the Wood. The woods are magickal, with haunted trees and shadows, creating an intense atmosphere that held me throughout. So moody! Murderous realms, too, which I sunk into easily.

Not quite like "Little Red Riding Hood," but the suspense certainly had me turning the pages. I admired how the author weaved in the emotional elements among the empowerment and disempowerment themes. The myth and folklore elements brought me back to my childhood nostalgia of curling up in bed, secretly turning the pages without regard for bedtime. 

I love how weird and dark this book is. Carolyn and her siblings were raised by their abusive, adopted father, who trained them each in a single portfolio of magic.

When their father goes missing, Carolyn and her allies explore the truth of his disappearance. I was with Carolyn every step of the way of her journey to claw back her identity from her abusive past. And I can’t stop thinking about the explosive ending, even years after I first read the book.

The first book in The Twilight Reign starts off an epic fantasy series of war, loyalty, sacrifice, prophecy, and Gods with their own agendas, to whom their chosen champions are game-pieces to be used in a conflict in which mortals have only a partial understanding. The hero, Isak, is a young man born to be a violent warrior, a tool of prophesy and the Gods, but he never stops struggling to be more than what he was made, and to make himself master of his own fate. This is a satisfyingly rich fantasy world to plunge yourself into.

Not only is Essun a woman, which, unfortunately, is not common when it comes to the history of badass sci-fi protagonists (thankfully this is becoming less true because of writers like N.K. Jemisin), but she’s a middle-aged mother of two living, or I should say, hiding, out in the cut. When her daughter goes missing, Essun hits the road to find her and reveals her, literally, Earth-shaking abilities. If we threw the badasses on this list into a single universe and had them duel, ten-ringer Essun would clean the clocks of every other protagonist. Or more accurately, turn them to ice. I absolutely loved this series, and Essun is the main reason why. 

My mind was blown when I encountered the work of Philippe Druillet in the mid-1970s. This French cartoonist is considered one of the greatest of them all, creating alien worlds of startling originality and stupefying grandeur. Fifty years later, his work is as startling and original as it appeared back then.

No one has surpassed his ability to depict scenes of such mind-boggling scale and otherworldliness, as if he had a unique glimpse of some higher realm. As a young cartoonist, I was strongly influenced by Druillet, who inspired me with his demonstration of what it was possible to achieve in the comic book form. His work is not drug-oriented but depicts the sort of visions those who take hallucinogens would hope to experience.