Here are 100 books that The Warlock in Spite of Himself fans have personally recommended if you like
The Warlock in Spite of Himself.
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I’ve always loved the darker side of fantasy. While heroes, knights, and handsome kings can occasionally be enjoyable, I want to know the other characters who have suffered, hurt, lost, grieved, and been hardened by grim circumstances and cruel fate. Those characters demonstrate the resilience of human nature and how goodness truly can exist even in the harshest environment. I love using this darkness in my own novels to show that even the tiniest spark can shine immensely bright—a true testament to the indefatigability of our spirits.
I love the cunning, wit, and charm of the one-and-only Vlad Taltos. Though he’s an assassin, he’s never cruel or wicked; he merely does what he needs to appease the “mafia-feeling” organization he works for. He’s almost more a swashbuckling rogue than a killer.
In his interactions with his familiar, Loiosh, you see his more nuanced side, the morality beneath the magic and swordplay. And few fantasy worlds I’ve ever visited have been as rich and colorful as those created in the Vlad Taltos series.
The first three fantastical adventures of assassin Vlad Taltos—now in one volume.
A welcome addition to any fantasy fan's library, The Book of Jhereg follows the antics of the wise-cracking Vlad Taltos and his dragon-like companion through their first three adventures—Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla.
There are many ways for a young man with quick wits and a quick sword to advance in the world. Vlad Taltos chose the route of assassin. From his rookie days to his selfless feats of heroism, the dauntless Vlad will hold readers spellbound—and The Book of Jhereg will take its place among the classic compilations…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
My first toy was a plastic dinosaur, which I took to school and it bears my toothmarks on the tail. As a young teenager, I stumbled across the Dragonriders of Pern books, and my allegiance transferred to dragons. I find them fascinating, both beautiful and dangerous, and prefer books in which they have their own cultures and are strong characters in their own right. The novels I’ve recommended have great world building to draw you into the fascinating lives of dragons, and the humans who come to know them.
I like history and dragons, so I was immediately grabbed by a book offering an alternative history with dragons! The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars. Dragons are a major part of the war effort. A dragon chooses his or her captain, and the larger dragons are like warplanes or warships in the air, carrying the captain and a crew, including a medic.
The main human character, naval captain Will Laurence, is picked by a newly hatched dragon, which takes him into Britain’s Aerial Corps. I enjoyed reading how Laurence comes to love Temeraire, and that the dragon is a strong character in his own right.
Naomi Novik's stunning series of novels follow the adventures of Captain William Laurence and his fighting dragon Temeraire as they are thrown together to fight for Britain during the turbulent time of the Napoleonic Wars.
As Napoleon's tenacious infantry rampages across Europe and his armada lies in wait for Nelson's smaller fleet, the war does not rage on land and water alone. Squadrons of aviators swarm the skies - a deadly shield for the cumbersome canon-firing vessels. Raining fire and acid upon their enemies, they engage in a swift, violent combat with flying tooth and claw... for these aviators ride…
I’m a lifelong reader, and over the years I’ve probably gotten to know thousands of characters. I don’t like it when they die, but their deaths can be so moving if done well. It really frustrates me when a beloved character dies and it doesn’t amount to anything. I’ve gotten attached to these people–they shouldn’t just die without impacting anything! But I love it when a death results in a plot twist or meaningful consequences for the remaining characters.
When I was a kid, a favorite uncle gave me a later book in this series, and I was immediately entranced by the combination of humor and fantasy–I love both genres, and I’d never seen them done together before. This is the first book in that much-loved and reread series.
It starts when Garkin, an irascible old wizard, summons a demon to impress his mouthy apprentice. Garkin then gets killed, which releases the demon and launches the mouthy apprentice, Skeeve, into a series of outlandish adventures. It’s a dark start to a light book, full of trope reversals and puns. I loved it as a kid and as an adult.
Skeeve is a magician’s apprentice (and a wanna-be thief) until an assassin’s bolt kills his master, Garkin. Along with Aahz, the green-scaled, purple-tongued demon and master magician summoned by Garkin, he sets out on a quest to get even. The road to vengeance is bound to prove rocky, however, because Skeeve can barely light a candle with his beginning magic, and Aahz has lost his own considerable magical abilities as a consequence of Garkin’s summoning spell. Before they can confront the power-mad wizard who ordered Garkin’s assassination, they must survive a trip to a weird alternate dimension, encounters with Impish…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I first found fantasy literature about the same time as I got into tabletop gaming, for me this was AD&D. Edgar Rice Burroughs, J.R.R. Tolkien, Arthur C. Clarke, Fritz Lieber, and Roger Zelazny were just a few of the authors that showed me what was possible. Writing my first novel cemented my understanding that I wanted to create the kinds of worlds that readers would want to experience. The kinds of worlds that would let them get away from their lives, if only for a few hours, where they could live a life of adventure and discovery. Just like the novels I recommended here did for me.
This is a novel of historical fiction set in the time of the French revolution. The series is named after the main character, Alan Lewrie. This novel introduces you to this rapscallion of a character, someone who is a spoiled, and indolent 16-year-old young man. Against his will he will find his place in the world and it will be in the very last place he would have imagined, commanding a ship of the Royal Navy. The novels follow his travels and adventures as he rises through the ranks, and it was incredibly fun to watch the young man evolve and grow into the man he becomes.
His exploits echo with the bustle of crowded ports and the crash of naval warfare...
It is 1780 and seventeen-year-old Alan Lewrie is a brash young libertine with a head full of dreams. When he is found in bed with the wrong woman, he is forced to leave his profligacy behind for a new life at sea.
Though sickness and hard labour await him aboard the tall-masted Ariadne, Lewrie finds himself gradually adapting to the world of a midshipman.
But as he heads for the war-torn Americas into a hail of cannonballs, will he ever catch wind of the plot…
I’m a medieval historian, and I’ve written academic books and articles about the history of the medieval world, but I have also written two historical novels. I became interested in history in general and the Middle Ages in particular from reading historical fiction as a child (Jean Plaidy!). The past is another country, and visiting it through fiction is an excellent way to get a feel for it, for its values, norms, and cultures, for how it is different from and similar to our own age. I’ve chosen novels that I love that do this especially well, and bring to light less well-known aspects of the Middle Ages.
It is difficult to imagine a list of great novels about the Middle Ages that does not include this book.
I read it first when I was in graduate school, and it brought so much of what I was studying to life – the monastic world of its setting with all its contradictions and spectacular architecture; fights over religion and the true nature of spirituality; the non-linear nature of medieval literature.
I love how it can be read on one level as a page-turny murder mystery and on another as a post-modern novel that explores the nature of signs and meaning. Its mystificatory preface reveals the distance between the medieval world and what we can say about it.
The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective.
William collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.
I have written a well-received biography of Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the Sherlock Holmes stories. So, I am ideally placed to turn my attention from the real-life author to his gloriously rich fictional subject and blend their experiences of the late nineteenth-century world they both inhabited. This beautifully illustrated book brings Conan Doyle’s life and times into focus and shows how they influenced every aspect of his marvelous creation.
Insights into Conan Doyle's personal life were somewhat stalled in the early 21st century—until the publication of this illuminating biography, which incorporated new material relating to the short, sad life of the author’s first wife, Louise, and their two children.
Louise died of tuberculosis in 1906, allowing Doyle to marry the much younger Jean, who bore him three further children. This is a surprisingly moving tale.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Storytelling is my passion. I have loved writing in the science fiction and fantasy genres since I learned to read as a kid. I’ve won multiple awards, have an optioned screenplay, and am actively working on several paid script projects. I love to swap stories with other writers and dive into new worlds.
While hungry for really any fantasy book, I got into the Dragonrealm series just after it had gone out of print, so I had a lot of fun and rushes of victory scouring all the secondhand bookstores to find any book I could, even out of order. It’s a little dated and cheesy now, considering that the main character’s name is Bedlam, but if you can find a copy, it’s a fun trip down memory lane.
When Darkhorse receives word that the son of the great warlock, Cabe Bedlam, has been lured into captivity in the land of Zuu, the magical steed determines to rescue his young friend and stop his enemies' sorcery. Original.
I'm a novelis who's had a lifelong fascination with travel, lost civilizations, aquariums, swashbuckling stories (both true and fictional), dancing, dusty old bookstores and libraries, sangria, and sunny beaches. I grew up in beautiful south Louisiana and my earliest memories were in New Orleans. Living in “America's first melting pot” taught me to appreciate cultures, languages, cuisine, and music from a young age. Ancient and Medieval history and folklore remain major influences on my writing.
Master storyteller Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a few things to say about Atlantis. In The Maracot Deep, young zoologist Cyrus Headley travels to the edge of a deep ocean trench with a team of explorers. Suddenly, a giant sea monster attacks them and hurls them down into the trench. The explorers are rescued by the survivors of the destroyed Atlantis, who have dwelled on the seafloor for the past 8,000 years. Will Headley and his companions ever return to the surface again, or will they remain trapped for the rest of their lives like the Atlanteans? Readers expecting this novel to be like his earlier Sherlock Holms stories are in for a surprise, as it explores the spiritual and occult ideas he pondered later in his life.
The Maracot Deep is one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's less known works that definitely deserves major recognition for its craft and originality. One of the first works of literature since the ancient historians, it explores the theme of the lost city of Atlantis in an enchanting tale about the expedition of Professor Maracot and his team of explorers to the bottom of the ocean.
I have written a well-received biography of Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the Sherlock Holmes stories. So, I am ideally placed to turn my attention from the real-life author to his gloriously rich fictional subject and blend their experiences of the late nineteenth-century world they both inhabited. This beautifully illustrated book brings Conan Doyle’s life and times into focus and shows how they influenced every aspect of his marvelous creation.
This is a riveting overview of Conan Doyle's life and times. Strongly grounded in the man himself's writings, it deals comprehensively with various topics that occupied him throughout his life, including sport, medicine, science, law and order, army and empire, and spirit. It is full of scholarship and endless fascination.
From the early stories, to the great popular triumphs of the Sherlock Holmes tales and the Professor Challenger adventures, the ambitious historical fiction, the campaigns against injustice, and the Spiritualist writings of his later years, Conan Doyle produced a wealth of narratives. He had a worldwide reputation and was one of the most popular authors of the age.
A critical study of the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle and a cultural biography, this is a book for students of literary and cultural history, and Conan Doyle enthusiasts. It is a full account of all of his writing, and an investigation…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I define myself as a hopeless romantic and look for books that put me in the feels. When one does, it tends to last with me forever, if not a very long time. I read a range of books, and for me, a love story just makes my heart full like nothing else. I don’t care if it’s fantasy romance, contemporary romance, historical romance, etc. As you can see, I’m versed in genre romance all the way to the classics. Give me all the love stories.
This book is a joy from start to finish! The writing is quippy, lighthearted, and witty.
I loved this story so much for it’s perfect exploration of the sunshine grump trope. Penny and Willem are a delight! I also really enjoyed the way Clare weaved in magic into a mundane world. It was easy to understand and was also incredibly believable.
Enemies-to-lovers has never been more enchanting in this witchy romantic comedy from the New York Times bestselling author of Go Hex Yourself.
Penny Roundtree wants nothing more than to be a familiar to a witch. She’s been a member of the Society of Familiars ever since she was old enough to join the Fam. There’s just a small problem—no one’s hiring. Witches and warlocks are so long-lived that there are far more familiars available than witches to train them. So when an unorthodox arrangement to apprentice under the table to a forbidden warlock…
