Zoo City is an urban fantasy, but with a feel that's akin to cyberpunk.
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wikiA simple one. Fantasy with dinosaurs, preferably in an original setting. They should still be a natural part of the fauna, like the dinosaurs in Chult from the Forgotten Realms, and not like the zombie T-Rex from The Dresden Files, and I'd rather it not be set in a modern day Earth on a "lost world" type of island or whatever, otherwise it doesn't matter if it's high, low, heroic or epic. I think there's a lot of potential for dinosaurs in fantasy, but they're rarely seen outside games.
For we shall slay evil with logic...I want to feel immersed in as fantasy world.
Great forests or great cities. Magic. Adventuring. Fairytale stories.
The setting is what I'm after really.
Preferably not too dark. Young Adult fiction would also be acceptable.
Note:
- Forgotten Realms stuff can occasionally be a little like what I'm looking for, but usually it's not a great read. In any case I've read most of them.
- Lot R is also pretty close. But I've read it.
- Feist's A Faery Tale it's in line with what I'm looking for.
- I'm not actually that keen on Dn D style adventuring.
edited 6th Oct '13 4:20:03 AM by UltimatelySubjective
The Chronicles of Amber?
The Land of Elyon?
Tales Before Tolkien? (That's an anthology of fantasy stories, which I highly recommend.)
ERROR: The current state of the world is unacceptable. Save anyway? YES/NOGiven that you seem to be looking for a mainstream high fantasy adventure, I'm going to recommend the Wheel Of Time series. It's not high literature, but I find it a great amount of fun.
And it has detail.
Lots of detail.
Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of detail.
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.Tried works from Sanderson's Cosmere? Yeah, I know I rec them for just about everything, but they tend to have great atmosphere. The Mistborn Trilogy, Elantris and The Emperors Soul, Warbreaker and, for a particularly alien and cool fantasy world, TheWayOfKings.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.For slightly older stuff, I might suggest Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd And The Gray Mouser stories, set in the strange and fantastic world of Newhon, or perhaps Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant. I'll note that the latter can be a little... densely-written, sometimes. Don't be put off by the similarity to The Lord of the Rings: the similarity is there, but it's superficial, I feel.
Rather more recently, I've been rather impressed by Patrick Rothfuss's The Kingkiller Chronicle (The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear thus far, I believe): an interesting world, good characters and some unusual and clever magic systems. I'm very much looking forward to the third book in the series.
edited 14th Oct '13 10:28:47 AM by ArsThaumaturgis
My Games and Asset Packs
Be aware, however, that a certain moment early on in The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant is very, very dark (in the sense of the protagonist arguably crossing the Moral Event Horizon) to the extent that it put me off reading the book the first time I tried to get through it.
edited 14th Oct '13 3:48:54 PM by BokhuraBurnes
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.Shannon Hale's books are good. Fairy tales. they tend to start a little slow, but the world building is worth it. They're really beautifully written. Goose Girl and Book of a Thousand Days are retellings, and Princess Academy is not, but all three are wonderful. Goose Girl and Princess academy both have sequels, which were pretty good. they are YA, not too dark, but have real danger and adventure, real peril not just "oh no this romance isn't working out" drama. great villains. really great villains. great writing. really cool systems of religion and magic... check them out. Goose girl and Book of a Thousand days are also fantastic as audio books through Full Cast Audio.
Also you may like Tamora Pierce. she does GREAT world building, and she's written tons of books.
Got a degree in Emotional trauma via fictional characters aka creative writing. hosting S'mores party in Hell for fellow (evil) writersHopefully this one will be simpler than my other request. I'm looking for fantasy novels (most likely a series) that use Loads and Loads of Races on a single planet, since I'm interested in seeing several examples of how they'd be handled in such a medium. I'm not looking for works that are based on established game settings, and I've already read most of the Narnia books, but I'm looking for something less fairy-tale-like and preferably without portals to "the real world". The page for Loads and Loads of Races specifies 15 races, but even 8 will do, as long as it's not just variants on elves or something like that.
edited 28th Oct '13 6:44:43 AM by supergod
For we shall slay evil with logic...It's that time of year when I feel I should read something. Something similar to Douglas Adams or Jasper Fforde, but I've read everything of theirs I'm interested in.
Fresh-eyed movie blogParadox: Terry Pratchett Terry Pratchett Terry Pratchett.
Okay, just finished reading the entirety of the Dresden Files, and the Iron Druid Chronicles.
I NEEDS MO' URBAN FANTASY.
And not the silly kind with all the romance. Romance should most certainly be a subplot, and not the focus.
Any ideas?
edited 30th Oct '13 1:33:31 PM by BluBeriPi
The first book may seem a little romance-heavy at first, compared to Dresden, but it is a misleading distraction.
ERROR: The current state of the world is unacceptable. Save anyway? YES/NO@Blu Beri Pi: Are you thinking of Urban fantasy in the European or the American sense? (European: fantasy set in a city; American: contemporary fantasy.)
The two authors who can be said started the current trend for urban fantasy are Emma Bull with War for the Oaks and Charles De Lint with Jack, the Giant Killer, and later his Newport stories (lots and lots of books).
But be aware that there are effectively two different traditions that are both labeled "urban fantasy".
I would recommend Percy Jackson And The Olympians, if you are looking for Young Adult Urban Fantasy. I would recommend that you start from the first one(I know that it's a bit obvious, but you will really appreciate it more if you read it from the start.)
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When speaking of the genre contemporary fantasy, I mean fantasy set in a world contemporary with the writer.
There are lots of urban non-contemporary fantasy, and with urban I restrict myself to works where there is interaction between the city and the characters, and the city is an evolving and changing thing.
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville is probably the most famous example in the genre; it's dense, baroque, and crapsack enough for any four other books (four, since it's a doorstopper).
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner.
City of Bones by Martha Wells
, as well as several more books by her that I haven't read.
Pratchett's later books set in Ankh-Morpork has toyed with this as well, like Going Postal and The Truth. (The earlier city watch books also had elements of this, but not as strong.)
Several of Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books, like Jhereg (the first one published).
The first book in PC Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath series, God Stalk.
The first book in the The Heirs of Alexandria series, The Shadow Of The Lion.
That should be enough to get you started. I'm not sure the other wiki's pages on the topic are that helpful - they use the "European" definition at first, but then becomes confused and seems to only pick works according to the "American" definition.
edited 8th Nov '13 7:08:16 AM by kjnoren
Lots of races on the same planet? Easy peasy. The Belgariad and Malloreon books by David and Leigh Eddings. And all those races have their own gods, which adds to the "fun". Copious amounts of fighting, descriptions of politics that aren't half as boring as some of the stuff in our world, really good world building and an overriding sense of the writers having fun while they were writing the books, which is transferred seamlessly to the reader. They are good for young adults and above, though I wasn't in the former category when I started reading - I was a bit younger than that.
Every other fantasy and sci-fi book I read afterwards owed their being read at all to the Eddings'. I miss them both.
7x
Stormdancer and Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff is Japanese steampunk/magic punk, with a female protagonist and limited romance subplots. Daughter of the Blade/Year of the Demon are crime/police novels with some urban fantasy elements regarding Japanese artifacts. Also a female protagonist , no romance. Oddly enough both series are written by white dudes.

Perdido Street Station and the other books in China Mieville's Bas-Lag Cycle might work. It's still semi-steampunk, but it's advanced enough to have robotics.
edited 23rd Sep '13 8:30:53 AM by BokhuraBurnes
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.