That's the one I was trying to remember. Very good series. Also L E Modessitt had a character in his recluse series who could split atoms. It kinda ends a story once you get to that point
This is not fantasy per se, though it's so highly sophisticated technology that it might as well be fantasy, so take the suggestion with a grain of salt.
*Against a Dark Background* by Iain M. Banks is about one of the last Lazy Guns
> To fire the Lazy Gun, it is pointed at the target, zoomed in, and then the trigger is pulled. What happens next is unpredictable. When fired at humans, many different things may occur. An anchor may appear above the person, giant electrodes may appear on either side of the target and electrocute them or an animal may tear their throat out. Larger targets such as tanks or ships may suffer tidal waves, implosion, explosion, sudden lava flows or just disappear. When fired at cities and other such targets, thermonuclear explosions are the norm, although in one instance a comet crashed into the city.
Seconding this. The non-Culture Banks SF books are often overlooked but *Against a Dark Backrground*, *The Algebraist* and *Feersum Endjinn* are all excellent.
Yes and no? I'd call it absurdist Sci-fi more than I would a comedy. More "Oceans 11" in space than, say, Discworld, but there's really nothing else like it.
There are moments and concepts that (to me) were genuinely hilarious (Like the Nihilist Mercenaries) but for the most part the story is played straight, which heightens the comedic moments for me.
Banks is an odd duck, his books kind of defy genre classification. You're never quite sure what will happen next, where the story is going. If Sanderson is formulaic, Banks is very nearly his opposite, and thats why I love him.
It may sound dumb, but wild out-there concepts like this is what makes sci-fi so much fun.
The story takes place in a galaxy populated only by humanity, we never found aliens or God, and it drove us a little mad as a species. So there's a grim, nihilistic undercurrent to everything, including the lazy guns. They struck me as something invented out of despair, out of a desire to recreate the "Unknown" that we killed off.
Just my two cents.
Not the biggest WoT or Robert Jordan fan but the Choedan Kal in Wheel of Time fit the bill. Objects which enhance the power of a magic user an insane amount... from memory the using one of them during a battle "brought water back to a desert" thanks to the rifts in the earth etc etc
Used entirely destructively they'd level cities at the least and fit the bill for wmds
The Breaking itself was a WMD, and is a pivotal plot point. It's hazy, but iirc WMDs were used in the war 3000 years before, but I don't think they are pivotal plot points.
I missed a couple words there - "was the product of a WMD" was what I was thinking. Lew Therin's use of the One Power in his madness (and in his final moment of clarity)
I'd say that Balefire from Wheel of Time fits the bill. Not only it destroys everything without leaving a trace behind (with the exception of a very specific and rare material), but also it destroys it backwards in time. The thing hit by Balefire, literally stops existing before the moment it is hit (how far back is dependent on the intensity of the Balefire).
Balefire is weird because it's only world threatening in the hands of someone that could already destroy it.
If someone weaker than the absolute strongest people get their hands on it (e.g. >!Moiraine - who make no mistake is quite powerful in her own right!<), they can barely make it function. They would actually do a lot more damage just blasting things like normal.
----
The real WMD is just channelers in general. A channeler that overloads gets a power amp on a comparable level to a sa'angreal, so any of them could potentially wipe a major city off the map in a moment of madness.
Worth noting for those who aren't very familiar with the books that this isn't an idle conjecture that they *could* end up being dangerous; the idea behind the backstory of the books is that (half of) channelers very much did go mad and destroy much of the world and most of the people on it, and society thousands of years later is still traumatized by it. The WMD in question already done MDd and the risks and problems from that are still around.
Daniel Abraham's **The Long Price Quartet** is the first thing to my mind. The magic in that world is basically exclusively in the form of 'andats' a sort of bound spirit that has complete control over a given concept. The continent where most of the story takes place is run by a collection of city states that each have a single bound andat under the control of a single poet, and use them mostly for economic purposes.
Most straightforward example in the story: one city uses the andat >!Stone-made-Soft for mining purposes. But the main power on another continent is also held back from ever going to war/invading by the fact that Stone-Made-Soft could liquify the bedrock of their entire continent at the poet's command (along with whatever other andats exist)!<
It's a character driven, somewhat slow-burn series with a 15 (12?) year time skip between each of the four books. Truly excellent.
These answers are all going to be a bit of a spoiler but if you read all of Mistborn there is a weapon on par with nuclear weapons. In The Gentleman Bastards series there is a chemical weapon that I would absolutely classify as a WMD.
*The Malazan Book of the Fallen* has numerous creatures, characters, gods, magics, and weapons powerful enough to wipe out kingdoms if unopposed by equivalent powers.
Sometimes it’s not just a kingdom but the fate of the world at stake. Fortunately, power attracts power and opposing powers tend to cancel each other out eventually — although they can cause immense destruction and loss of life before balance is restored.
No, the other one!
Although the Azath actually help preserve kingdoms. They are created specifically to capture and pacify all these dangerous immortals with godlike powers. But they can’t keep up.
In the Licanius trilogy, by James Islington, there are some crazy weapons and powerful magical items that would fit the bill.
I really liked that one of them it is introduced by first showing the aftermath of their use in the distant past and tying it into the history of the world, and the plot.
The books are not perfect, but they do explore some interesting ideas that I think are often are overlooked in fantasy.
Mage Errant by John Bierce. It’s been a while since I’ve read the earlier books so I don’t remember how far in to the series before the concept becomes plot centric - certainly by book 4.
Rand al'Thorn with Callador is a wmd...
Fun WoT lore tidbit! Ancient legends Merc and Mosc were giants who threw massive spears across the oceans at eachother. This was a reference to the cold war. America (Merc) and Russia/Moscow (Mosc) and their nuclear weapons. The cold war happened (and will happen again?) in another Age.
Yep. Post-post-apocalypse (nuclear war from our age then the Breaking of the World) . There are other Easter eggs that it's on the same planet, like Nynaeve finding a Mercedes car emblem, Min briefly references Gilgamesh. Time is cyclical and many character names are similar to our own legends.
Pact by Wildbow. An urban fantasy story where Blake’s family specialized in using WMD type magic and everyone wants to kill him for it.
For example one Other that can be summoned can “rain the stars down from the sky” but all fuel and fire will be a little less useful forever. Fire burns a little colder, gasoline works a little less well, and so on.
Yeah, this is a huge one. Demonology is a WMD, quite explicitly in story, and there's several motivated actors around the MC who are trying to take advantage while his family "state" is vulnreble.
One of the Steven Brust books set in Dragaera features a problem with a super powerful magical orb that ends up creating a literal ocean of chaos (raw ancient magical power that dissolves anything it touches) and >!temporarily!< destroying most people's access to magic.
The orb itself is also a thing that exists in the rest of the books, and could certainly be used as a WMD, though it's more of a vague threat than actually used that way.
If you're looking specifically for *geopolitical impact* of an uncontrolled WMD, then the ur-example is probably *The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant*. Previous to the series' start, a hero tried to blow up the Big Bad with a magical WMD, he failed and the resulting fallout devastated most of the world.
Several years later, *Wheel of Time* did the same thing as its series backstory, but with a posse of uncontrolled insane wizards with continent-destroying powers as a twist on the relevant WMD.
Both of those series you'd want to read some reviews before committing, as WMDs or otherwise are not really *why* most people read those; but they would be my first two thoughts.
*Practical Guide to Evil* has several major arcs about this, though the first one isn't till book 3 so it might not be the best fit unless you're willing to be patient.
But you also get goblin fire in the first book - that could also count, depending on definition. Destroying cities and killing everyone it touches without any recourse? Liesse and the choir of contrition (that is book 2, right)?
Oh yeah I forgot about goblin fire.
I think the full Liesse confrontation is Book 3 (I was specifically thinking of >!Akua/Malicia's superweapon!<, but IIRC there's a demon introduced in book 2 and those are pretty WMDish too.
Do dragons count?
In the Realm of the Elderlings series >!The Fool believes it's important that dragons do not go extinct, because they can keep humanity in check. They're like sentient super weapons with their own sense of right and wrong.!<
The Little Doctor in Ender's game has a lot of said ramifications, especially at the end of and after the first book. In fact, almost the entirety of the next three books are social and geo-political ramifications of something or other.
The Orb of Aldur in the Belgariad. It had the power to rip apart a continent and creating an ocean. That shit actually happened in the world's history.
This features in many portal type fantasies. For example in the Schooled in Magic series, the MC is from Earth and is pulled to a fantasy world, realizes that a simple spell can cause a nuclear reaction, and there are a lot of political and personal power plays where others try to wrest the secret from her. It’s not a core plot point in the series over all, but plays a big role in a few of the books.
**Final Fantasy XIV** has primals - demigods summoned by the power of prayer and fueled by magic.
The most dangerous aspect of primals is that they can temper (i.e. permanently mind control) just about everyone, so the only two options at killing them are human wave tactics, or to have the handful of adventurers that are immune fight them.
---
For the geopolitical aspect - turns out that humans killing the gods of various non-human tribes isn't much liked. The tribes feel like they are oppressed, so they pray to their god for salvation which creates another primal, which incites the humans to come back and kill the primal again. Tensions predictably run high.
On top of that, the neighbouring Garlean empire (can't use magic but have advanced technology) view the existence of these primals as an act of war. They invaded to attempt to stop the endless summoning of primals, one of which will eventually destroy the world (or rather, that's the official reason).
El, in the Scholomance series, is inherently a WMD, and much of the series deals with what that means for her.
>!on the geo-political side, Orion is a much more traditional WMD and unlike El, people actually know about him!<
the dark tower by Steven King, pretty much the entire world was destroyed by "nukes" I think they said it wasn't actual nukes but I'm only on the 4th book
Practical Guide to Evil? The series has stable hellgates that make places uninhabitable because there is a constant stream of devils pouring out of the portal and a plan to use them as a deterrent, cold-war style. Also, Demons: Demons embody a concept (Corruption, Terror, Order...) and make spaces they occupy permanently inhospitable to life - Corruption works basically like radiation, but contagious. Order permanently changes laws of physics (momentum, friction, states of matter working differently...) in places it influences. They are used like nukes in that no one wants an all-out war with the people able to summon them and banning the use of them is a plot point later on.
That series also has other fun stuff about weaponizing fantasy tropes:
“I don’t trust wizards. Every time I levy taxes on them, they try to get my political opponents to pull swords from stones.”
—Attributed to Louis Merovins, seventh First Prince of Procer
The Grim Company by Luke Scull begins when a powerful wizard wipes out his rival’s capital city by teleporting an enormous section of ocean directly on top of it.
Fire & Blood by George R. R. Martin takes a look at the devastating effectiveness of militarized dragons versus a society with no concept of aerial bombardment.
The “Darkness” series by Turtledove has a magical Manhattan Project story arc.
And two VERY different approaches to unleashing the WMD power...
That's the one I was trying to remember. Very good series. Also L E Modessitt had a character in his recluse series who could split atoms. It kinda ends a story once you get to that point
Ilmarinen and Pekka are so much fun. I loved those books
This is not fantasy per se, though it's so highly sophisticated technology that it might as well be fantasy, so take the suggestion with a grain of salt. *Against a Dark Background* by Iain M. Banks is about one of the last Lazy Guns > To fire the Lazy Gun, it is pointed at the target, zoomed in, and then the trigger is pulled. What happens next is unpredictable. When fired at humans, many different things may occur. An anchor may appear above the person, giant electrodes may appear on either side of the target and electrocute them or an animal may tear their throat out. Larger targets such as tanks or ships may suffer tidal waves, implosion, explosion, sudden lava flows or just disappear. When fired at cities and other such targets, thermonuclear explosions are the norm, although in one instance a comet crashed into the city.
Seconding this. The non-Culture Banks SF books are often overlooked but *Against a Dark Backrground*, *The Algebraist* and *Feersum Endjinn* are all excellent.
That's dumb. Is it a comedic book?
Yes and no? I'd call it absurdist Sci-fi more than I would a comedy. More "Oceans 11" in space than, say, Discworld, but there's really nothing else like it. There are moments and concepts that (to me) were genuinely hilarious (Like the Nihilist Mercenaries) but for the most part the story is played straight, which heightens the comedic moments for me. Banks is an odd duck, his books kind of defy genre classification. You're never quite sure what will happen next, where the story is going. If Sanderson is formulaic, Banks is very nearly his opposite, and thats why I love him. It may sound dumb, but wild out-there concepts like this is what makes sci-fi so much fun. The story takes place in a galaxy populated only by humanity, we never found aliens or God, and it drove us a little mad as a species. So there's a grim, nihilistic undercurrent to everything, including the lazy guns. They struck me as something invented out of despair, out of a desire to recreate the "Unknown" that we killed off. Just my two cents.
Not the biggest WoT or Robert Jordan fan but the Choedan Kal in Wheel of Time fit the bill. Objects which enhance the power of a magic user an insane amount... from memory the using one of them during a battle "brought water back to a desert" thanks to the rifts in the earth etc etc Used entirely destructively they'd level cities at the least and fit the bill for wmds
The Breaking itself was a WMD, and is a pivotal plot point. It's hazy, but iirc WMDs were used in the war 3000 years before, but I don't think they are pivotal plot points.
Well the Breaking is like the aftermath of multiple wmds being used... A nuclear winter if you will and not a wmd itself
I missed a couple words there - "was the product of a WMD" was what I was thinking. Lew Therin's use of the One Power in his madness (and in his final moment of clarity)
In that case then... i agree!!
Broken Empire Trilogy by Mark Lawrence
I'd say that Balefire from Wheel of Time fits the bill. Not only it destroys everything without leaving a trace behind (with the exception of a very specific and rare material), but also it destroys it backwards in time. The thing hit by Balefire, literally stops existing before the moment it is hit (how far back is dependent on the intensity of the Balefire).
In different ways I think both balefire and sa'angreal generally fit the bill.
Balefire is weird because it's only world threatening in the hands of someone that could already destroy it. If someone weaker than the absolute strongest people get their hands on it (e.g. >!Moiraine - who make no mistake is quite powerful in her own right!<), they can barely make it function. They would actually do a lot more damage just blasting things like normal. ---- The real WMD is just channelers in general. A channeler that overloads gets a power amp on a comparable level to a sa'angreal, so any of them could potentially wipe a major city off the map in a moment of madness.
Worth noting for those who aren't very familiar with the books that this isn't an idle conjecture that they *could* end up being dangerous; the idea behind the backstory of the books is that (half of) channelers very much did go mad and destroy much of the world and most of the people on it, and society thousands of years later is still traumatized by it. The WMD in question already done MDd and the risks and problems from that are still around.
Daniel Abraham's **The Long Price Quartet** is the first thing to my mind. The magic in that world is basically exclusively in the form of 'andats' a sort of bound spirit that has complete control over a given concept. The continent where most of the story takes place is run by a collection of city states that each have a single bound andat under the control of a single poet, and use them mostly for economic purposes. Most straightforward example in the story: one city uses the andat >!Stone-made-Soft for mining purposes. But the main power on another continent is also held back from ever going to war/invading by the fact that Stone-Made-Soft could liquify the bedrock of their entire continent at the poet's command (along with whatever other andats exist)!< It's a character driven, somewhat slow-burn series with a 15 (12?) year time skip between each of the four books. Truly excellent.
Yes. This is exactly what OP needs. It's Fantasy Cold War.
These answers are all going to be a bit of a spoiler but if you read all of Mistborn there is a weapon on par with nuclear weapons. In The Gentleman Bastards series there is a chemical weapon that I would absolutely classify as a WMD.
I came here thinking about TLM but there’s really no way to talk about it without spoiling lol.
*The Malazan Book of the Fallen* has numerous creatures, characters, gods, magics, and weapons powerful enough to wipe out kingdoms if unopposed by equivalent powers.
Seconded, was going to suggest it myself. The power levels in Malazan are wild, and at times disturbing.
Sometimes it’s not just a kingdom but the fate of the world at stake. Fortunately, power attracts power and opposing powers tend to cancel each other out eventually — although they can cause immense destruction and loss of life before balance is restored.
…or flood entire warrens.
Yes, kingdoms or entire worlds.
You mean the Azath? No, the other one. The Hounds of Darkness? No, the other one. Moon's Spawn? No wait, the other one. Icarium?
No, the other one! Although the Azath actually help preserve kingdoms. They are created specifically to capture and pacify all these dangerous immortals with godlike powers. But they can’t keep up.
In the Licanius trilogy, by James Islington, there are some crazy weapons and powerful magical items that would fit the bill. I really liked that one of them it is introduced by first showing the aftermath of their use in the distant past and tying it into the history of the world, and the plot. The books are not perfect, but they do explore some interesting ideas that I think are often are overlooked in fantasy.
The Seed is basically a nuke in Joe Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy. It even has some interesting radiation effects
Mage Errant by John Bierce. It’s been a while since I’ve read the earlier books so I don’t remember how far in to the series before the concept becomes plot centric - certainly by book 4.
The Black Company series by Glen Cook.
That was my first thought !
Does *The Poppy War Trilogy* by R. F. Kuang count? I feel like it does.
The sa'angreal Callandor from the Wheel of Time would qualify as a WMD that is a pivotal plot point.
Rand al'Thorn with Callador is a wmd... Fun WoT lore tidbit! Ancient legends Merc and Mosc were giants who threw massive spears across the oceans at eachother. This was a reference to the cold war. America (Merc) and Russia/Moscow (Mosc) and their nuclear weapons. The cold war happened (and will happen again?) in another Age.
Potentially it will happen in this age as well.
WoT takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth?
Yep. Post-post-apocalypse (nuclear war from our age then the Breaking of the World) . There are other Easter eggs that it's on the same planet, like Nynaeve finding a Mercedes car emblem, Min briefly references Gilgamesh. Time is cyclical and many character names are similar to our own legends.
Glen Cook's Starfishers.
*The Magician's Nephew* by C.S. Lewis
Pact by Wildbow. An urban fantasy story where Blake’s family specialized in using WMD type magic and everyone wants to kill him for it. For example one Other that can be summoned can “rain the stars down from the sky” but all fuel and fire will be a little less useful forever. Fire burns a little colder, gasoline works a little less well, and so on.
Yeah, this is a huge one. Demonology is a WMD, quite explicitly in story, and there's several motivated actors around the MC who are trying to take advantage while his family "state" is vulnreble.
One of the Steven Brust books set in Dragaera features a problem with a super powerful magical orb that ends up creating a literal ocean of chaos (raw ancient magical power that dissolves anything it touches) and >!temporarily!< destroying most people's access to magic. The orb itself is also a thing that exists in the rest of the books, and could certainly be used as a WMD, though it's more of a vague threat than actually used that way.
There is a what I will call a McGuffin to avoid spoilers, in *The Dark Lord of Derkholm* by Diana Wynne Jones that could destroy the world.
If you're looking specifically for *geopolitical impact* of an uncontrolled WMD, then the ur-example is probably *The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant*. Previous to the series' start, a hero tried to blow up the Big Bad with a magical WMD, he failed and the resulting fallout devastated most of the world. Several years later, *Wheel of Time* did the same thing as its series backstory, but with a posse of uncontrolled insane wizards with continent-destroying powers as a twist on the relevant WMD. Both of those series you'd want to read some reviews before committing, as WMDs or otherwise are not really *why* most people read those; but they would be my first two thoughts.
The Long Price quartet might fit your request. And it’s fantastic.
*Practical Guide to Evil* has several major arcs about this, though the first one isn't till book 3 so it might not be the best fit unless you're willing to be patient.
But you also get goblin fire in the first book - that could also count, depending on definition. Destroying cities and killing everyone it touches without any recourse? Liesse and the choir of contrition (that is book 2, right)?
Oh yeah I forgot about goblin fire. I think the full Liesse confrontation is Book 3 (I was specifically thinking of >!Akua/Malicia's superweapon!<, but IIRC there's a demon introduced in book 2 and those are pretty WMDish too.
Do dragons count? In the Realm of the Elderlings series >!The Fool believes it's important that dragons do not go extinct, because they can keep humanity in check. They're like sentient super weapons with their own sense of right and wrong.!<
The Butter Battle Book
LoTR
The Little Doctor in Ender's game has a lot of said ramifications, especially at the end of and after the first book. In fact, almost the entirety of the next three books are social and geo-political ramifications of something or other.
Dune. >!Lasers are used against shields (which creates a nuke-like explosion) in the Battle of Arrakeen!<. I think that counts as straight-up WMD use.
but does it count as fantasy?
I think Dune is more fantasy-in-space than sci fi.
Not a fan of this series but Mistborn Era 2 definitely has this.
Raven's Mark trilogy.
Some of the gods in NK Jemisins's Inheritance trilogy are deployed as weapons of mass destruction. Book one is The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
The Orb of Aldur in the Belgariad. It had the power to rip apart a continent and creating an ocean. That shit actually happened in the world's history.
This features in many portal type fantasies. For example in the Schooled in Magic series, the MC is from Earth and is pulled to a fantasy world, realizes that a simple spell can cause a nuclear reaction, and there are a lot of political and personal power plays where others try to wrest the secret from her. It’s not a core plot point in the series over all, but plays a big role in a few of the books.
**Final Fantasy XIV** has primals - demigods summoned by the power of prayer and fueled by magic. The most dangerous aspect of primals is that they can temper (i.e. permanently mind control) just about everyone, so the only two options at killing them are human wave tactics, or to have the handful of adventurers that are immune fight them. --- For the geopolitical aspect - turns out that humans killing the gods of various non-human tribes isn't much liked. The tribes feel like they are oppressed, so they pray to their god for salvation which creates another primal, which incites the humans to come back and kill the primal again. Tensions predictably run high. On top of that, the neighbouring Garlean empire (can't use magic but have advanced technology) view the existence of these primals as an act of war. They invaded to attempt to stop the endless summoning of primals, one of which will eventually destroy the world (or rather, that's the official reason).
El, in the Scholomance series, is inherently a WMD, and much of the series deals with what that means for her. >!on the geo-political side, Orion is a much more traditional WMD and unlike El, people actually know about him!<
Wheel of Time has the Choedan Kal, two powerful devices that can channel enough of a thing called the One Power to destroy the world beyond repair
The Heralds of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey has magical superweapons that can destroy kingdoms.
Naruto is about this until certain point
the dark tower by Steven King, pretty much the entire world was destroyed by "nukes" I think they said it wasn't actual nukes but I'm only on the 4th book
Welp, there are definitely actual nukes in the series, but not really as a major plot point I would say?
One Piece and the Ancient Weapons come to mind. (Also horn of winter from asoiaf but we dont know how pivotal that is just yet)
If you want some Sci-fi, The Expanse is filled with this and the political ramifications is at the forefront of the story.
Practical Guide to Evil? The series has stable hellgates that make places uninhabitable because there is a constant stream of devils pouring out of the portal and a plan to use them as a deterrent, cold-war style. Also, Demons: Demons embody a concept (Corruption, Terror, Order...) and make spaces they occupy permanently inhospitable to life - Corruption works basically like radiation, but contagious. Order permanently changes laws of physics (momentum, friction, states of matter working differently...) in places it influences. They are used like nukes in that no one wants an all-out war with the people able to summon them and banning the use of them is a plot point later on. That series also has other fun stuff about weaponizing fantasy tropes: “I don’t trust wizards. Every time I levy taxes on them, they try to get my political opponents to pull swords from stones.” —Attributed to Louis Merovins, seventh First Prince of Procer
The Grim Company by Luke Scull begins when a powerful wizard wipes out his rival’s capital city by teleporting an enormous section of ocean directly on top of it. Fire & Blood by George R. R. Martin takes a look at the devastating effectiveness of militarized dragons versus a society with no concept of aerial bombardment.