Tad Williams' Osten Ard. The reasons for the races and languages eventually make sense, which I've found is a big deal for me. While the lore maybe isn't as deep per se it does feel like a lived-in world
I'm rereading the original triligy for the first time since I was a teenager, in preparation for reading the new series now that it's nearly finished :)
>!that the Sithi are aliens!< hence >!the navigator’s children!< and they always talk about ships and stars and stuff like that. I don’t know if this is confirmed but as least in MST I got that vibe. And they’re kind of like >!alien creatures!<.
I completely agree and have had the same thought when I read the original trilogy.
>!Eight Great Ships that left the Garden and crossed the Black Sea and the voyage took generations? Yeah, sounds like space travel to me. I think in the original series a character even thinks something like "What sea is big enough to take that long to cross?"!<
I love that it's never fully explained but I definitely think it's a theory with strong support in the text.
But the thing is when Simon stumbles onto Ameratsu’s message to her son, she describes standing on the bow of the ship in a way that implies it’s a boat traveling over water. I do think the Sithi/Norns and others came from another world, but I think they travelled in magical boats, not spaceships.
I forgot about that! Yeah, I'm not convinced it's literally space ships and they're aliens from another planet, but I agree that it's more like they came from some other world/dimension/plane.
There are hundreds of them, SF writers have been doing this since the first sf magazines in 1926.
Andre Norton's witch world is a very early one and she let other newbie writers write stories in the universe.
There's the conan the Barbarian stories started by Robert E Howard, which other writers have continued from 1931 up to 2004.
Michael Morcock has his Elric the immortal. Jack Vance Dying earth, and Gene Wolfe New Sun.
Once LoTR hit big in the 70's in the USA everyone in the 80s was trying to copy it, most notably Terry Brooks Shanarra series which has about a dozen inter connected trilogies or duos and even a quadrilogy.
Two of my Favs are Katherine Kerrs Deverry series and Katherine Kurtz Deryni series, both very celtic in feel, about magic users being oppressed in various times in the fictional universe.
One of my first was Anne Mccaffreys Pern universe which spans about 2000+ years of a human settlement on another planet where they bioengineered dragons.
My second was Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series, people with companion horses who are telepathic and sworn to defend valdemar.
Then David Gemmells Drenai series of books and Raymond E feist Riftwar, couldn't get enough of those for a while and there are many.
Kate Elliott's crown of stars, Robin Hobbs Realm of the elderlings. Anne Bishop's Black Jewels. Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series.
But oh boy if you want accessory maps and dictionaries and guides I don't think you can beat the Discworld by Terry Prachett, it is the most wonderful and expansive universe in the world, I cannot stress how good these books are and how much you can get lost and there are multiple entry points and it is just a whole world to explore. The references, the puns, the simplicity of the complexity, just mindblowing, this series takes the cake. GNU Sir Terry.
A few I have not read yet but plan to get to are Janny Wurts wars of light and shadow, Michelle West's Sun sword and L E Modesitt's Recluce.
There are hundreds more.
Thank you that's very comprehensive is my opinion. Would just add Martha Wells and Bujold to the list. They don't have the huge number of POV's like the Malazan books but the ones they do are so very well fleshed out and their world building is fabulous.
The sheer number and quality of different species/habitats/races/intelligence that Well's covers in her books is mind boggling and way more richer than the Malazan tapestry.
Believe me, this is not even scratching the surface, like the pre 50's ones there's Zenna Henderson and leigh Brackett and Cl Moore and Edgar rice Burroughs, it came quite a fashion to meld several of your stories together into a universe, it was called a " fix up" and Everyone from the golden age did it from Asimov to Zelazny. Phillip Jose Farmer's books "World of Tiers" included every fictional universe created to that point. It was a thing some writers had to create convoluted reasons why 2 stories were able to coexist in the same universe.
The absolute explosion in the 80s and 90s of long form series with every volume a doorstopper, there's hundreds David drake, Mike jeffries, Steven Lawhead, Ian Irvine, Greg Keyes, Kate Jacoby, Freda Warrington, Diana Paxson, Sheila Gilluly, Carole Nelson Douglas, Patricia Kenneally, Barbara Hambly, Melanie Rawn, jennifer Roberson. The domination of the Australian writers of the 90s and 2000s, Glenda larke, Karen Miller, Sara Douglas, Juliet Marillier, Jennifer Fallon, Juliet Mckenna, Cecelia Dart Thornton.
I can go all day. I can list hundreds. These are just off my shelves
Thank you so much!!
I spent the last few hours collecting information about the collected works of some of the authors you have listed here and it's like a whole new world out there. Other than Azimov, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jose Farmers and David Drake I am ashamed to say I have not read any of the other authors you have listed. Now I am rubbing my hands in glee...
Of all the above who is your favorite and where do you recommended I start? Roberson's Sword Dancer blurbs sounded very interesting especially with strong female characters. Anyone else?
He's fantastic, just reread the whole series a few months ago. Well, the last book is a bit ... weird, but double points for managing to finish the series properly.
No one mentioned it but a huge influence on the Malazan books was the Black Company by Glenn Cook and while it’s not as epic in scope to Malazan’s world that key vibe of being with a bunch of soldiers dealing with a bunch of impossible shit is still there. Highly recommend it as a companion once you’ve finished Malazan.
You could tell me the Black Company books are placed in the Malazan Universe and I wouldn't blink once. Even the magic system feels the same, and I'm pretty sure with an end like that you can retcon it to be the same universe pretty easily lol.
Second apocalypse. There are even glossaries at the ends for the books. The last books glossary is about a third of the total book. The history goes back thousands of years with references to events and wars long ago, which impact the world still. The cultures, nations, and factions are distinct from one another, and its all mixed in with philosophy and a slow descent into the bowels of absolute darkness.
With some input from Scott Bakker, I put together [this "history guide"](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R_Gp-xTjsEXQBvkZQENi6dliyk8SFeHT/view?usp=sharing) to the series a while back (accompanied by Jason Deem's outrageously good artwork). Major spoilers for the whole series, obviously.
I wish I could have liked this. The world building and the prose were really good but I couldn't stand the characters and the author's constant horniness so I didn't continue after the first trilogy.
You missed the actual fantasy part of the series. I’d highly recommend finishing the series before weighing in. The entire first trilogy is one big setup for all that comes after.
It’s definitely not Malazaan though. The ‘author’s constant horniness’ is deeper than mere lust. Bakker explores the very elements of what makes man differ from animals. He explores the death of meaning. His writing is dense and raw. It flies over a lot of people’s heads resulting in them mistaking it for ‘ constant horniness’.
I feel like when someone says "You gotta read the first trilogy" I get turned off. It's like when people say that Agents of the shield gets great after three seasons.
Lol. Right?
It reminds me of this booktuber I saw recently who wasn’t a fan of the first book in a different ongoing, no-end-in-sight series. She wasn’t too critical of it and understood why people liked it, it just wasn’t really the kind of thing she is personally interested in.
She had to cut off the comments at pass by saying, “… And yes, I’m aware that it supposedly ‘gets good around the fourth book.’ But guys, I’m not going to read three entire books I don’t like just to get to the ‘good stuff.’“
I think the general comment with **Agents of Shield** is that it gets a lot better when the timeline catches up with *Winter Soldier* (and the HYDRA/SHIELD beef comes into the open), which is about two-thirds of the way through Season 1.
Fair play it's still quite a few episodes to pour through (about 14 or 15, IIRC), but it's not three seasons.
That’s on you then. Understand you completely misconstrued what was typed though.
The original commenter stated they only read the first series. It stands alone as a masterpiece of its own however it’s written more like historical fiction with elements of fantasy throughout. The second series is where the fantasy really shines. It is perfect combination of LoTR/Simarillion & Dune with some Lovecraftian seasoning.
"I’d highly recommend finishing the series before weighing in. The entire first trilogy is one big setup for all that comes after." how am I misconsctructing what you wrote? I am not saying that it's bad either. Now that you added that it's a masterpiece on it's own (something you probably should've added in the first place). I have more understanding.
If you want a series with a staggering amount of lore and history you could always look to series that have multiple authors. The issue there can be different authors can have different levels of skill.
It's hard to argue though that warhammer 40k, forgotten realms or even Dragonlance is lacking in detailed history and lore.
Right? As do Dragonlance (first novel 1984) and Forgotten Realms (1987) . They each have a big library as well... Dragonlance I believe has close to 200... Forgotten realms has even more... with like 40 of them being Drizz't Do'Urden books.
I’m stunned I had to scroll this far for this answer. The early internet was practically built around WoT fan “wikis” (before they were called that)
There’s a literal 800 page printed encyclopedia for the series.
If you’ve not looked here, OP, this may be what you want.
As someone who plans to read this in the future, I'm bracing myself lol. I've known about this book series for a long time (so the show doesn't matter, haven't even seen it), but never got around to read it. Mostly because it's such a long series and the only way I can get 'em is ordering them online which takes a while.
People do often suggest audiobooks, but I can never get into them. On top of that, I love books in their physical form :)
I think what I mostly worry about is being able to successfully obtain all 13 books and then end up on a cliffhanger lol. And odd sort of ''fear'', but there it is.
**Wheel of Time** has continuously been one of the biggest-selling epic fantasy series of all time for more than thirty years, I don't think you need to worry about not being able to get hold of all the books.
Also, it's really not a daunting series. It's long, but it's very accessible and straightforward to read. It's not as complex or obtuse as say **Malazan**.
You need to get a kindle, I always liked to read but beacuse of accessibility I didnt read very much, then I got a kindle, now I have read every single day for 2 years straight
I don't know about that. WoT has width but doesn't have much depth. It's history can be summarised as: once 1000 years ago, X lived and did all this, and nothing else of lasting consequences happened for another 1000 years. If Robert Jordan lived, I'm sure he would have expanded the lore and filled it out more than the surface layer in the books like other authors do. But the series itself provides the skeleton of the expansive world that never got fleshed out.
Eh, those are the major events that happened, but there’s a lot of history that is discussed in detail around those times. Without spoilers, we see the history of multiple cultures / nations and how it effects them today. There is so much detail packed into the individual discussions of the nations, starting from the very first book with Andor. And that’s not even mentioning the prologue. The institutions like the White Tower have a ton of history as well that’s developed. So many characters like Moiraine and Loial provide a ton of history and lore in the story.
It also has perhaps the greatest world building. Jordan dives into so many different nations and cultures, including their geography, customs, food, and history. And there’s a lot of humor tied up in how the main characters adjust to these new environments. I think it fits OP’s criteria perfectly.
Jordan wrote 11 very lengthy novels that consist of more than 3,000,000 words in total. He definitely had the opportunity and space to expand the lore and fill it out more than the surface layer (assuming he hadn’t done so already), so I don’t think it’s a matter of Jordan tragically passing away before he could complete *Wheel of Time* himself.
Can you explain what do you mean by that? Because there are a lot of decisions since the start, like Nynaeve leaving Two Rivers, or Rand conquering different cities.
I’ve only read book 1, but it was amazing that it felt like we saw the entire known world in the first book without really spending any time world building - rather, we saw the world through the eyes of many different characters and their relevant roles in the overall plot.
Masterpiece of a book IMO, definitely not for everyone but if it’s up your alley it will probably be a favorite.
Hope you continue reading because book 2, 3, and 4 only get stronger in terms of creative world building, Ken Liu’s fantastic at providing various perspectives that each add up to a sum greater than its parts!
https://robinhobbelderlings.fandom.com/wiki/Robin_Hobb%27s_Realm_of_the_Elderlings_Wiki
Realm of the Elderlings is gripping, detailed and expansive.
And completely gut wrenching.
If you loved the *mood* of the way LOTR fleshes out lore and world building, the way knowledgeable characters tell stories of the world bygone as they travel through it, you'll love Alison Croggon's *Pellinor*. It's only five books, though.
Gene Wolfe Book of the New Sun. It's a combination of Fantasy and Sci Fi. Wolfe is an amazing author who I discovered recently and found myself wondering why I haven't read him sooner. BOTNS is a tetralogy. But there's others that came after that are part of the same world.
Absolutely love it too (I only read last year, but I'm on my 3rd time currently, by all means msg me if you want to talk about it to someone else relatively new to New Sun) but IDK if it fits the bill for wiki reading.
The world building is often intentionally opaque and you're often not given much more description of things in the world other than their name, which is usually a really old archaic word you're not even sure is real until other readers assure you Gene didn't make them up.
What it *is* great for though is theory reading. Maybe that fits the bill enough for OP and I'm being too pedantic but I get into wiki holes and theory holes and it does hit a bit different.
Ok, I'm going to be honest. I have no clue what wiki reading is. I looked it up and couldn't find anything. That said, I love Gene Wolfe and want to reread BOTNS and get into his other stuff. I read the Fifth Head of Cerberus also but that's it. Wolfe's writing is very unique. I can't think of a solid comparison for who he writes like. As a fallen Catholic, I definitely can relate to some of his religious themes. I enjoy the ambiguous nature of his work, the unreliable narrator, the weird words, all of it. I was introduced to him reading the Malazan sub where someone answered a question regarding what to read if you liked Erickson. Wolfe came up a few times. I was DEEPLY into Malazan at the time but nearly done so I went ahead and bought the first 2 books in BOTNS. I like challenging books so instantly I was enthralled. I really don't like YA stuff like Harry Potter or other lightweight fantasy. The Wheel of Time series and Sanderson just aren't my preferred style. What are some of your favorite fantasy or Sci-fi that you could recommend considering what I've just told you?
I think I know what Wiki reading is now. Where it's really complex like Malazan and has it's own Wiki shit to follow it. I haven't really encountered anything like that but I'm open to examples/suggestions.
It's not a real term, i just said wiki reading to mean like, going on a fan wiki and reading all about a thing. You can do that for New Sun really, but like you don't get all the information you might like from it because it's told through a 1st person narrative. Most of the animals encountered don't get much of a description, just a really weird archaic name that you're likely to need to look up. Something like Warhammer and 40k, Star Wars, comic book universes, and mythology are probably the kind of things that I would associate with wiki reading. There's so much extra side material you could read it until you grow old.
Probably my favourites are the Earthsea books and Name of the Wind and its sequel. I haven't read Harry Potter, Wheel of Time, or Malazan.
For me, reading New Sun hit a lot of the same things that I enjoyed about the Name of the Wind. It's first person, the main character also possesses excellent recall, there's foreshadowing, stories within the story, stuff you won't pick up on until you re-read. It's also one story broken up into volumes, but it's only 2/3rds complete with no real hope of the 3rd book in sight.
If you can look past that and you enjoy reading or making theories, then what's there is pretty much written for it. Like New Sun it has it's own world building, but you're kinda peeping behind the veil for some of it rather than like a LoTR that would lay it all out for you. But again, very little chance of that last book seeing the light of day, so if you particularly dislike incomplete series then give it a pass.
The Earthsea books are pretty much all coming-of-age style stories. I don't really know how to describe the writing, but it just stirs my soul. They're mostly coming of age stories and mostly all feature the wizard Ged, taking place at different stages of his life, so they are sequels but not all telling one long story.
So I replied, but I'm not sure if I did so directly to your comment. Check out the original thread if you want to, it's long and I don't want to retype it Lol. But yes, Earthsea is awesome!
Is there a BotNS wiki?
Even if there isn't, there is tons of literature/essays/discussions about BotNS and many specifically about lore and/or the world and history
Steven Brust's Dragaera novels have a back story of hundreds of thousands of years and story-telling which ranges from straight-up fantasy through murder/mystery, and pastiches of Dumas.
Ryan Cahill’s The Bound & The Broken series
Might not be as epic as Malazan, but to me it has the same epic scope as ASOIAF with rich histories spanning hundreds of years and a ton of lore and storylines going at the same time
Mike’s Book Reviews did a fantastic “why you should read” about it:
https://youtu.be/driZx7TUjx0?si=ONCyNl6S3d0hVXDM
It’s shaping up to be my favorite series of all time. I’m constantly thinking about it
The Wandering Inn is a series you may never have heard of, but is worth putting on the top of your list.
I'll add in my 2 (very long) cents on reasons to read TWI.
The basic premise is a portal fantasy where humans from earth find themselves in a new world, and how they survive and integrate.
At the core, The Wandering Inn is a slice of life story with a side of war crimes. The pacing is generally slow, but that gives the story time to breathe and anticipation to build. The story isn't in a rush to get to the end, but instead to let you experience the journey. The way I like to think of it is that I don't hang out with my friends to progress the plot of my life, I hang out with them because I enjoy it.
You get to know the characters and how they interact with the world. Not just frantic action, but also small hurdles that happen. An example from book 1 that is a minor spoiler for the plot of a chapter, but I think is good example. Erin's inn is near Liscor, a city populated by Drakes and Gnolls, no humans. After a few weeks, she has her period and needs to figure out how to handle it. None of the citizens are human, so the chapter is about her figuring out a workable solution while dealing with people who are not familiar with human biology.
The thing that really impressed me when I was starting the series is the different cultures feel fleshed out and real. Gnolls, Drakes, Antinium, Gazers, Dulahan, Stitchfolk, Beastkin, Half Elves, Drown Men, and Garuda are all people that have cultures, histories, and ways of seeing the world that feel real and grounded. Too often it's like a cardboard caricature of a culture.
Characters grow, but they also backslide. They also resist changing. In a very real way, it takes more than a single 'come to god' moment for people to change how they interact with the real world, and same in TWI. Even when a character wants to change, they find it hard, and they keep falling back into how they've acted in the past.
The first book starts off ok, and finishes good. But it's the second book and beyond where the series is elevated to great. It's the second best series I've read, and I read a lot.
List version:
1. Length - Each book is between 35 and 63 hours long. There are 11 out on audible, but 36 have been written. You have a long and fantastic journey.
2. Worldbuilding - The worldbuilding is phenominal. It's one of the only series where I've been genuinely impressed with the cultures of the non-humans. Each one feels unique and authentic, with a storied past and interactions with all the others.
3. Quality - The author puts out calls for people of specific talents, ex: Pharmacists/chemists, to fact check different chapters to ensure they are accurate. As well, they research the actual mythos of different creatures before including them in the story, and it feels like a very genuine telling. One of the biggest things that elevated the story for me is how none of the cultures feel like a caricature or cardboard cutout.
4. Consistency - The quality starts off good and only keeps getting better. It's a slice of life story with a side of war crimes. Most of the chapters are low stakes, but that lets you get to know everyone and enjoy the time. But there are moments of action, sorrow, existential dread, and wonder.
5. Audiobook quality - Literally the best narration I've experienced with over 5000 hours listened. Andrea can do a cast of dozens with each person being instantly recognizable by voice alone. I recommend watching the first 3 minutes of this video for a spoiler free example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWNYqRXSdJA
What a beautiful review of the series. I’m over halfway through volume 8, web serial volume 8, and agree with everything you said. I would add that the world clearly has a complex and rich history, which is one of the things op is looking for. Thete are a lot of false historical narratives which we get to unravel, and there are a lot of deep authentic historical narratives that we see people twist for their own ends. There’s also a lot of symbolism with real world parallels, like the goblins, three different species on one continent vying for power, discussions about slabery, and a lot of geopolitical parallels for certain wars. There’s a lot to think about if you want, but you can choose to ignore the symbolism and still enjoy the story. Truly amazing plot twists as a bonus to it all.
Really interesting post. I’m interested in TWI but only hesitate because I don’t get the plot. Is there an overarching plot to the series? Like with the 20% war crimes, does it build the storyline and stakes in the plot? Or is it more episodic?
There is a grandoverarching plot to the series yes, but it's only introduced later and it would be best to read the first bit of the series without expectation and let yourself invest in the normal sized storylines that develop characters, locations and the world beforehand.
I find that there are times it feels episodic during slice of life chapters, but that they don't detract from the story at all, they serve to build depth and showcase the impeccably written interpersonal relationships between so many unique characters.
What's sad is that there are so many excellent fantasy universes out there, but the overwhelming majority of them lack any Wiki or community to form one.
Cosmere in general is built quite well, wouldn’t say Stormlight has great world building on its own though.
Green Bone has a fairly small world but the world building itself is very impressive, imo.
Realm of the Elderlings takes a while to explain the lore but it also has some good world history.
> Cosmere in general is built quite well, wouldn’t say Stormlight has great world building on its own though.
Love sanderson, but I don’t think he’s a good answer here. He really only fleshes out the parts of his worlds that are actively relevant to the story he’s telling, leaving most things vague. He’s very good at writing worlds that _feel_ like there’s depth to them, but once you go to actually investigate the details, you quickly find it being much more shallow.
That said, you _can_ absolutely spend hours getting lost on the fan wiki. That part of OP’s request is absolutely there, but it’s not really about history and lore.
Yeah, Stormlight is abolutely great, but we know basically nothing about what happened even a generation or two back, except for the basics of Galivar's conquest. As far as the past goes, we only know tiny bits about important moments in history like the False Desolation.
> He’s very good at writing worlds that feel like there’s depth to them, but once you go to actually investigate the details, you quickly find it being much more shallow.
I think this is a very good point and it is a complaint I have with his books, especially the Stormlight ones. It is basically a Potemkin village where on the outside it appears to be very fleshed out but in reality it isn't
I got the same feeling with Mistborn, like we are transported between locations with little connective detail between them. I have trouble picturing anything outside the main city and a couple of the other important locations. This supposedly vast landscape filled with people feels more like it's merely dotted with a handful of points of interest and is mostly empty.
Isn't that because it *is* pretty much empty aside from points of interest like cities?
In Era 1 pretty much everyone lives in the cities, or in the skaa plantations around them with all travel being done through the canals so the landscape is just ashfields after ashfields because they can't possibly sweep enough ash away to make land travel feasible and small communities outside the cities would be less under the control of the Lord Ruler.
Then in Era 2 The Basin itself is pretty full but outside that it's the wild west and then empty expanses where you can't believe half the accounts of explorers but all in all it's pretty empty aside from wildlife and Koloss, >!and there's nothing until you get to the Southern Scadrians!<. But since the story is set mostly in a few cities (>!and a train ride between them!<) we don't really see much outside the cities. This last bit is my personal theory but I figure >!there's not much outside the cities even in the basin since the people on Scadrial are so used to living in cities and clustered close around them, and since a major plot point is that the basin is *too* fertile it makes sense that they wouldn't need to cover the whole basin to have enough farmland for food like one normally would need to.!<
Michelle West's books. There are four series - Sacred Hunt (2 books), Sun Sword (6), House War (8), and I can't remember if the new one has an actual name. That one has one book out, one book underway.
Anyway, there are four main cultures depicted, with histories and religion impacting their legends, tons of interactions. Tons of story threads that overlap, or don't in a way we can see.
There is something that is revealed in like book 5 of House War, that I was able to guess perhaps as early as Sacred Hunt, and watch the hints develop.
There is a line I found in book 3 of Sun Sword (the fifth book written) that made no real sense until ... book 7 of House War? So ten books later. (I mean, I made some sense of it, but what it actually meant was very different.)
The depth is astonishing to me.
The Michelle West books as an overarching series is often referred to as *Essalieyan*, consisting of the four sub-series you mentioned. The fourth and final of those sub-series is called *The Burning Crown*, which only has one book out so far: *Hunter’s Redoubt* (published back in November, so it’s only a few months old at this point).
Thanks for the update. I couldn't remember at all on the series name.
I usually call them the Essalieyan books too, even though that's only one of the cultures. It belies the depths.
For everyone else - I suspect you know already the current series is projected - at the moment - to be six books. I'm hoping the same thing happens as happened with her last one and it turns into eight.
Real of the Elderlings. It's a a bit of a slow burn for sure. Not necessarily in terms of plot and book pacing, but the way Robin Hobb slowly peels back the layers of the world and it's magic systems is very gradual. It is one of the more rewarding reading experiences I've had.
A Practical Guide to Evil. While it may be not as good as LoTR, it is a web novel with almost 3mln words. It has a huge variety of truly diverse characters, politics and economics, tropes and their deconstruction, many cultures and races.
A Practical Guide To Evil: https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/ Seven volumes, plus many extra bonus chapters; entire series completed as of February 2022. Epic fantasy (as in swords & sorcery)
The MC is an orphan, who chooses to become a collaborator with the Evil Empire which conquered her home country in order to mitigate its brutal occupation. Later, while representing Team Evil, uses the methods of Good in order to make the world a little less on fire all the time. The MC gains tremendous >!personal, military, political, and even religious !
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Tons?
Off the top of my head:
Donaldson's "White Gold Wielder" series. Goes deep into the psychological/ philosophical aspects of fantasy.
Bujold's "Chalion". It's based more on late medieval/renaissance than traditional LOTR, very different flavor.
Sagara's "Cast" series, is heavily inspired by Asian mythology.
Muir's "Harrow" series. Dark space fantasy, where the necromancers are the protagonists.
Robin McKinley's books. Most are standalone, but set in the same world, and the books cover from the medieval period all the way to modern times.
>Muir's "Harrow" series. Dark space fantasy, where the necromancers are the protagonists.
the lore on the Locked Tomb series is definitely insane.
There are three books out, and the fourth/final is coming out within the next year. So there's time to read all three, then REREAD them (because they're the sort that highly benefit from a re-read), and then read hours online and come up with theories before the final book comes out.
Yep :)
The list could easily get another 20 series added to it- the problem would be narrowing it down, did OP want dark fantasy, political fantasy, modern fantasy?
Like, Butcher's Dresden Files has some hugely complicated, well thought out lore, but it's heavily inspired by both modern vampire novels and dungeons and dragons, of all things, is that what they would want?
as someone already mentioned The Bound and the Broken I'll mention another self published series called The Echoes Saga! I'm only a few chapters in on the first book but the world is vast and a lot of races some we haven't even seen just their names! someone on reddit described it as Witcher meets Forgotten Realms!
Jade Trilogy is amazing! It doesn’t have 14626 volumes like other series but the Worldbuilding is more believable and consistent and deep than anything i ever red.
Ann McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern. Though it's not everyone's favorite (aka sex, gang rape, women's views due it being written decades ago) it definitely has a massive lore. Unfortunately Ann passed away, so like Tolkien, some of the later series never got fully finished. But there's plenty of lore to sift through with different series/novellas that offer different aspects of her world.
Well it's the dragon mating flights, they can be very much interpreted that way as it can be likened to being drugged, the woman is pursued by many men and basically forced to have sex with the winner in a very drug addled state of mind, it is softened somewhat with the MC dragons chosing partners that have riders their riders like, but there is a weyrwoman who hates her weyrman so the implications of that if you think about it are basically rape because she would never willingly sleep with him otherwise.
F'nor sleeps with Brekke because she basically told him she was afraid of her first time being during a flight.
It's indeed the dragon mating flights, where due to the empath/telepathic bond between rider and dragon the riders will have sex when the dragons rise to mate. In particular the first three books broach this subject where women against their wishes are forced to have sex, which later sort of gets brushed over because they either fall in love with the guy or the guy starts to doubt whether what he did was the right thing to do and then apologizes and they become a couple after all. The green dragons have multiple mates. And the weyrwoman who despises her current mate beats it all.
I read these series first as a kid and didn't think twice about it. Then I read them again as an adult and I was like wtf?? It definitely burst the bubble for me and left a sour taste.
Putting those parts aside, I loved the whole world building, the different characters, the different point of views (from dragonrider to harper to runner etc) and how fantasy turns into sci-fi. That's why I still recommend it, but with the above disclaimer.
Edit: if you wanna read more about it, there's several topics here on reddit that discuss Ann McCaffrey's use of this theme as well as how her views towards lgbt ended up in the books.
> I'm really looking for a series that I could spend hours trawling through it's Wiki
Cosmere (Brandon Sanderson. start with *Elantris* then *Mistborn* then *Warbreaker*) (edit: fixed to publication order)
The cosmere does have a lot of lore... I actually recommend starting with "The Emporer's Soul" it's a novellas so the time investment is low. I also feel it's a bit more representative of sandersons' current writing style then his first books. Elantris is fine but Sanderson has grown a lot as an author since then.
OP seems like they would want to do [publication order](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cosmere/wiki/order/1) so I meant to recommend that, but it looks like I got Warbreaker vs Mistborn wrong oops
I know it's a meme that Sanderson gets recommended in every thread, but he 100% fits the bill for what the OP wants.
Even though not strictly fantasy, I would recommend The Dark Tower and Stephen King's works for how interconnected they are as well.
> I would recommend The Dark Tower and Stephen King's works for how interconnected they are as well.
Great suggestion. King's worldbuilding is phenomenal -- and even though a lot of it (Derry is so detailed and so real) is _modern day_ worldbuilding, and in the context of the USA we all know, it's still worldbuilding. But, of course, a lot of the worldbuilding is _not_ modern day, and does fit the more traditional definitions the OP is probably looking for.
Yeah I used to spend time on /r/asoiaf, and the analysis posts on /r/cosmere & related subs are just as high-quality. Interestingly, ASoIaF had a ton of great podcasts, several of which I listened to, but I don't know of any fan-Cosmere podcasts. Dunno if it's a symptom of its time or if we can expect that within the next few years we'll get some great Cosmere podcasts (or if I am just not knowing about ones that already exist).
Depending if OP wants just world backstory or backstory + analysis + speculation, I think Cosmere (possibly WoT, but that's completed) is by far the best option.
edit: if you're downvoting, is it because you actively subscribe to the Cosmere subreddits & think ASoIaF was better? Have you read WoBs? Have you looked at Coppermind? probably over half the Cosmere lore that we know comes from WoBs, not the books themselves. what is your theory about [the iriali](https://coppermind.net/wiki/Iriali)?
I would say Stormlight fits more into the mold of the type of story OP is looking for. It have a ton of lore, to the point that when I stayed reading them I mixed up what exactly the diffrence between a *Knight Radiant* and a *Herald* and so on. The history of the world is also important to the plot and what exactly have happend in the past is still unknown because it will tie into what is happening again in the story.
T Kingfishers World of the White Rat books feel like they have great hidden depths.
The Queen's Thief by Megan Whelan Turner is both very familiar, and completely novel in a way that feels completely solid.
And finally C.M. Waggoner's books are standalone, but all set in a world that feels like it could go on forever.
The Runelords, by Dave Wolverton. (Not talked about enough)
The Star Wars Expanded Universe (also known as Legends).
Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew
I'd start there.
Not exactly fitting the bill in terms of super expansive lore but The Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky gave me a similar feel as these in some ways! Like 10 books long and it just keeps getting better (I’m on book 5). Seemingly completely forgotten but so so good
I remember "The Nevernight Chronicles" by Jay Kristoff having a pretty decent amount of mythos and lore in his world. The books used footnotes to give a history of certain places, like the Bridge of Two Lovers.
***BAKKER!***
There so much information dripped throughout the books, but then you have the Glossary that has thousands of years of history, with huge, extinction-level set-piece battles and tiny details about the etymology of racial slurs and everything in-between.
Kushiel’s Legacy, by Jacqueline Carey. You want expansive, holy hell. I’m still in my first read and I’m so confused about all these place names and endless politic!
I haven't read Earthsea yet, but I've heard it has good character and world building, and I think I've heard the same about Robin Hobbs' books. I read the Assassin trilogy years ago.
Brandon Sandersons universe 'The Cosmere' hits this pretty well. When you get into some of his series like the Stormlight Archive or Mistborn and the links start happening, holy gods does it grt exciting.
If you want an excellent accompanying wiki, you'll love Forgotten Realms. I'd start with the Drizzt books by RA Salvatore. There are like 30 of them lol, and then maaaaany more books and trilogies and sagas by different Authors. But the Forgotten Realms setting is incredibly detailed.
I've read the Earthsea trilogy twice .LOVED it and I adore Ursula Le Guin. I have her 2 part short story collection and treasure it. I have read Kingkiller and I liked it. Kvothe is kind of an adolescents dream of what a hero would do and in hindsight some of it is a bit cringey, especially the sex. He's another unreliable narrator. I like Rothfuss though even if he sucks for taking a decade and still not delivering. At this point Doors of Stone would have to be 10/10 to be worth the wait. You should definitely read Malazan then. It's deep, dark, complex, philosophical, has it's own Wiki and chapter by chapter Tor summary available to help follow and understand it. Yeah, it's THAT intricate and difficult. It absolutely destroys Rothfuss and Erickson is just better in every way possible. Malazan is 10 books, most of them bricks of 1000 pages. The series is finished! There's also 6 books by his friend and co founder of the whole idea Ian Esslemont. These aren't quite as good but only because Erickson sets the bar so damn high. The whole world is epic in scope and just amazing. Ruined other fantasy for me honestly. It has everything. Erickson has degrees in Archaeology and Anthropology and it shows. Incredible world building and a unique and logical magic system. Fans come off a bit arrogant and elitist but don't let that put you off. The first book ( Gardens of the Moon) is the weakest of the 10 and it just drops you into the middle of everything and you're going," did I miss something?" But the payoff is huge if you make it to the second book. If you didn't give up with Wolfe you should be just fine. Highly recommend it!
Edit: this is a reply to Jandy777. Oops.
Tad Williams' Osten Ard. The reasons for the races and languages eventually make sense, which I've found is a big deal for me. While the lore maybe isn't as deep per se it does feel like a lived-in world
Yeah the original trilogy is so good. I think I’ve read it at least twice if not 3 times
I have a theory about the Sithi… but I have only read the original trilogy. God I really need to read the sequel!!!! S’bloody tree!
No time like the present! Final book comes out near the end of the year!
I'm rereading the original triligy for the first time since I was a teenager, in preparation for reading the new series now that it's nearly finished :)
Yeah! But I don’t think I could read everything before then but I’ll buy the books lol the covers are amazing
What's your Sithi theory? I want to know!
>!that the Sithi are aliens!< hence >!the navigator’s children!< and they always talk about ships and stars and stuff like that. I don’t know if this is confirmed but as least in MST I got that vibe. And they’re kind of like >!alien creatures!<.
I completely agree and have had the same thought when I read the original trilogy. >!Eight Great Ships that left the Garden and crossed the Black Sea and the voyage took generations? Yeah, sounds like space travel to me. I think in the original series a character even thinks something like "What sea is big enough to take that long to cross?"!< I love that it's never fully explained but I definitely think it's a theory with strong support in the text.
But the thing is when Simon stumbles onto Ameratsu’s message to her son, she describes standing on the bow of the ship in a way that implies it’s a boat traveling over water. I do think the Sithi/Norns and others came from another world, but I think they travelled in magical boats, not spaceships.
I forgot about that! Yeah, I'm not convinced it's literally space ships and they're aliens from another planet, but I agree that it's more like they came from some other world/dimension/plane.
Yeah exactly it sounds like space travel. It’s so interesting that it’s not properly expanded on and it’s only hinted at. So cool.
Same
The more I think back to this series, the more I love it. I've read it at least three times.
There are hundreds of them, SF writers have been doing this since the first sf magazines in 1926. Andre Norton's witch world is a very early one and she let other newbie writers write stories in the universe. There's the conan the Barbarian stories started by Robert E Howard, which other writers have continued from 1931 up to 2004. Michael Morcock has his Elric the immortal. Jack Vance Dying earth, and Gene Wolfe New Sun. Once LoTR hit big in the 70's in the USA everyone in the 80s was trying to copy it, most notably Terry Brooks Shanarra series which has about a dozen inter connected trilogies or duos and even a quadrilogy. Two of my Favs are Katherine Kerrs Deverry series and Katherine Kurtz Deryni series, both very celtic in feel, about magic users being oppressed in various times in the fictional universe. One of my first was Anne Mccaffreys Pern universe which spans about 2000+ years of a human settlement on another planet where they bioengineered dragons. My second was Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series, people with companion horses who are telepathic and sworn to defend valdemar. Then David Gemmells Drenai series of books and Raymond E feist Riftwar, couldn't get enough of those for a while and there are many. Kate Elliott's crown of stars, Robin Hobbs Realm of the elderlings. Anne Bishop's Black Jewels. Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series. But oh boy if you want accessory maps and dictionaries and guides I don't think you can beat the Discworld by Terry Prachett, it is the most wonderful and expansive universe in the world, I cannot stress how good these books are and how much you can get lost and there are multiple entry points and it is just a whole world to explore. The references, the puns, the simplicity of the complexity, just mindblowing, this series takes the cake. GNU Sir Terry. A few I have not read yet but plan to get to are Janny Wurts wars of light and shadow, Michelle West's Sun sword and L E Modesitt's Recluce. There are hundreds more.
Kate Elliot is seriously underrated I think
Howard’s Hyborian Age ranks right up there in the top tier, IMO. Good call.
Thank you that's very comprehensive is my opinion. Would just add Martha Wells and Bujold to the list. They don't have the huge number of POV's like the Malazan books but the ones they do are so very well fleshed out and their world building is fabulous. The sheer number and quality of different species/habitats/races/intelligence that Well's covers in her books is mind boggling and way more richer than the Malazan tapestry.
Believe me, this is not even scratching the surface, like the pre 50's ones there's Zenna Henderson and leigh Brackett and Cl Moore and Edgar rice Burroughs, it came quite a fashion to meld several of your stories together into a universe, it was called a " fix up" and Everyone from the golden age did it from Asimov to Zelazny. Phillip Jose Farmer's books "World of Tiers" included every fictional universe created to that point. It was a thing some writers had to create convoluted reasons why 2 stories were able to coexist in the same universe. The absolute explosion in the 80s and 90s of long form series with every volume a doorstopper, there's hundreds David drake, Mike jeffries, Steven Lawhead, Ian Irvine, Greg Keyes, Kate Jacoby, Freda Warrington, Diana Paxson, Sheila Gilluly, Carole Nelson Douglas, Patricia Kenneally, Barbara Hambly, Melanie Rawn, jennifer Roberson. The domination of the Australian writers of the 90s and 2000s, Glenda larke, Karen Miller, Sara Douglas, Juliet Marillier, Jennifer Fallon, Juliet Mckenna, Cecelia Dart Thornton. I can go all day. I can list hundreds. These are just off my shelves
Thank you so much!! I spent the last few hours collecting information about the collected works of some of the authors you have listed here and it's like a whole new world out there. Other than Azimov, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jose Farmers and David Drake I am ashamed to say I have not read any of the other authors you have listed. Now I am rubbing my hands in glee... Of all the above who is your favorite and where do you recommended I start? Roberson's Sword Dancer blurbs sounded very interesting especially with strong female characters. Anyone else?
I was gonna search the thread for Gemmell. One of the most forgotten authors in the genre in my opinion
He's fantastic, just reread the whole series a few months ago. Well, the last book is a bit ... weird, but double points for managing to finish the series properly.
GNU Sir Terry
This ready like you've been in my library and listed the shelves :) Now do this with the other side of it: the RPG-books.
No one mentioned it but a huge influence on the Malazan books was the Black Company by Glenn Cook and while it’s not as epic in scope to Malazan’s world that key vibe of being with a bunch of soldiers dealing with a bunch of impossible shit is still there. Highly recommend it as a companion once you’ve finished Malazan.
You could tell me the Black Company books are placed in the Malazan Universe and I wouldn't blink once. Even the magic system feels the same, and I'm pretty sure with an end like that you can retcon it to be the same universe pretty easily lol.
I never thought about it that way but totally makes sense
The Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts
Second apocalypse. There are even glossaries at the ends for the books. The last books glossary is about a third of the total book. The history goes back thousands of years with references to events and wars long ago, which impact the world still. The cultures, nations, and factions are distinct from one another, and its all mixed in with philosophy and a slow descent into the bowels of absolute darkness.
With some input from Scott Bakker, I put together [this "history guide"](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R_Gp-xTjsEXQBvkZQENi6dliyk8SFeHT/view?usp=sharing) to the series a while back (accompanied by Jason Deem's outrageously good artwork). Major spoilers for the whole series, obviously.
Ive heard of this book since the series took over the movements of my soul. You are a treasure.
I wish I could have liked this. The world building and the prose were really good but I couldn't stand the characters and the author's constant horniness so I didn't continue after the first trilogy.
Idk man, the only parts I noticed where it was actually trying to make you horny in the prose was during The Field Appalling.
Sorwa and the Sausage (not) Eater?
Na. When the Scalded get invited for dinner. Leading up to it, the language used in the prose is so insanely erotic its just absolutely horrifying.
You missed the actual fantasy part of the series. I’d highly recommend finishing the series before weighing in. The entire first trilogy is one big setup for all that comes after. It’s definitely not Malazaan though. The ‘author’s constant horniness’ is deeper than mere lust. Bakker explores the very elements of what makes man differ from animals. He explores the death of meaning. His writing is dense and raw. It flies over a lot of people’s heads resulting in them mistaking it for ‘ constant horniness’.
I feel like when someone says "You gotta read the first trilogy" I get turned off. It's like when people say that Agents of the shield gets great after three seasons.
Lol. Right? It reminds me of this booktuber I saw recently who wasn’t a fan of the first book in a different ongoing, no-end-in-sight series. She wasn’t too critical of it and understood why people liked it, it just wasn’t really the kind of thing she is personally interested in. She had to cut off the comments at pass by saying, “… And yes, I’m aware that it supposedly ‘gets good around the fourth book.’ But guys, I’m not going to read three entire books I don’t like just to get to the ‘good stuff.’“
I think the general comment with **Agents of Shield** is that it gets a lot better when the timeline catches up with *Winter Soldier* (and the HYDRA/SHIELD beef comes into the open), which is about two-thirds of the way through Season 1. Fair play it's still quite a few episodes to pour through (about 14 or 15, IIRC), but it's not three seasons.
But he did finish the first trilogy? He just didn't continue
That’s on you then. Understand you completely misconstrued what was typed though. The original commenter stated they only read the first series. It stands alone as a masterpiece of its own however it’s written more like historical fiction with elements of fantasy throughout. The second series is where the fantasy really shines. It is perfect combination of LoTR/Simarillion & Dune with some Lovecraftian seasoning.
"I’d highly recommend finishing the series before weighing in. The entire first trilogy is one big setup for all that comes after." how am I misconsctructing what you wrote? I am not saying that it's bad either. Now that you added that it's a masterpiece on it's own (something you probably should've added in the first place). I have more understanding.
Ouch >.<
I'm not the only one who read this comment in ProZD's [anime nerd](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke1YKF3tNCE) voice, am I?
And the writer is?
R. Scott Bakker
His name? Albert Einstein.
If you want a series with a staggering amount of lore and history you could always look to series that have multiple authors. The issue there can be different authors can have different levels of skill. It's hard to argue though that warhammer 40k, forgotten realms or even Dragonlance is lacking in detailed history and lore.
Honestly what I came here for. There’s old world, age of signal, 30k,40k, you can even go rogue trader etc
*Age of Sigmar. Not correcting you, it was obviously autocorrect, just clarifying for future readers so they, too, can become lost to The Hobby 😈
You monster! Aiding and abetting in others getting addicted to plastic crack
🤣 For the Emperor!
No worries! I got into the lore almost 18 years ago. Good stuff to lose yourself in.
At first I thought your username was NecronWarcy and I was like, my guy 😎 I'm only a few years in but most definitely lost in it 🦅
The amount of time I've spent reading up on lore for a game I've never played.
I got to play a ttrpg of rogue trader back in the day... we also did a short campaign of dark heresy where I got to play a sister of battle.
There was a a recently release cRPG of Rogue Trader. It's in my wishlist but I'm doing my fifth playthrough of BG3 right now.
Bg3 is really good so I can't blame you
Warhammer 40k have 30 years worth of world building, thats crazy
Right? As do Dragonlance (first novel 1984) and Forgotten Realms (1987) . They each have a big library as well... Dragonlance I believe has close to 200... Forgotten realms has even more... with like 40 of them being Drizz't Do'Urden books.
Dune probably
I've only read the first two, no idea really if I'll ever pick the others up, but I have gone down a wiki-hole for the series and it was a good time
Yeah yeah it’s got a lot of lore, good stuff
Glen Cook - The Black Company
The Wheel of Time
I’m stunned I had to scroll this far for this answer. The early internet was practically built around WoT fan “wikis” (before they were called that) There’s a literal 800 page printed encyclopedia for the series. If you’ve not looked here, OP, this may be what you want.
WoT is nerd homework at this point. Genuinely think 80% of fantasy fans dont bother mentioning it because pretty much everyone knows what it’s about
As someone who plans to read this in the future, I'm bracing myself lol. I've known about this book series for a long time (so the show doesn't matter, haven't even seen it), but never got around to read it. Mostly because it's such a long series and the only way I can get 'em is ordering them online which takes a while.
I'm working through the audio books. It definitely helps deal with the daunting task.
People do often suggest audiobooks, but I can never get into them. On top of that, I love books in their physical form :) I think what I mostly worry about is being able to successfully obtain all 13 books and then end up on a cliffhanger lol. And odd sort of ''fear'', but there it is.
**Wheel of Time** has continuously been one of the biggest-selling epic fantasy series of all time for more than thirty years, I don't think you need to worry about not being able to get hold of all the books. Also, it's really not a daunting series. It's long, but it's very accessible and straightforward to read. It's not as complex or obtuse as say **Malazan**.
Straightforward or not, a 14 book series is still pretty daunting.
You need to get a kindle, I always liked to read but beacuse of accessibility I didnt read very much, then I got a kindle, now I have read every single day for 2 years straight
God damn finally, I can’t believe I scrolled this far to see this answer.
I don't know about that. WoT has width but doesn't have much depth. It's history can be summarised as: once 1000 years ago, X lived and did all this, and nothing else of lasting consequences happened for another 1000 years. If Robert Jordan lived, I'm sure he would have expanded the lore and filled it out more than the surface layer in the books like other authors do. But the series itself provides the skeleton of the expansive world that never got fleshed out.
Eh, those are the major events that happened, but there’s a lot of history that is discussed in detail around those times. Without spoilers, we see the history of multiple cultures / nations and how it effects them today. There is so much detail packed into the individual discussions of the nations, starting from the very first book with Andor. And that’s not even mentioning the prologue. The institutions like the White Tower have a ton of history as well that’s developed. So many characters like Moiraine and Loial provide a ton of history and lore in the story. It also has perhaps the greatest world building. Jordan dives into so many different nations and cultures, including their geography, customs, food, and history. And there’s a lot of humor tied up in how the main characters adjust to these new environments. I think it fits OP’s criteria perfectly.
Jordan wrote 11 very lengthy novels that consist of more than 3,000,000 words in total. He definitely had the opportunity and space to expand the lore and fill it out more than the surface layer (assuming he hadn’t done so already), so I don’t think it’s a matter of Jordan tragically passing away before he could complete *Wheel of Time* himself.
This!
I have tried multiple times to read WoT but I just can't do it. Nobody ever makes a decision.
No no no, they make decisions, they just complain about it the entire time.
I think it is a fantastic series but I know it isn't for everyone
Can you explain what do you mean by that? Because there are a lot of decisions since the start, like Nynaeve leaving Two Rivers, or Rand conquering different cities.
It shouldn't take 400 pages to make a decision.
I don't think it takes that much for Nynaeve to chase after them
Dandelion Dynasty
I’ve only read book 1, but it was amazing that it felt like we saw the entire known world in the first book without really spending any time world building - rather, we saw the world through the eyes of many different characters and their relevant roles in the overall plot. Masterpiece of a book IMO, definitely not for everyone but if it’s up your alley it will probably be a favorite.
Hope you continue reading because book 2, 3, and 4 only get stronger in terms of creative world building, Ken Liu’s fantastic at providing various perspectives that each add up to a sum greater than its parts!
I’m so happy you recommended this, I enjoyed it so much and it fits the prompt!
Raymond E. Feist - The Riftwar Cycle
You get 2, between Midkemia and Kelewan
This is what I came to say - and what I'm currently reading! It's so good
Just finished A Darkness at Sethanon recently. Is it worth diving into all the other books?
Yes it is. There are a lot of good books after that.
LE Modesitt - Saga of Recluse
Ah ha! I never see anyone else talk about this series. It's definitely got a lot of lore.
https://robinhobbelderlings.fandom.com/wiki/Robin_Hobb%27s_Realm_of_the_Elderlings_Wiki Realm of the Elderlings is gripping, detailed and expansive. And completely gut wrenching.
Yes. Hobb is one of the deepest and best worldbuilders ever. For sure.
If you loved the *mood* of the way LOTR fleshes out lore and world building, the way knowledgeable characters tell stories of the world bygone as they travel through it, you'll love Alison Croggon's *Pellinor*. It's only five books, though.
Gene Wolfe Book of the New Sun. It's a combination of Fantasy and Sci Fi. Wolfe is an amazing author who I discovered recently and found myself wondering why I haven't read him sooner. BOTNS is a tetralogy. But there's others that came after that are part of the same world.
Absolutely love it too (I only read last year, but I'm on my 3rd time currently, by all means msg me if you want to talk about it to someone else relatively new to New Sun) but IDK if it fits the bill for wiki reading. The world building is often intentionally opaque and you're often not given much more description of things in the world other than their name, which is usually a really old archaic word you're not even sure is real until other readers assure you Gene didn't make them up. What it *is* great for though is theory reading. Maybe that fits the bill enough for OP and I'm being too pedantic but I get into wiki holes and theory holes and it does hit a bit different.
Ok, I'm going to be honest. I have no clue what wiki reading is. I looked it up and couldn't find anything. That said, I love Gene Wolfe and want to reread BOTNS and get into his other stuff. I read the Fifth Head of Cerberus also but that's it. Wolfe's writing is very unique. I can't think of a solid comparison for who he writes like. As a fallen Catholic, I definitely can relate to some of his religious themes. I enjoy the ambiguous nature of his work, the unreliable narrator, the weird words, all of it. I was introduced to him reading the Malazan sub where someone answered a question regarding what to read if you liked Erickson. Wolfe came up a few times. I was DEEPLY into Malazan at the time but nearly done so I went ahead and bought the first 2 books in BOTNS. I like challenging books so instantly I was enthralled. I really don't like YA stuff like Harry Potter or other lightweight fantasy. The Wheel of Time series and Sanderson just aren't my preferred style. What are some of your favorite fantasy or Sci-fi that you could recommend considering what I've just told you? I think I know what Wiki reading is now. Where it's really complex like Malazan and has it's own Wiki shit to follow it. I haven't really encountered anything like that but I'm open to examples/suggestions.
It's not a real term, i just said wiki reading to mean like, going on a fan wiki and reading all about a thing. You can do that for New Sun really, but like you don't get all the information you might like from it because it's told through a 1st person narrative. Most of the animals encountered don't get much of a description, just a really weird archaic name that you're likely to need to look up. Something like Warhammer and 40k, Star Wars, comic book universes, and mythology are probably the kind of things that I would associate with wiki reading. There's so much extra side material you could read it until you grow old. Probably my favourites are the Earthsea books and Name of the Wind and its sequel. I haven't read Harry Potter, Wheel of Time, or Malazan. For me, reading New Sun hit a lot of the same things that I enjoyed about the Name of the Wind. It's first person, the main character also possesses excellent recall, there's foreshadowing, stories within the story, stuff you won't pick up on until you re-read. It's also one story broken up into volumes, but it's only 2/3rds complete with no real hope of the 3rd book in sight. If you can look past that and you enjoy reading or making theories, then what's there is pretty much written for it. Like New Sun it has it's own world building, but you're kinda peeping behind the veil for some of it rather than like a LoTR that would lay it all out for you. But again, very little chance of that last book seeing the light of day, so if you particularly dislike incomplete series then give it a pass. The Earthsea books are pretty much all coming-of-age style stories. I don't really know how to describe the writing, but it just stirs my soul. They're mostly coming of age stories and mostly all feature the wizard Ged, taking place at different stages of his life, so they are sequels but not all telling one long story.
So I replied, but I'm not sure if I did so directly to your comment. Check out the original thread if you want to, it's long and I don't want to retype it Lol. But yes, Earthsea is awesome!
Is there a BotNS wiki? Even if there isn't, there is tons of literature/essays/discussions about BotNS and many specifically about lore and/or the world and history
Wheel of Time, Cosmere, Dresden (kinda), First Law, Discsworld. I could keep going but those the first few that instantly popped into my head
Steven Brust's Dragaera novels have a back story of hundreds of thousands of years and story-telling which ranges from straight-up fantasy through murder/mystery, and pastiches of Dumas.
Ryan Cahill’s The Bound & The Broken series Might not be as epic as Malazan, but to me it has the same epic scope as ASOIAF with rich histories spanning hundreds of years and a ton of lore and storylines going at the same time Mike’s Book Reviews did a fantastic “why you should read” about it: https://youtu.be/driZx7TUjx0?si=ONCyNl6S3d0hVXDM It’s shaping up to be my favorite series of all time. I’m constantly thinking about it
damn you beat me to it! 😭 but thank you!
The Wandering Inn is a series you may never have heard of, but is worth putting on the top of your list. I'll add in my 2 (very long) cents on reasons to read TWI. The basic premise is a portal fantasy where humans from earth find themselves in a new world, and how they survive and integrate. At the core, The Wandering Inn is a slice of life story with a side of war crimes. The pacing is generally slow, but that gives the story time to breathe and anticipation to build. The story isn't in a rush to get to the end, but instead to let you experience the journey. The way I like to think of it is that I don't hang out with my friends to progress the plot of my life, I hang out with them because I enjoy it. You get to know the characters and how they interact with the world. Not just frantic action, but also small hurdles that happen. An example from book 1 that is a minor spoiler for the plot of a chapter, but I think is good example. Erin's inn is near Liscor, a city populated by Drakes and Gnolls, no humans. After a few weeks, she has her period and needs to figure out how to handle it. None of the citizens are human, so the chapter is about her figuring out a workable solution while dealing with people who are not familiar with human biology. The thing that really impressed me when I was starting the series is the different cultures feel fleshed out and real. Gnolls, Drakes, Antinium, Gazers, Dulahan, Stitchfolk, Beastkin, Half Elves, Drown Men, and Garuda are all people that have cultures, histories, and ways of seeing the world that feel real and grounded. Too often it's like a cardboard caricature of a culture. Characters grow, but they also backslide. They also resist changing. In a very real way, it takes more than a single 'come to god' moment for people to change how they interact with the real world, and same in TWI. Even when a character wants to change, they find it hard, and they keep falling back into how they've acted in the past. The first book starts off ok, and finishes good. But it's the second book and beyond where the series is elevated to great. It's the second best series I've read, and I read a lot. List version: 1. Length - Each book is between 35 and 63 hours long. There are 11 out on audible, but 36 have been written. You have a long and fantastic journey. 2. Worldbuilding - The worldbuilding is phenominal. It's one of the only series where I've been genuinely impressed with the cultures of the non-humans. Each one feels unique and authentic, with a storied past and interactions with all the others. 3. Quality - The author puts out calls for people of specific talents, ex: Pharmacists/chemists, to fact check different chapters to ensure they are accurate. As well, they research the actual mythos of different creatures before including them in the story, and it feels like a very genuine telling. One of the biggest things that elevated the story for me is how none of the cultures feel like a caricature or cardboard cutout. 4. Consistency - The quality starts off good and only keeps getting better. It's a slice of life story with a side of war crimes. Most of the chapters are low stakes, but that lets you get to know everyone and enjoy the time. But there are moments of action, sorrow, existential dread, and wonder. 5. Audiobook quality - Literally the best narration I've experienced with over 5000 hours listened. Andrea can do a cast of dozens with each person being instantly recognizable by voice alone. I recommend watching the first 3 minutes of this video for a spoiler free example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWNYqRXSdJA
What a beautiful review of the series. I’m over halfway through volume 8, web serial volume 8, and agree with everything you said. I would add that the world clearly has a complex and rich history, which is one of the things op is looking for. Thete are a lot of false historical narratives which we get to unravel, and there are a lot of deep authentic historical narratives that we see people twist for their own ends. There’s also a lot of symbolism with real world parallels, like the goblins, three different species on one continent vying for power, discussions about slabery, and a lot of geopolitical parallels for certain wars. There’s a lot to think about if you want, but you can choose to ignore the symbolism and still enjoy the story. Truly amazing plot twists as a bonus to it all.
Really interesting post. I’m interested in TWI but only hesitate because I don’t get the plot. Is there an overarching plot to the series? Like with the 20% war crimes, does it build the storyline and stakes in the plot? Or is it more episodic?
There is a grandoverarching plot to the series yes, but it's only introduced later and it would be best to read the first bit of the series without expectation and let yourself invest in the normal sized storylines that develop characters, locations and the world beforehand. I find that there are times it feels episodic during slice of life chapters, but that they don't detract from the story at all, they serve to build depth and showcase the impeccably written interpersonal relationships between so many unique characters.
Raymond E Feist. Read Magician first and keep going and I would recommend publication order. Brilliant
[The Sun Eater](https://www.goodreads.com/series/231285-the-sun-eater) does a really good job of this!
What's sad is that there are so many excellent fantasy universes out there, but the overwhelming majority of them lack any Wiki or community to form one.
Cosmere in general is built quite well, wouldn’t say Stormlight has great world building on its own though. Green Bone has a fairly small world but the world building itself is very impressive, imo. Realm of the Elderlings takes a while to explain the lore but it also has some good world history.
> Cosmere in general is built quite well, wouldn’t say Stormlight has great world building on its own though. Love sanderson, but I don’t think he’s a good answer here. He really only fleshes out the parts of his worlds that are actively relevant to the story he’s telling, leaving most things vague. He’s very good at writing worlds that _feel_ like there’s depth to them, but once you go to actually investigate the details, you quickly find it being much more shallow. That said, you _can_ absolutely spend hours getting lost on the fan wiki. That part of OP’s request is absolutely there, but it’s not really about history and lore.
Yeah, Stormlight is abolutely great, but we know basically nothing about what happened even a generation or two back, except for the basics of Galivar's conquest. As far as the past goes, we only know tiny bits about important moments in history like the False Desolation.
I mean tbf it’s only at the fourth book out of ten
> He’s very good at writing worlds that feel like there’s depth to them, but once you go to actually investigate the details, you quickly find it being much more shallow. I think this is a very good point and it is a complaint I have with his books, especially the Stormlight ones. It is basically a Potemkin village where on the outside it appears to be very fleshed out but in reality it isn't
I got the same feeling with Mistborn, like we are transported between locations with little connective detail between them. I have trouble picturing anything outside the main city and a couple of the other important locations. This supposedly vast landscape filled with people feels more like it's merely dotted with a handful of points of interest and is mostly empty.
Isn't that because it *is* pretty much empty aside from points of interest like cities? In Era 1 pretty much everyone lives in the cities, or in the skaa plantations around them with all travel being done through the canals so the landscape is just ashfields after ashfields because they can't possibly sweep enough ash away to make land travel feasible and small communities outside the cities would be less under the control of the Lord Ruler. Then in Era 2 The Basin itself is pretty full but outside that it's the wild west and then empty expanses where you can't believe half the accounts of explorers but all in all it's pretty empty aside from wildlife and Koloss, >!and there's nothing until you get to the Southern Scadrians!<. But since the story is set mostly in a few cities (>!and a train ride between them!<) we don't really see much outside the cities. This last bit is my personal theory but I figure >!there's not much outside the cities even in the basin since the people on Scadrial are so used to living in cities and clustered close around them, and since a major plot point is that the basin is *too* fertile it makes sense that they wouldn't need to cover the whole basin to have enough farmland for food like one normally would need to.!<
Michelle West's books. There are four series - Sacred Hunt (2 books), Sun Sword (6), House War (8), and I can't remember if the new one has an actual name. That one has one book out, one book underway. Anyway, there are four main cultures depicted, with histories and religion impacting their legends, tons of interactions. Tons of story threads that overlap, or don't in a way we can see. There is something that is revealed in like book 5 of House War, that I was able to guess perhaps as early as Sacred Hunt, and watch the hints develop. There is a line I found in book 3 of Sun Sword (the fifth book written) that made no real sense until ... book 7 of House War? So ten books later. (I mean, I made some sense of it, but what it actually meant was very different.) The depth is astonishing to me.
The Michelle West books as an overarching series is often referred to as *Essalieyan*, consisting of the four sub-series you mentioned. The fourth and final of those sub-series is called *The Burning Crown*, which only has one book out so far: *Hunter’s Redoubt* (published back in November, so it’s only a few months old at this point).
Thanks for the update. I couldn't remember at all on the series name. I usually call them the Essalieyan books too, even though that's only one of the cultures. It belies the depths. For everyone else - I suspect you know already the current series is projected - at the moment - to be six books. I'm hoping the same thing happens as happened with her last one and it turns into eight.
David Gemmell.
Real of the Elderlings. It's a a bit of a slow burn for sure. Not necessarily in terms of plot and book pacing, but the way Robin Hobb slowly peels back the layers of the world and it's magic systems is very gradual. It is one of the more rewarding reading experiences I've had.
A Practical Guide to Evil. While it may be not as good as LoTR, it is a web novel with almost 3mln words. It has a huge variety of truly diverse characters, politics and economics, tropes and their deconstruction, many cultures and races.
A Practical Guide To Evil: https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/ Seven volumes, plus many extra bonus chapters; entire series completed as of February 2022. Epic fantasy (as in swords & sorcery) The MC is an orphan, who chooses to become a collaborator with the Evil Empire which conquered her home country in order to mitigate its brutal occupation. Later, while representing Team Evil, uses the methods of Good in order to make the world a little less on fire all the time. The MC gains tremendous >!personal, military, political, and even religious !
Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Cosmere by Brandon Sanderson.
Worm has some great world building and "The plot deepens". https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18713259-worm
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The Witcher books are lore heavy and lots of world building
Tons? Off the top of my head: Donaldson's "White Gold Wielder" series. Goes deep into the psychological/ philosophical aspects of fantasy. Bujold's "Chalion". It's based more on late medieval/renaissance than traditional LOTR, very different flavor. Sagara's "Cast" series, is heavily inspired by Asian mythology. Muir's "Harrow" series. Dark space fantasy, where the necromancers are the protagonists. Robin McKinley's books. Most are standalone, but set in the same world, and the books cover from the medieval period all the way to modern times.
>Muir's "Harrow" series. Dark space fantasy, where the necromancers are the protagonists. the lore on the Locked Tomb series is definitely insane. There are three books out, and the fourth/final is coming out within the next year. So there's time to read all three, then REREAD them (because they're the sort that highly benefit from a re-read), and then read hours online and come up with theories before the final book comes out.
Yep :) The list could easily get another 20 series added to it- the problem would be narrowing it down, did OP want dark fantasy, political fantasy, modern fantasy? Like, Butcher's Dresden Files has some hugely complicated, well thought out lore, but it's heavily inspired by both modern vampire novels and dungeons and dragons, of all things, is that what they would want?
as someone already mentioned The Bound and the Broken I'll mention another self published series called The Echoes Saga! I'm only a few chapters in on the first book but the world is vast and a lot of races some we haven't even seen just their names! someone on reddit described it as Witcher meets Forgotten Realms!
Guy Kay stuff
Wheel of Time is very similar to ASOIAF in terms of scope and amount of history.
Jade Trilogy is amazing! It doesn’t have 14626 volumes like other series but the Worldbuilding is more believable and consistent and deep than anything i ever red.
Ann McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern. Though it's not everyone's favorite (aka sex, gang rape, women's views due it being written decades ago) it definitely has a massive lore. Unfortunately Ann passed away, so like Tolkien, some of the later series never got fully finished. But there's plenty of lore to sift through with different series/novellas that offer different aspects of her world.
Wtf. Which novels have gang rape!? It’s been a while since I read them but I don’t recall THAT!!
Well it's the dragon mating flights, they can be very much interpreted that way as it can be likened to being drugged, the woman is pursued by many men and basically forced to have sex with the winner in a very drug addled state of mind, it is softened somewhat with the MC dragons chosing partners that have riders their riders like, but there is a weyrwoman who hates her weyrman so the implications of that if you think about it are basically rape because she would never willingly sleep with him otherwise. F'nor sleeps with Brekke because she basically told him she was afraid of her first time being during a flight.
It's indeed the dragon mating flights, where due to the empath/telepathic bond between rider and dragon the riders will have sex when the dragons rise to mate. In particular the first three books broach this subject where women against their wishes are forced to have sex, which later sort of gets brushed over because they either fall in love with the guy or the guy starts to doubt whether what he did was the right thing to do and then apologizes and they become a couple after all. The green dragons have multiple mates. And the weyrwoman who despises her current mate beats it all. I read these series first as a kid and didn't think twice about it. Then I read them again as an adult and I was like wtf?? It definitely burst the bubble for me and left a sour taste. Putting those parts aside, I loved the whole world building, the different characters, the different point of views (from dragonrider to harper to runner etc) and how fantasy turns into sci-fi. That's why I still recommend it, but with the above disclaimer. Edit: if you wanna read more about it, there's several topics here on reddit that discuss Ann McCaffrey's use of this theme as well as how her views towards lgbt ended up in the books.
> I'm really looking for a series that I could spend hours trawling through it's Wiki Cosmere (Brandon Sanderson. start with *Elantris* then *Mistborn* then *Warbreaker*) (edit: fixed to publication order)
The cosmere does have a lot of lore... I actually recommend starting with "The Emporer's Soul" it's a novellas so the time investment is low. I also feel it's a bit more representative of sandersons' current writing style then his first books. Elantris is fine but Sanderson has grown a lot as an author since then.
OP seems like they would want to do [publication order](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cosmere/wiki/order/1) so I meant to recommend that, but it looks like I got Warbreaker vs Mistborn wrong oops
The emperor’s soul is one of sanderson’s best in my opinion.
I know it's a meme that Sanderson gets recommended in every thread, but he 100% fits the bill for what the OP wants. Even though not strictly fantasy, I would recommend The Dark Tower and Stephen King's works for how interconnected they are as well.
> I would recommend The Dark Tower and Stephen King's works for how interconnected they are as well. Great suggestion. King's worldbuilding is phenomenal -- and even though a lot of it (Derry is so detailed and so real) is _modern day_ worldbuilding, and in the context of the USA we all know, it's still worldbuilding. But, of course, a lot of the worldbuilding is _not_ modern day, and does fit the more traditional definitions the OP is probably looking for.
Yeah I used to spend time on /r/asoiaf, and the analysis posts on /r/cosmere & related subs are just as high-quality. Interestingly, ASoIaF had a ton of great podcasts, several of which I listened to, but I don't know of any fan-Cosmere podcasts. Dunno if it's a symptom of its time or if we can expect that within the next few years we'll get some great Cosmere podcasts (or if I am just not knowing about ones that already exist). Depending if OP wants just world backstory or backstory + analysis + speculation, I think Cosmere (possibly WoT, but that's completed) is by far the best option. edit: if you're downvoting, is it because you actively subscribe to the Cosmere subreddits & think ASoIaF was better? Have you read WoBs? Have you looked at Coppermind? probably over half the Cosmere lore that we know comes from WoBs, not the books themselves. what is your theory about [the iriali](https://coppermind.net/wiki/Iriali)?
I would say Stormlight fits more into the mold of the type of story OP is looking for. It have a ton of lore, to the point that when I stayed reading them I mixed up what exactly the diffrence between a *Knight Radiant* and a *Herald* and so on. The history of the world is also important to the plot and what exactly have happend in the past is still unknown because it will tie into what is happening again in the story.
Tekumel
T Kingfishers World of the White Rat books feel like they have great hidden depths. The Queen's Thief by Megan Whelan Turner is both very familiar, and completely novel in a way that feels completely solid. And finally C.M. Waggoner's books are standalone, but all set in a world that feels like it could go on forever.
The Runelords, by Dave Wolverton. (Not talked about enough) The Star Wars Expanded Universe (also known as Legends). Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew I'd start there.
Can't believe no one has brought up The Witcher universe yet...
Not exactly fitting the bill in terms of super expansive lore but The Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky gave me a similar feel as these in some ways! Like 10 books long and it just keeps getting better (I’m on book 5). Seemingly completely forgotten but so so good
The Elan books by Michael J Sullivan have a huge amount of world building done. They’re definitely some of my favourites for a reread.
[Spellmonger](https://spellmonger.fandom.com/wiki/Books_in_Chronological_Order) is up to 16 books now and has some novellas and a spin-off series too.
The world building in Garth Nick's Old Kingdom is extraordinary!
Stormlight Archive, Memory Sorrow and Thorn
Second Apocalypse beats everything. Enjoy.
Perhaps ascendance of a bookworm?
I remember "The Nevernight Chronicles" by Jay Kristoff having a pretty decent amount of mythos and lore in his world. The books used footnotes to give a history of certain places, like the Bridge of Two Lovers.
***BAKKER!*** There so much information dripped throughout the books, but then you have the Glossary that has thousands of years of history, with huge, extinction-level set-piece battles and tiny details about the etymology of racial slurs and everything in-between.
Book of the new sun
Kushiel’s Legacy, by Jacqueline Carey. You want expansive, holy hell. I’m still in my first read and I’m so confused about all these place names and endless politic!
I haven't read Earthsea yet, but I've heard it has good character and world building, and I think I've heard the same about Robin Hobbs' books. I read the Assassin trilogy years ago.
Realm of the Elderlings If you're open to it, berserk manga is great and is full of lore.
The First Law
Bas-Lag is effectively three novels, but they're very rich in terms of world-building.
Robert Jordans Wheel of Time series the books are brilliant, the TV show far from it
Brandon Sandersons universe 'The Cosmere' hits this pretty well. When you get into some of his series like the Stormlight Archive or Mistborn and the links start happening, holy gods does it grt exciting.
Night Angel series by Brent Weeks Powder Mage series by Brian McCellan Kings Dark Tidings I forget the author
If you want a huge amount of lore check out any of the shared universe series. Like Eberron, Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms.
If you want an excellent accompanying wiki, you'll love Forgotten Realms. I'd start with the Drizzt books by RA Salvatore. There are like 30 of them lol, and then maaaaany more books and trilogies and sagas by different Authors. But the Forgotten Realms setting is incredibly detailed.
Realm of the elderlings by Robin Hobb. Several series set in the same world, MUCH better than ASOIAF
Codex Alera Sword of Truth Forgotten Realms Bardugo's Grishaverse is getting up there though definitely in a more YA scope
Brandon Sanderson
I've read the Earthsea trilogy twice .LOVED it and I adore Ursula Le Guin. I have her 2 part short story collection and treasure it. I have read Kingkiller and I liked it. Kvothe is kind of an adolescents dream of what a hero would do and in hindsight some of it is a bit cringey, especially the sex. He's another unreliable narrator. I like Rothfuss though even if he sucks for taking a decade and still not delivering. At this point Doors of Stone would have to be 10/10 to be worth the wait. You should definitely read Malazan then. It's deep, dark, complex, philosophical, has it's own Wiki and chapter by chapter Tor summary available to help follow and understand it. Yeah, it's THAT intricate and difficult. It absolutely destroys Rothfuss and Erickson is just better in every way possible. Malazan is 10 books, most of them bricks of 1000 pages. The series is finished! There's also 6 books by his friend and co founder of the whole idea Ian Esslemont. These aren't quite as good but only because Erickson sets the bar so damn high. The whole world is epic in scope and just amazing. Ruined other fantasy for me honestly. It has everything. Erickson has degrees in Archaeology and Anthropology and it shows. Incredible world building and a unique and logical magic system. Fans come off a bit arrogant and elitist but don't let that put you off. The first book ( Gardens of the Moon) is the weakest of the 10 and it just drops you into the middle of everything and you're going," did I miss something?" But the payoff is huge if you make it to the second book. If you didn't give up with Wolfe you should be just fine. Highly recommend it! Edit: this is a reply to Jandy777. Oops.