Underrated Fantasy Books you NEED to Read! (5 star reads!)
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- Опубликовано: 27 июл 2024
- Chatting through some of my favorite UNDERRATED fantasy books!
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Intro: 0:00 - 0:46
The Inheritance Trilogy: :47 - 2:45
The Sword of Kaigen: 2:46 - 5:02
The City of Stairs: 5:03 - 7:50
Senlin Ascends: 7:51 - 9:45
Black Sun: 9:46 - 12:25
Justice of Kings: 12:26 - 15:04
Liveship Trader: 15:05 - 17:50
outro: 17:51
* I also use some affiliate links in the description, these links do not impact the price but I do receive a small commission from the retailer if you use my link!*
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Goodreads: / regan
Sword of Kaigen is one of the best fantasy books I’ve ever read. I’ve also loved The Black Sun and the sequel! Can’t wait for the 3rd book to come out.
Yes to the Sword of Kaigen 😍 This book was everything ... i keep recommending to everyone 😍
The sword of Kaigen is literally my favourite book atm!!! It’s so so good
Hobb's Soldier's Son Trilogy is so underrated but man, I loved it. Also Jen Williams Ninth Rain is incredible.
Thank you for this video. I started reading Sword of Kaigen today because of your video and am hooked! Love it so far!
I love all your recs, they all sound incredible! The Sword of Kaigen sounds the most appealing to me!
Really excited for three of these books: Ship of Magic, Black Sun, and Justice of Kings! Thanks for the recs!
Thank you for mentioning the Books of Babel series! So underated.
Rarely seen a rec video where all of the books look amazing. Very eloquent and clear reviews, keep up the great work!
I loved The Justice of Kings. Can't wait for more in this series. I haven't read Liveship Traders in a long while, but they were very good.
Black Sun is one of my favorite fantasy stories of all time. I really enjoyed Fevered Star too and I CANNOT WAIT until the 3rd book is released.
I've been watching your channel since I was in high school, about 7 years back. Watching your videos brings me so much comfort, reminds me of old (and better :D) times!
The Liveship Trilogy is great.
All of the Robin Hobb books are great
But they deserve more hype than what is given!
Love your videos btw....😊
I just finished Senlin Ascends, I struggled with wanting to pick it up consistently, but it was very good - such vivid descriptions I could imagine the space and all the senses wholly. I imagine I will carry on with it eventually.
Sword of Kaigen is one of the best standalone fantasy I've ever read! The cities trilogy is amazing and so worth it
Selin Ascends is amazing!! I still need to finish the last book! I'm always telling my friends of this series ❤❤❤❤❤❤
i keep meaning to get the sword of kaigen and the justice of kings, they sound SO GOOD
Sword of Kaigen is my favorite book! I found it thanks to you and I recommend it everywhere I go!
Liveship Traders trilogy was my introduction to Robin Hobb. There are one more things I like to point out: there is a character from the assassin's trilogy also included here but with a different gender! Coming up with such a twist shows how great Hobb is. The other books I haven't heard of, but I will check them out soon. Thanks for the suggestions.
I love your Fantasy reviews. It has been most helpful and has not steered me wrong yet !
Lois McMaster Bujold's Sharing Knife quartet. I have no idea how popular it is on GoodReads but I love it.
I would also recommend The Winnowing Flame trilogy! I recently discovered it and it's the first trilogy I'm actually continuing past book one haha
Some people say it's a bit too dark over time but honestly, if you've read The Poppy War, this one seems like nothing. Thanks for the new books :)
More criminally underrated fantasy series: the Drenai Series by David Gemmel, The Acts of Caine by Matthew Woodring Stover, and Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian by Robert E. Howard.
+1 to Sword of Kaigen, it's really good!
I'd also like to recommend any of Margaret Rogerson's novels. All are standalone but they're all so good! Can't wait to reread them!
Sword of Kaigen is incredible, it broke me so soundly and fully that it was hard to function for a bit.
Totally agree about the Sword of Kaigen and Robin Hobb! Thank you for the detective recommendation.
First video I’ve seen of yours, your recommendations (both the books themselves and your descriptions) were excellent! I smashed that subscribe button
SO EXCITED!!! 🤍🌈❣️✨💘💓🤩📚💙💙💗💗💝❤️💜💜❤️💞💞❣️❣️✨🌈💓💘🖤💖💔📚📚💙💗💗💗❣️❣️✨🌈💘💘💖💔💚💙📚💝💝💗💜💜❣️✨🌈💘💘💖💖💔❤️❤️💗💗💙
Reading The Hod King now and loving it!!
Hi! So far so good with your recommendations! Senlin Ascends and the series FABULOUS. Sword of Kaigen Amazing. City of Stairs already read and loved. You're 3 for 3 so far :-)
I just picked up Senlin Ascends for the tower of Babel and the cover was pretty nice looking. Never read anything steampunk so that will be new to me. Thanks for mentioning!
I completely agree with Robin hobb I've read the farseer trilogy and I loved it, and I just finished ship of magic and I LOVED it !!! Her characters and writing 👌robin hobb has become an all time favourite author of mine and I cannot wait to read more of her books!
I don't think you've ever mentioned it, or even read it but I'd love to see you read The Belgariad - David Eddings, it's a really wonderful fantasy series my dad introduced me to and has remained a close favourite all through my adult hood. Really excited to read more Robin Hobb - I've been eyeing the Liveship Trader series for a while!! xx
I really enjoyed the liveship trader series 😃
I adore the David Eddings series and haven’t heard many fantasy readers talk about it. I’ve reread The Belgariad and The Mallorian series several times 🥰.
Same! The Belgariad and The Malllorean are forever in my favorites list. I read them first in high school, and have reread them regularly for years. They’re comfort reads for me. I also really love The Elenium trilogy. I wish Eddings got more love!
@@Tinahgirl83 I also loved the two series' as a kid. Sadly hearing about how the Eddings abused their children really soured my memory of those series (they both went to jail for physical abuse, really awful stuff)
Oh man, that brings back memories. I loved those books. Too bad the author turned out to be a bad person.
My underrated fantasy rec is A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay. I've never heard it mentioned by anyone but it's SO good. You know a book is great when the entire time you're reading it you're in a state of perpetual fear for the characters' well being. Love those characters.
This other one is more historical gothic, but it's got a fantasy component in the supernatural themes so I'm including it.
Fevre Dream by Geore R.R Martin is suspenseful, strangely wholesome and sadly underrated. Tbh, I enjoyed it more than his much better known A Song of Ice and Fire series, which is saying a lot because I love those books. I'm pretty sure I screamed internally throughout the entire second half of Fevre Dream.
These are my two favourite books overall and I will never stop trying to make people read them.
*ehm ehm* Bas Lag series by China Mieville is so underrated!
Unique, hyperactive aggressive very adult very grim mostly urban steampunk fantasy focused on intricate politics and immaculate world building with complicated characters.
So good!
I recommend it always especially for you.
I need these as Ive finished all of the Stormlight Archives currently out, and is actively looking for 5⭐️ fantasy reads
I agree The sword of kaigen truly had some of the best and most believable character arcs !
Fevered Star (sequel to Black Sun) actually came out in April! :) I liked it, but not as much as Black Sun. The audiobooks for both were great!
agreed with fevered star and i was so excited for it :(
city of stairs is some top-tier sht. i absolutely loved every page of it. it has a lot of subtexts and definitely not straightforward in a way that adds complexity to the story. a 10/10 read.
I have the audiobook for Ship of Magic on hold at the library. I should have it in the next few weeks and super excited to listen to it.
One of my fav books!! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I will say the narrator isn’t my fav but I listened to her on 1.2x speed and got used to her voice after a bit haha
I just marathoned Black Sun and Fevered Star, and it was so good!!!!
I got the second book in The Liveship Traders today for literally £2 (I think that's about $3-4) which was an absolute steal to find! If it's as good as you say then I'll definitely pick up the first book and give it a read! 😌
Thank you for this video, this is a great topic. I've previously read and loved The Sword of Kaigen and Liveship Traders and have purchased Inheritance Trilogy, City of Stairs, Senlin Ascends and Justice of Kings just because of your video (I'll wait on Black Sun until the series is done/closer to done).
Orconomics === Sword of Kaigen won the 2019 Self Published Fantasy Blog-Off (run by Mark Lawrence) and really all the winners of that and most of the finalists are worth checking out. I'd strongly recommend the 2018 winner Orconomics which is an incredibly funny and fun fantasy satire of the 2007 financial crisis/capitalism through D&D fantasy tropes. 4.33 on Goodreads based on ~5.3K ratings and less than 1K reviews.
Sailing to Sarantium === Another criminally underrated book (duology) is Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay (the Sarantine Mosaic. The second and final book is Lord of Emperors). Kay is very much like Hobb in that he's an underrated giant of the field. His best known book is probably Tigana which is also excellent, but my favorite of his is the two book duology that is a historical fantasy in the Byzantine Empire with a fair bit of political nature but the POV character is an artist, a mosaicist. There are currently less than 700 reviews for this on good reads, but it is a super enjoyable read, especially for those that like either settings or characters a lot as the world is very immersive. Both books of the duology were nominated finalists for world fantasy book of the year (1999 and 2001 respectively)
Kushiel's Dart === This one isn't quite as underrated, but more underappreciated and misunderstood. It is another political fantasy that is feels a bit like a loosely historical fantasy in a sort of parallel history of France/Europe. Due to the fact that there is sex / love as a key part of the culture / religion / magic of the world and the main POV character is S&M indentured servant trained courtesan a lot of the review focus goes to the sex scenes. But really the meat of the book is not actually the sexy times, but the political intrigue and characters. If you hate reading about sex this book will not be for you, but it isn't a book just about smut and sex and what not (and if that's what you are looking for, this also will not be for you). Note this book was an award winner also in that it won Reviewers choice for best fantasy novel of 2001 and the Locus award for best first novel in 2002.
Emperor's Soul === Can anything from Brandon Sanderson be underrated given how prolific and best selling he is? This won the Hugo for best Fantasy novella in 2013, but due to the fact it is a novella instead of a novel / epic book is fairly under rated (only 5.5k reviews on good reads). While I like pretty much all of Sanderson's work, I think Emperor's Soul is likely his best work, and at only about 100 pages is a much quicker read than most.
I loved the Emperor’s Soul! I loved the world and wished that I could read more from it.
You've sold me on Justice of Kings. I've added it to my list of books to buy.
If you want an excellent underrated fantasy series, you should check out the Pellinor series by Allison Croggon. I started book one and I could not stop until I finished the entire series. At no point did it get tedious, boring, or too long. I enjoyed every moment.
OMG someone else who has a read the Pellinor series! I never see anyone mention this, the books are so good as is the magic and the characters.
@@jessieliseem8182 Yes its such a good series. I recommend it to anyone who even breathes in my direction 😂
So many of these sound fantastic
Thanks for the suggestions.
Oh my god my English TA lent me the inheritance trilogy. I'm taking this as a sign to finally read this
i have been wanting to read senlin ascends since you mentioned it months ago!!! i can never find it whenever i go to any bookstore tho T^T
These are all on my to read list!
Okay you sold me on Black Sun and The Justice of Kings! I'm adding those to my TBR. I'm glad both of these also have audiobooks 😍
The audiobook for Black Sun is SO good!
also the market of monsters trilogy by rachel shaeffer. outside of webtoon, ive never heard anyone actually disguss the books anywhere (there are book and comic versions lol)
I loved The Justice of Kings as well.
great video, thank you so much!
The Rook and Rose series by MA Carrick is appallingly underrated in my opinion. Such rich world building and such interesting characters. It's my favorite more recent adult fantasy series and I cant believe it has under 5000 ratings. Also the Rogues of the Republic series by Patrick Weekes deserves more attention as just a super fun fantasy heist comedy series. It really plays around with fantasy and heist tropes, while also still just being a fun fantasy and intelligent heist series.
Winnowing Flame Trilogy by Jen Williams. So underrated. So fantastic.
I loved Live Ship Traders did not loooove the ending but stilled loved it. I laughed and cried and yelled and victory Danced.
The rage of dragons by Evan Winter is soooo good and I wish more people would read it!
Rage of Dragons is amazing! Can't wait for the 3rd book in the series
You should read a webtoon called "your throne" I'm pretty sure you'll love it!
😅 i havent read any of these, I did try Assassins Apprentice and i liked it but not enough to be fully invested in the rest of the series
wow great video definitely going to check these ones out and i will subscribe as well.
this comes at a perfect time, was just about to pick up and start the inheritance trilogy 🥰
One of my favorite series !! ❤
I recommend “a fate of wrath and flames”, it’s so good but so underrated
A lot of these books are becoming insanely popular in my local Waterstones!
I know more than 100,000 reviews exist for Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series. But You Tubers are more focused on the Dresden series. Codex Alera is high fantasy, 5 or 6 books, and is written at a much higher level than Dresden. Also, if you like audiobooks, Kate Reading narrates the entire series and she is amazing. It took me several years to read through the first Dresden novel. Now, I’m up-to-date and enjoying (or crying) through the entire series. But Codex Alera? I listened to the entire series in six weeks. It will take a very special fantasy series to displace Codex Alera as my favorite fantasy.
Agreed. It's like they are by different authors entirely.
Is it possible to know what is on your bookshelves. Some of the covers look interesting but I can't tell the titles from all of them looking at the video. Like for instance the set of white books above The Mercles Book. Thanks.
The Inheritance Trilogy was the author’s first BIG trilogy and she became very well known when this was published, even though she’d been writing a long time before that. I think that when her second series, the Broken Earth books, came out, they kind of overshadowed the Inheritance books - undeservedly, I would say, because the Inheritance trilogy is far better.
I liked the Inheritance Trilogy and, overall, I would recommend it. But, I’d also warn readers that, later in the series, especially in the third book, if I recall correctly, she writes about a sexual encounter extensively and graphically and, in addition, it’s not between an opposite sex couple. When I was reading the book, I recall that I felt this came out of left field and sort of slapped me in the face, unexpectedly and I was like, “Okay, so we are going there?!”
Basically, it was really graphic and, even worse, gratuitous. It didn’t add to the plot one bit. She does this even more in the Broken Earth books, which is why I put the trilogy down after the first book. If I wanted to read porn, I’d read porn.
The author has a lot of short stories that you can read online for free. If there’s any part of her bibliography that I think gets little love, it’s those stories. I don’t think a lot of people even know she’s done some really excellent short fiction.
The Farseer Trilogy is favourite. Fitz and Nighteyes are like my own flesh and fur. That being said I've not read the liveship traders yet! It's criminal and I should!
SWORD OF KAIGEN AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HOW DARE YOU. I FALL IN LOVE WITH MAIN CHARACTERS AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Rosemarked series by Livia Blackburne I think it’s underrated it’s really good. I think she is a really good writer. Love her love her books you should give her a try. ☺️
I had high hopes for Sword of Kaigon. But....I found myself disappointed. Oh, there were heart pounding moments, to be sure, but..
An underrated fantasy series I love is the Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling.
The Justice of Kings is giving me so many Sherlock Holmes vibes… color me interested.
I need Justice of kings 👀
You should read the Deverry Cycle by Katherine Kerr if you haven't. Very underrated and absolutely amazing fantasy!
I love the hundred thousand kingdoms it was so good
A lot of people read Robin Hobb long before GR came around. I think I read the first two trilogies when I was in middle and high school in the late 90s and early 2000s. I think she's a lot more popular than the Goodreads numbers let on. People talk about her all the time on r/fantasy.
Thank you for the recs. Will definitely read them. Would you be interested in making a similar rec video for underrated romance books too?? ❤️
Much of GGK (Guy Gavriel Kay) is criminally underrated!
The Ninth Rain series by Jen Williams is awesome.
I really need to get to all Robin Hobbs books!
Is the Liveship trader series an okay place to start with her series'? I was meaning to start with the assassin's apprentice but I think the Liveship trader plot will grab me more
You can technically start with either Farseer or Liveship as long as you read both before moving on with series 3!
Which book should we start with in the Robin Hobb series?
I’ve added the sword of Kaigen and Selin Ascending a while ago thanks to your recommendations BUT they are not translated in French, which is my native language 😞 Maybe I should give them a try in English though…
i recently read and really enjoyed nk jemisins other series, definitely want to check out her other work! sword of kaigen sounds right up my alley too i love a good standalone lol (so much good fantasy feels like such a time committment! feels like the norm is 10 books in a series and they all have to be 1k+ pages) i recommend the jasmine throne by tasha suri, it has under 2.5k reviews on goodreads which is so criminal! i know its a newer book but its sooooo good, really wonderful worldbuilding, characters, and lesbian romance! the sequel comes out in august and im soo excited
Love the liveship trader series I tried Farseer trilogy but I ended up dnfing assassins apprentice
The farseer trilogy is one of those series that gets better as it goes along. Just in case you ever decide to try again!
Mask of Mirrors is also a very underrated fantasy
Agree!!! Just finished it
Sword of kaigen was a good book but it didn't hit entirely how I wanted it to, the twist in the middle kinda missed for me to be specific.
Yay love me some underrated gems.
Best middle grade series: Fablehaven by Brandon Mull!
My underrated fantasy (romance) series is the Tales of Inthya series by Effie Calvin. It’s a series of novellas, no long slogs to get through at the beginning (looking at you Hobb) and all sapphic.
Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher needs more love!
This is one of my favorites for this year! I can't say enough about this book!!!
Spoiler: I loved the concept of Senlin ascends when I thought it would incorporate more floors of Babel. It felt like the Phantom’s Tollbooth and filled me with much warmth and nostalgia. I have started the second book, so I hope more levels and their themes are incorporated!
this is so on point!! I LOVED the Phantom Tollbooth as a kid as well
I have this NK Jeminsin book and just bought the first book in audio. can't wait to give her a try. have city of stairs too. I bought all of these based on your recommendations, but I have to pick them up!! UGH
reading vlog everyday please...
Hey Regan make a fresh recommendation on fantasy books for beginners please
I would love to read The Sword of Kaigen but it's unavailable in the UK, I can't find it anywhere 😢
If tou haven't managed to get it yet, I just bought it on amazon in the UK. Couldn't see it anywhere else, although maybe ebay?
I am having trouble getting into the city of stairs...
Mathew and Austin book 1 and 2 to Lily G. Rafferty 😍💖
Jemisin is fantastic, I really need to get to the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms!
The inheritance trilogy is good
Just reading it and so far enjoying it very much!
Have you ever read a book called eyes of the dragon by Stephen king it's a underrated fantasy book plus it's connected to the dark tower series