Here are 100 books that Crowfall fans have personally recommended if you like
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All my books (I hope!) sweep the reader into another world – it’s one of my favourite themes in the books I love to read, as well as write. When I was about seven, I first read some of the books which would shape my life, including Elidor by Alan Garner and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine l’Engle, which brought me right out of my own life and into worlds as varied as the frightening interstellar realm of Camazotz and the battlefields of Elidor. I’ve been trying to capture that sense of ‘being swept away’ in my own work ever since.
L.D. Lapinski’s incredible Strangeworlds series will definitely sweep you into another world – into as many other worlds as you can count! Step into your suitcase and go on a journey to somewhere beyond imagining with Lapinski’s amazing cast of characters. When Flick stumbles into a dusty old shop and meets a young man named Jonathan Mercator, it’s the beginning of a life-changing adventure – across the multiverse – for them both.
Perfect for fans of The Train to Impossible Places and Nevermoor, this “utterly delightful” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) middle grade fantasy follows a young girl who uses a travel agency’s magical suitcases to travel to different worlds.
When twelve-year-old Flick Hudson accidentally ends up in the Strangeworlds Travel Agency, she uncovers a fantastic secret: there are hundreds of other worlds just steps away from hers. All you have to do to visit them is just jump into the right suitcase. Then Flick gets the invitation of a lifetime: join Strangeworlds’s magical travel society and explore other worlds.
All my books (I hope!) sweep the reader into another world – it’s one of my favourite themes in the books I love to read, as well as write. When I was about seven, I first read some of the books which would shape my life, including Elidor by Alan Garner and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine l’Engle, which brought me right out of my own life and into worlds as varied as the frightening interstellar realm of Camazotz and the battlefields of Elidor. I’ve been trying to capture that sense of ‘being swept away’ in my own work ever since.
Bell’s Uncommoners series is set in a richly-imagined magical world where everyday objects have extraordinary powers – and when darkness closes in, Seb and Ivy Sparrow must race to uncover an Uncommon mystery before it’s too late. Featuring a talking bicycle bell, police officers armed with toilet brushes, and the incredible city of Londinium, these books will fling you straight into a thrilling adventure.
Welcome to a world where nothing is quite as it seems . . .
Dive head first into the world of Lundinor in this magical adventure story for anyone with a Hogwarts-shaped hole in their life.
When their grandmother Sylvie is rushed to hospital, Ivy Sparrow and her annoying big brother Seb cannot imagine what adventure lies in store. Returning to Sylvie's house, they find it has been ransacked by unknown intruders - before a mysterious feather scratches an ominous message onto the kitchen wall. A very strange policeman turns up on the scene, determined to apprehend them . .…
All my books (I hope!) sweep the reader into another world – it’s one of my favourite themes in the books I love to read, as well as write. When I was about seven, I first read some of the books which would shape my life, including Elidor by Alan Garner and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine l’Engle, which brought me right out of my own life and into worlds as varied as the frightening interstellar realm of Camazotz and the battlefields of Elidor. I’ve been trying to capture that sense of ‘being swept away’ in my own work ever since.
Alkaf’s book is, in her own words, ‘unapologetically Malaysian’. It also sweeps us into a mysterious, spooky, thrilling world, where a pelesit, a type of ghost bound to a person – in this case, a girl named Suraya – shows her that having your own familiar spirit might not always be fun. Pink (the name Suraya gives to her pelesit) risks pulling Suraya and itself into the darkness; can they save themselves, and one another?
Artemis Sparke has had it with humans. She heads to the nearby salt marsh to hang out with the birds, plants, and mollusks who don't make a big deal of her stutter. The shoreline sanctuary is predictable, unlike her family and friends, and the data in her science journal proves…
Maurice Sendak said, "Children do live in fantasy and reality, they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do." In other words, children do the impossible. Growing up, stories where the real and imagined collided were like fresh air when I felt like I couldn't breathe. They've always been important to me, and for many reasons, hold a special place in our literature. Now, as a full-time teacher, writer, and daddy, I get to be on the other side of that joy equation, guiding new readers and writers as they become travelers of the fantastic.
This book does African American magic on a scale that I’ve never seen before. It was given to me as a gift. “Cameron, you need to read this.” And they were right. I’ve read plenty of fantasy that makes use of the same African American and Caribbean folklore (my family is from Belize) but never at such depth for middle-grade novels.
I love how we get dropped right into the mix very early without explanation because no explanation is needed. I’m on the inside. I know exactly who and what he’s talking about. And because it’s a full-on fantasy novel, I got to know these staple characters that everybody thinks they know, like Brer Fox, as whole people, not just walking, talking cautionary tales.
Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents Kwame Mbalia's epic fantasy, a middle grade American Gods set in a richly-imagined world populated with African American folk heroes and West African gods.
*"Mbalia expertly weaves a meaningful portrayal of family and community with folklore, myth, and history―including the legacy of the slave trade―creating a fast-paced, heroic series starter."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Seventh grader Tristan Strong feels anything but strong ever since he failed to save his best friend when they were in a bus accident together. All he has left of Eddie is the journal his friend wrote stories in. Tristan is dreading…
Ever since childhood, I’ve been dazzled by the idea of virtual worlds described by pixels, first in ancient computer games, and then in novels that gave the rudimentary graphics of decades past a vivid new life—from the hallucinatory realities in Philip K. Dick’s novels to William Gibson’s Neuromancer to most of all, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. As a young writer, I stepped sideways into a dream assignment: Helping make the Metaverse real. After writing about it for two decades, however, I’m still learning about it now.
Julian wrote “A Rape in Cyberspace,” a widely-discussed Village Voice article about transgression in LambdaMOO, a very early virtual world (known as a MUD, for multi-user dimension) depicted completely in text.
Expanding this story into a deeper exploration of its fascinating user community, My Tiny Life was incredibly influential to me as a very young writer—convincing me that online games and virtual worlds offered endless stories and insights into the human condition.
His book remains crucial to understanding virtual worlds. Indeed, as I write in my own book, a senior developer at Meta desperately tried to get colleagues to read it, so they didn’t repeat past mistakes. Sad to say they didn’t, and so they did.
This is the true story of a journey into LambdaMOO, a virtual Eden, where race, gender and identity were infinitely malleable and whose visitors thought they had escaped from all usual cultural limits. Until a brutal rape and ideological warfare between high and low castes brought the virtual and real worlds into seizmic collision. "LambdaMOO is a new kind of society, where thousands of people voluntarily come together from all over the world. What these people say or do may not always be to your liking; as when visiting any international city, it is wise to be careful who you…
Ever since childhood, I’ve been dazzled by the idea of virtual worlds described by pixels, first in ancient computer games, and then in novels that gave the rudimentary graphics of decades past a vivid new life—from the hallucinatory realities in Philip K. Dick’s novels to William Gibson’s Neuromancer to most of all, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. As a young writer, I stepped sideways into a dream assignment: Helping make the Metaverse real. After writing about it for two decades, however, I’m still learning about it now.
A legendary online game designer who helped lead development on incredibly influential MMOs including Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, Raph also happens to be a keen and witty writer, willing to dive deeply on what went right (and often hilariously wrong) on his many projects over a storied career.
Postmortems is a front-row seat to the practice, and the eternal paradox of trying to create an otherworldly realm while also dealing with fixities of human nature. Or as he might put it, can you make an online world set in the Star Wars universe when every player wants to be a Jedi?
Few game designers have shared as many lessons learned as Raph Koster. In a quarter-century of writings and talks, he has offered up game design lessons, online community theories, and candid self-evaluation.
This first volume of a three-book set of selected essays collects previously written postmortems and many brand new pieces. They are accompanied by historical material such as posts written for players, chat logs, speeches, design sketches, and more. The result is an inspiring historical look back at the development of virtual worlds.
These are the stories behind Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, the story of the early…
Ever since childhood, I’ve been dazzled by the idea of virtual worlds described by pixels, first in ancient computer games, and then in novels that gave the rudimentary graphics of decades past a vivid new life—from the hallucinatory realities in Philip K. Dick’s novels to William Gibson’s Neuromancer to most of all, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. As a young writer, I stepped sideways into a dream assignment: Helping make the Metaverse real. After writing about it for two decades, however, I’m still learning about it now.
While many game developers have often referred to the virtual world they were building as inspired by the Metaverse of Snow Crash, the term never quite caught on outside their industry—until seasoned media executive and venture capitalist Matthew Ball came along.
Hitting the shelves exactly 30 years after Neal Stephenson’s novel was published, Matt changed all that, explaining the concept in terms that the broader business world could understand. Also highly recommended for delving into the financial and technical challenges that must be surmounted to create a fully instantiated Metaverse.
The term "metaverse" is suddenly everywhere, from debates over Fortnite to the pages of The New York Times to the speeches of Mark Zuckerberg, who proclaimed in June 2021 that "the overarching goal" of Facebook is to "bring the metaverse to life."
But what, exactly, is the metaverse? As pioneering theorist and venture capitalist Matthew Ball explains, it is the successor to the mobile internet that has defined the last two decades. The metaverse is a persistent, 3D, virtual world-a network of interconnected experiences and devices, tools and infrastructure, far beyond mere virtual reality. And it is poised to revolutionise…
I’m one of those odd people who always needs to know why. Why do computers work, why do societies break down? Why do humans kill? Why are cat videos so irresistible? All of those questions explore what it means to be human, but science fiction takes those questions to the extreme, pitting people against the most extreme environments and situations in order to see how they’ll react. To me, that never grows old, and the books I love the most are the ones that do it the best. In my humble opinion, of course.
The world of Otherland is Earth, and the people are human, but woven into that familiar landscape is a virtual world that hasn’t quite happened yet. Imagine a virtual, digital world in which your avatar can ‘feel’. Why would you ever want to leave?
I first read Otherland soon after I started playing MMORPGs [Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games]. MMORPGs provide a ‘persistent’ world in which your character can fight, craft, build, or just socialize with other players. As such, it can become very immersive, and that’s just through the power of the imagination and some pixels on a screen. Now, imagine how immersive a virtual world would be. And how dangerous.
Otherland started me thinking about technology and how humans relate to new innovations. It also inspired some of my own writing.
Otherland is a universe ruled by Earth's wealthiest and most ruthless power-brokers, The Grail Brotherhood. Surrounded by secrecy, incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it and two generations have laboured to build it. Now it is claiming Earth's most valuable resource - its children.
I’m an author, but first and foremost I’m a reader. I’ve been voracious about it my entire life, but it wasn’t until just a few years back that I discovered the romance genre—which sucked me in immediately. After a few books I stumbled onto Ruby Dixon and it was over. Syfy and fantasy romance had their hooks in me. These recs are the books I re-read and the authors I follow because they are consistent in telling captivating stories, with rich worlds, and vibrant characters. Book hang-over guaranteed.
A fantasy read by the husband-wife author team Tiffany Roberts. This is a dystopian/insane asylum twist on Alice in Wonderland, featuring some absolutely gorgeous imagery and a Cheshire Cat hero named Shadow. Shadow is a character to swoon over—charming, heroic, and mysterious—he’s the book boyfriend you’ve been waiting for.
He’s deadly, seductive, and completely unhinged. He’s also her only chance of escape.
Alice knows Wonderland is just a virtual world operated inside an asylum to which she’s been wrongfully committed, but she can’t find her way out—can’t find her way back to the life she lived before she woke beneath titanic trees and towering flowers. With the terrifying Red King searching for her and chaos all around, her only hope of escape lies in Shadow, a tall, mysterious being with glowing eyes, sharp claws, and a haunting grin who may be the maddest of them all.
A delightful and distinctive picture book biography about Dr. Virginia Apgar, who invented the standard, eponymous test for evaluating newborn health used worldwide thousands of times every day.
You might know about the Apgar Score. But do you know the brilliant, pioneering woman who invented it? Born at the turn…
LitRPG is special. It really is. LitRPG provides authors with some of the most powerful tools in storytelling. Computer-simulated worlds make magic fully believable. They enable giant mysteries, actual monsters, forbidden treasures, and incredibly diverse adversaries. LitRPG can be a love story or a tale of revenge. It can bring hope, despair, or just desserts. It’s a perfect vehicle for modern fantasy—a setting where the apocalypse can be at hand, where humans can fight gods, and where the world itself might be sentient. My love for LitRPG drove me to write an epic containing a series of huge, underlying mysteries that would reveal themselves over the course of the story.
A Russian novel with a top-notch translation, Alterworld is a controversial series, but one that is etched into LitRPG history and is legitimately worth reading.
The story’s terminally ill protagonist cheats death by uploading his consciousness to a game world, trapping himself in-game, and unlocking a whole slew of issues to overcome. Be forewarned: the series is mired in controversy for several reasons, not least of which being the author’s mercurial political stance. Initially hyper-critical of government, the author becomes famous and suddenly changes his tune. If you binge read the series, this jump to pro-national propaganda will stick out like a sore thumb, but it’s a bit like a trainwreck that’s difficult to look away from. It’s odd and serves to make the series that much more interesting.
A page-turning LitRPG debut in the tradition of Nam Heesung, Legendary Moonlight Sculptor, and Ernest Cline, Ready Player One. Bestseller #1 for years 2013, 2014 and 2015. Bestseller #1 at Audible in 2016. Translated to Korean, German, Polish and Czech languages. A new pandemic - the perma effect - has taken over Earth of the near future. Whenever you play your favorite online game, beware: your mind might merge with the virtual world and dump its comatose host. Woe be to those stuck forever in Tetris! And still they're the lucky ones compared to those burning alive eternally within the…
