Here are 100 books that Lyonesse Book 1 fans have personally recommended if you like
Lyonesse Book 1.
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When I was nine years old, my first poem was ‘published’ in my elementary school’s annual creative writing booklet. It was such a thrill to see my poem in print and to know lots of people would be reading it. I was hooked on writing, but it would be many, many years before I was published again. While I know it’s never too late to publish a book, I regret how long I waited. Young writers, don’t be afraid to go for it and don’t ever feel you’re not old enough for your words to matter. Readers need your unique, fresh vision.
I love that this book was the result of a dare! In 1816, eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley and three friends held a contest to see who could write the scariest story. Mary’s story—like her monster—has since taken on a life of its own and today permeates all forms of storytelling.
I find it amusing that my favorite version of the monster is the one Mel Brooks gave us in Young Frankenstein. I wonder what Mary Shelley would think if she knew how much her acceptance of a dare would change storytelling forever.
I like to revisit the original story from time to time to savor the gothic drama and flowery writing. If I’m reading it on a dark and stormy night, all the better.
One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'
'That rare story to pass from literature into myth' The New York Times
Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley on Lake Geneva. The story of Victor Frankenstein who, obsessed with creating life itself, plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, but whose botched creature sets out to destroy his maker, would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity. Based on the third…
I don't write within received categories: our lives aren't lived in categories, but are full of varying realities, whether of home, childhood, marriage, parenthood, fantasy, dream, work, or relaxation, and more all mixed together. I can't write in any other way, however dominant a particular strand or age may be on the surface in a given work.Orpheus Rising may have a child hero, and a fantastic, elegant Edwardian Elephant as a spirit guide, but it let me tell a story of love lost and regained, of family broken and remade, of a father in despair and remade, themes of real importance in any life.
We absorb this tale, like Peter Pan's, from childhood, and it provides us all with a leaning to light-hearted fantasy and a story pattern of leaving the real world and returning to it. An adventure may begin by going through a wardrobe as in the first Narnia novel, or into and out of Tom Bombadil's Old Forest in Tolkien. Alice goes down a rabbit hole. There are rabbit holes, wardrobes, forests, sailboats.... The world Alice gets to is full of strangeness appealed to me for Orpheus Rising whose characters have a similar variety.
When Alice sees the White Rabbit running by on the river bank, she follows him, tumbling down a Rabbit Hole into a magical world where nothing is ever as it seems...
Lewis Carroll's classic story has delighted children since 1865. One hundred and fifty years since its first publication, Hodder celebrates in style with this sumptuous new edition, illustrated by Rebecca Dautremer, whose dreamlike illustrations bring vibrant new life to Carroll's beloved characters. The original text appears complete and unabridged.
Rebecca Dautremer is the celebrated illustrator of The Secret Lives of Princesses.
I have always been drawn to the weird, fantastic, supernatural, and unexplained. Whether it’s film or TV (The Twilight Zone, the X-files, Ingmar Bergman) or gothic and speculative literature, I become mesmerized by the mysteries involved. I have written 10 books (poetry and fiction). Of the fiction, most is either speculative, as in magical realism, or somewhat gothic in nature. My newest novel, due out in 2025, is pure gothic and takes place in a haunted abbey inhabited by ghosts and the devil himself. And yet, behind it all is an exploration of human faith and frailty and a search for answers about our beliefs.
Franz Kafka is best known for this book, though he has written many others, including The Trial. The novel explores social and political topics through the use of the fantastic, in this case, a man who wakes up one morning and finds he has turned into a gigantic cockroach.
I am drawn to books that explore things in ways that have not been explored before and books that make one think. I read this one in college; it has stuck with me and influenced me through my writing career.
“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”
With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetlelike insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century…
Constance is a wild, stubborn young girl growing up poor in a small industrial town in the late 1800's. Beneath her thread-worn exterior beats the heart of a dreamer and a wordsmith. But at age twelve, she’s orphaned. Running away to join the circus—like kids do in adventure books—seems like…
As a child, I was a maladaptive daydreamer. I could often be found crafting elaborate fantasies in my head featuring fully-fledged worlds and characters that I would actively interact with and speak to as if they were real. I was a strange child, and I kept that strangeness with me when I went into fiction. Since then, I’ve always wanted to encapsulate the feeling of giving a movie-like experience in book form. I want the people who read my work to feel like they’re experiencing something real.
Peake writes with the experience of someone who paints and that has a remarkable effect on his use of imagery. There are certain figurative turns of phrases he uses, such as “a face like scrunched up paper” or describing a cat purring as “the sound of an ocean inside a shell,” that click in my mind like—yes! You’ve put that into words! And Titus Groan is, once again, full of that amazing and immersive wordsmithery that elevates the text into something cinematic.
The first volume of the GORMENGHAST trilogy of fantasy novels. Titus Groan is born the heir to Gormenghast castle, and finds himself in a world predetermined by complex rituals that have been made obscure by the passage of time. Along the corridors of the castle, the child encounters some of the dark characters who will shape his life.
Ever since I was little, I’ve been fascinated with various historical societies, but particularly that of medieval Europe. The ebb and flow of political strife as well as the gradual creeping advancement of technology in an era too-often deemed “the Dark Ages” sparked a passion in me that led me to pursue a degree in history. Prior to my studies, I had the opportunity to travel to Norway, where my love for the medieval era was ignited as my family toured the dipping green fjords and walked the burial mounds of kings long past. I aim now to tell their stories.
Kristen Britain’s Green Rider is an adventure that takes place in a carefully crafted medieval world.
What’s notable is the way Britain integrates medieval culture and tradition into the story. From the honor code of the Green Riders to the standard of loyalty and virtue, the novel is steeped in values commonly held in the medieval era. This adds authenticity to the story.
The series also introduces ‘fantasy flair’ in the Eletians, a group of people I could closely associate with the Elves in my own book.
It's a race against time to save her country, but it could cost her life . . .
Karigan G'ladheon always seemed to be getting into a fight, and today was no exception.
But as she trudged through the forest, using her long walk home to contemplate her depressing future - and the expulsion it was bound to hold - a horse burst through the woodland and charged straight for her. The rider was slumped over his mount's neck with two arrows embedded in his back. Wherever his horse was taking him, he would be dead before they got there.…
I grew up watching 80s Saturday morning cartoons, playing RPGs such as Final Fantasy. Those cartoons and games didn’t care about genre, they cared about telling a story, about making you care about the characters. Hence you could have wizards driving space cars, or knights battling giant robots and so on. They were proof of how wonderfully crazy our imagination can go when we threw labels away and just create stories. The books in this list allow themselves to do that and go bigger, go bolder, showing us the readers what’s possible if we let loose. I hope this list takes others on such wonderful rides, like they did with me.
Cosmic horror and fantasy have shared a close relationship since the times of Robert E. Howard. But historical fantasy and cosmic horror? Now that’s different.
If you are a fan of series such as The Last Kingdom, or enjoy a bit of cosmic horror in the vein of the Cthulhu Mythos, this is for you. Written by Gary Whitta, who also wrote the script for Rogue One. Set during Alfred the Great’s rule, this is a story about a knight that saves his kingdom at great personal cost thanks to the dabbling in dark magic from a deranged monk.
The tension and trepidation grow with every page. And that’s just half the story. Don’t let the body horror distract you, this is at its core a story about family love.
"Whitta is a master of suspense. Abomination grabs you and doesn't let go." ―Hugh Howey, New York Times-Bestselling Author of Wool
He is England's greatest knight, the man who saved the life of Alfred the Great and an entire kingdom from a Viking invasion. But when he is called back into service to combat a plague of monstrous beasts known as abominations, he meets a fate worse than death and is condemned to a life of anguish, solitude, and remorse.
She is a fierce young warrior, raised among an elite order of knights. Driven by a dark secret from her…
When King Priam's pregnant daughter was fleeing the sack of Troy, Stan was there. When Jesus of Nazareth was beaten and crucified, Stan was there - one crossover. He’s been a Hittite warrior, a Silk Road mercenary, a reluctant rebel in the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381, and an information peddler…
Ever since childhood, I have been enthralled by dragons. The stories of these mythical creatures can be told in so many ways, from dragons as pets to bonding with them or even shapeshifting into them. I chose these books because they are memorable, they have stuck with me, and they have fascinated and inspired me for years. All of these writers have influenced my own work, and they are sure to resonate with you, too.
I loved the relationship between the boy and the dragon in this book. Although stories showing the bond between child and dragon are common, Paolini makes it new by sharing a depth of feeling between the two.
The development of that relationship and the world-building of the setting make for a fascinating read that kept my attention. This book was so captivating that I had to read the other two in the trilogy.
When poor farm boy Eragon finds a polished stone in the forest, he thinks it's a lucky discovery. Perhaps, he will be able to buy his family food for the winter.
But, when a baby dragon hatches out of the stone, Eragon realises he's stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself.
His simple life is shattered, and he's thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic and power. To navigate this dark terrain, and survive his cruel king's evil ways, he must take up the mantle of the…
I'm an American writer who grew obsessed with all things King Arthur at age 10. Trying to be the best 7th-grade Arthurian scholar in the world set me on a path of life-long learning and research. My historical fantasy novels for children have been flatteringly called "maybe the only [fiction] depiction of the complexities of feudal obligations & responsibilities I've ever seen" by a real medievalist. While that wasn't what I was going for, it speaks to the thing I seek out when I read: total immersion in another world. If you don't feel like you scrubbed pots in the Middle Ages, why would you read about a medieval scullery maid?
I read the second book in the Prydain Chronicles first, so it remains my favorite for introducing me to this magical version of medieval Wales and an Assistant Pig-Keeper. While I, like Taran, wanted to avoid the mundanities of life and skip straight to the magic swords, it was the grounding in the reality of chores that made me believe in the world. It also made me believe that if I had the good fortune to discover a portal to Prydain, that I could at least take up a career in the scullery, the forge, or possibly as a pig-keeper, while I waited to be discovered for the princess-in-disguise that I surely must be.
The peaceful land of Prydain is under threat. The evil Lord of Annuvin is using the dark magic of the Black Cauldron to create a terrifying army of deathless warriors.
The Cauldron must be destroyed, and Taran joins Prince Gwydion and his faithful knights, Ellidyr and Adaon, in this perilous quest. Taran is desperate to wear his first sword and prove his worth amongst such noble men. But their adventure will demand great sacrifices, as each warrior fulfils his destiny in totally unexpected ways.
The Black Cauldron is the second book in Lloyd Alexander's classic fantasy epic The Chronicles of…
As a kid, I loved fantasy; it was my escape from real life. Portal Fantasy is one of the oldest sub-genres in that regard, with works such as Wizard of Oz, Through the Looking Glass, and Chronicles of Narnia, to name a few. LitRPG is a newer genre, though its roots extend back to the 80s. Fantasy is full of magical worlds that embrace the reader’s mind, allowing them to live beyond their own life. I have experienced what it is like to fall in love countless times, to fly a ship through the sky using magic and swordfight, and to die and be reborn. Through these stories, I have lived.
James Haddock is another author whose writing style I have enjoyed for a while now. His books are entertaining, though his grammar tends to be all over the place. This was either the first story of his I read or one of the first. I can’t remember which.
There is something about the way he describes magic and uses it in his books that I simply enjoy. The MC in this one is dying and finds himself brought over into a new land with magic, wherein his adventure promptly begins with a knife struggle.
The magic, though…it’s different from how others usually describe their magic systems. It would be so easy to abuse, and while he does grow powerful, Haddock never has him abusing it like another author would.
A routine physical shows Captain Ross Mitchell has a flesh-eating virus that specifically targets the brain. Prognosis says he'll be a vegetable by week's end. Having survived numerous incursions in combat around the world, Ross decides he's not going out like that. He drives a rented corvette into a cliff face at over 200 MPH. The fiery impact catapults him toward the afterlife. Instead of finding the afterlife, he finds himself in a different body with an old man stabbing him in his chest. He fights free, killing the old man before passing out. He wakes to find he's now…
A fast-paced literary thriller with a strong sci-fi element and loaded with existential questions. Beyond the entertainment value, this book takes a hard look at the perilous world of publishing, which is on a crash course to meet the nascent, no-holds-barred world of AI. Could these worlds co-exist, or will…
Morally gray heroes are my absolute favorite kind. Whether it’s Batman, Dean Winchester from Supernatural, or the heroes on this list—if he’s not dark and stormy, well, I’m not interested. There’s a depth to these characters that others often lack, and I find it so fascinating. Especiallywhen there’s romance involved. The books on this list are nearly all polar opposites, and yet... they each stretch our capacity to love to the very breaking point—and then make us catch our breath. How far into the darkness can he go, and still come back with a heart left to give to his heroine?
This book is so underrated, it’s painful. A truly engrossing read. Han Alister must rise up from the slums of the city to embrace his magic, and find revenge for his innocent sister’s death. She was his heart, and when her life is extinguished, so is that part of himself. Or so he thought, until Raisa. A princess by birth, she’ll have to overcome her so-called privilege to have a chance at real happiness with someone less than a commoner—a reformed thief and gang leader. Or is he? Will revenge prove a more powerful conviction than love? Magical twists and surprises abound, and the depth of this world will suck you right in. If you’re not cheering for Han by the end, do you even like morally gray heroes?
New York Times bestselling author Cinda Williams Chima presents the first installment in a thrilling new fantasy series, in which the lives of Han Alister and the brave Princess Raisa collide in a magical and dangerous adventure. One day Han Alister catches three young wizard setting fire to the sacred mountain of Hanalea. Han takes an amulet away from Micah Bayar, son of the High Wizard, to ensure the boy won't use it against him. The amulet once belonged to the Demon King, who nearly destroyed the world a millennium ago. With a magical piece so powerful at stake, Han…
