76 books like Mydnight's Hero

I’ve always been somewhat of an idiot optimist coming up with new and frivolous ideas. Yet, despite trying to inject my last three books with humour representative of myself, I feel a certain sense of seriousness in them. The fantasy genre has helped me shirk that feeling, allowing me to write uninhibited by regular boundaries. Without becoming captivated by George R.R. Martin and Terry Pratchett, I’d probably still be stuck trying to carve out a place in literary fiction—how serious. Fantasy works better for me—I like to make things up, and I like light-hearted books. 

Both my parents graduated with degrees in fine arts and were teachers. I was lucky to grow up in a Chinese family where drawing and reading comic books were encouraged. My parents understood that comics would help a visual learner like me to develop an interest in reading. Every weekend, my parents took me to local libraries, where I read not only comics but tons of books on history, folklore, and mythologies. I found those tales fascinating. These tales planted seeds of curiosity and imagination deeply in me, and they helped mold me in becoming the author-illustrator I am today.

I’m a woman in a technology field dominated by men, a person with both mental and physical problems, and I’ve studied a dozen different martial arts. I’m a mean shot with a bow and love to hurl axes and spears. None of these things are contradictory. They’re just different aspects of me. Real people don’t fit in boxes and neither should good characters. My world is filled with my Hispanic grandkids, my bi daughter, my gay foster brother, my friends and family and people I love that don’t fit the Captain Awesome stereotype. Remember that we, too, can be heroes.

I’ve always been somewhat of an idiot optimist coming up with new and frivolous ideas. Yet, despite trying to inject my last three books with humour representative of myself, I feel a certain sense of seriousness in them. The fantasy genre has helped me shirk that feeling, allowing me to write uninhibited by regular boundaries. Without becoming captivated by George R.R. Martin and Terry Pratchett, I’d probably still be stuck trying to carve out a place in literary fiction—how serious. Fantasy works better for me—I like to make things up, and I like light-hearted books. 

From the ages of 1-4, my son Finn deeply rooted himself into the detailed world of Richard Scarry. These books could be such slow reads that we only needed two of them for long airplane rides. Through Finn’s love of Scarry books, I began searching for more books that delighted with detail. And when I did not see my family’s bicycle-rich lifestyle reflected in books, I created Cycle City.

I’m a deeply curious person who has always loved the intersections of science and art, and the related intersection of the humanities and technology. I also have a passion for children’s books and have worked as both a writer and an editor, and as a developer of interactive apps and games based on children’s books. My latest book is a collaboration with one of my favorite childhood (and teenage) writing partners, Hena Khan. It’s an adventure where you get to make choices that turn you into a hero or a villain. It’s called Super You: The Power of Flight. I hope you’ll check it out!

I am the bestselling author of more than 46 romance novels. I love history, enjoy research, and am always looking for little-known facts to make my stories more authentic. Some of those facts have revealed that women in the 19th century often took on occupations, hobbies, or causes that challenged them and sometimes placed them in danger. Although seldom acknowledged as such, women in the 19th century were a force to be reckoned with, although their contributions were often overlooked. But through reading personal accounts, letters of the time, biographies, and nonfiction accounts about various women’s roles, I have gained a greater appreciation for how daring women have been throughout history.

I’ve been a gamer all of my life and am a teacher of elementary school students. After finding the LitRPG genre I wished to share this with other kids... like the one I had once been. Most parents in the genre push full 200k books on their children with an expectation of found love. While I imagine it works for a few of them, I rather expect that the majority of those attempts end in failure. Kids have their own world and their own sense of humor. I write to them, to inspire them and make them laugh, to make them entertained even as I teach them universal morals and lessons about the world.

My name is Aer-ki Jyr and I’m the creator of the Star Force Universe. I started writing because most of the new books coming out just plain sucked, so I figured if I could do better, then I should…and I did. What people only partially realize is that Star Force is filled with references and homages to the past great works. There’s far more in there than they realize, but those who have also read them will know when they see them. This list gives you the biggest influences that shaped my childhood mind, and why there are literally statues in the Star Force Universe to a lot of this stuff. 

I have always loved a good sassy sidekick, human or otherwise. I started my first book, DragonBond, at the age of fifteen, and throughout the various drafts between its inception and its completion, the dragon Axen’s sass game has always been fierce. Since then, I’ve published a total of thirteen books, seven of which are in the Endonshan Chronicles series. I have a Master’s degree in psychology which I use to create well-rounded characters with unique quirks and personalities. I hope you enjoy these picks and all the snark contained within!