79 books like Starless

Probably the most traditional book on this list, I am starting with The Elvenbane because it is my measuring stick for other fantasy. I read it first as a preteen, and I have revisited it many years since, always to be delighted by the world Norton and Lackey created. The detailed illusions, varied settings, the disparate magics, and the mischievous dragons all kept me guessing and in a haze of delight. There was so much that was familiar but with fresh twists that made it new again. It might not be as novel as the other books on my list, but a fantasy has hit the spot if it brings me back to the wonder I felt reading The Elvenbane.

I encountered Grace Lin’s middle-grade fantasy series as an adult, and I can assure you that they are worth reading regardless of your age! When the Sea Turned Silver is littered with metaphors that will make you catch your breath and yet also become literal as her whimsical magic manifests. Chinese folklore that has been stretched and recreated by Lin’s imagination, the book begins with wild tales that are dismissed by the characters as impossible only to culminate with boundless magic that feels inevitable and is even more splendid than the stories they first heard. If you haven’t read these, you’re missing out!

I love Tanya Huff’s style of writing as much as I like her wonderful ideas.

The heroes and heroines in her novels are so well crafted you almost feel you know them personally, which to my mind is the key to a good read. 

The Silvered has Steampunk elements. It is, however, set in an invented world that shows some resemblance to our 19th century. The book is a thrilling fantasy novel combining Steampunk with magic: I love the combination.

If you haven’t read anything by Brian Sanderson, this novella is a great place to start.

It is a fast read with a hopeful tone and satisfying ending. In this story, Shai is caught forging a priceless artifact. As punishment, she must forge a soul for the emperor who is in a coma. If her forgery doesn’t work, the empire will fall into chaos.

The magic of Shai’s forging is very cool; she creates stamps that can rewrite the nature of an object’s existence. The Emperor’s Soul spoke to me on a personal level. My stepmother is a Japanese artist, and I grew up watching her carefully seal her pieces with her custom, red stamp.

Highly recommended to anyone looking for that quick, feel-good punch that great fantasy can provide!

This story has always struck me as a quest to identify and regain humanity, as its hero repeatedly faces strange and powerful obstacles to his voyage home. I first read it as a child and then again, but in Greek, as a student—a time in life when anyone is trying to find their feet as a human being!

Perhaps the most comforting thing is that amongst all the gods and monsters and cursing and fighting, eating habits often characterize the work’s characters. Odysseus is always looking for sitophagoi, bread eaters, i.e. civilized people who make their own food, rather than man-eating monsters. I can identify with a hero looking for nice people to share a nice meal with.

This is a remarkable book, truly a modern epic poem. The verse is not strictly formal but somehow throughout its length Glaysher maintains interest, so that although his language can seem archaic in places, yet because the poetry is about such current issues that concern us – the fate of planet Earth and humanity more specifically – and because the linguistics are so varied and skillful, we realize that this is a poet working for deliberate effects, and not one who has only read poetry from three hundred years ago. One fabulous quality of this poem is its clarity and luminous quality. I love the fact that this poem is easy to understand and follow: it is a poet writing for people, not one trying to show off.

Because it is a great read, Homer’s novel-like Odyssey is one of the best-loved books from antiquity. Moreover, it illustrates Greek mythology in action. 

Homer’s epic tells of the difficult return of the hero Odysseus from distant Troy to his island-home of Ithaca following the Trojan War, as he seeks to be reunited with his wife Penelope. In the course of his travels, he is aided by the goddess Athena, who is his divine champion, but obstructed by the wrathful sea-god Poseidon, his persecutor. 

Among other obstacles are bizarre and memorable characters such as the one-eyed, cannibalistic Cyclops, the treacherous Scylla and Charybdis, the alluring witch Circe, and the erotic nymph Calypso. This translation by Robert Fagles is one of the best.

This is my favorite novel in Rieu's prose translation which has a real freshness, as if the very first book. I wanted that sense of freshness for my book, as well as the story of a man desperately trying to get home to his wife. The story takes place in the framework of Sam's 11-year-old imagination, and so carries him and his father through fantastic adventures as trying as those Odysseus faces in The Odyssey. 

This may be considered an odd choice on the surface, given the true events of the Trojan War. This was also another I initially struggled with. Nevertheless, despite the factual elements, it’s viewed as one of the earliest epic fantasies in Western literature, along with The Odyssey, which came after.

Centered on just a few days of the ten-year siege of Troy, the lives of humans and their gods are intricately linked. It is one of the earliest examples of pathos with much sympathy actually lying with the enemies, the Trojans, a people based in Asia Minor, and their allies from all over the region. Outside the gods, it also references monsters such as Bellerophon, the Gorgon, and centaurs, with the gods often used as a plot device to refract the emotions and flaws of the characters.

The world-building is vivid and rich in dactylic hexameter, a rhythmic style.… show more.

From two great past epic classics, I now move to the contemporary present: Benson Brown’s is a mock epic a la Byron (think, Don Juan). Brilliantly funny, witty, exposing the American War of Independence in ways you have never seen before – a laugh-out-loud poem, and full of rich historical details as well as mythological conceits which makes it a unique reading experience. Weirdly, for all its parody, I probably learnt more about the American War from it than from actual historical texts. The back page blurb says: "Thomas Jefferson is sent to Hell for a mysterious sin." Find out what – get the poem!