Here are 59 books that The Vagrant fans have personally recommended if you like
The Vagrant.
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It seems that all of the fictional main characters I create have anti-hero tendencies. There is always some voice in their head telling them to do right when they are expected to do wrong, or to do wrong when it is supposed they will do right. I find this flaw very compelling, and universal for those of us of flesh and blood. Do sneering, evil characters exist? Well, maybe, but they aren’t very interesting, and I think a weak trope.
Scott Lynch builds a lush world where Locke Lamora and his gang of Gentlemen Bastards operate alternately hidden from the civilized and the criminal.
Having grown up an orphan, saved from slavery by a master con artist, he holds Camorr and its denizens in more than some disdain until someone with higher, more devious intentions threatens it all. Camorr and its characters are richly developed as the Gentlemen Bastards find themselves contorting through plot twists as they try to save themselves and the city.
'One of my top ten books ever. Maybe top five. If you haven't read it, you should' Patrick Rothfuss, New York Times bestselling author of The Name of the Wind
'Fresh, original and engrossing' George R.R. Martin, the phenomenon behind A Game of Thrones
They say that the Thorn of Camorr can beat anyone in a fight. They say he steals from the rich and gives to the poor. They say he's part man, part myth, and mostly street-corner rumor. And they are wrong on every count.
Only averagely tall, slender, and god-awful with a sword, Locke Lamora is the…
I’m a writer by day and martial arts instructor by night, so when not spending time with my wife and kids, I love nothing more than to read, write, and fight. My favourite books are the ones filled with irreverent characters, who can smirk and joke at any grim situation, laughing the light of entertainment through the darkest of ordeals. These are the type of books I’m always drawn to, both in writing and in reading, where I can imagine taking any standout character and dropping them into a completely different book, then sitting back to watch the chaos they could make.
Joe Abercrombie is the king of writing casual comic conversations in dire situations. His seventh book in this world, A Little Hatred is the first in a new trilogy, the freshest from a seven-year gap in the series, and one of the best for the sheer quality of standout characters. Savine dan Glokta is my favourite – “What an honour to see you, my lady.” “Isn’t it though!” – followed closely by Teufel, the brass-knuckled spy; Gunnar Broad, the man or bull (if he wears his spectacles); and Bremer dan Gorst, the deadliest man in the union who can only speak in a high-pitched squeak.
Not only is this a book you can read without prior knowledge of the previous six, this book will also convince you to go back and read all those other books, then re-read this again for it to take on an entirely different light, become…
I am an academic in rebellion. I have interviewed hundreds of urban leaders and professionals in nine divided urban areas throughout the world. I have written much on this subject, replete with footnotes and sophisticated writing. I am weary of writing more about this important topic—how people do or do not get along in urban settings—from an academic distance. I find the scholarly posture sterilized and insufficiently provocative. I entered into the fictional genre in order to reach a broader audience. I think that fictional futurist writing has the unique ability to portray extraordinary new worlds while at the same time addressing fundamental issues that we face now.
What could be more fun than Gods getting involved in city planning? Spy story wrapped inside a grand and mysterious history of once-supreme Gods now dormant (or not). Memorable characters. Don’t mess with the giant grunt Sigrud. Divine power with 6 Gods (light bearer, judge, warrior, seed-sower, trickster, and builder). Imagine holding a committee meeting with this group. Magical portals that enable back-and-forth between current gritty and past majestic city. A thought-provoking conclusion that speaks to worldwide conflict in real life today.
'Robert Jackson Bennett deserves a huge audience' - Brent Weeks, New York Times bestselling author of The Black Prism
In the city of stairs, nothing is as it seems.
You've got to be careful when you're chasing a murderer through Bulikov, for the world is not as it should be in that city. When the gods were destroyed and all worship of them banned by the Polis, reality folded; now stairs lead to nowhere, alleyways have become portals to the past, and criminals disappear into thin air.
The murder of Dr Efrem Pangyui, the Polis diplomat researching the Continent's past,…
I’m a grown man who reads and writes young adult fantasy books. I believe YA stories are perfect for nearly every audience. Let me tell you why. Our teenage years are filled with growth. As we mature, we forget what such rapid change feels like. We become less empathetic toward youth. And yet, many of our characteristics—positive and negative—develop during these years. I read YA to understand myself. It also helps me be a more understanding father and teacher. That said, I'm very picky. I despise teenage stereotypes. For young men, it is particularly hard to find books that depict empathetic male characters. Here’s a list of books where young men feel genuine.
David Charleston’s character resonated with me. He’s eccentric, passionate, and meticulous, while also being a great friend.
He’s also out for revenge against his father’s killer—A supervillain named Steelheart who has taken over Chicago. David unites with a secret group of people called the Reckoners who are trying to learn each villain's weakness to assassinate them.
David’s obsession with details is relatable, and against the terrifying powers of these supervillains, you're left on the edge of your seat hoping the Reckoner's schemes will be enough.
Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.
Nobody fights the Epics... nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.
And David wants in. He wants Steelheart - the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father.…
My life quest has been to find true magic. Once believing it could only be uncovered in ruins or cathedrals continents away, I ended up discovering it in my own backyard under the Big Sky. When I was young, I read everything science fiction and fantasy to feel like that magic was real and bask in worlds far different from my own. Now, as a professional editor and author based in the West… I still read everything science fiction and fantasy, but now I get paid to do it.
A serious Welcome To The Nightvale-styled western, Golgotha is like any other mining town… except full of writhing demonic worms desperate to possess you. So many legends and religions rub elbows in this saloon-heavy godforsaken place that it feels like any re-imagined version of a dark fantasy americana world, warts and all, is possible. Each character threatened to whisk me on a new journey. I mean, there’s a doctor who can keep severed heads alive? A boy with a mysterious green eye? An unkillable gunslinger sheriff? An angel running a casino? An assassin queen? What is even happening? But all this allowed my imagination to flourish. Instead of spelling out the reasoning for the clashing magic and lore, it reminded me why I love speculative fiction in the first place: the possibilities.
Nevada, 1869: Beyond the pitiless 40-Mile Desert lies Golgotha, a cattle town hiding more than its share of unnatural secrets. The sheriff bears the mark of the noose around his neck; a dead man whose time has not yet come. His half-human deputy is kin to coyotes. The mayor guards a hoard of mythical treasures. And a shady saloon owner, fingers in everyone's business, may know more about the town's origins than he's letting on. Golgotha has known many strange events, but nothing like the primordial darkness stirring in the abandoned silver mine overlooking the town. Bleeding midnight, an ancient…
Why do I have a passion for the “enemies to lovers” trope? The tension and the anticipation! The buildup and the development of two characters' relationship are sometimes better than the outcome. You get to witness the ups and downs, the hate and disgust, the heart flutters, the lingering looks...the change in each character. And then when they ultimately come together, you get that sense of satisfaction. They belong together and they finally realized it. Of course, it was something you knew all along!
Angelfall is a post-apocalypse novel, but not because of zombies or aliens. Angels are not the good guys they've been depicted as and they've caused chaos across Earth. Penryn's sister has been taken by the angels and her only hope of getting her back is an angel, Raffe, whose wings have been ripped off. Penryn and Raffe are absolutely two of my favorite characters. Raffe is beautiful and utterly sarcastic. Penryn is just your average girl trying to save her sister. These unlikely allies must find a way to work together and some sparks fly along the way. The ending had me reaching for the second book in the series immediately.
There are so many different ways of thinking and writing about history. I first noticed this while studying at university, when I saw just how different economic history looked from other kinds of history. I later learned that all kinds of historical writing are forms of literature, only they are rarely recognized as such. I am now a university professor and this is my area of expertise: the overlap between the philosophy of history and economics. The books on this list are great examples of unusual or ‘weird’ works on history that challenge some of our deepest assumptions about what history is and how best to think or write about it.
Baudrillard is by now famous for declaring the end or disappearance of pretty much everything. That includes ‘history,’ and it is in this book where he speaks most directly about this. But unlike others, he doesn’t say that we’ve reached the end of history. Instead, he suggests that we’ve banished the end by going beyond it. It is a terrifying thought, really, because it means we can only dream of the end, and that beneath this illusion is something endless, artificial, and inhuman.
The year 2000, the end of the millennium: is this anything other than a mirage, the illusion of an end, like so many other imaginary endpoints which have littered the path of history? In this remarkable book Jean Baurdrillard-France's leading theorist of postmodernity-argues that the notion of the end is part of the fantasy of a linear history. Today we are not approaching the end of history but moving into reverse, into a process of systematic obliteration. We are wiping out the entire twentieth century, effacing all signs of the cold War one by one, perhaps even the signs of…
Like most people, I started to think about the end of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of learning how to bake sourdough bread, I read stories and made art about the apocalypse. The true and catastrophic experiences of people throughout history interested me so much that the project turned into a book. My background in printmaking and illustration has formed my approach to visualizing narrative scenes using crisp black and white linocut prints. My current position as a studio art professor has given me practice in providing information concisely. I try to entertain as much as inform.
Prefer something a bit more visual as the world falls apart? Stanley Donwood fills a book with full-page black and white linocut illustrations, the same medium I use for my illustrations. Without relying on any text, Donwood is able to use classic sequential art techniques to move us through the continual destruction of a wild and devolving island habitat. You may recognize his work from his decades-long collaboration with Radiohead, but his distinct style of storytelling and art stands alone.
A wild seascape, a distant island, a full moon. Gradually the island grows nearer until we land on a primeval wilderness, rich in vegetation and huge, strange beasts. Time passes and man appears, with clubs, with spears, with crueler weapons still-and things do not go well for the wilderness. Civilization rises as towers of stone and metal and smoke choke the undergrowth and the creatures that once moved through it. This is not a happy story, and it will not have a happy ending.
Working in his distinctive, monochromatic linocut style, Stanley Donwood achieves with his art what words cannot…
As an “arm-chair survivalist” and author of the Dark Tomorrow trilogy, I have zero experience when it comes to actually surviving an end-of-the-world scenario, but I like to imagine that I have a good head start when the SHTF. After reading the novels recommended here, I’m confident that readers will be well-prepared when the next zombie invasion or global pandemic begins wiping out the human race. And if none of us survive the first wave of an alien attack or the coming of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, at the very least we will have read a few good books before we are all violently probed and trampled in the name of dystopian fiction.
If you are like me, and you are a vehement admirer of both dogs and tales of global destruction, The Last Dog on Earth, is the perfect canine-based/post-apocalyptic book for you! Centered around an expletive-spouting dog named Lineker, and his agoraphobic owner, Reginald, Walker’s story of survival in the dystopian ruins of a future London is at times humorous, dark, and thought-provoking. On an unexpected quest to deliver an orphaned girl to her family, Lineker and his owner are faced with dangers from all angles including riots, murderous government agents, and of course squirrels—the common and hated enemy of dogs across the world. In the end, I found the canine’s ongoing commentary to be both hilarious and spot-on, and if you’re planning to face Armageddon one step at a time, what better way to do than with a faithful and foul-mouthed dog by your side.
And for Lineker, a happy go lucky mongrel from Peckham, the day the world ends is his: finally a chance to prove to his owner just how loyal he can be.
Reg, an agoraphobic writer with an obsession for nineties football, plans to wait out the impending doom in his second floor flat, hiding himself away from the riots outside.
But when an abandoned orphan shows up in the stairwell of their building, Reg and Lineker must brave the outside in order to save not only the child, but themselves...
Having completed military survival courses as well as stints in an improv comedy troupe, James Schannep knows the best zombie stories are those presented with a wry grin while staring down the end of the world. The product of an overactive imagination, the genre-hopping Click Your Poison series puts you in the driver’s seat against zombies, pirates, international spies, a detective whodunit, superheroes (and villains), exploration through a haunted house, and more!
This is another interactive, choose-your-path zombie book that I discovered after I’d published Infected. It’s off-the-wall zany. You play as a stuffed bunny who wields a chainsaw in the apocalypse. If most zombie stories are caused by viral pandemics these days, then Zombocalypse Now must be the resultant lucid fever dream. If you like nonsequiturs, this is the zombie book for you.
You're a stuffed bunny and it's the end of the world.Between you and safety are forty or fifty zombies gorging themselves on the flesh of the living. If you disguise yourself as one of them and try to sneak past the feeding frenzy, turn to page 183. If you grab a tire iron, flip out and get medieval on their undead asses, turn to page 11.Zombocalypse Now is a comedy/horror reimagining of the choose-your-own-ending books you grew up with. You'll be confronted with undead hordes, internet dating, improper police procedure, and the very real danger that you'll lose your grip…
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