42 books like The Year of Our War

J.R.R. Tolkien's masterful storytelling is unmatched, and The Lord of the Rings weaves together moral dilemmas and profound philosophical ideas seamlessly, encouraging me to contemplate the nature of power, the importance of preserving the natural world, and the significance of individual choices.

The book's themes of heroism, friendship, sacrifice, and the struggle between good and evil resonate deeply. In addition, each of his characters feels like an aspect of oneself; the introspection it inspires is brilliant!

The Lord of the Rings instills a sense of wonder, ignites the imagination, and imparts timeless wisdom, which heavily transformed my perspective on life, my values, and my understanding of the human condition.

Here is yet another book where at first it seems as though there are no heroes.

Abercrombie writes a masterful world filled with magic, politics, swordfights, and bleak attitudes. One of the main POV characters is a torturer—I mean a full-on break your toes and laugh about it torturer—but even still, I found myself wanting more of his story. He’s certainly not a hero, but he was at one point, and that’s even more intriguing.

The characters drive this fantasy series, but the world is also a gorgeous setting that Abercrombie clearly spent many long nights thinking through. Every detail feels like it matters, and throughout this trilogy, the smallest specks of plot come back to matter.

On top of it all, I loved the audiobook narrator and his particular performances for each character brought the world to life.

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.

Ruckley manages to strike a rare balance between high fantasy prose and Grimdark’s dirt-under-the-nails realism, and combines it all with thoughtful character development and an oftentimes sombre tone. On the one hand it’s about a boy’s coming of age journey and the tragedy of loss, and on the other a bitter and ultimately futile conflict of a people riven by the dogma of an emergent religion. There are visceral and superbly paced clashes between these opposing sides, which are both blinded by the all-encompassing madness of a magic user who is rapidly losing control of his own power. The fact that all of the suffering and slaughter in this story could easily be avoided is what makes it hit deepest. If everyone had just been nice to the poor boy, maybe he wouldn’t have turned into a narcissistic half-corpse hell-bent on psychic slavery and death. But hey, then there would… show more.

The first and my favorite of this series that sets up a world beyond our own with interesting and multiple interesting and tortured characters all trapped in their own personal hell and I was here for it. This book focuses on one particular members of this poor group and how one person can come in change absolutely everything with love and faith. There is a setup for the multiple books in the series that do not take away from the main story or characters and will have you wanting to know more. Heavy on not just the romance but the action and violence had me flying through the pages to feed my need for more. Entertaining, fun, tense, and never giving a dull moment, I recommend this for a fun night or nights of reading. 

This is a great riff on Hammer Horror, Dracula, psychedelia, the sixties, and Jane Eyre. Yes, I said Jane Eyre!

Take Mina, Bertha Mason, throw them into the middle of the 1960s Sunset Strip, and you have yourself a rocket of a novel. It starts with the voice of Dracula coming from his urns, his ashes speaking to Mina, and her just so sick of his nonsense, and only gets better from there.

A little of me was dying every day from the stress of a job I excelled at. So I loved this book’s premise that immortality brings its own peculiar kind of stress.

I, too, have wanted to negotiate with God to save someone or something I believed in. I sometimes feel a bad bargain is better than none at all. Naturally, I found it so much more enjoyable to read about two people who actually make that deal with God to save a loved one, only to be fated to life everlasting, constantly veering toward and away from each other in an existence that’s always changing but never-ending.

With this book, I gained another perspective on being careful what you wish for.

Egan is an Australian science fiction writer.

To my mind, he’s written better about AI than any other science fiction writer, because he takes it seriously. He recognizes it represents enormous change.

Permutation City is about a time in history when uploading becomes possible and very rich people can upload themselves into machines that operate quickly and in real time.

Poorer people have to upload themselves into machines that process very slowly and so they live very slow versions of life. 

I first picked this up in a bookshop in Bangalore, knowing nothing about it or the (now very famous) author.

I was unprepared for a novel that managed to evoke the lush and intense vibrancy of South Pacific Islands, the depravity of a real-life Nobel Prize winner who was accused of heinous crimes, and the heartbreak of losing someone to dementia – all at the same time.

This is an uncomfortable but unputdownable novel, and one that affected me so deeply I now have a tattoo of it; on my thumb is the symbol carved into wood to signal that the ’people in the trees’ live there, in memory of my beloved grandmother. 

My friend recommended this book to me since I wanted to learn more about the Indian culture. I enjoyed discovering the different spices tied to each chapter.

In the beginning, there was a beautiful mythological backstory to becoming a Spice Mistress, which I found both inventive and fascinating. I also related to the emotional heart of Tilo, who flaunted the rules of her magic by helping those around her (including an exciting love interest).