Dark Fantasy Recommendations

[RichardWolanski]

Does anyone have any dark fantasy novel recommendations?

 

[thaddeus6th]

Joe Abercrombie and George RR Martin spring to mind, as does Scott Lynch.

 

[monsterchic]

I second Joe Abercrombie. The Castings trilogy by Pamela Freeman is just between dark and regular fantasy (at times, it has a happy tone, at others, it's pretty dark). But it's got plenty of slaughtering and ghosts and war and all that good stuff

From Goodreads: A thousand years ago, the Eleven Domains were invaded and the original inhabitants were driven onto the road as Travelers, belonging nowhere, welcomed by no one.

Now the Domains are governed with an iron fist by the Warlords, but there are wilder elements in the landscape that cannot be controlled and that may prove the Warlords' undoing. Some are spirits of place - of water and air and fire and earth. Some are greater than these. And some are human.

Bramble: A village girl whom no one living can tame, forced to flee her home for a crime she did not commit.

Ash: A safeguarder's apprentice who must kill for an employer he cannot escape.

Saker: An enchanter who will not rest until the land is returned to his people.

As their three stories unfold, along with the stories of those whose lives they touch, it becomes clear that they are bound together in ways that not even a stonecaster could have foreseen - by their past, their future, and their blood.

 

[Randy M.]

Sort of depends on what you mean by dark fantasy. On the one hand, there's Stephen Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant or a number of works (novels and short stories) by Tanith Lee or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique (short) stories.

Different kinds of dark fantasy would include Arthur Machen's The Three Imposters or Robert Heinlein's The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag or Jonathan Carroll's The Land of Laughs or Caitlin Kiernan's The Red Tree.

I guess it would help to know the flavor of dark you're looking for (like those candy bars that offer 65% or 75% or 85% cacao).


Randy M.
(Oops. Sorry. Missed the word novel in your posting.)

 

[Hari Seldon]

Glen Cook: The Black Company

Mark Lawrence: Broken Empire trilogy

 

[Heather Myst]

A Song of Ice and Fire George R.R. Martin (Might as well start at the top)
Best Served Cold/First Law trilogy Joe Abercrombie
The Broken Empire series Mark Lawrence
Rai-Kirah series Carol Berg
The Night Angel series Brent Weeks
Black Jewels series Anne Bishop
The Sword of Truth series Terry Goodkind
Tyrants and Kings series John Marco
Heartstone Trilogy Giles Carwyn & Todd Fahnestock

 

[RichardWolanski]

Joe Abercrombie and Heinlein are definitely some of the best modern fantasy writers today. I've heard of Carol Berg before and the Rai-Kirah series. My friends are fantasy fanatics and I'm pretty sure her name as come up once.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.

 

[svalbard]

I would second pretty much all off the above, but would add R.Scott.Bakker to the list with his Prince of Nothing series. His books are the darkest I have read in the genre.

 

[Kissmequick]

Joe Abercrombie and Heinlein are definitely some of the best modern fantasy writers today. I've heard of Carol Berg before and the Rai-Kirah series. My friends are fantasy fanatics and I'm pretty sure her name as come up once.

I'm not sure I'd call Heinlen a modern fantasy writer as he wrote mostly SF and, perhaps more importantly, has been dead for 25 years....

 

[james lecky]

I'd strongly recommend the Kane novels and short stories by Karl Edward Wagner,, things don't come.much darker.

 

[barrett1987]

I really struggle to get into Joe Abercrombie. A Song of Ice and Fire is no problem though. Strange eh.

 

[Ice fyre]

I really struggle to get into Joe Abercrombie. A Song of Ice and Fire is no problem though. Strange eh.

I am quite suprised by that, would have thought it would have been the other way around!

Depends on how dark we are going, I tend to think a hell of a lot of novels considered horror are really dark fantasy, I tend to think most of Clive Barkers output to be dark fantasy.

If we are staying with a more traditional end of fantasy, Alan Campell's Grave diggers series, its only at book 2 for now but its quite dark in a Moorcock style. It follows the adventures of an ex special forces soldier Granger. In a world slowly drowning in a poisonous sea; a curse unleashed by the former en-slavers of human population. This elf like race of sorcerers, now the enslaved, seeded the oceans with tiny bottles which are slowly spilling out the poisonous water. For over 200 years the oceans have risen and the drowned lands are host to anyone who has been caught by the water. Unliving yet not dying these creatures stumble along the ocean floor, eventually becoming nothing more than echos of themselves. Full of strange machines and weird occurences I have rather enjoyed it so far.

 

[Ulrich]

Michael Moorcock's saga about the swordsman Elric.
Peter Straub's Shadowland, which is a horror novel with strong elements of fantasy.

 

[Null_Zone]

Glen Cook: The Black Company

Mark Lawrence: Broken Empire trilogy

This has my vote.

GRR Martin never struck me as all that dark to be honest. The civilian cost of war is rarely mentioned beyond the inconvieniance it causes nobles who can't find a whore house or nice inn whilst travelling around being noble.

 

[Ulrich]

Andrzej Sapkowksi: The Witcher Saga (several books and short stories). The witcher Geralt is a monster-hunters, who received a special training and body modification, so he can hunt with his new supernatural abilities dangerous monsters.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Glen Cook: The Black Company

Andrzej Sapkowksi: The Witcher Saga (several books and short stories). The witcher Geralt is a monster-hunters, who received a special training and body modification, so he can hunt with his new supernatural abilities dangerous monsters.

Seconded. These are both amazing series.