New Epic Fantasy where they save the world from the dark lord

[The Big Peat]

Everybody knows it's a classic example of the genre as was - stop the dark lord, or everybody gets theirs. LotR through to WoT, Belgariad, even SoIaF etc.etc.

But it feels like books are drawing their horns in a little when it comes to scope and at most there's a country or two on the line.

Any recent examples of Epic Fantasies thinking as big and mad as they used to?

 

[Overread]

Malazan Book of the Fallen springs to mind. Starts with Gardens of the Moon and covers empires over several continents and over various points in time. It also highlights one of the issues with trying to get bigger and bigger in scale, which is that you can run the risk of losing the audience in a sea of characters. In fact Malazan for its second book throws you to a whole new war in a whole new continent with a whole new roster of characters which can throw some readers.

It's also full of suitably epic magic and moments and powers all throwing around with dragons and gods and more.

That said the whole "Dark Lord" aspect has become more diluted over the years and your'e more likely to get multiple good and bad characters with a lot more grey characters. Which in my view works better with an Epic story because it adds an element of depth and mystery. Sometimes the whole "Dark Lord" system can sort of write itself in that you've a pretty good idea that at some point there's going to be the epic final battle at the end. With a story with much more grey and perhaps not even a clear "evil" character or faction you can suddenly get thrown with loads of potential avenues; it creates a mystery within the story that makes page turning far more engaging. Even more so if the story takes pains to not have a heroic lead character(s) who gain immediate invulnerability to any "not the end of a book" death or other serious event.

 

[BAYLOR]

You also might want to look at Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant Chronicles .

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But are either Malazan or Thomas Covenant recent examples?

 

[BAYLOR]

But are either Malazan or Thomas Covenant recent examples?

Book one of the Thomas Covenant. Chronicles Lord Fouls Bane first appeared in 1977 , I think.

The Malazan book are fairly recent.

 

[tachyon]

Maybe the recent epic fantasy just hasn't been around long enough to get to the rest of the world. The first book in Wheel of Time is only a couple of countries, then adding more as the series progresses.

I finished The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter recently, it covers about as much ground. There's intimations of ancient evil and a promise of an expanded world in the next book in the series.

 

[Anthoney]

I just finished The Rage of Dragons yesterday. Great book. When I finished I went looking for more only to find out it was very recent. It was a pretty good set up for a grand fantasy series. Here's hoping I live long enough to get through it.

 

[nixie]

As much as I love it, I wouldn't call The Malazan recent; the first Garden's of the Moon published 1998, 10th The Crippled God 2011.

More recent;
R. Scott Bakker's The Aspect Emperor series is epic and a great read.


Reminds me I need to pick up the third book.

Peter V Brett's Demon Cycle, they need to claim the night back from demons and it starts with a farm boy.

 

[The Big Peat]

Malazan and Thomas Covenant are indeed not recent.

Maybe the recent epic fantasy just hasn't been around long enough to get to the rest of the world. The first book in Wheel of Time is only a couple of countries, then adding more as the series progresses.

I finished The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter recently, it covers about as much ground. There's intimations of ancient evil and a promise of an expanded world in the next book in the series.

The Eye of the World did indeed only cover Andor and Shinear, but it made it clear from the get go that the Dragon Reborn would fight the Dark One for all humanity's sake. Epic Fantasy frequently makes its "Whole World" stakes very clear from the beginning, even if we don't see the whole world.

And tbh, it's more the stakes of the Whole World being in danger than seeing the whole world I'm on about.

I'll have a look at The Rage of Dragons though.

@nixie - good shout on both of those.

I'd also add that Micah Yongo's Lost Gods trilogy seems to be thinking this big.

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm working on it, but I might need a couple of years.

 

[soulsinging]

Not that recent, but Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow & Thorn trilogy fits this bill. A kingdom splitting into multiple nations as an ancient evil awakens.