Good Fantasy Books You May Have Missed

The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham


This is one of my favourite series, ever. I have read the first three books and have the Widow's House to read. It's an epic fantasy series with a fifth book to come, the Spider War. The first book follows four characters, Geder, a noble in military service, Cithrin, the determined ward of a bank threatened by invasion who is my favourite character so far, Marcos the military hero who's chequered past leads him to take Cithrin under his wing and Dawson, a noble conspiring to protect his King against traitors and rebellion. Now all these characters have their own stories, likes, dislikes, flaws and their stories at times overlap. The characters all feel relatable, real especially Cithrin when she makes mistakes.

The story telling and world building feels like a late medieval / early modern-esque feeling with certain things throughout the book. There's some really brilliant descriptions of clothing, buildings, and the different types of people that bring the world to live. There are like 12 different races which is important for the story. It is great, but its not action paced in the sense of some of the other books I'm going to be talking about. But I would recommend this book to anybody.

The Grim Company by Luke Scull

This is one of those modern day gritty fantasy books, that is in the same mould as Game of Thrones and Joe Abercrombie's First Law with multiple character's points of view. It has an inclusion of magic which is central to the story as magic is fading away and there's only a limited amount left. And one of the main characters, Davarus Cole can use the sword called magebane. One of my favourite characters was a half-mage who is in a wheelchair which sounds very different, especially for fantasy, and he is one of brains but has an ability to use some magic. The storytelling is fairly fast paced and apart of at least a trilogy--with Dead Man's steel announced as the third book. It is worth a read for those that like gritty, grimy, dark fantasy with a lot of language.


Traitor's Blade by by Sebastien de Castell

This is something that is different to your standard fantasy, that is a written first person through with the character being Falcio, a greatcoat--which is the armour he and his comrades wear. It is very fast paced, as it is short totalling around 384 pages, which for those that read A Song of Fire and Ice, Name of the Wind, won't be much of a problem. It has a great blend of being plot driven and character driven. It's like a mix of fantasy and the story of the musketeers--there are three greatcoats including Falcio. All these ingredients make it a pleasant surprise and a good read to anyone that wants something a bit different, something easy to read. As there is worldbuilding but with some authors, they get dragged down with that, but not so much with this book.