I really enjoy the idea of world building of high fantasy: A completely foreign place, not tied to anything like earth. I also like that the norms of current social structure can be completely turned on its head.
But what I struggle with is: a lot of popular high fantasy turns into an epic, super high stakes tale of how the world almost ended. I think that is something I’ve either seen too much of, or something that just takes away from other potential interesting stories that could come out of a different world.
So instead, I am looking for books where the protagonist explores/adventures through the foreign world discovering people and places within it. But there the challenges or conflicts the characters go through are personal and more relatable.
Does anyone share similar frustrations? Does anyone have any suggestions for books that I might enjoy?
Edit: Thanks everyone for your suggestions! Anyone that still comes across this tread, please feel free to add more, and hopefully it’s useful for others as well.
The First Law by Joe Abercrombie. It deals with political struggles and empires clashing but not the end of the world. The characters are definitely more flawed and relatable at times.
“The emperor’s soul” is a pretty good one. no worldwide stakes. cool magic system. not exploration themed. short, but excellent.
“Elantris” has some worldwide (or at least, society-wide) stakes, but no world-ending stuff. also, cool magic system. characters discovering what’s happening with that.
“The Riyria Revelations” is a bit of good-natured skulldeggery as gotten up to by a couple of friends wandering about and thieving as honestly as can be.
Also, “The Lies of Locke Lamora”, which is a bit more gritty and not always so good-natured, but has some nice thievery.
oh geez, i almost forgot:
“The Farseer Trilogy”, and associated other books in that world. I once heard this described as “none of these are my favorite book, but this is my favorite series.” this is extremely cozy, imo. there are societal-level stakes, but it’s not end-of-the-world stuff.This is a great list, thanks so much! Farseer Trilogy looks particularly interesting
Some great choices here I’m kicking myself for forgetting.
Maybe look into The Goblin Emperor, and especially it’s follow up series, The Cemeteries of Amalo, by Katherine Addison
Came here to say this, it’s not quite cozy fantasy to me, but it’s definitely a change of pace from world-ending stakes.
First I thought of: The Bitterbynde Trilogy from Celia Dart - Thornton. She created an amazing world and I loved her way of storytelling and the characters she created. I’ve read them in Dutch, but the original books are English so that shouldn’t be a problem. Highly recommended!
Book Of Amber by Zelazny
In Dungeon Crawler Carl the world ends by like Chapter 2…
the xanth series has some sorta end of the world of magic stuff but ultimately its just about various characters in the magical realm. it uh does have this thing about magical puns and after enough books it might get repetitive. its a really long series though so you can take breaks and come back or whatnot.
The Drizzt books by R.A. Salvatore are basically just the dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden having adventures in the world of DnD.
After a quick search on these, they look almost exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!
i’ve been re-reading these over the last year and can confirm, great reads. been looking for more like it, maybe i’ll find something in this thread!
Also The Crimsonn Shadow by the same.
This is the second time recently that I’ve recommended the Earthsea books by Ursula K Le Guin.
There’s still a bit of a world ending sort of storyline in some of them.
Another one you might enjoy is Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. I’m fairly confident there’s no concept of the world ending in that series.
Thanks for the recommendations! I’ll check them both out
You might check out the Magic Goes Away series by Larry Niven. The world has already passed on and people are trying to stick to what was and adapt to what’s new.
