Fantasy books, stories, ＆c

Below, ser mentioned Dragonlance Chronicles and Riftwar Cycle, and I have to second those. They are older, and while I feel they've aged with a certain amount of grace, there are certainly standout newer series that have raised the bar, but I still enjoy them. Riftwar in particular had an interesting take on magic and gods that made it fascinating for me.

I also think, however overhyped it may be, that the first two trilogies about Drizzt Do'urden are solid reads. The first trilogy of Homeland, Soujourn, and Exile is some of the best worldbuilding I've seen in fantasy of its time, and Icewind Dale is a great adventure as well. The later books do tend to suffer a lot from power creep and the series runs far too long for my tastes, but the first two trilogies are solid.

I'd also recommend anything by Robin Hobb, who has a deep and fascinating fantasy world and an excellent mind for characterization. Also pretty good at twisting the knife on her readers from time to time. She has a lot of trilogies/series that take place in the same world, and any of which would be a reasonable place to start, so skim through and pick one that seems like it might be appealing.

For historical fantasy, there's a lot, but to name one I loved, S.A. Chakraborty writes some truly fascinating and exciting adventurous escapades through the world of middle eastern mythology. Her recent Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is both a really fun adventurous romp across the 12th century Indian Ocean, and a thoughtful insight into motherhood, and the ways in which it changes you and leaves you the same.

Or, if you like a historical war fantasy, R.F. Kuang wrote the trilogy The Poppy War that takes place in what is essentially an alternate world fantasy-China that starts off a little Harry Potter, but very quickly becomes a long, drawn out story of war, rebellion, and the many wrongs that happen along the way. You may wish to consider reading trigger warnings on these books.

Or, if you want some urban/contemporary fantasy (meaning fantasy stories that take place here in our modern real-world Earth, except there's magic), Jim Butcher has a very gritty urban series called Dresden Files about being a noir-style detective investigating crimes involving magic that is extremely popular.

On the opposite urban fantasy mood, I've recently stumbled into Annette Marie's series The Guild Codex: Spellbound, wherein a human woman desperate for work accidentally stumbles into the magical world when she applies for a bartending position at what turns out to be a guild of mythics (people with magical powers), which she survives through sheer force of personality, no small amount of sass, and expert aim with a margarita. It hooks with its premise, but really the character growth and world development in this series has had me addicted lately.

And to suggest something a little off the beaten path, Jim C. Hines wrote a series of novels beginning with The Stepsister Scheme which asks, "What if those fairy tale Disney princesses were actually badasses?" The main characters (not actually based on their Disney versions of course, as these stories existed long before Disney) have a lot of depth that gets revealed over the course of the story. There is some very dark backstory here, so consider checking trigger warnings if that's a concern. Mostly though this is a Charlie's Angels (minus Charlie) more action-focused series.