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Low stakes fantasy recommendation
I read "Legends and Lattes" recently and liked the premise of the entire book. Does anyone know any other books that have a laid back and chill adventure story with little to no violence, gore, and stuff like that?
Thanks in advance.
All Terry Pratchett's discworld books fall into this category.
Rincewind series for Adventure
City Watch Series for laid back interesting plots
Also, Belgariad series would be something where you have adventure without the gore.
A bit off-topic, but for me, the Belgariad is forever tainted by what the Eddings did.
Wow. Didn't know about that.
Yeah..It would have been a fail for me as well if I had known about it before reading that series.
I’ve been a lifelong Eddings fan, and read all the books when I was a kid. I’ve always encouraged people to read their work - even if they haven’t aged the best. But I never knew this happened, and it makes me profoundly sad.
I also enjoyed the relaxing chill atmosphere of that book :)
"The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet", by Becky Chambers. Not totally chill, but I felt most of it was low stress.
"The House in the Cerulean Sea" by T.J. Klune. Pretty darn chill. Took me two tries to get into it, but then it was an easy read, and quite pleasant.
Similar to the Klune book:
"The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches" by Sangu Mandanna. Pretty similar to the above storyline (I wonder if one of them copied the other one), but heck, also relaxing and fun to read.
This was such a cosy read, it's one of my favourites. I don't really rate the subsequent books in the series, but this first one was an astonishingly good debut.
Thanks for the recommendations. I'll check them out.
I read the Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches recently. I was impressed with the book and how shill it was. I do have to note, there is a gratuitous sex scene in there for those that want to avoid those types of books.
I don't know that I would call it very chill, but I loved The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. This book makes me want a whole series with the world-building the author started.
Sounds like this has one hell of a lesson at the end.
Will definitely check it out. Thanks.
Well, I'm sold. A monk on a robot and their adventure of self-discovery, sign me right the heck up. Great little mini review!
I adore Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It's about gentlemen wizards in Georgian England, and the resurgence of magic into that society. It's a bit of a tome, and the writing is very much styled after Regency-era storytellers (think Brontë, Austen), with all the incumbent wit and charm of those writers. But it is absolutely in my top 10 books of all time.
As a bonus, there is a wonderful BBC adaptation as well!
The BBC show was great. I was disappointed when I learned in was just a (short) miniseries.
So was I! It ended on quite the cliffhanger, but I'm honestly glad that they never tried to do anything else with it, or that Clarke has never entertained writing another. Some stories are too good to benefit from the sequel treatment.
The web serial "This Used to be About Dungeons" is fantastic. The worldbuilding offers a really unique take on the lighthearted fantasy genre.
Also if you want the complete opposite, the author's other serial "Worth the Candle" is one of my favorite books ever.
I love TUTBAD enough that I'm supporting Alexander Wales on Patreon, but I'm not sure I'd qualify it as lighthearted and low stakes. Between the emotional manipulation and and gaslighting the main character suffered, the family issues held by a couple of the other party members, and the whole jailbreak arc... I feel like Alexander has done a great job of balancing the tense moments with happy ones and kept the story very personal in scale, but I'm not sure it's an excellent recommendation for this thread.
I don't want to be the one that lumps Sci-fi & Fantasy together, but you mentioned:
I also used to exclusively read fantasy books until I encountered The Vorkosigan Saga books. I read them all over the course of one summer, I absolutely adored those books.
Something more fantasy-like would be the "Magic 2.0" series, by Scott Meyer.
The first book is "Off to be the wizard".
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett - it is part of the Discworld series however this book is standalone and you dont need any prior knowledge. If you like Audiobooks Andy Serkis is the narrator and I really enjoyed his version.
Tress of the Emerald Sea - Brandon Sandersons recent book, has Princess Bride vibes, a wonderful adventure story with pirates and a little bit of magic.
I like Sanderson's writing. Will surely check the new book out.
Anything Andy Serkis narrates, I listen. Thanks for the recommendation.
Bookshops & Bonedust
The sequel to Legends and Lattes, to be released this year
Robert Asprin's Myth Inc series starting with Another Fine Myth is low stakes. Also it's technically science fiction but Calahan's Cross Time Saloon and sequels.
Ooo it's been a while since I read that series. I was looking after my friends library when he went home during summer break in University and he had a few of these books. They were a lot of fun.
"the wandering Inn" by pirateaba might be your cup of tea- its a web serial series thats been published as collected ebooks- I've read a decent chunk of the first one and its very calming- its basically a sort of lit-RPG lite book, about a girl transported to a fantasy world, where she starts renovating and running a Tavern. The chapters are short and almost self contained, so its easy to drop in and out of whatever else you reading.
It starts small and low stakes, but once you get a few million words in... look out.
all of TJ Klune's books are so good. In The Lives of Puppets just came out and i loved it and similar vibes to L&L (obviously way different plot). Neon Yang's Tensorate series is kind of in between the SFF genres but they're super short and really good - they may not be as low stakes as Klune and Baldree but def check them out!
This isn't the recommendation you asked for, but so you know -- the author of Legends and Lattes used to be a game developer, and you may enjoy poking through his previous work at some point.
I've only recently gotten into reading as a hobby, but I recently finished Murikami's After Dark. It really felt like it had some low key/low stakes fantasy about it while also being completely grounded in the real world. Very low stakes, and it gave me a lot to think about.
The Off to Be the Wizard series if you're looking for some humour. It's Sci-fi Fantasy in that it appears to be a computer simulation with a fantasy setting. Most of the violence tends to be slapstick.