23
votes
I recently finished the Cradle series by Will Wight and have post series depression. What shall I read next?
I cannot recall the last time I devoured a series so quickly. I loved Cradle. The characters were so colourful and endearing, the plot was permanently escalating at a pace the resonated perfectly with me, and honestly, I found the writing style to be spot on.
And now I've left feeling rather empty... (perhaps rather on point!).
Others who have enjoyed this series, what else did you love?
To give a sample of books I've enjoyed recently: Children of Time, Stormlight Archive, Kingkiller Chonicles, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Red Rising.
Have you been listening to Cradle? If so I want to recommend Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree the narrator of Cradle.
You may need a gap book or two if listening and if hearing similar voices in new contexts throws you but if you're reading it it's a great change of pace/pivot from Cradle - it's about a warrior retiring to open a coffee shop, not advancing to the heavens. But it's pleasant in the same way as Cradle is.
If you want something similar with a different angle, Beware of Chicken. It's cultivation fantasy but with a protagonist aware of the tropes and who just wants to get away from the sects and the fighting - but still engages with the tropes. There's absolutely a beach volleyball chapter for example and our MC can't always stay away from fighting.
I've seen a few mentions of Beware of Chicken. It's actually something I'm holding off from reading for a while, as I get the feeling I will enjoy it more with a few more cultivation series on knocked off my list.
I read Cradle rather than listened to it, so I'll definitely check out Legends and Lattes.
I'm currently on book 2 of Beware of Chicken, 50% because of Baldree and 50% because I wanted something cozy to listen to.
Haven't been disappointed so far, it's exactly what I wanted =)
Mother of Learning if you want another progression fantasy binge
I didn't mention it in my original post, but this was the title I was considering the most ahead of any recommendations. I keep reading mixed reviews on it. How do you rate it?
I loved it! It's precisely what it says it is, a progression fantasy time loop, and you're not gonna get deep characters or deep philosophical meaning or anything, but you will 100% get a progression fantasy time loop
i read the entire thing in 3 days which is a bit insane if you look at the word count but i stayed up late the last night to finish, i was completely hooked
This reminded me to pick it back up as I'd stalled out (again) but I had been really enjoying it. Just stopped when I had to finish a few physical library books.
I would also highly recommend MOL. It is Gold Standard time-loop and progression fantasy in my opinion. There is a very good reason it remains, to this day, the #1 rated story on Royal Road.
I go back and re-read it every year or so. Cannot recommend highly enough.
I started there as well and branched out into the LitRPG genre, so here are some similar things I have liked in the last few years
Dungeon Crawler Carl (before it was cool lol)
Apocalypse Parenting by Erin Ampersand
I did like Mother of Learning too, but also,
Years of the Apocalypse, if you don't mind something in progress
A little more off the wall suggestions based more just on what I like:
Scholomance
Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels
The Martian
Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow
Will Wight also has a few other series if you look on his website. I haven't read any of them though.
Children of Time isn't quite like the others, I'd say. It has sequels if you want more of that. (Or have you already read all the sequels from the books/series you listed?)
Typically I don't like go give immediate recommendations with such vague parameters but I think you might enjoy The Will of the Many by James Islington.
There are also a slew of perfectly adequate progression fantasy e-published novels and comics out there for you. The biggest problem with those is that there are also many that are not so good and it's hard to tell them apart.
You know, I have a friend that bugged me to read that for ages and eventually gave up. The only reason I didn't was due to a backlog of stuff I wanted to get through. Perhaps it's time to give this one a go.
Thanks for the recommendations.
This one has been on my backlog list for a while. it has a very high rating on Goodreads. Can you tell me a little bit about it ? Are the characters interesting, is the plot & suspense intriguing enough ? Is it too draggy or fast paced ? It will be good to know what i am getting into so that i don't set the wrong expectations and bounce off of it.
That happened with Red Rising. I started it, got through the first 4-5 chapters, but just dropped off. Would you recommend i push forward ? does it get better ?
It depends on what you're looking for in a book. It's appropriate for bugsmith because it has progression elements while being written more like a traditional fantasy novel, matching their listed preferences. It's a little (only a little) like Kingkiller, with a more sympathetic (albeit still competent) protagonist. It's the first book in a trilogy and it's well written.
In my opinion Red Rising is fairly gripping so if you're more into sci fi you might want to give it another try. That said, I dropped the series after the second book for other reasons. I haven't read the sequel to WotM yet but so far, standing alone, I prefer it. It features a roman empire-like fantasy world with something like a magic system and several interesting characters.
I haven't read Cradle but if you enjoy large-scale fantasy world building you might enjoy Gardens of the Moon. Writing is tight, characters are layered and realistic, political machinations happen in the background and impact the minute to minute action of individuals.
I'm laughing not because it's an inappropriate rec, but because of the r/fantasy trope of Malazan being recommended on literally every post.
I think if your post is "I've read Stormlight and Kingkiller what else should I read?" then Malazan is a perfectly reasonable response haha
Hey I didn't say it was wrong, it was just inevitable!
(I truly have gotten it on requests for things where it's a wild suggestion or flat out inaccurate)
Pandora's Star might be right up your alley. Big ol' cyberpunk-ish space drama with trains! (the trains go through stable wormholes)
I wholeheartedly second Pandora's Star. It's a massive series. The first book alone is over 1,000 pages and it's got so many characters that you might not see someone for a few hundred pages before they show up again.
The author does a great job of weaving all the threads together and making it easy to follow.
If you like your sci-fi big, then I highly recommend it.
Pandora's Star is the Commonwealth Saga from Peter F Hamilton, right ? I recently read the Archimedes Engine by the same author, loved it, i like his style of large-scale, space-based, high-tech worldbuilding. Now i have started Salvation. How does the Salvation series compare with the Commonwealth Saga ? Should i cover Commonwealth first ?
Aye, I liked the later ones, but the first duology (Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained) especially are feckin great. If nothing else it has the benefit of being 'done'.
The only other stuff of his I've read is the Night's Dawn trilogy, which... feels like it was written by a less experienced author (because it was). Or at least didn't they grab me in the same way.
I should put his more recent stuff on the reading list though. For some reason I'm really bad about keeping up with authors instead of just series.
I think you’ll enjoy Mother of Learning.
You're the second to recommend this one. I'm certainly leaning toward this choice.
What are your thoughts on it?
I'll second the recommendations for Mother of Learning - it basically inspired/spawned the modern "progression fantasy" subgenre. Andrew Rowe was heavily influenced by it for his Arcane Ascension series, and he coined/popularized the progression fantasy concept and subreddit. Both lean more towards a bit more of a "western" feel, where cradle has more "eastern" influences.
Usually my recommendation for the next series after Cradle would be the Mage Errang series. Its got a fantastic world and magic system, and has whatever magic it is that makes people devour the series.
Mage Errant was solid. To me, Mage Errant > Arcane Ascension (WIP) > Mother of Learning. I found Mother of Learning gets a little too repetitive and streamlined, for reasons. The other two have better character interactions, but the plot gets messier in AA.
If you want more stories to give you a post-finishing depression, try the Hyperion Cantos. One of my genie-in-a-bottle wishes might just be to be able to read it for the first time again.
Maybe I'll acquire amnesia at some point.
OP, i dropped off Red Rising after the first 4-5 chapters (read till the point where the main character gets all the enhancements), but dropped off for multiple reasons (life & responsibilities got in the way, ugh). Would you recommend i push through ? does it get better ? I felt the plot to be a fairly by-the-numbers revolution story we have seen or read many times before, so it just didn't hook me.
Yes, I would push on. I found the book half-gripped me immediately, but I wasn't fully hooked. Just engaged enough that I knew I wanted to continue reading. But I found the second half of the book shined far greater, really grabbed me. The character never stops being somewhat of a Mary Sue, and there are many issues I take with the amount of suspension of disbelief required for that character to have adapted so dramatically. If you can get past that, I think it's a great read.
The second book is where the story really begins to shine.
Cradle is one of my favorite book series! (Tildes name)
I’d recommend mage errant by John Bierce
If you want something different Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
Will Wights The Captain book series is good too
Seconding Mage Errant, it very occasionally has a some clunky writing but for the most part is very readable (unlike a lot of progression fantasy) and I genuinely enjoyed the characters and plot. The worldbuilding is also cool and better realized than a lot of stories in this space.
I went through all of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books in September, and then all of the Cradle books in November, so I can definitely relate trying to find something to fill that emptiness. (And, if you haven't already, be sure to read the short story collection book Threshold, which helped me feel a bit more sense of closure.)
I've definitely bookmarked this thread for all of the great suggestions, but the only one I haven't seen recommended, yet, is The Dresden Files.
The progression is slower than Cradle or even Carl, and it's a bit slower to really get going—especially regarding the larger, overarching storyline—but it's definitely worth hanging in there. The first book was his very first novel, so the writing gets more polished as the series progresses, but if you struggle with getting into it too much, then the first hardcover book in the series (Book #7, Dead Beat) was also intended to be a soft entry point for new readers, so you can jump in there without feeling completely lost.
James Marsden also does an excellent job narrating the audiobooks, if you prefer that medium, as well.
Starship's Mage isn't quite on the level of progression as Cradle is, but I've liked it for the 15 (out of 17) books I've read. It even manages to carry on when the (original) main character is demoted to a side character for story reasons - having built up a decent stable of secondary PoV characters.
It's magic - but in space. Good stuff :)
It goes from the MC being a basic jump mage to
Minor spoilers to a singular event around book 4-5
Stopping a full-on orbital bombardmentI read up to Reaper last year during a 2-month stint where I was addicted to reading progressive fantasy. Really enjoyed the series.
But Mark of the Fool was probably my favorite series I read through, with Cradle being a close second. I read a lot of media where you're lucky to get a character or two who aren't completely flat. So I cherish series like Mark of the Fool that are able to develop a cast of well rounded characters. The author manages that with surprisingly large cast, who you learn to care and cheer for in their moments in the spotlight. Khalik is a great friend, Vernia made me tear up, and Baelin is literally the goat. Most of all, I found it very satisfying how the author shows characters perservering through the challenges he puts in front of them: balancing civic duty vs. personal fulfillment, crisis of faith, overcoming childhood trauma, geopolitics, overcoming grief, etc...
The progression system is fun. The main character's ability to fight, use spells or divinity is heavily suppressed, which makes for interesting scenarios early on where he can't just overpower everything.
Tildes did a book club a few months ago on We are Legion, We are Bob, that's part of a whole Bobbiverse series. Bob gets a brain scan, gets uploaded some hundred years later into a space probe to find new worlds for humanity to live on, and replicates himself to better be able to widen the search. It's rather reference heavy and has a similar tone to Dungeon Crawler Carl, but with elements of Star Trek where smart people are solving problems when it works. It may not be for you though.
Additionally, Project Hail Mary is a lot like in "guy solves a problem in space" with less of the pop culture filter. It's by Andy Weir who also wrote The Martian, and a film of Project Hail Mary is coming out soon, so it may be something to look into after you're done.
I have read the entirety of the Bobiverse series. I adored the first three books and didn't hate the later entries (but felt the quality took a large dip).
And Project Hail Mary ranks as one of my favourite books of recent years, and my absolute favourite audiobook experience. I'm so excited for the film.
Oh man, I loved Cradle too!
To take a bit of a different angle here - have you heard of Wuxia World before? It's got a bit of a convoluted but pretty workable free key system and if you really get into a series the prices are very affordable.
It's all translations of Chinese web series, mostly cultivation (Xianxia). I particularly have enjoyed Nine Star Hegemon Body Art (boy you can really tell they but literally translated it hey?), which is a little harem anime-y but also lighthearted and fun mixed with serioys in an anime way. I Shall Seal the Heavens ran on a bit long (they almost all do lol) but was interesting use of powers and time, and I'm now pretty deep into Renegade Immortal which has been good.