i love asoiaf but it’s hard to start rereading atm of course
Unsure about quaint but Discworld is absolutely pleasant and grows a delightful lore around itself. General advice is skip the first two (Pratchett was just figuring it out) and come back to them when you already love Rincewind.
Second vote for Discworld
Guards! Guards!
Mort
Wyrd Sisters
Are all good places to start.
Small Gods is my goto reccomendation for starting points, it’s completely self contained and one of Pratchett’s best works
Just to add that the BBC has done good audio dramatisations of several of Pratchet’s works.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03mz1wb/episodes/guide
Small Gods and Mort for example, are excellent. Currently not available on bbc iplayer / sounds, although they do regularly rebroadcast them and make them available online, but should be floating around on the torrent or archive sites.
BBC sounds/radio is free to listen outside the UK, unlike the tv content.
I love the first 2 and it’s where I started, I don’t see anything wrong with them and I will die on that hill.
I really don’t think they’re bad or even worse than the rest. I do feel like they’re so different from the other books that whether someone liked them or not doesn’t tell them if they’ll like the rest, which is the only reason I don’t recommend it as a taster before deciding on whether to read the other 30+ tomes.
I’ll join you there - I loved Pratchett’s writing already from his Johnny series I read at school and read those first two all in one go during a summer holiday in my early teens. Great fantasy comedies.
But - I can see the argument that they’re not representative of the series as a whole as it developed… not that I think Terry was probably setting out to write a massive series at the time he was writing those books. Anyway they’ll always have a place in my heart.
However, it’s a series that ran for decades ago I compare it to something like Doctor Who on TV where people have favourite eras or favourite stories from different era’s, and those books are like the first few William Hartnell stories which are great but still have some moments that jar with what came later…
I tried reading Mort, but it’s very… dense. While I do enjoy the occasional book with flowery, descriptive language, I got a quarter of the way through it and no real plot happened.
For pleasantness and YA high fantasy vibe Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle is great.
For wizard school with a much more mature tone R.F. Kuang’s Babel is a great read. Warning though it is much darker and heavier, so prepare yourself emotionally haha.
EDIT: was recommended that I give a heavier content warning to Babel which is fair. While it is thrown around as an HP alternative it is emotionally harrowing, has some extremely violent and disturbing sections, and is generally focused on depicting the horrors of colonialism. A good read, but prepare yourself going in and don’t expect it to be quaint or pleasant.
Just to add a couple of thoughts to this.
Earthsea is often described as being rather mature despite being YA. I agree. There’s a clarity and immediacy to Le Guin’s writing style that cuts straight to the point while also providing clear images and characters which is combined with deep and arguably universal themes and sometimes nice allegory.
Additional to this, the series goes or progresses in surprising directions. As is so often the case, Le Guin didn’t intend to write as many books as she did, but used the opportunity to do interesting or personal things with each book. While there’s a continuity throughout the whole series, it’s not a simple or single story but rather multiple stories with large or important intersections. You could for instance stop any time you like and not really miss out on any satisfying climactic ending.
For Kuang I agree that they are generally enjoyable reads (or rather, exciting or suspenseful, I suppose) but I would strongly hesitate to put them into a recommendation looking for quaint and pleasant.
Her books go fairly detailed into gore and excesses of violence and sexual abuse, more so for her earlier works. So - good reads but come prepared.
Yes I think Babel is a little lighter on gorey excess than the Poppy Wars (which I haven’t read but my partner has described in detail to me). Which is to be expected for books designed to depict the horrors of colonialism.
But mainly mentioning it with a content warning since it’s often tossed around as an HP replacement. I think the first half of Babel captures a similar “wonders of magic school” vibe, although with a lot more caveats about how inequitable the entire system is. It does get extremely harrowing by the end so maybe should include a clearer warning in my post.
Less … bigoted? Were there themes of bigotry in Harry Potter that I missed? Or are you simply looking for a better-regarded author?
The way house elves are handled and the very stereotypical names come to mind.
Chang aside, Finnegan’s an exceptionally awful choice. As someone only technically alive and a world away during the Troubles, I assumed it was an oversight. I have since learned just how much an English adult would have to overlook to accidentally settle on the only perceptibly Irish character (edit: other than the leprechauns) having a nasty habit of causing explosions and trying to get ahold of whiskey.
If thats the level at which you take offense, good luck finding anything worth reading.
There is a big gap between not tolerating and supporting bigotry and being personally offended by something.
Brandon Sanderson Cosmere fits the bill and is super easy to get into.
The Mistborn series might fit your description the most. But my personal favorite is The Stormlight Archive. The Stormlight Archive is what got me back into reading.
What makes the Cosmere so easy and enjoyable to get into is that different series are only vaguely connected. They take place in the same universe but on different worlds or realms. But since they share the same creation “myth” there are similarities between these worlds. When getting started a lot of the connections feel more like an easter egg. An easter egg that teaches you about the history of the universe.
But each series is basically self contained. Most characters and people aren’t even aware of the existance of these different worlds. The focus is mostly on the specific world. Meaning you don’t have to worry about reading order or missing out. Heck, if you don’t enjoy a specific series you can even skip it without losing too much.
There are a few unpublished or planned books that will focus on the connection of these worlds, on characters that travel between them. They will probably be the most enjoyable if you read everything in the Cosmere.
His Dark Materials
