ITT: /tg/-/lit/ help & general thread.

>>49669402
>Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders story arc (love Robin Hobb but the not-Italian traders stories are insufferable).
Robin Hobb went "whiny feminist" in Liveship Traders.

Whereass the Fitz & the Fool was just plain tearjerker, which made it nice.

Glenn Cook's Instrumentalities of the Night is pretty good

>>49669402
NINE PRINCES IN AMBER

>>49669402
Have you read the Bartimaeus trilogy? It's not fully /tg/ related, but it's good.

>>49669402
Lawrence Watt-Evans's Ethshar novels. The setting was originally designed for an RPG, and it shows in the magic system, which is much more detailed and consistent than most fantasy settings. The main appeal is in characters exploiting the magic rules (which are not D&D level broken, but the attitude is the same). Things happen for good reasons and characters are willing to abandon their previous plans if they find something better. There are no idiot plots.

>motherfucker hasn't read Gormenghast or The Worm Ouroboros yet.

>>49669402
A solid book to pick up that is straight up D&D is Douglas Niles' Darkwalker on Moonshae. It's the first in a trilogy, but the story stands by itself. I hear
Ed Greenwood's Elminster books are good, too.

Legend of the Seeker series are good IMO. That's Terry Goodkind, why don't you un-abandon it.

>>49669402
I'm fond of The Death Gate Cycle, although it's a bit old-school, I guess. Written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman of Dragonlance fame, but I'd argue this is their best work.

For Malazan, start with the main series, specifically Gardens of the Moon. It's a bit, shall we say, different from other fantasy, so try to get through it and Deadhouse Gates before you judge it too hard.

I personally like The Dresden Files. They're pretty charming, and I'd recommend the audiobook versions. You could probably skip book one, it really picks up speed by book three.

There's the Temeraire series, starting with His Majesty's Dragon, which is fun alt-history that boils down to "What if there were dragons in the armed forces?"

If you're into cyberpunk, there's Neuromancer, by William Gibson. The quintessential cyberpunk book in many ways.

There's obviously Dune. Don't read beyond the third book is my opinion.

If you're into that, there's also H.P. Lovecraft and his misc weirdness.

I've heard good things about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which is also adapted into a very interesting miniseries.

There's also The Dark Tower by Stephen King. It's... weird. Almost too meta, a bit too drawn out, but also pretty damn fascinating.
I realize in hindsight that not all of these are traditional fantasy. Not all of them are fantasy, even. But hell, take from them what you want, and I can hopefully help somebody else too.

Acts of Caine

>>49671505
No, Terry Goodkind is an Ayn Rand ultra fanboy, it bleeds way too deep into his writing. He switches rules of his setting/magic on a whim... its horrible writing. Then he has some serious BDSM & rape fantasies... I finished that series, but it was as a hate filled challenge to do so against his horrible writing.

Fuck Terry Goodkind & his shitty books

can anyone convince me/give me a reason to read Wheel of Time? I want to read it for some reason, but I feel like it's going to annoy the shit out of me.

>>49673859
Just now getting around to reading after putting a lot of books ahead of it. So far i really like it. Its standard high fantasy feeling but way more digestable than Shannara or Tolkien, its also fun to see prejudices from the main characters owing to growing up in a hamlet in the middle of nowhere

>>49671706
Seconding Death Gate Cycle.

Grunts! By Mary Gentle is good too. Ork Marines in fantasy land.

Harbinger of Doom trilogy is a straight up Edda.

Everything Michael Swanwick is good, but Dragons of Babel is probably one of my favorite books to feature the Fae.

Robin Hobbs "Fitz and the Fool" trilogy is dope as fuck.

Magician by Raymond E. Feist is the first in the riftwars series.

Changeling by Robert Zelazny was a fun of schlocky read.

Sabriel by Garth Nix is alright. Fae again, and necromancy with a chosen daughter crossing into the wilds to face an ancient times evil. Classic stuff, we'll written.

Dresden files are shit IMO. Boring, the greatest sin a novel can make.

The again, I liked the Anita Blake series. The first five are decent vampire Noir and the remaining like 18 after are smutty bdsm supernatural sex which happens to be my fetish so I gave the sharp drop off in writing and characterization a pass.

Dune is good, I think Chapterhouse was the best one buy honestly after Children of Dune they're more socioeconomic treatises than novels.

Raptor by Gary Jennings is an awesome historical fiction novel about a hermaphrodite during the Romans Empires heyday, right before it got all Christian.

>>49673859
Lack of other options and the sheer prolific volume.

Be glad you live in the future.

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>>49670546
N O E X C U S E
O

E
X
C
U
S
E

>>49669402
Read the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson.

Srsly dude. Do it. Its amazing. Only 2 books out right now, but both of them are as good as your fav book from your favorite fantasy series.

Read Malazan in proper release order.

It will be better than anything else anyone recommends.

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I don't suppose anyone could indulge my interest in gryphons with some literature recommendations as well?

>>49677569
>implying
Honestly, I can't remember ever reading anything with griffons.

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I recommend having a go at Dragonsbane. Lovely book; wonderful portrayal of dragons and deconstruction of the dragonslaying myth.

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>ctrl+f
>Dying earth
>Book of the new sun
/tg/, I am disappoint.

>>49681234
I was going to mention those but these fuckers have pleb tastes anyway.

>Where's my Lord of Light and Grendel?

The Inheritance cycle by Christopher Poloni (Eragon, Brasinger, Eldest, Inheritance). Technically classified as Young adult fiction most places, but reminds me alot of lotr whilst being different.
Fyi, the movie from like 08 was meh compared to the book.

>>49684251
The movie was garbage and this has to be bait.

>>49669402
DUNE

>>49684251
>The Inheritance cycle by Christopher Poloni (Eragon, Brasinger, Eldest, Inheritance). Technically classified as Young adult fiction most places, but reminds me alot of lotr whilst being different.

>>/trash/

>>49684652
Not bait, because I agree the movie could have been better. The books are still greatthough

>>49669402
Fuck fantasy. Read Banks. And Gibson.

>>49669402
shadows of the apt

>>49685051
Extremely persuasive.

>>49684251
>Literally a worse fantasy Star Wars where Obi-Wan is his dad and he rides a dragon
>Good
Okay, I fucking read the first three books (and nearly choked), so I know for a fact that your taste is awful.

>>49669402
This is more of a /co/ recommendation, but Legends of Percivan. God, those books are fantastic. The art is great and the humor is almost always solid.
Steve Jackson writes Fighting Fantasy books, which are pretty good as far as inspiration goes but iffy as far as actual mechanics goes.
Personally, I enjoyed House of Hell.

>>49669402
Like another anon said, read Malazan Book of the Fallen in release order.
Which is, Gardens of the Moon; Deadhouse Gates; Memories of Ice; House of Chains; Midnight Tides; The Bonehunters; Reaper's Gale; Toll the Hounds; Dust of Dreams; The Crippled God, in that order.

After that I'd recommend going for the six part series: Night of Knives; Return of the Crimson Guard; Stonewielder; Orb, Sceptre, Throne; Blood and Bone; Assail.

After that there's the Kharkanas Trilogy and the Path to Ascendancy Trilogy, but neither are finished yet.

I heartily recommend Book of the Fallen, it's probably been the best series I've read thus far, so have fun.

>The Crying of Lot 49
at least if you need ideas for Unknown Armies

Greg Bear's Songs of Earth and Power
Tanith Lee's Flat Earth series
Louise Cooper's Time's Master series (especially if you've read the Elric series, it makes for a very nice counterpoint).
Raymond Feist's Riftwar Saga
Kylie Chan's Dark Heaven's series.

>>49685372
My taste also includes almost everything recommend in this thread, so by proxy, you are saying that your own tastes are shit.

>>49671706
>>49674270
>Death Gate cycle
mah niggas

I've never read them in order though, randomly picked the third one out in the library in middle school because the cover was cool, then read the 4th. I should really read the rest

>>49677569
At some point in high school, I saw a book in the library with a girl riding a gryphon on the cover. I was about to check it out, but the library was clearing out for new inventory, and giving away books for free. So instead I walked away with a copy of Snowcrash I still have.

No idea what the gryphon book was, sorry. Fuckin read Snowcrash tho, shit's cash

/lit/ here.

Read:
-The Prince of Nothing and Aspect-Emperor Trilogies by R. Scott Bakker

-The short stories of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard (Lovecraft wrote mostly horror and Howard wrote a bunch of westerns and historical fiction, so you can skip those if you really want to.)

-The short stories of Jorge Luis Borges

-The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

-The Dying Earth and Lyonesse books by Jack Vance

-Any ancient or medieval texts - Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, The Aenieid, The Prose Edda, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, etc.

Avoid:
-The Malazan novels.

-Any D&D or video game tie-in novels

-Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle

-Any Urban Fantasy or Paranormal Romance

>>49675155
Just finished these myself. I'd say they were pretty damn good. Certainly worth a read. But I really didn't want to be on the "waiting for a series to finish before the author dies" train again.

Ironically, bathe series is written by the guy who finished Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Epic.

>>49687353
>Sir Gowin and the Green Knight
Just read le morte d'arthur. It is available in English.

>>49687510
That's good shit too. There's a ton of great old epics and collections of myths, so I just rattled off the first six that popped into my head.

>>49687563
Sorry, I noticed a spelling error, so >>49687560 is who the link was intended.

>>49687353
Is the Dresden Files acceptable? Why or why not?

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>>49687353
>The short stories of Jorge Luis Borges
I've been wondering if I should post him or not. That is some good recommendation right there. I can't STRESS how good recommendation it is, especially Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius which should be a mandatory reading for all worldbuilders.

I'd also add to this list of recommendations:
>Chazarian Dictionary by Milorad Pavić
>Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
>Some shorter stories by Kafka from the collection Countryside Doctor (Old Manuscript and Jackals and Arabs are awesome)
And finally:
>the good old Thousand and One Nights, uncensored and preferably well commented.

Virtually any book of classical folklore and fairytales can be good. I like Czech, Polish, Russian and Islandian ones a lot.

Cheers.

/lit/ hates fantasy fiction

>>49687721
>Islandian
I meant Icelanding. Damn my brain skipped a beat there.

>>49687747
Clearly you are not entirely right.

>>49687773
>Icelanding
Icelandic. Fuck me.

>>49687540
He's nearly done with the third one. With the way Sanderson writes, he'll probably have finished the whole ten-book series and moved on to other things within a decade. He seriously puts out at least one fantasy book a year, multiple short stories or novelettes, and one or two YA books. It's fucking insane.

>>49687612
It's all good.

>>49687619
I'd give it a pass. Dresden Files is typical quirky urban fantasy schlock and I doubt it's elevated by great prose.

>>49687721
Borges is one of my favorite authors. I love his stories about weird magical items like the Aleph. the Zahir and the Book of Sand.

>>49669402
The 'Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser' short stories by Fritz Leiber are great classic sword-and-sorcery fiction.

>>49669402
The Witcher series of books. Short sweet and if you like the games loads of sweet behind the scenes.

>>49687833
Borges is arguably the best author/theoretic of literature of the last two hundred years...
If you haven't, you really owe it to yourself to look in to the Chazarian Dictionary, though. It's full of this kind of shit.

>>49687857
>Short sweet
I would not describe the 1000+ pages long pentalogy as "short". "Sweet" is not the first word I would think of either.
That said, Witcher books are mostly just good fun reading, if a bit zany and tend to fall apart towards the end.
The short stories are fantastic though.

>>49687891
Yeah but you could knock a book out in a day if you weren't doing anything. Maybe i just read fast. And i'd agree with you they're not the best but i really enjoyed my time reading them.

>>49687928
I've heard the english translation is shit though, and the little that I've read more-or-less confirmed that. I may be spoiled (dirty slav with a dirty good slav translation magic), but considering that I've always seen a huge discrepancy between opinions on the books by people who read them in English, and people who read them in virtually any other language, I would be weary of it.

But yeah. I grew up with Sapkowski. I grew up to be a huge annoying pretentious literal snob and I still like the Witcher series. Not so much the Hussite Trilogy or the White Adder. Both ended up being a massive wasted opportunities.

>>49687984
Well i for one can forgive you. For being a slav and and literature snob. Would you not recommend his other books then?

>>49671706
you have to read Deadhouse gates because of the chain of dogs and Coltaine

Reading throught all this thread

>no Patrick Rothfuss
>not once The Name of the Wind

>>49687891
>Chazarian Dictionary
I'll check it out then.

>>49671706
The official advice for dune is don't read beyond the FOURTH book, and don't read past the sixth on pain of death. But god-emperor of dune is definitely important to the series, it's the logical finale of the first three.

>>49688024
Not really. The White Adder really disappointed me in particular, because it's essentially fantasy story set during Russian war in Afghanistan, and that is one hell of a premise that could lead to some quite god-damn amazing war/magical realism/fantasy shit. And for a part of it, it's interestingly written, with this thing for Russian military argot, and some quite amazingly immersive and beliveable descriptions of the mundane reality of the soldier's life, that is just begging for good juxaposition of some mythical and magical elements.
But then you suddenly find main protagonist sword-fighting an evil ayatollah over a cave full of treasure and wonder what the FUCK just happened: it's not even cheezy bad, it's just bad.

The Hussite Trilogy... I don't even remember what pissed me off about it, but I never got to the second book. A lot of cute historical references (Sapkowski is good at that shit), some quite amazing ideas for magic and stuff, but somewhere between so-blatant-homages-to-Name-of-the-Rose-it-stops-being-funny, out of place anachronisms and Sapkowski's annoying fetish for annoying "strong" female characters, I just lost any fucking interest.
From what I've heard, the later books just get worse and worse.

Sapkowski can do magic with words, with cute historical references, with dialogue and narration, and with argots, dialects and other patterns of speech, but my god he struggles to keep a decent story arch together.

Shame really. The guy is not an idiot, but I guess he is an asshole.

>>49688079
Do it. It's... a rather unique book, formally speaking. It does not joke around when it calls itself "dictionary". It's actually a dictionary. Well, three dictionaries. It's kinda crazy. But fun, I promise.

Fair warning: there are two different versions of the book: the male and the female editions. It does not really matter which one you pick - they differ in one paragraph only. Some people do get confused by it.

>>49687619
They're okay as long as you don't expect them to be high literature or anything. I've heard them described as comic book fiction, and that's honestly not a bad way to look at them.

Just don't look forward to any good threads about them on /tg/. There's one dude who really really doesn't like them and he tends to take threads about them kinda personal. Like, Jim Butcher wrote a bunch of the books, then the books all got together and beat him up, stole his lunch money, and gangbanged his mom. Then they all laughed at him some more because he got a boner from being forced to watch and it was kinda fucked up. So now whenever he sees a thread about the Dresden Files he just has to do something bitchy and passive aggressive about it.

>>49671706
It's okay but doesn't even rate when compared to the DL Chronicles or Legends. However, it is superior to everything they wrote from Dragons of Summer Flame onwards in DL apart from maybe a couple of short stories. Do not read that or war of souls, they're rubbish for so many reasons.

>>49687619
They're fun as fug. Skip 1 & 2.
Sam Vimes and Michael Carpenter are the two greatest paladins in fiction.

Apart from the post I'm quoting which mentions one near Asian text this whole thread is woefully Amero-Eurocentric. I saw Borges and I don't remember any other non anglophones but he's american anyway. If your exposure to Asian literature is limited to anime and manga and the occassional horror flick you're missing on some seriously good work. Pity that the fan translators are focussed on too many silly manhua and manga instead of top notch novels. Leads to viscious cycle of no translation, no audience, no need for translation.

>>49687353
>-Any ancient or medieval texts - Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, The Aenieid, The Prose Edda, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, etc.

snort. Mentions the Oddyssey and Aenied by name but relegates the Iliad to etc.

Read them in the original language, but then if you've learnt the original language you've already done that. Almost without exception poetic translations of them suck. Otherwise read prose adaptions of them. Easier to skip over the boring bits and hopefully the re-writer has shortened them already. And there are a lot of boring bits in the longer ones.

>Howard wrote a bunch of westerns and historical fiction, so you can skip those if you really want to
Which is a shame as he wrote good westerns. I only read them because they were by Howard and I was reading everything I could find by him and many were enjoyable.

Edgar Rice Burroughs
Lord Dunsany
Ashton Smith (not actual name, brain is frogging on me)
Heinlien
Barbara Hamby
Marion Zimmer Bradley
HGWells
Jules Verne

For a bit of SF/Space Opera:
Perry Rhodan
Flash Gordon
Buck Rodgers
Lensmen

The relationship with early SF is good to explore

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>>49689848
4chan is an American site frequented by mostly Americans, some Europeans and a few westernized non-westerners.
You can't really complain about a thread made by American and Europeans of being "Amero-Eurocentric".

You can't really complain about comic books (which are really light on the words aspect) being translated with less frequency than novels (composed almost entirely of, you guessed it, words).
Light Novels are for the most part shlock, and the jp books that aren't are really hard to go through as is for a foreigner, much less translating, the translation of a proper (not murakami or something) author may take decades, only a dedicated fan will go though such drivel just to open some foreign audience.

And japanese in general is untranslatable, context dependant, kanji-heavy, it plays with prior knowledge of itself in wordgames, puns, misunderstandings and double entendre to the extent to which english simply finds itself incapable of.
At higher levels you either fill the book with annotations, put TN note hell everywhere, or just say fuck it and dump it all.

How about standalone novels? I have enough trilogies to last me a lifetime, sometimes I just feel like reading one book instead of locking myself into a series.

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>>49691012

>>49689848
>Amero-Eurocentric
>American owned and operated board
>Board in American English
/tumblr/ please leave

>>49691083
As a statement of what's patently obvious, it seems hard to argue. Of course it will be. Nobody's expecting it to be otherwise.

At the same time, while it's hardly a "deep and foundational flaw", it's good to branch out a little. There are plenty of other cultures to read fiction of and draw ideas from- especially if you've /tg/ hobbies.

But quotas r dum senpai

>>49691100
There's only japan, really.

>>49669402
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. Standalone book (for now). Unbelievably good.

>>49691012
Seconding poster above re: Traitor Baru Cormorant. Also Perdido St. Station by China Mieville is quite good - technically part of a series, but the others are just in the same world, not a continuing series.

>>49669402
These are all fairly recent and all pretty good:

Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's a setting with no real humans.

Ryiria Chronicles by Michael j Sullivan. Really good, stars a pair of thieves.

Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne by Brian Staveley. Pretty cool asian setting.

Powder Mage by Brian McClellan trilogy is more napoleonic than middle ages, powder mages are gunpowder based mages.

Both Night Angel trilogy and the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks. First one is about assassins, second one is about green lantern mages.

Ravens Shadow Trilogy by Anthony Ryan is good. But Draconis Memorian by the same author is shaping up to be much more interesting.

Demon Cycle by Peter V Brett is pretty cool.

Haven't read yet but I hear good things about Harry Connolys great Way series and Will Wights Elder Empire series. Will Wight has also wrote The Travelers Gate series and started a Cradle series, I've read both and I like both.

If you can stomach the MC being a Mary Sue, the Kingkiller Chronicles has a pretty good setting, magic system and the prose itself isn't too bad. Good time waster at least.

Lastly, the Princess Bride and The Last Unicorn are required reading for any real fantasy fan.

I can also do recs lists for Urban Fantasy if anyone wants.

>>49689417
>Sam Vimes
Carrot is a way better paladin. He just makes people around him want to be better because they don't want to dissapoint him.

>>49691928
>I can also do recs lists for Urban Fantasy if anyone wants.
Sure, why not.

>>49691928
>shadows of the apt

Why doesn't this get more attention? I'm only 7 books in, but I love it.

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>>49689848
>Apart from the post I'm quoting which mentions one near Asian text this whole thread is woefully Amero-Eurocentric.
And except that post recommending Pavic (Serebian), Calvino (Italian), Kafka (Austrian), and Thousand and One Fucking Nights. And Sapkowski (Polish).

I could give you a list of great Russian, Polish and Czech fantasy authors, but good luck finding their translation. Not much point in recommending authors that most people in this thread won't be able to find anywhere.

>you're missing on some seriously good work
Most of which simply isn't translated. And that which is mostly isn't fantasy, as OP requested.

That said:
>>49690660
>Light Novels are for the most part shlock
There are some amazing works among the japanese light novel library. Perhaps this is because there is just so many of them, some of them are BOUND to be good. The guy is right that it's a damn shame that the thing does get largely ignored by western translators. Works like Sky Crawlers REALLY do deserve proper translations and there are many, many more we don't even have a clue about.

>And japanese in general is untranslatable, context dependant, kanji-heavy,
That is not nearly as true as people tend to think it is. Especially not about light novels, which tend to be written in a very simple fashion. They are - like most of Japanese literature - simply ignored because West does not care. And I can only DREAD thinking how many fantastic literal talents we are missing out on from China or India.

There is one more book I forgot to recommend though:
>Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulghakov.

>>49691928
>If you can stomach the MC being a Mary Sue, the Kingkiller Chronicles
I know that this isn't even worth arguing about, mostly because 5 different people are going to jump on me and link me to some random blog about it, but the issue is somewhat more complicated than 'Kvothe is Rothfuss's mary sue self-insert lul kek XD'.

>>49691963
He might as well be chaotic good though.

Thread nearly dead... Any more non-genre fiction recommendations, anyone?

>ctrl-f Silmarillion
>nothing

Read it.

Also consider The Iliad and the Odyssey for prototypes of the whole thing. Ask /lit/ for advice on translations if you like. Pope is pretty readable.

If you just want trash... people seemed to like Mistborn for some reason that I will never understand.

>>49687619

If you like fanfic-tier mary sues thinly disguised with angst and faux cynicism, Dresden Files might be your thing.

>>49669402

P.C. Hodgell - Kencyrath series.

Language may be a little heavy but worldbuilding is really nice. Also I like how she pulls off different weird magic things.

Well i got way to late to this thread so i will try to add some things not already posted..
Casting trilogy by Pamela Freeman has a nice story
Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay if you are into pseudohistorical almost no magic settings done right
Dan Simmons- Hyperion was pretty dope though most of his stuff are sci-fi
Bernard Cornwell for the pure historical buff he is
Ahh, and Sam Sykes Tome of the Undergates though i would take t with a grain of salt since you may love it or hate it

>>49671422
>Ethshar novels
Man, I remember those books. They were my introduction to Fantasy as a genre.

I really enjoyed the magic system and its detail and since then I always compare the magic systems of other series' to it, particularly if the protagonist is a mage.

I feel like I really should re-read them again, to see if they hold up or if it's just nostalgia.

>>49692151
Aight.

Note these are all Urban Fantasy, not Supernatural Romance. Very low on romance, very high on detectives.

Dresden Files is, as far as I've read, the best UF around. Dresden is likable, the misteries work, the action is good, the monster are monstrous and the supporting cast is awesome.

My second top pick is the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovich, is heavy on the police procedural and detective work side of things.

The Alex Verus is another favorite of mine. The MC is very much an operator, relying on stealth, information gathering and being really ruthless.

Simon R Green has three series of UF, all part of the same glorious kichen sink setting. The Nightside series, about a psychic detective working on a pocket dimension linked to London outside the jurisdiction of heaven and Hell, the Secret Histories, about a superspy/superhero part of an ancient family that protects humanity, and Ghost Finders about the a team of government ghost hunting agents.

The Laundry Files by Charles Stross is pretty awesome, with magic being mostly a result of computer sciences. It's also got a pretty good take on eldritch horrors. It also has an RPG game so that's a plus.

Monster Hunters International by Larry Correia is good, turning to great if you like gun porn. It has a feel of what Delta Green would be if it was formed by rednecks, crazy survivalists and right wing gun nuts.

The Cal Leandros series by Rob thurman is one of the few woman written ones I recommend. It can be a little heavy on the angst at times ad the MC can be a whiny bitch, but most of it's faults are redeemed by the supporting cast.

The Felix Castor series by Mike Carey, I've only read the first book so far, it starts rough with the MC being a cunt just because, but once it starts on the actual mistery it gets good.

Cont'

Speaking of urban fantasy, some of you might be interested in Sergei Lukyanenko: the Night/Day Watch series.
It's not exactly Nobel-award winning writting, but it has that wonderful Slavic genuineness and charm to it, not unlike Metro or Witcher series. Except with mages and witches in contemporary Russia. Really worth looking into just for inspiration and the grit.

>>49700831
The Hellequin Chronicles by Steve McHugh is fun. For a supposed bogeyman to the bogeymen, the MC manages to escape being a mary sue. Mostly by acknowledging that there are peple stronger than him and taking some savage beatdowns.

A little older but plenty awesome and funny is the Bureau 13 series by Nick Pollota. It's more humor than anything else but I love it. Also has a tabletop RPG.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is a rarity on UF, a standalone book. It's also Neil Gaiman, so you already know whether you'll love it or hate it.

The Simon Canderous series by Anton Strout was engaging enough to waste a few hours but wasn't very memorable. Same thing with The Black Knight Chronicles by John G. Hartness.

I have yet to read, but I hear good things about and are on my to read list: the Shadow Police by Paul Cornell, the Watch series by Sergey Lukyanenko, the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne, Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey, and the Connor Grey series and Laura Blackstone series by Mark Del Franco.

I just noticed that a lot of these writers are british. Weird.

>>49669402
Aplogies if it's already been mentioned, but lord of light and Nine Princes in Amber are both really good.

Alan Campbell's Deepgate Codex trilogy.

I like Unmer shenanigans in the new series but I begin to wonder if he'll ever finish it. It's not done, so I don't recommend it.

>>49700898
Seconding this series.

>>49669402
The Witcher Series is pretty dope, start with The Last Wish