I live for medieval fantasy if anyone has any recommendations, or just fantasy in general, since this is probably the best place to find people interested in that genre 
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It’s technically more contemporary than medieval (by about 50 years, so…), but I will always recommend My Lady Jane. It’s the story of Lady Jane Grey with fantasy and a lot of creative license because rewriting history. I enjoyed it very much. 
And non-fiction, but also enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England.
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literally any of the stormlight archives or the mistborne trilogy. Darker shade of magic series.
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The Hero and the Crown. Princess turned dragonhunter with a dose of mental health undertones.
Or maybe Cry of the Icemark. Warrior princess gathers surrounding countries (elves, werewolves, ice bears) to wage war against the invading vampire army. Large scale battles and diplomatic meetings mostly.
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Another Sanderson nerd! My people! 
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this is why we’re friends.
well, one of the reasons 
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My favourite place can get ahold of anything. I told them I was looking for Piers Anthony once. They had 3 books and I bought them all. The next week I came back and the owner brought me into the back room. He’d found 16 more, in one week, and saved them for me. Even some of the rarer Xanth books. Since then, I’ve become convinced they can find anything.
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Oooo, Oooo, I have a really good one! I suggest Hyperion by Dan Simmons. It’s honestly one of the best books I’ve ever read, plus it’s the first in a series (of four, I think. It’s called the Hyperion Cantos). Plus, if you like older, but well-known authors, there’s a lot of references to some (I can think of Chaucer and Keates, specifically).
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The dragon rider series by ava Richardson is really good
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on the topic of hyperion,
old mans war.
Its SUCH a good sci-fi series, and it has some decent hard sci-fi in there.
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Not sure about your specific tastes but I have thoroughly enjoyed the Blood on the Stars series by Jay Allen. It has quite a few titles too the series and has a more realistic take of space travel and warfare. The Galaxy’s Edge books are quite a gritty and dark military scifi series. And Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars is a classic.
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My Personal library Recommend to any poor sod listening…
- Terry Pratchett; Theif of Time, Where’s my cow?, Lords and Ladies, The Last Continent, Thud (all right fine, just all of the discworld)
So many story arcs, on the top of it, light humoured fantasy, look a little deeper for satire and enlightening philosophy - Brandon Sanderson - The Final Empire (early mistborn trilogy)
Great take commodity based finite magic system - Brandon Sanderson - The Way of Kings
Not sure how to describe WoK, some beautiful imagery, honour, betrayal, “Journey before destination” (Derdries silver/wool path anyone?).
All of Sandersons work is set in 1 universe with different story arcs playing out on different worlds. This world is big! And interlinked but the sets do work as stand alone so you can go down the rabbit hole or not - Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind (kingkiller chronicles)
Clever word play, lots of trouble, fairy tales, learning and music - Trudi Canavan - Priestess of the White (Age of five trilogy) Gods, healers, power, war
- Laini Taylor - Daughter of Smoke and Bone (trilogy)
Angels and demons, puppets, poison, ~modern day - Leigh Bardugo - Six of Crows (Grisha verse)
The con is a beautiful thing - Bridget Collins - The Binding
Books are memories taken from their owner, sacred and protected at all costs, or item for sale the lives others wished and forgot? - Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology
Retelling of the eddas, his touch adds to and is also rather faithful to the original stories (as close to original as we have) - Lian Hearn - Across the Nightingale Floor (4 maybe 5/6 books now… Reread needed)
Historic Japan/China with a pinch of salt, love, death, prophecy and ninja skills - Johan Egerkrans - Vaesen, Norse God’s and The Undead
3 beautifully illustrated reference books, I’ll share some pics on the Beautiful Books thread
I have other recommendations, but most of my library is currently stacked and unaccessible. The above are from my favourites/new/new to me shelf.
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Anybody got any fantasy (high, gothic,modern, anything is good) with good lgbt+ characters, and that doesn’t involve any main character death (looking at you, Demon Road trilogy and and Blacklight Express…)? I’m not a fan of tragedy. The only books I’ve found so far that fit the mark and aren’t dismal are Rick Riordan books, and I’ve read…pretty much all of them.
EDIT: for clarity, I read mostly kids books or ya novels because… Adult books are often too dreary/violent/cynical for my tastes.
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You could try Bridget Collins - The Binding.
Low fantasy, early industrial era with much of the plot taking place in the country.
It is a little sad in places, but I think that makes the happy sections more prominent, after all to truly understand happiness you must first understand it’s opposite.
I really enjoyed the tale, the discovery, the ups and downs.
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I’ll have to give that a look! Thank you 
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Hmm… A lot of the stuff I read probably falls into the dreary/violent/horror category, but here’s some books I don’t recall ending miserably:
- Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
- If you like trashy supernatural/horror novels, Poppy Z Brite. Skip Exquisite Corpse.
- To Summon Nightmares by J.K. Pendragon: Paranormal mystery with a trans main character, it’s kind of dark but I like the book and Pendragon’s work in general a lot
- The Diviners by Libba Bray: 1920s paranormal mystery book with some prominent queer characters
- Brew: A Novel by Dane Figueroa Edidi: A witchy novel, a bit hard to get your hands on, but still quite good
- Kafka on the Shore
- The vast majority of Elliott Wake novels are like…queer power fantasies
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I’m currently reading James S A Corey’s the expanse series and I high recommend them for anyone wanting to get into sci fic!
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Ooh, thanks for the list! I’ll be sure to look these up… The library here isn’t amazing, but the one back where my parents lives is much better, and I’ll be there for a month soon so I can get some good good searching and reading done then!
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Happy to help! Some of these might be a lil niche for a library, but I imagine you could find Carry On and The Diviners pretty easily. Libba Bray doesn’t always have queer characters in her novels, but I found many of her books to be very feminist. Definitely an author if you ever run out of books to check out.
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So for those wanting to share your favourite books you should check out the book share thread!
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