/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11171602]

Oldschool Dark Fantasy ('70s-'90s) targeted at thinking adults instead of teenagers, with mature themes and writing. Something full of characters with complex personalities and gray morality, genuinely interesting conflicts, and stories touching upon higher concepts, like human nature, ethics, or philosophy in a creative way. Something that can't be just summarized as "read about this edgy Gary Stu anti-hero going on a murder spree for 300 pages because he needs his revenge."

Haven't read much fantasy in general, so you have a lot of room for suggestions. However, I'm generally really critical and hard to please when it comes to stories and writing, so save that beginner stuff for someone else, and just hit me up with creme de la creme right away.

Last but not least, don't suggest A Song of Ice and Fire or The Witcher saga. Be more creative than that.

If it's going to help you in any way, I can give some examples of fantasy stories I've enjoyed outside of books.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[Anonymous No.11171612]

well there is some great website where you meet like-minded people. Its called reddit

[Anonymous No.11171616]

The Black Company is what you want. It is from the 80's and the first fantasy series that really took its cues from boots 'n' beans historical military fiction. However the kind of thing you are describing only really came about toward the tail end of the time-frame you suggested. Excepting Elric you will not find much dark fantasy from the 70's, and Elric is not that dark anyway.

[Anonymous No.11171624]

>>11171616
>However the kind of thing you are describing only really came about toward the tail end of the time-frame you suggested

Early '00s are also fine with me. It's just I'm generally trying to narrow it down to oldschool because I can afford neither books in physical form, or a tablet/ebook reader, so I have to rely on libraries. The problem is, the selection of books in my local libraries sucks major ass. However, they seem to generally have more older stuff than they have new, so the older it is, the higher likelihood of it being there.

[Anonymous No.11171643]

>>11171624
You might want to check out The Book of The New Sun too, if it has not been suggested already. It gets memed on this board but it is genuinely an excellent book, not just a excellent fantasy book but just great literature fullstop. It is in the dyning earth genre and presents and anachronistic mix of fantasy and scifi, high and low tech all jumbled together. It is beautifully written, ponderous and gloomy.

Another one you may want to look into is Gormanghast, it is actually from the 40's and 50's. Not straight forward fantasy, very gothic and sometimes downright strange.

Hope some of these suggestions help.

[Anonymous No.11171849]

OP here, just came back from the library. Out of all the books suggested here, they only had the entire Black Company saga and some random tomes of The Book of The New Sun. But I got what I wanted, so it's nice.

Thanks to everyone who replied. If anyone has any other suggestions, feel free to post them.

[Anonymous No.11172073]

>>11171849
I always enjoyed Feist's magician series, a lot of the later books like Rise of a merchant prince and wrath of a mad God have seem big picture ideas contained

[Anonymous No.11172085]

>>11171602
Aside from Wolfe and maybe Donaldson (though he gets irritating) or Dune (ditto), I can't think of much.

[Anonymous No.11172107]

>>11171602
>Dark Fantasy
>thinking adults

[Anonymous No.11172366]

>>11171602
You just described the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peak, except it was written in the 40s. Read the first and second book skip the third.
Neil Gaiman is making a series of it this year.

[Anonymous No.11172375]

>>11172366
It's already been suggested in this thread. I tried to look for it in the first library in my town, but it didn't have it. I'll have a look around in the second one soon-ish.

[Anonymous No.11172432]

>>11171602
>>11169506
Go to your containment pleb