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This has actually been an incredible year for new fantasy series. All of these I've read, and highly recommend.
The Thousand Names by Django Wexler. It has a woman disguising herself as a man in order to be a soldier in the army, and Victorian-era level of civilization with muskets and cannons. It takes place in a Desert country that rises in revolution against its foreign overlords, and follows the small army remaining to try and put the rebellion down. Great writing, good characters, refreshing setting and the description of musket-warfare and battles was amazing. If you've read Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson, this plot will appeal to you.
Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. Written in a format very like Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss: the hero tells his infamous life's story (to date) to a chronicler. However, it's still all written in third person. The protagonist is raised by a religious military-order, and becomes embroiled in the politics and conspiracies of his kingdom and the religion that he was raised by. For those who like more character-centric stories, this is a good read.
Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan. Another world with flintlock guns mixed with magic, this author was a student of Brandon Sanderson's writing class. It definitely has some of Sanderson's flavour in the style of writing, especially writing characters. As war looms, the military rises up and overthrows their corrupt king. But in doing so they set in motion a series of events that will culminate in a God's descent to the world of men to destroy them. Another interesting world that is still more character-centric.
Mage's Blood by David Hair. IMO, this book strikes a better balance than George R.R. Martin did (I'm not his biggest fan as a writer, even if I think his world and ideas are fascinating). There's political intrigue, plots withing plots, a massive world (not as big as Martin's mind you), and several different factions/events going on that are loosely related to one big event on the horizon. In ASOIAF, it's the invasion of Westeros/The White Walkers, in David Hair's book it's the Crusade by one continent into another across a magical bridge that only appears every "Moontide" (12 years). A very obvious parallel of the Medieval Crusades by a European-like empire into a Middle East-like world. Also, I would say that this book is the best fantasy work I've ever read when it comes to writing a diverse range of interesting female characters. Some are "strong", some are "good" and others "bad", but all are flawed, all are human (as in not conceived of and written as objects), and all are treated the same way the male characters are.
The Grim Company by Luke Scull. Comparable to Joe Abercrombie and David Gemmell. In this world the mage's fought and killed the Gods of the world, then founded nations to horde the remnants of raw magic created by the fallen corpses of said deities. This book is about war brewing between those nations, and the plots of various groups to kill one of the Magelords. Not for the faint of heart, in the vein of Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy, this is one of those books where every character is flawed, many try to do good, and in the end you're not sure if anyone is better off than they were at the start. Very interesting world that was only hinted at.
Herald of the Storm by Richard Ford. Another new series I compare to Abercrombie, more in terms of tone than anything else. A touch of Scott Lynch too, actually. The one major flaw I can say that this book has it is uses too many POVs - eight to be specific. It's around 100 pages from the start until you have one POV come up for the second time, so things seem to progress slowly. On top of which, they aren't all necessarily working towards the same plot point. In fact only some of them merge with others by the end. This is an Epic Fantasy at its heart, not necessarily about one centric plot to be developed but a sprawling work that develops in numerous ways. The characters were great, some more than others mind you, and by the end I really was disappointed there wasn't more to read right away!
The Thousand Names by Django Wexler. It has a woman disguising herself as a man in order to be a soldier in the army, and Victorian-era level of civilization with muskets and cannons. It takes place in a Desert country that rises in revolution against its foreign overlords, and follows the small army remaining to try and put the rebellion down. Great writing, good characters, refreshing setting and the description of musket-warfare and battles was amazing. If you've read Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson, this plot will appeal to you.
Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. Written in a format very like Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss: the hero tells his infamous life's story (to date) to a chronicler. However, it's still all written in third person. The protagonist is raised by a religious military-order, and becomes embroiled in the politics and conspiracies of his kingdom and the religion that he was raised by. For those who like more character-centric stories, this is a good read.
Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan. Another world with flintlock guns mixed with magic, this author was a student of Brandon Sanderson's writing class. It definitely has some of Sanderson's flavour in the style of writing, especially writing characters. As war looms, the military rises up and overthrows their corrupt king. But in doing so they set in motion a series of events that will culminate in a God's descent to the world of men to destroy them. Another interesting world that is still more character-centric.
Mage's Blood by David Hair. IMO, this book strikes a better balance than George R.R. Martin did (I'm not his biggest fan as a writer, even if I think his world and ideas are fascinating). There's political intrigue, plots withing plots, a massive world (not as big as Martin's mind you), and several different factions/events going on that are loosely related to one big event on the horizon. In ASOIAF, it's the invasion of Westeros/The White Walkers, in David Hair's book it's the Crusade by one continent into another across a magical bridge that only appears every "Moontide" (12 years). A very obvious parallel of the Medieval Crusades by a European-like empire into a Middle East-like world. Also, I would say that this book is the best fantasy work I've ever read when it comes to writing a diverse range of interesting female characters. Some are "strong", some are "good" and others "bad", but all are flawed, all are human (as in not conceived of and written as objects), and all are treated the same way the male characters are.
The Grim Company by Luke Scull. Comparable to Joe Abercrombie and David Gemmell. In this world the mage's fought and killed the Gods of the world, then founded nations to horde the remnants of raw magic created by the fallen corpses of said deities. This book is about war brewing between those nations, and the plots of various groups to kill one of the Magelords. Not for the faint of heart, in the vein of Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy, this is one of those books where every character is flawed, many try to do good, and in the end you're not sure if anyone is better off than they were at the start. Very interesting world that was only hinted at.
Herald of the Storm by Richard Ford. Another new series I compare to Abercrombie, more in terms of tone than anything else. A touch of Scott Lynch too, actually. The one major flaw I can say that this book has it is uses too many POVs - eight to be specific. It's around 100 pages from the start until you have one POV come up for the second time, so things seem to progress slowly. On top of which, they aren't all necessarily working towards the same plot point. In fact only some of them merge with others by the end. This is an Epic Fantasy at its heart, not necessarily about one centric plot to be developed but a sprawling work that develops in numerous ways. The characters were great, some more than others mind you, and by the end I really was disappointed there wasn't more to read right away!
