I wanna read something that’s fucking brutal with fighting and sex and all the things, but also WELL WRITTEN (so NOT George R.R. Martin, I can’t stand his shit). I want Lord of the Rings on crack and steroids.
“Malazan: The Book of the Fallen” by Steven Erikson has probably got what you need.
The main series is 10 books long, and they are amongst the most violent, brutal, but ultimately very well-written series I’ve ever (so far) read (still on Book 5).
Books 2 and 3 were too dark for my tastes but I plugged on through and I’m loving it. Great characters, wonderful dialogue, and way less obsessed with Food as GRRM
I listen to audio books while I work and have been hunting for new long stories to listen to. I’ll definitely be grabbing this one.
Saving this for future references as well
I’ll definitely check it out! Sounds like what I’m looking for!
I bounced off of book 1 multiple times but just finished it last week and it is fantastic. The book just drops you in the middle of everything and largely lets you piece it together rather than give you a fresh faced character that everyone explains everything to. 50-150 pages was when I started to feel grounded and like I understood the world well enough to say I liked it.
Malazan is my favorite fantasy series but it ruined other fantasy for me. I’ve found nothing else that can compare in the scope, breadth, world building, and detail.
The world was developed by these guys as their tabletop rpg setting in college. The series takes place over hundreds of thousands of years but is written with the density of a short story.
I’d recommend keeping Tor’s re-read blog handy if you start getting lost. There are chapter summaries and discussions by both a first time reader and a rereader which are spoiler free but include foreshadowing and things to pay attention to. The user discussion below each post could contain spoilers though.
https://reactormag.com/columns/malazan-reread-of-the-fallen/?WT_mc.id=10586
The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie is a fine example of grimdark high fantasy. It isn’t overflowing with sex scenes, but carnal relationships are definitely in play.
And it definitely ticks the box for “fucking brutal.”
I loved this and the other trilogy of his that I’ve read, brutal and dark certainly, but his character writing is mint. I need to read more of his stuff!
I’m no stranger to dark fantasy but reading best served cold even I was like “God damn, he’s going there too?” So that’s a +1 from me
I don’t like what he does with his characters. Poor characters of Joe Abercrombie’s world!
I’ll add it to the list! Thank you!
Richard k. Morgan’s foray into to fantasy “the steel remains” trilogy might meet that requirement. He’s the guy who wrote the altered carbon books, so it’s basically hard-boiled pulp fiction applied to swords and sorcery fantasy. Similarly Joe Abercrombie’s books operate similarly. Genre is… Grimdark I think.
Steven Erickson’s “Malazan book of the fallen” series also would meet the definition, but watch out—there’s a ton of them, and they can be a bit narratively challenging sometimes.
Man I got stuck on like book 4 of Malazan I think, it’s been a long time. Still have the books though, I should take another stab at it.
I’m still slowly working my way… think I’m in book 7 maybe? I sometimes find it hard with series where they change focuses and stories a lot, and malazan does that every book (the whole changing location every other book thing) and I also sometimes have trouble keeping track or who all the characters are, and who is dead, alive, or only sorta dead. But they are very high quality, even if I don’t always understand what is going on. Anyhow there’s so much of it I just dip in and out and will read other stuff for a while—definitely a marathon series haha
I did really enjoy the Altered Carbon books, and others have mentioned the other 2 series you said, so those sound good. Thanks!
The Blade Itself
I didnt like the ending, but yeah. I guess the follow on books are good too but I haven’t tried them.
The follow up book about Caul Shivers is possibly even better than the original trilogy. Check it out.
I’m with you, the ending of the 3rd book deflated me and actually lowered my opinions on the first 2 books. I’m curious whether the follow-up books do anything to fix it, but I can’t find the motivation to read them now.
They don’t fix it but they’re good. Really enjoyed Best Served Cold.
TBF I actually meant the ending of the first book. I haven’t gone back to the series to finish it. I expected bloody nine content starting book two and it wasn’t.
Logen is in all 3 books of the trilogy, and plays prominent roles in all of them. It’s just a matter of the constantly shifting perspectives.
I lied, I finished the trilogy.
Logan jumps out the window in the end and I’m like “fuck. Thats it?” And then it’s all kids and idk if I want to continue.
SPOILERS FOR BOOK 3 HERE:
Yeah… I’m stuck on the idea of continuing, but the end of book 3 basically feels like instead of the world being a place that is mutable and changeable, it’s instead a deconstruction of the concept of heroism and would rather say that people are themselves, that they can’t be changed, and that the wizard has everyone dancing in his palm.
My friends say it continues to be good… But I got really attached to Logen and, surprisingly, Glokta. He might be my favorite character of the books so far and I kinda assume they are both gone? Makes it hard to want to keep going.
I came here to recommend The First Law trilogy. It’s the definition of gritty
I’m actually re-reading it right now. It’s been years since I originally read it, and I started the second follow-up series to the First Law Universe and couldn’t remember some of the characters. So I decided to re-read the first book, but it’s good enough that I’m going to read the whole trilogy again.
I’ve been hyping up Dresden Files in damn near every book thread for the last four months, but damn if it doesn’t fit here too. There’s sex and murder in nearly every one of the books. The murder is very rarely clean, and the stakes are never low. Jim Butcher is one of my very favorite authors now, by a significant margin.
My guilty pleasure. His books draw me in but some of the sexism/arrogance (especially in earlier books) makes me cringe. Doesn’t stop me from staying up too late to finish one if I’ve started. Butcher knows how to keep me hooked.
His newer series the cinder spires is quite good as well.
I just finished reading through the entire series a month or two ago - what a fantastic series.
It has completely consumed my life for the last several months. I’m partway through Changes right now. I can’t remember the last time I was this completely absorbed in a book series.
Dresden Files are great. One of my favourite series. I am going through all the books slowly, don’t want to run out of them before the next one releases. Generally read a book every month or so. Last one I read was White Night. Going to start Small Favor when I am done with my current book.
It’s not exactly R rated, but Gideon the Ninth (and its sequels) don’t shy away from gore and raunchy language.
Lies of Locke Lamora is beautifully written gritty fantasy. Thus far there are 3 books in the series.
I’ve never read the Warhammer 40K books so I can speak to the quality of writing, but the series definitely matches the genre of interest.
I really enjoyed reading 40k books when I was younger, but they’re generally shit writing. The kind of complete schlock that is good when you want to turn off the brain.
The Gentleman Bastard sequence is fantastic, Lies of Locke Lamora hooked me so hard. Can’t wait for the other 4 books. Highly recommend it.
I guess T. Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel series. It may not hit the “fucking brutal” mark but it does cover a lot of dark themes like loss very well for a fantasy, also not afraid to get racy. I enjoy T. Kingfisher as an author so I highly recommend.
Sounds good! Thanks for the recommendation!
NK Jemisen’s the fifth season was amazing. It won a Hugo. Then the sequel was amazing and different and won the Hugo.
Then the last book in the trilogy was crazier and won the Hugo.
Truly wild magic and a very very brutal world.
Is it necessary to read the previous four seasons as well or can you skip those?
Heh, nice one.
Mark Lawrence - Prince of Thorns. Loose fit but it scratches that itch for me anyway. Maybe it will for you too.
The Black Company by Glenn Cook is pretty dark. It’s about a band of mercenaries taking part in a world war where there are basically no good guys. The first book stands well on its own, but it is part of a trilogy.
Gods yes, awesome series for sure.
The world and the story is interesting, but for some reason I didn’t like how the book is written. Have only read the first book though, got the whole trilogy as omnibus, so will eventually get to the next two books.
While I enjoyed the whole trilogy, IMO the first book is definitely the best. If you didn’t care for its style, you probably won’t enjoy the other two.
They both have some DOPE set pieces tho
Thanks for the info!
I’ll add it to the list!
The Poppy Wars which had an eastern theme.
The Prince of Nothing series which is quite grimdark in a fantasy setting.
The Crimson Empire series is a darkish revenge story.
The Covenant of Steel about a poor boy rising through the ranks.
The Rhenwar Saga involves more magic than the rest.
I really enjoyed The Poppy Wars series. I devoured all three books after reading her first book Babel, or the Necessity of Violence. Would recommend all of them. Babel isn’t high fantasy by rather a fantasy reimagining of history
If you’d be up for modern fantasy you might enjoy Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, or American Gods.
For high fantasy, Brando Sando has violence aplenty but not sex. I really like the Stormlight Archives.
I also wouldn’t write off the Shattered Sea series by Joe Abercrombie. Yes, they’re labelled YA but it just makes them easier to binge.
I remember a book series called “something of Krondor” or “Krondor the something” that was really violent and brutal. They made some RPGs based on it too, but I don’t think they were ever popular; I have never encountered anyone else who ever read the books or played the games.
Read 'em in highschool and I haven’t really thought about it since which is why I can’t really remember the complete title or who the author was.
I have never encountered anyone else who ever read the books or played the games.
Well now you have. I played (and finished) Betrayal at Krondor.
That game was fun, but it was really big and easy to get bogged down by like halfway through it. I started it a lot but never managed to get through it all.
I never got to play the full game, myself. Had a demo of it on one of those CDs that had like 50 “games” on it, all demos or shareware versions. But it is what made me notice the first book I read after seeing it in my high school’s library, since I recognized the name already.
Krondor the Betrayal by Raymond E Feist
All his books are great and most are connected in one big world (though you don’t have to read them as one epic series to enjoy them). Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master are commonly 2 of my top recommendations for people getting into fantasy.
A bunch are on sale on Kobo right now too.
Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Thomas_Covenant
Cenotaph Road series by Robert E. Vardeman. More sci fi than fantasy, but fantasy adjacent sci-fi.
I’ll look into it. I’m a little sc-fi’d out at the moment, but if it’s adjacent, it might do. Thanks for the recommendation!
Covenant is fantasy, so that might be the ticket
The Gap Cycle is SciFi, though. Its fairly fuckin dark.
