 So, A Song of Ice and Fire is a lot different than your typical fantasy story, like, you know, we think of Lord of the Rings and such when we think of, you know, traditional fantasy. And a lot of people have discovered the series in recent years and thought, well, okay, this is great, you know, because it's really dark, it's a little more realistic, has less magic in it, it follows a relatively small cast of characters that we actually see it through, rather, that we actually see the story through, but the overall cast is still huge and just, you know, things like that. And so, sometimes people ask me for recommendations, or they give me recommendations, for stuff that, you know, if I liked Game of Thrones, I'd like this and, you know, that sort of thing. And so today I just thought, you know what, let's talk about, if you like A Song of Ice and Fire, you know, if you like the following a decent sized cast of characters, if you like the dark fantasy elements or playing with fantasy tropes or whatever, then you might like some of this other stuff. And none of this is going to scratch every itch, obviously, like, you know, George Double-R Martin has a pretty specific style of writing and all that, but this should give you something to, something to read. Okay, so the first thing I have is the Mistborn trilogy, and I did contemplate whether or not I wanted to put this on there, because while it is pretty dark overall, it isn't nearly as hopeless as A Song of Ice and Fire feels sometimes, and it has a lot of violence and all that, but it doesn't really have sex the way that George Double-R Martin has, or in all of his works really, have. So I did consider not putting this on there, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized, you know what, yeah, it belongs on there, because it is still a pretty dark story. It does still follow relatively small cast of characters, and it does still play around with traditional fantasy tropes. So if you don't know, Mistborn is all about basically a world where there was a traditional fantasy story quest that went on a thousand years ago. There was a hero, he was going on to fight this Dark Lord, and he failed, and so the Dark Lord took over the world, and so now a thousand years later the world is ruled by this immortal demigod, and so a small group of people decide, okay, let's fight back, let's try and destroy him and destroy his empire. I already reviewed the whole trilogy, if you want to go watch those feel free, but overall right now I'm not going to go into a lot of detail. I just think, you know what, if you're looking for a dark sort of dreary depressing story, then okay, go for this, it's not as bad as A Song of Ice and Fire, but go for this, this is great. It has tons of violence and action, it really doesn't shy away from that sort of thing, so again, that's great. And it follows a smaller cast, you know, we don't really have the sprawling character lists that we have in A Song of Ice and Fire. And the POV characters, we only get like six or seven altogether throughout the whole series, but it does jump around a bit and you do see things from different people's perspectives. The only real substantial area where it's a lot, a lot different from A Song of Ice and Fire is that there is a pretty clear distinction between the good guys and the bad guys. You know, you're never really going to stop and say, oh, are these guys in the right, because they always are. The next one on here I have also reviewed, it is The Name of the Wind, which is Book 1 in the King Killer Chronicles. Now this one, this one is also a little different than maybe what you would expect, but I think it works as a recommendation. I think if you really, really like A Song of Ice and Fire, you'll probably think that The Name of the Wind is at least decent. So this story follows a guy named Kvoth, and the thing is, it starts up years after the main story has already happened, and Kvoth is supposedly dead. He's faked his death, but he decides to tell the story of his life to this other guy, and so pretty much the whole thing is just him telling about what his childhood was like and how he got to the point where he was now. And it is a more of a low magic setting than most fantasy worlds. It has more magic than A Song of Ice and Fire, admittedly, but it is still low magic, so there's not a whole lot of wizards and everything running around that are going to solve problems, which I know people who aren't super into fantasy find that sort of thing annoying, but that's there. And again, it is pretty dark. There's violence and sex and stuff that it doesn't shy away from it, is the thing, because I don't think that any of that makes a story good on its own, and I don't think many people would disagree with that either, but it's just that it doesn't shy away from it, so it really does make you feel like, okay yeah, there's some brutal aspects to this world, and it feels very real and very in your face. The only thing is that this has a much more focused narrative, so if you're looking for like a sprawling political thriller, this wouldn't be up your alley. Next up we have The Night Angel Trilogy, and I don't have a copy of that anymore, I used to, but it's gone now, and so The Night Angel Trilogy, the first book is called The Way of Shadows, and it follows this guy named Azoth, who later changes his name to Kylar, and he's just an orphan living in the slums of a city who eventually becomes an apprentice to a magical assassin, and then he himself grows up and becomes a magical assassin. Now this one does have the political thriller aspect, so if you're looking for like some maneuvering and assassinations, backstabbing, that sort of thing, The Night Angel Trilogy has some of that, yes. Particularly in the first two books, the third one not quite as much, but that one's more wrapping up the trilogy, and again you have the character of Kylar who is not really a saint. Again this one, there's not a whole lot of moral ambiguity, but Kylar is not a saint. He is an assassin, he does kill people, and while he does try and usually do the right thing, he doesn't always succeed at it, and so this one does fall into more of that moral ambiguity area that a lot of people look for, and beyond that again, you know, lots of sex and violence and all that, and it is kind of dark and dreary and a little depressing, and for me that is one thing that I felt the series went a little too far on, but a lot of people disagree with me, they think it's actually a really good example of grim dark fantasy, and so yes, if you're looking for that sort of thing, then feel free, go ahead. The only thing is that this one does have a lot more magic in it, so if you're someone that doesn't really like that, if you like George Double R Martin's way of doing it where magic is still extremely mysterious and every time it comes up you're a little nervous about it, then you probably wouldn't like this one as much, but it does have following multiple characters and it does have political thriller aspects, and it is pretty dark and all that, and then we have The Expanse, and okay, so this one isn't fantasy, I know, it is science fiction, but it's really, really good science fiction, which has basically been called Game of Thrones in space a million times, and honestly in this case I think that, yeah, that is an appropriate label. So the first book I just showed you, Leviathan Wakes, that one only follows two characters, but the later books start having four, five, six POVs, so it does have that spread out sort of way of telling stories, or way of telling the story, and so if you're looking for that, that's great, and beyond that, even though it is science fiction, yes, it is fairly hard sci-fi, so again, you could look at softer science fiction technology as almost being like magic in the land of fiction, because it doesn't operate on real world logic, but this one being harder sci-fi, it relies less on that sort of thing, and so you could in a weird way compare it to a low magic fantasy setting. So the first book starts off with this guy named Holden, who is the protagonist throughout the series, and he is just on a ship, an ice hauler, which takes ice from the rings of Saturn and brings it into the inner solar system so that people have water, and his ship gets attacked and blown up, and they don't know who did it or why exactly, but Earth and Mars are the two main military powers in the solar system, and both of them kind of sort of think the other one did it, and look, things get complicated really quick, and it goes to shit really fast, and I really can't go into a lot more detail about it because the whole series later on takes on a much, much different form, but I will say that yes, this is more of a political thriller, it has plenty of backstabbing and maneuvering and that sort of thing, so if that's what you're looking for, then yes, this is probably great for you, and again it is pretty dark at times, it doesn't shy away from the more brutal side of life in that world, and it is kind of morally ambiguous at times, not really, but then you remember we're seeing it through the eyes of these characters who are usually all on the same side, so it does kind of make sense that it wouldn't seem as ambiguous as it really is. The next book I also don't have a copy of, or rather I do, but I couldn't find it, it is The Black Company, and this one I did a review on a little while ago, and I didn't think it was particularly good, but I think if you're a really big Song of Ice and Fire fan and you're really hankering for something similar to it, you might be, I think you'd enjoy it. So the first book in The Black Company series follows a mercenary company called The Black Company, hey, who would have thought, and essentially they wind up working for this evil empire of sorcerers that wants to take over the world, or rather one major sorcerer called the Lady who wants to conquer everything who already tried to conquer everything, but she was sealed away a long time ago, as well as her little cabal of other really powerful evil sorcerers. Now this one, again, is a much more focused sort of story, it only follows one character really, but it has all the darkness, it has all the political maneuvering, it is a more high magic setting, yes, but I think that a lot of people will be able to look past it because it doesn't seem too bullshitty, they don't use it as a way of solving all their problems, and probably most important it does play around with those traditional fantasy tropes a lot, like there is a prophecy and a chosen one and stuff, but the way it comes about is considerably different than what you would normally think, and again with the moral ambiguity thing these guys are, you know, they're the bad guys and they're working for the bad guys, but the other side isn't necessarily angelic either. So with this one we're getting outside the realm of fantasy again and into the realm of alternate history, so this one is The Great War Trilogy by Harry Turdledove, and so a couple of months ago I did a world building analysis on the Southern Victory series, and that one is like 11 books long in total, but The Great War Trilogy is one that's sandwiched in the middle there and it just follows what happens in this world during the events of World War I, which is The Great War, and in their world they call that the First Great War, and then later they have another one, they call it the Second Great War, World War I, World War II, that sort of thing, anyways. And I think that even though this one's in the middle, you can pick up on it really really quick and just get absorbed into it, because it's really written in a way where if you just pick up the first book, American Front, which I just showed you, then you can read a little bit of it and you already basically understand the world, like okay this is what happened and you have a basic overview of what things are. And the thing about this series is that it follows so many different characters and you see it from so many different perspectives, you see all the events, all the battles, the wars, everything, from so many different sides that, yeah, there really isn't a good guy or a bad guy. And again, if you enjoy getting into the heads of multiple different people, which I'm sure people who like A Song of Ice and Fire like to do, I certainly enjoy doing that, then you would be super happy with these books because you get to do that a lot. And if you enjoy the more sprawling narrative of A Song of Ice and Fire, if you enjoy all the political maneuvering and all that, rather than just having one character journey from point A to point B, which I'm not saying that's a bad type of story or anything, I just know a lot of people don't like it as much, then yes, you would definitely, definitely really enjoy these. And I've been meaning to do reviews of the whole series at some point. Like, I will eventually, I know. Like, I did the World Building Analysis, I will do a review of the first book in the series at some point, okay? I'm sorry, I'll get around to it. The last one here, we are moving outside the realm of literature, but back into the realm of fantasy and I have Berserk. So Berserk is actually a manga series, but it is probably the best example of grim dark fantasy I've ever read, because it's fucking amazing. So the story starts off following this guy named Guts, who is known as the Black Swordsman, and he has this brand on his neck, which means that every night demons try and come and kill him, but he's able to fight them off because he has this giant fuck you sword, which is bigger than he is, and this is actually one of the only series I've ever seen where someone has a gigantic sword like that and other characters actually comment on how odd that is, but anyways, and I really don't want to spoil more than that because you find out pretty early on that there is a lot more to it and it goes into Guts' backstory and everything, and I really don't want to get into that now. So yeah, there's just a guy who's being hunted by demons, and he wants revenge on some people, and that's all I'm going to tell you plot-wise, but I will tell you that basically every character we follow in this is super interesting, okay? They all have a lot of depth to them, they all have dark kind of fucked up parts to their psyches, but they're overall trying to be decent people for the most part because Guts is kind of a psycho at times, and yeah, just again, just like most of these other series I've been talking about, it doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of life or from the darker aspects of this world, and again, to some people that would probably be off-putting, and I know at times it is off-putting for me too, but the thing about Berserk is that it never feels exploitative and it never feels too edgy. It always feels like it serves an actual purpose in the story. So that's about all I got for you today. 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