Long story short: I am currently trying to flash out a multi-POV fantasy novel. My issue is that my main inspiration is A Song of Ice and Fire, and little else. For the fear of ending up extremely derivative I want to expose myself to other novels that deal with character conflict preferably in a fantasy setting.
-I have tried Wheel of Time and did not really like it. I didn't hate it but I didn't love it. After 3 books it seemed like I was reading an extremely contrived plot driven narrative poorly disguised as character driven.
-I read Assassin's Apprecice by Robin Hobb and greatly disliked it as it's plot did not match the novel description (The description clearly suggested it would be a political thriller; it ended up being one character's sob story that went nowhere; the book was more about dogs then assassinations; had the description been honest I wouldn't have read it).
-I also read the Prince of Thorns, I actually liked the MC, but the narrative was very confusing, such that I did not understand what was going on in the last third of the book…
-I have also tried reading the Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson; in fact, having been suggested it plenty of times I forced myself to read the first 80-100 pages, but the story was too haphazard and disjointed. I had 3 prologues and 2 POV characters with seemingly unrelated plots that started without any backstory. This series has been strongly suggested though…
Do you have any suggestions? Ideally, it would be a multi-POV third person limited political fantasy novel but others suggestions would be welcome too. I want to expose myself to a higher variety of character archetypes and conflict structures. Unfortunately, I am a very picky reader. Particularly after I have read ASOIAF.
by CleaverIam3
2 Comments
IMO, there is nothing can compare to ASoIaF
*Dune* is more fantasy than sci fi. That might work.
I strongly suggest that instead of reading fantasy, you read historical novels by authors like Dorothy Dunnett, Bernard Cornwell, Nicola Griffith or Rosemary Sutcliff (if your book is set in a fantasy world like Western Europe)- I’m sure others will suggest different authors for other world building.