Hidden Gems: Fantasy Books Nobody Talks About
Look I love Sanderson (obviously) and I’ll defend ASOIAF even though we’re never getting that ending. But I spend way too much time on fantasy forums and subreddits finding stuff that flies under the radar. Here are some books I think deserve way more hype than they get.
1. Lord of the Mysteries
Okay so this is a Chinese web novel by an author who goes by Cuttlefish That Loves Diving. Yes, really. And it goes absolutely HARD.
Imagine Victorian London meets Lovecraft meets one of the most intricate magic systems I’ve ever seen. You become a “Beyonder” by drinking potions tied to specific Pathways - there’s 22 of them, each with 10 Sequences going from 9 (weakest) all the way to 0 (literally becoming a god). The catch? Go too fast or mess up and you lose your mind and become a monster. The higher you climb, the more you risk losing yourself completely.
The main character Klein starts as a Seer and the way he games the system while trying not to go insane is genuinely compelling. Fair warning though - this thing is like 1400+ chapters. It’s a commitment. But the worldbuilding payoff is worth it if you’re into that kind of depth. The National Library of China actually added it to their permanent collection which is wild for a web novel.
2. The Rage of Dragons
This one by Evan Winter is Xhosa-inspired fantasy with the angriest protagonist I’ve ever read. I mean this man is SEETHING for the entire book.
The setup: The Omehi people have been fighting an unwinnable war for 200 years. Women can become Gifted and summon dragons (though it’s rare - like 1 in 2000). Men can become Ingonyama - basically rage-fueled super soldiers. But Tau? He’s got nothing. No gifts. Just a dead father and a burning need to murder everyone responsible.
So what does he do? He trains in a demon realm IN HIS SLEEP because waking hours aren’t enough. The training montages in this book are brutal. Tau gets broken over and over and just keeps going out of pure spite. If you like revenge plots where the protagonist is too angry to die, this is your book. Won the Reddit Fantasy Award for Best Debut and Time Magazine put it in their Top 100 Fantasy Books.
3. Piranesi
This one by Susanna Clarke is just… weird. Beautifully weird.
The narrator lives in an impossible House. Infinite halls on three levels, thousands of statues everywhere, and an ocean that lives inside and floods the lower halls with the tides. He thinks he’s one of only two people alive. He calls the other guy “the Other.”
I can’t tell you anything else without ruining it. Seriously, go in blind. The mystery of what’s actually happening here is the entire point and it pays off so well. It won the Women’s Prize for Fiction. It’s short, it’s strange, it’s unlike anything else I’ve read.
4. The Traitor Baru Cormorant
Seth Dickinson wrote a fantasy novel where the protagonist is an accountant. An accountant. And it destroyed me.
When the Masquerade (basically fantasy colonial Britain) conquers Baru’s island and kills one of her fathers, she doesn’t pick up a sword. She aces their civil service exam. Becomes an Imperial Accountant. Plans to climb high enough in the system to burn it down from the inside.
The thing about “changing the system from within” though… the system changes you too. This book is about the cost of that. The colonialism here isn’t metaphor - it’s economics, education systems designed to erase culture, manufactured plagues. It’s heavy. NPR called it “viscerally riveting” and yeah that’s accurate. This one hurts.
5. The Library at Mount Char
Okay this one by Scott Hawkins is just unhinged. Maximum weird. I loved it.
Father is basically God. He’s 65,000 years old and he adopted twelve kids after their parents died, brought them to his Library (which exists outside time), and trained each one in a different “catalog” of knowledge. Carolyn got languages. David got war (he’s terrifying). Jennifer got healing. Margaret got death. Like, she can talk to dead people.
The training was messed up - Father would kill the kids as punishment then just bring them back. They weren’t allowed to share what they learned. Now Father is missing and things are falling apart because there’s stuff out there worse than him.
This book is violent, weird, darkly funny, and I genuinely couldn’t predict where it was going. The Wall Street Journal called Hawkins “the newest major talent in fantasy” and honestly? Can’t argue.
Read any of these? Got recs I should check out? I’m always looking for more underrated stuff so hit me up.