Fantasy for Adult Readers

This week our Mixed Bag Book Club is meeting online for the first time! This group meets every other month, but it's not your traditional club where everyone reads the same book. Instead, each month the facilitator, our library director Megan, chooses a theme or genre. Then, all the members read whatever they like in that genre. When the club meets, everyone shares what they have been reading. It's a great way to find out about new books you might enjoy and to try out a new type of book you might not normally choose!

This month, the group is reading fantasy books. Here's are some great titles and series to get you started. If you want to join the virtual book club, contact us at eagerfree@als.lib.wi.us to be added to the Facebook group.

Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

This trilogy won the Hugo Award for Novel (science fiction/fantasy) three years in a row! She is the only author to have ever won the award in three consecutive years or for all three novels in a trilogy. She has also written many other short stories and novels, so if you like her stuff you'll have a lot to read!

The trilogy starts with The Fifth Season. Here is the book description from the publisher: "This is the way the world ends…for the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long-dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy."

Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

If you want to get fully immersed in a fantasy world this might be for you. There are 41 novels to read starting with The Color of Magic published in 1983 and ending with The Shepherd's Crown published in 2015. This is a comedic fantasy series that often parodies fantasy clichés and themes. Each novel can stand alone, so it's not necessary to read them in order, though fans will find story arcs that carry through the books.

Pratchett's website states "All the Discworld novels take place on a flat, circular world which sits on the back of four elephants, which stand on the back of a giant star turtle. Although this world may look and sound completely different to our own, the Discworld novels explore a multitude of very human issues."

His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

The trilogy beings with Northern Lights (as it was published in the UK) or The Golden Compass (as it was published in the US. The trilogy follows the comping of age of two children as they wander through a series of parallel universes full of fantastical creatures like witches and armored polar bears.You'll find this series in the Young Adult section, but don't let that keep you away!

This series has been adapted to the movie The Golden Compass in 2007 and more recently into a TV series. The first season of His Dark Materials of 8 episodes is available on HBO and has been renewed for a second season!


Circe by Madeline Miller

Inspired by Greek mythology, this novel explores the character of Circe. She is the daughter of Helios, the Titan god of the sun and the alluring Perse, a nymph daughter of Oceanos, the god of water. She is best known as a passing character in Homer's Odyssey, but in this novel her story takes center stage. Circe does not fit in the house of Helios, and when she discovers that she possesses the power of witchcraft and her power threatens her father's she is banished. A great stand alone novel for those of you not wanting to start a series.