Looking for "R-rated", gritty, gorey high fantasy books - eviltoast

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.

  • musky_occultist@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 month ago

    I regret that I have but one downvote to give. Wizard’s First Rule is literally the worst book I ever read. (A lot of people do seem to like it, though.)

    • rhadamanth_nemes@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 month ago

      Wizard’s First Rule is the only tolerable book, if barely. They’re all thinly veiled (not thinly veiled) fetish writing, or high school level political theory.

      At a certain point it’s clear that Terry fired enough editors that the remaining ones stopped trying.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 month ago

        Yeah Wizard’s First Rule even had a decent stopping point at the end, iirc? That or by the third or so. Good enough read if you’re an edgy teen.

    • glitchdx@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      I’m going to choose to interpret your comment as charitably as possible, and that your library is the best curated on the planet. What have you been reading?

      • musky_occultist@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 month ago

        Hah, I did mean it in the spirit of good discussion. (Though maybe I also feel like I have a sacred mission to keep the unwary from inadvertently Goodkinding themselves!)

        I’ve actually been having a hard time getting into anything new lately for some reason, but I recently reread C. S. Friedman’s Coldfire and Magister series (serieses? trilogies), which are kind of dark, but not so “gritty, gorey” that I thought they’d be a good recommendation for this thread. The former in particular is excellent, and they’re both fairly unusual takes on fantasy.