Best medieval historical fiction books according to redditors
We found 41 Reddit comments discussing the best medieval historical fiction books. We ranked the 9 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 41 Reddit comments discussing the best medieval historical fiction books. We ranked the 9 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
> Islamic Spain.
I know of one book that used this, The Lions of Al Rassan by Guy Kay. An excellent read if you're interested.
It is important to remember that “the Middle Ages” spans well over a thousand years of history and many geographic and cultural cleavages. The enormous diversity of the Medieval period is usually ignored by most fantasists, who usually construct settings that mimic High Medieval France or England, though these settings usually bear little resemblance to current historical understandings of these time periods.
If you’re interested in Medieval Europe but tired of standard fantasy depictions of it, I would urge you to look at areas and time periods within Medieval history that are often overlooked, such as Muslim Spain or Norman Sicily. Several great low fantasies are Guy Gavriel Kay’s [Sarantine Mosaic] (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_8?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=sarantine+mosaic&sprefix=sarantin%2Caps%2C198), which are heavily inspired by sixth-century Byantium, and [The Lions of Al-Rassan] (http://www.amazon.com/Lions-al-Rassan-Guy-Gavriel-Kay/dp/0060733497/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421714452&sr=8-1&keywords=the+lions+of+al-rassan), based in a setting equally heavily inspired by [Al-Andalus, or Muslim Spain] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus). Kay is an excellent author, who sets his stories in places heavily inspired by his historical influences. They are works of low fantasy in the sense that they have little to no magic. I would recommend these works as examples of fictional settings that depict different areas of Medieval Europe.
If you are truly interested in moving beyond Medieval Europe completely, my suggestion would be to try to find a time period in history that piques your interest. Read historical fiction set in various periods, pick up some intro level history books, watch a historical drama, or even enroll in a survey course either online or at your local community college. If you’re interested in antiquity, specifically Roman and Late Roman antiquity, I’d be more than helpful to point you towards some resources. If the Renaissance/Early Modern period is more your area, I’m sure /u/J_Webb would be able to recommend some excellent resources.
There is a Kindle digital copy of the first three books for $9.99 USD. 11.49 GBP for UK readers.
[The faithful one would be this one.] (http://www.amazon.com/Winter-King-Arthur-Books/dp/0312156960/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1426043827&sr=8-6&keywords=bernard+cornwell)
You might like The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay. It was wonderful!
If you liked Song of Ice and fire you might really like Erikson:
Malazan Book of the Fallen is a 10 book series, might take you a bit to get into in the beginning but once it gets going I was not able to put it down. It's extremely gritty and has a lot of characters and plot lines, but they are all done extremely well, it gets to a point that you just start following the bigger picture of what is happening even as you read the events that each character is involved in. (I highly recommend this series to anyone that likes fantasy in shades of gray)
Another great book I read recently was Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson is a very good page turner, had a couple of late nights not being able to put it down. The "magic" (don't know what else to call it really) in the books is really creatively done, his writing style keeps you reading late into the night.
And off the top of my head I also liked Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks. This one is a fun read, not as involved as the others mentioned above.
Guy Gavriel Kay. His novels are fantasy, but with settings and characters that closely resemble various historical periods and figures.
If you've never read any of his works, I'd recommend starting with The Lions of Al-Rassan (setting resembles medieval Spain).
My other favorites are Under Heaven (Tang Dynasty China), The Sarantine Mosaic (Byzantine Empire), and Last Light of the Sun (Vikings, early medieval England & Wales)
Pretty cheap for the first 3 books of the Accursed Kings:
https://www.amazon.com/Accursed-Kings-Books-1-3-Strangled-ebook/dp/B00NEO1MWY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1465398441&sr=8-2&keywords=the+accursed+kings
Bernard Cornwell's battle scenes are some of my favorite. They're one of the main reasons I really liked the Warlord Chronicles. (link)
Here are the links:
First
Second
Third
I would put these easily on par with Martin's SoIaF series, and they're already complete!
I'm moving on now to the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, and just wanted to give this series some well deserved promotion. 5 of 5 stars.
So, I was in the same boat as you for a while in terms of what the hell to read for fantasy after GRRM. I highly suggest switching over to historical fiction for a bit, Bernard Cornwell to be exact.
Read his Warlord Chronicles, starts with The Winter King. Very dark and real retelling of the events of King Arthur.
I also HIGHLY recommend his Saxon Stories series, which starts with The Last Kingdom.
Both are fantastic series, and are actually quite similar to each other.
GGK is awesome and The Lions of Al-Rassan is my personal favorite of his (narrowly beating out Tigana). Lions is also on sale right now as a Kindle ebook in the Amazon US store. So, if you haven't read it... Lions for $2.99 (Oct 10, 2018). With Lions in my #1 GGK spot and Tigana taking #2, I find it hard to order the rest, but consider reading A Song for Arbonne. I rarely hear it mentioned and it's an incredible read.
I'm a huge fan of the historical fiction by Bernard Cornwell--especially the Arthurian legend trilogy, the Warlord Chronicles (beginning with the Winter King). Obviously Arthurian tales influenced and captivated Tolkien, as demonstrated by his poetry, but these books are just spot-on for any lover of good fiction with fantasy elements.
I highly recommend this historical fiction series by Bernard Cornwell.
The Winter King is the first book of it
Try some of Martin's literary influences:
Not exactly plague doctors, but if you are interested in the Plague in general, I would suggest The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death. Hatcher's The Black Death personalizes the plague, and focuses on individual impact.
For fiction, Connie Willis' Doomsday Book has the plague AND time travel!
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amazon.nl
amazon.co.jp
amazon.fr
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Bradshaw is one of my favourite authors, and this book is one of my favourites of hers. I have read it at least 4 times.
Currently reading The Lions of Al-Rassan buy Guy Gavriel Kay. I adored the hell out of Tigana, so I have high hopes for this one as well.
GGK's books are only recently available on Kindle in the US, I think, and Lions is currently $5.99 on Amazon!
For one last try, I'd recommend The Lions of Al-Rassan. It's my favourite work of his, and if there's any GGK work that might tip the scales for you, it's this.
The Winter King
From my fantasy library:
The above novels have themes and events reminiscent of medieval times with the Martin series alluding to The War of the Roses in England, the Prince of Nothing exploring themes of Christianity and Islam with one of the nations aping the Byzantine Empire and finally the Lions of Al-Rassan have many elements of medieval Spain. Magic is sprinkled in small doses and the political intrigue is ramped up in all of them. The characters in all of them are very engrossing and I've lost entire afternoons reading and rereading these.
The Accursed Kings series. First book The Iron King, GRRM called it "the original Game of Thrones." It is historical fiction about the French crown.
The first three kindle book bundle is on sale for $1.99. The audiobooks from Audible are great. You don't need the last book. Just 1-6 tells the whole story. https://www.amazon.com/Accursed-Kings-Books-1-3-Strangled-ebook/dp/B00NEO1MWY/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=2FL8QABS224A4&keywords=the+accursed+kings+series+books+1+3+by+maurice+druon&qid=1558443378&s=gateway&sprefix=The+Accursed+Kings%2Caps%2C128&sr=8-1-fkmrnull