Series

Books like Manifest Delusions: 9 series to read next

Manifest Delusions is grimdark and fantasy, about madness, set in secondary world, dark in register. The 9 series below are ranked by how much of that they share — each card says which parts.

Manifest Delusions is 7 books, 2015–2023.

The Manifest Delusions page →Narrow this list →

Malazan
World of Ice and Fire
The Circle of the World
The Broken Empire
The Second Apocalypse
The Poppy War
Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever
Thomas Cale
Gormenghast

MalazanUniverse

universe36 books1999

“Pity the historian who tries to map this world; pity more the god who thinks he rules it.”
from the catalogue description

Reading order →

World of Ice and FireUniverse

universe19 books1980

About political intrigue.

“Winter is coming, and the men who forget it die first.”
from the catalogue description

Reading order →

The Circle of the WorldUniverse

universe29 books2006

Grimdark and fantasy, set in secondary world.

“What sets it apart is the honesty of its cynicism — close, sardonic points of view, gallows humour, and a flat refusal to let anyone stay clean.”
from the catalogue description

Start with The Blade Itself →

The Broken EmpireUniverse

universe27 books2011

Grimdark, dark in tone, set in secondary world.

“What looks like sword-and-castle medievalism is the ash of our own age, and the magic is only physics that learned to listen.”
from the catalogue description

Reading order →

The Second ApocalypseSeries

seriesR. Scott Bakker11 books2003

About political intrigue.

Start with The Knife of Many Hands →

The Poppy WarSeries

seriesR. F. Kuang4 books2018

Grimdark and fantasy, dark and tense in tone, about war, set in secondary world.

“The Poppy War follows Rin, a war orphan who tests into an elite military academy and discovers a talent for shamanic power tied to a pantheon of vengeful gods.”
from the catalogue description

Start with The Poppy War →

Thomas Covenant the UnbelieverSeries

seriesStephen R. Donaldson11 books1977

About quests.

Reading order →

Thomas CaleSeries

seriesPaul Hoffman4 books2010

Dark fantasy, dark in tone, about faith and religion and war, set in secondary world.

“Paul Hoffman's Thomas Cale series opens with The Left Hand of God, following a boy raised by a brutal religious military order who escapes into a wider world he's been kept ignorant of.”
from the catalogue description

Start with The Left Hand of God →

GormenghastSeries

seriesMervyn Peake & Maeve Gilmore6 books1946

Gothic.

“Peake was writing a fourth novel, Titus Awakes, at the time of his death in 1968.”
from the catalogue description
Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0

Start with Titus Groan →

Why these

No sales rank, no star ratings, no readers also bought.

Shared terms are not a promise that a book feels the same. Two series can be far-future political intrigue and read nothing alike — what the ranking can say is what they are about, and each card says which parts it shares.

Questions readers ask

What should I read after Manifest Delusions?: Malazan — the closest match to Manifest Delusions on what it is about, not on what sells.
Where do I start with Manifest Delusions?: Beyond Redemption. It is the entry the catalogue recommends for Manifest Delusions.
How big is Manifest Delusions?: Manifest Delusions is 7 books, 2015–2023.

Books like Manifest Delusions: 9 series to read next

Read next in Manifest Delusions

Why these

Questions readers ask

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