Loreful
HomeDiscover
Search series, authors…⌘K
Loreful

Reading orders for SF/F series and shared universes — with your place kept in every one.

Explore

UniversesSeriesWorksAuthorsAtlas

Help

FAQAboutSite map

Account & legal

Sign inCreate accountPrivacyTerms

Data

Built on ISFDB, Wikipedia, Wikidata and Open Library. Curated reading orders carry their reasoning on the page; the rest follow publication order. Data sources & licenses

© Loreful · data: ISFDB · CC BY

More like Blue Flame

anchored on:historical fictionfaith and religioneuropemedievalhistorical fantasymagical artifacts+2 more

but

Mood

The mood the book leaves you in.

  • The reading experience is propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical risk; excitement and forward momentum dominate over dread or introspection.
  • Joy and loss are deliberately mixed; the resolution grants characters something real while taking something else away, leaving warmth and sorrow together.
  • The book demands work from the reader — dense prose, difficult structure, unfamiliar ideas, or morally uncomfortable material — as part of its intended effect.
  • Grim events, cruelty, or despair dominate the atmosphere, and the book does not soften them with comfort or comic relief.
  • The atmosphere is quietly unsettling — wrongness, unease, and the uncanny pervade the book without necessarily escalating into overt horror.
  • The book is built to move the reader; character feeling is foregrounded and major scenes aim at a strong emotional response.
  • Humor is a primary aim and the prose plays for laughs — comic situations, wit, or dialogue produce sustained comedy, not occasional levity.
  • The book insists that things can improve; effort and decency are shown to matter, and the arc bends toward better outcomes even through hardship.
  • The book teaches as it goes — real facts, history, science, or craft are conveyed in enough depth that learning is part of the reading experience.
  • The book is designed to uplift and motivate, presenting perseverance or achievement in a way that invites the reader to aspire or act.
  • The overall register is cheerful and easygoing; stakes are kept gentle and the book avoids dwelling on pain or dread.
  • Withheld information drives the experience; the book sustains enigmas and secrets the reader wants resolved, whatever its genre.
  • The book is contemplative and inward-looking, giving more weight to thought, memory, and meaning than to external events.
  • The book works as comfort reading — low tension, a soothing pace, and an atmosphere the reader can unwind in.
  • Grief, loss, or melancholy set the dominant register, and the book lets sorrow stand rather than resolving it into comfort.
  • Sustained suspense is the point; the book keeps the reader braced for what happens next through danger, pressure, or impending revelation.
  • Playful invention and charm define the register — fanciful conceits, light absurdity, and a narration that delights in its own oddity.

About

What the story runs on.

  • Stories in which extraterrestrial beings are central — as characters, cultures, or the object of the plot.
  • Stories structured as a quest — a journey undertaken to find, deliver, or destroy something of great import.
  • Stories in which staying alive against nature, catastrophe, or scarcity is the central problem.
  • Stories of lovers kept apart by law, family, faith, or station, where the obstacle to love is the plot.
  • Stories in which a friendship — its making, testing, or loss — is the emotional center.
  • Stories of growing up — a young protagonist crossing from childhood into adult knowledge and responsibility.
  • Stories about who a character truly is — self-discovery, doubled lives, and the search for a self.
  • Stories about mourning — living through the death of a loved one and what loss does to the survivors.
  • Stories in which a buried family truth — hidden parentage, crimes, or shames — surfaces and reorders the present.
  • Stories driven by maneuvering for power — factions, conspiracies, and statecraft conducted in shadow.
  • Stories in which war itself is the subject — combat, occupation, and what warfare does to soldiers and civilians.
  • Stories organized around investigating a killing — the case, the clues, and the pursuit of the killer, in any genre's clothing.

Shelf

Where it sits in the library.

    • Fiction built on magic or other supernatural elements that have no scientific explanation.
    • Secondary-world fantasy at large scale, where the fate of nations or the world turns on the protagonists' struggle.
    • Fantasy set in a recognizably modern city or contemporary world where the supernatural intrudes on everyday life.
    • Fantasy that blends in horror's atmosphere and imagery, keeping a fantastical frame around grim or frightening material.
    • Action-driven fantasy following warriors or rogues with personal stakes against sorcerous threats, rather than world-spanning conflicts.
    • Fantasy set in a real historical period or a close analogue of one, with magic woven into the era.
    • Fantasy in which protagonists cross from the ordinary world into another world through a portal or similar passage.
    • Fiction that retells or reworks a traditional fairy tale in a new form or setting.
    • Fantasy drawing directly on myths, legends, and folklore, retelling them or building on their figures and logic.
    • Fantasy of ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters, psychics, and similar phenomena, usually set in an otherwise ordinary world.
    • Fiction mixing science-fictional trappings with overtly magical or impossible elements in one setting.
    • Low-stakes fantasy emphasizing comfort, community, and everyday pleasures over conflict and peril.
    • Speculative fiction of pervasive moral ambiguity, violence, and cynicism that rejects heroic conventions — fantasy and SF alike.
      • Fiction that extrapolates from science and technology — future societies, space travel, or speculative inventions — within at least nominally natural laws.
      • Science fiction of interstellar scope — starships, galactic polities, and adventure across star systems.
      • Science fiction committed to scientific rigor, where technical plausibility constrains the story.
      • Science fiction centered on armed forces and warfare, told largely from a military point of view.
      • Science fiction of networked, corporate-dominated near futures, pairing high technology with social decay.
      • Science fiction styled on nineteenth-century steam-powered technology, often in a Victorian or pseudo-Victorian setting.
      • Fiction depicting an oppressive or catastrophic society, presented as a warning.
      • Fiction set after civilization's collapse, following survivors in the ruins of the old world.
      • Fiction in which characters move between past and future, and the mechanics or consequences of that travel drive the plot.
      • Fiction exploring a world where a historical event went differently and history diverged from ours.
      • Science fiction about humanity's first encounter and communication with an alien intelligence.
      • Science fiction in which extraterrestrial forces attack or occupy Earth and humanity resists.
      • Fiction whose primary aim is to frighten or unsettle the reader through dread, menace, or the monstrous.
      • Horror of vast, indifferent, incomprehensible entities before which humanity is insignificant, in the Lovecraft tradition.
      • Horror of decaying houses, buried family secrets, and oppressive atmosphere in the Gothic literary tradition.
      • Horror centered on hauntings and the returning dead.
      • Horror located in the mind — paranoia, obsession, and unreliable perception rather than external monsters.
      • Horror built around the reanimated dead and survival amid their outbreaks.
      • Horror defined by explicit, transgressive gore that refuses to cut away from violence.
      • Speculative fiction of the strange and uncanny that resists both natural explanation and standard genre categories.
      • Fiction organized around solving a crime or puzzle, typically following an investigator toward the identification of a culprit.
      • A puzzle-first mystery that lays out clues so the culprit's identity can be deduced before the reveal.
      • Crime fiction of moral ambiguity, fatalism, and hard-edged style, set among the corrupt and the doomed.
      • A mystery following the realistic routines of police work — forensics, interviews, and case-building.
      • A gentle mystery with an amateur sleuth, a small community, and violence kept off the page.
      • A mystery set in a past era, where the investigation works within that period's methods and society.
      • Fast-paced fiction driven by imminent danger, pursuit, or high-stakes conspiracy, built to sustain tension.
      • A thriller of espionage — agents, tradecraft, and intelligence services in conflict.
      • A thriller centered on lawyers and the courtroom, where litigation carries the suspense.
      • A thriller driven by detailed contemporary or near-future technology, often military or scientific.
      • A thriller whose tension comes from mental states and manipulation between characters rather than external action.
      • Fiction whose central plot is a romantic relationship and its development toward an emotionally satisfying resolution.
      • Romance in which one or both partners are supernatural beings, blending fantasy elements into the love story.
      • A fantasy-romance hybrid in which the romantic arc and the fantasy plot carry equal weight.
      • Romance set in a past era, with courtship shaped by the period's society and manners.
      • Romance set in the present day, without supernatural or historical elements.
      • Fiction set in a real past period, where the historical setting materially shapes characters and events.
        • General and literary fiction emphasizing prose style, character interiority, or formal ambition over genre plot conventions.
        • Fiction in a realistic world where magical events occur and are treated as ordinary, in the tradition of Latin American literature.
        • Fiction that ridicules people, institutions, or society in order to criticize them.
        • Fiction of dreamlike, irrational imagery and logic that breaks from realistic representation.
        • Fiction that plays with narrative convention through metafiction, fragmentation, and self-reference.
        • Fiction propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical peril, where action and survival carry the plot.
        • Adventure fiction of ships and seafaring — naval engagements, voyages, and life at sea.
        • Fiction of the American frontier West — gunmen, ranchers, and lawmen, typically in the late nineteenth century.
        • Fiction centered on soldiers, campaigns, and the experience of warfare, historical or imagined.
          • Fiction written primarily to amuse, using comedic situations, wit, or parody as its organizing principle.
            • Multi-generational fiction following a family or dynasty across decades, with inheritance and kinship as the through-line.
              • Fiction whose world runs on explicit game mechanics — levels, stats, and skills that characters can see and exploit.
                • Fiction about costumed or superpowered heroes and their conflicts with comparable villains.

                Practical

                How long a commitment, whether it stands alone, and whether it has finished.

                Tap a chip to ask for it · tap again to rule it out · once more to clear. Numbers show what would be left.

                • Cover of Perfect Fire Trilogy
                  Perfect Fire Trilogy

                  series · 3 books · 2008

                  similar bytenseeuropemedievalhistorical fictionwarfaith and religion+3 more

                • Cover of Shards of Empire
                  Shards of Empire

                  series · 2 books · 1996

                  similar bytenseeuropemedievalhistorical fantasywarfaith and religion+2 more

                • Cover of The Sorceress of Rome
                  The Sorceress of Rome

                  Nathan Gallizier · standalone novel · 1907

                  similar bytenseeuropemedievalhistorical fictionhistorical fantasydark

                  "Following his death, the Roman people suggested that Stefania, the widow of Crescentius II, had made Otto III fall in love with her and then poisoned him." --Wikipedia, "Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor" (980–1002) (as of 2018-02-09) The Sorceress of Rome opens in the year 999 and concludes with the deaths of both Otto and Stephania.

                • Cover of The Angel and the Sword
                  The Angel and the Sword

                  Cecelia Holland · standalone novel · 2000

                  similar bytenseeuropemedievalhistorical fictionwar+1 more

                  "It is the waning days of the ninth century. The vast dominion won by the great Emperor Charlemagne has been torn apart by his heirs and successors. In Paris, once the heart of that realm, the Emperor's irresolute grandson, Charles the Bald, battles desperately to preserve his kingdom from the ravages of Viking raiders. If the city falls, its people will perish, and along with them the precious remnants of culture and learning rescued from the ashes of Rome." -- Jacket.

                • Cover of Eaters of the Dead
                  Eaters of the Dead

                  Michael Crichton · standalone novel · 1976

                  similar bytenseeuropemedievalhistorical fiction+1 more

                  Eaters of the Dead: The Manuscript of Ibn Fadlan Relating His Experiences with the Northmen in AD 922 is a 1976 novel by Michael Crichton, the fourth novel under his own name and his 14th overall. The story is about a 10th-century Muslim Arab who travels with a group of Vikings to their settlement.

                • Cover of The Grail Quest (Bernard Cornwell)
                  The Grail Quest (Bernard Cornwell)

                  series · 3 books · 2000

                  similar bytenseeuropemedievalhistorical fictionwar+1 more

                  The Grail Quest is a historical fiction novel series written by Bernard Cornwell dealing with a 14th-century search for the Holy Grail, set during the opening stage of the Hundred Years' War.

                • Cover of The Outlaw of Torn
                  The Outlaw of Torn

                  Edgar Rice Burroughs · standalone novel · 1927

                  similar bytensemedievalhistorical fictioneurope+1 more

                  Raised from childhood by a vengeful royal fencing master who wants him turned into a weapon against the English crown, Norman of Torn grows up in 13th-century England knowing only combat and contempt for the nobility. By nineteen he leads the kingdom's largest band of outlaws and carries a king's ransom on his head, yet a priest's influence has left him with a streak of chivalry. Amid rebellion against King Henry III, Norman joins Simon de Montfort's rebels, and finds himself drawn to de Montfort's daughter despite a startling resemblance to the crown prince. An early adventure novel from Edgar Rice Burroughs.

                • Cover of Between Two Fires
                  Between Two Fires

                  Christopher Buehlman · standalone novel · 2012

                  similar bytenseeuropemedievalhistorical fictiondark+1 more

                  Between Two Fires is a 2012 historical fiction horror novel by Christopher Buehlman. Set during the Black Death, it follows a disgraced knight and a mysterious young girl who travel across France, as Lucifer and other fallen angels start another war with Heaven.

                • Cover of Trylogia husycka
                  Trylogia husycka

                  series · 3 books · 2002

                  similar byeuropemedievalhistorical fantasyfaith and religionhistorical fictiondarkwar+1 more

                  The Hussite Trilogy is a historical fantasy series of novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. It consists of three books: The Tower of Fools, Warriors of God and Light Perpetual. It is set in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown during the Hussite Wars (1419–1434).

                • Cover of Knights Templar
                  Knights Templar

                  series · 3 books · 2006

                  completed

                  similar bytensemedievalhistorical fictioneuropefaith and religionwar+1 more

                • Cover of Red Eve
                  Red Eve

                  H. Rider Haggard · standalone novel · 1911

                  similar bymedievalhistorical fictioneuropehistorical fantasydarkwar

                  Red Eve is a historical novel with fantasy elements, by British writer H. Rider Haggard, set in the reign of Edward III. Red Eve depicts the Battle of Crécy and the Black Death, and also features a supernatural personification of Death called Murgh.

                • Cover of The Devil in a Forest
                  The Devil in a Forest

                  Gene Wolfe · standalone novel · 1976

                  similar byeuropemedievalhistorical fictionfaith and religion+1 more

                  The Devil in a Forest is a short novel by American writer Gene Wolfe about the conflict between Christianity and an earlier pagan religion in Europe during the Middle Ages.

                • Cover of The Devil's Diadem
                  The Devil's Diadem

                  Sara Douglass · standalone novel · 2011

                  similar bytenseeuropemedievalhistorical fantasydark

                  While attending to Lady Adelie, wife to the Earl of Pengraic, as a terrible plague sweeps across Europe, young noblewoman Maeb Langtofte discovers that the walls of Pengraic castle are no longer safe after stumbling upon the Earl's dark secret.

                • Cover of The Warlord Chronicles
                  The Warlord Chronicles

                  series · 3 books · 1995

                  similar bymedievalhistorical fictiondarkwar+3 more

                  The Warlord Chronicles or The Warlord Trilogy is a series of three novels about Arthurian Britain written by Bernard Cornwell. The story is written as a mixture of historical fiction and Arthurian legend. The books were originally published between 1995 and 1997 by Penguin and Michael Joseph in the United Kingdom and by St. Martin's Press in the United States. It has been adapted for television as The Winter King.

                • Cover of The Roses of Roazon
                  The Roses of Roazon

                  Cherith Baldry · standalone novel · 2004

                  similar bytensemedievaleuropehistorical fantasydarkfaith and religion+1 more

                  The story is set within the peaceful land of Arvorig which is governed by the newly appointed Joscelin, Duke of Roazon. Behind the throne of the dukedom, dark forces are at work that will attempt to strip Joscelin of his title and have him banished for heresy. Those who threaten to overthrow Joscelin have forgotten the ancient tale that says if a true Duke or true member of the Roazon bloodline does not hold power in Roazon, then the long banished, mysterious, demon-infested island of Autrys will once again rise and threaten all of humanity. The novel is set within a medieval French-styled society of political courtly intrigue, religious fervor, knightly chivalry, unrequited romance and generous doses of dark machinations.

                • Cover of The Conqueror's Trilogy
                  The Conqueror's Trilogy

                  series · 3 books · 2016

                  similar byhistorical fictioneuropetensedarkyoung adult+2 more

                • Cover of The Brethren
                  The Brethren

                  H. Rider Haggard · standalone novel · 1904

                  similar bymedievalhistorical fictionfaith and religionwar+3 more

                  "... a tale ... of that pregnant and mysterious epoch, when men by thousands were glad to lay down their lives for visions and spiritual hopes, could find a picture, however faint and broken, of the long war between Cross and Crescent waged among the Syrian plains and deserts. Of Christian knights and ladies also, and their loves and sufferings in England and the East; of the fearful lord of the Assassins whom the Franks called Old Man of the Mountain, and his fortress city, Masyaf. Of the great-hearted, if at times cruel Saladin and his fierce Saracens; of the rout at Hattin itself, on whose rocky height the Holy Rood was set up as a standard and captured, to be seen no more by Christian eyes; and of the last surrender, whereby the Crusaders lost Jerusalem forever." (From the Author's Note)

                • Cover of The Werewolf of Paris
                  The Werewolf of Paris

                  Guy Endore · standalone novel · 1933

                  similar bytenseeuropedarkwar+1 more

                  The Werewolf of Paris (1933) is a Gothic horror novel by American writer Guy Endore. The novel follows Bertrand Caillet, the eponymous werewolf, throughout the tumultuous events of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune of 1870–71. Some literature experts have compared this book with Dracula by Bram Stoker and they have identified it as the Dracula of werewolf fiction.

                • Cover of The Mysteries of Udolpho
                  The Mysteries of Udolpho

                  Ann Radcliffe · standalone novel · 1794

                  similar bytenseeuropehistorical fictiondark+1 more

                  After the deaths of her loving mother and father, a young 18th century French woman of fine character, intelligence, and sensibility is removed from the company of the young man she has come to love when she becomes the ward of her foolish, vain and materialistic aunt; who brings them both suffering and misery when she marries an Italian count who reveals himself as a treacherous schemer, and brings them to live in the decrepit, desolate, gloomy, remote Castle of Udolpho where he works his unsavory plans.

                • Cover of The Heretic's Tomb
                  The Heretic's Tomb

                  Simon Rose · standalone novel · 2008

                  similar bytenseeuropemedievalhistorical fantasydark+1 more

                  Annie discovers the tomb of Lady Isabella Devereaux, who was executed as a heretic, and is transported back in time to the Middle Ages, where she is caught in a web of sorcery, treachery, treason, and the horrors of the Black Death.

                • Cover of Broken
                  Broken

                  Traci L. Slatton · standalone novel · 2014

                  similar bytenseeuropehistorical fantasyhistorical fictiondarkwarforbidden love

                  "Paris, 1939-1942. A fallen angel is trapped in the web of German occupation. The deadly noose of Nazi control grows ever tighter, ensnaring her and two of her lovers, a bullfighter and a musician working in the fledgling Resistance. Can she save them and the Jewish widow and her child that she has come to love, or will betrayal take them all?"--Back cover.

                • Cover of The Beardless Warriors
                  The Beardless Warriors

                  Richard Matheson · standalone novel · 1960

                  similar byeuropehistorical fictiondarkwar+1 more

                  The Beardless Warriors is a 1960 World War II novel by American writer Richard Matheson. It was based on his experiences as a young infantryman in the 87th Division in France and Germany.

                • Cover of Oxford Time Travel
                  Oxford Time Travel

                  series · 6 books · 1982

                  similar bytenseeurope+3 more

                  Connie Willis's Oxford Time Travel novels are set at a near-future Oxford University where historians travel into the past as observers, constrained by a version of history that resists any change large enough to alter real events. Doomsday Book sends a medieval historian to what should be 1320 but turns out to be the Black Death year of 1348, intercut with a present-day epidemic at Oxford; To Say Nothing of the Dog returns to the same time-travel program for a lighter, Victorian-set story with different characters. The two novels share their setting and rules rather than a directly continuing plot.

                • Cover of Brendan
                  Brendan

                  Morgan Llywelyn · standalone novel · 2010

                  similar byeuropemedievalhistorical fictionfaith and religion

                  A historical novel about an early Irish saint, whose SF elements are apparently limited to describing the miracles performed by Brendan.