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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 Darkmage

anchored on:fantasysecondary worldscience fantasyscience fictionwizardstransported to another world+1 more

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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 about venturing into space to explore — survey missions, astronauts, and the frontier of the unknown beyond Earth.
  • 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 driven by maneuvering for power — factions, conspiracies, and statecraft conducted in shadow.
  • Stories about rising against rulers — uprisings, resistance movements, and revolutions and their aftermaths.
  • 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 The Hobbit
                  The Hobbit

                  series · 2 books · 1937

                  completed

                  part of Tolkien's legendarium

                  similar byadventuroussecondary worldfantasy+1 more

                  The Hobbit (1937) is J. R. R. Tolkien's children's fantasy novel following the reluctant burglar Bilbo Baggins, who joins a company of dwarves and the wizard Gandalf on a journey to reclaim treasure guarded by the dragon Smaug. It stands as a complete adventure on its own, but shares its setting with the rest of Tolkien's legendarium and leads into the events of The Lord of the Rings.

                • Cover of Spellsinger
                  Spellsinger

                  series · 9 books · 1983

                  similar byadventuroussecondary worldtransported to another worldfantasy+1 more

                  Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series follows Jon-Tom, a UCLA law student pulled into a fantasy world by the wizard Clothahump, where he discovers he can cast spells by singing along with his guitar. That world is populated almost entirely by anthropomorphic animals -- otters, rabbits, turtles -- with humans a rare minority, and across eight books published between 1983 and 2004, Jon-Tom and his companions repeatedly clash with the insectoid Plated Folk raiding the western territories.

                • Cover of Almuric
                  Almuric

                  series · 1 book · 1964

                  similar byadventuroussecondary worldtransported to another worldfantasy+1 more

                  Published posthumously in 1964, Robert E. Howard's Almuric is a single planetary-romance novel rather than an ongoing series: Earthman Esau Cairn is transported to the savage world of Almuric, where he fights beast-men and wins the love of Altha, in a story indebted to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom books.

                • Cover of The Dark World
                  The Dark World

                  Henry Kuttner · standalone novel · 1965

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                  The Dark World is a science fantasy novel credited to Henry Kuttner, although his wife C. L. Moore may have been an uncredited collaborator, or possibly even the author. The novel was first published in the July 1946 issue of Startling Stories, then reprinted in the Winter 1954 issue of Fantastic Story Magazine. Its first book edition was issued by Ace in 1965, followed by a British edition by Mayflower Books in 1966. A French translation appeared in 1972. The novel was reprinted in full in Issue #5 of Amberzine in 1992, and also collected in a 1997 paperback omnibus, The Startling Worlds of Henry Kuttner. Roger Zelazny, author of The Chronicles of Amber, credits this book as being one of his primary influences during his youth.

                • Cover of Narnia
                  Narnia

                  series · 26 books · 1950

                  part of Narnia Universe

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                  The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven portal fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, the series is set in the fictional realm of Narnia, a fantasy world of magic, mythical beasts, and talking animals. It narrates the adventures of various children who play central roles in the unfolding history of the Narnian world. Except in The Horse and His Boy, the protagonists are all children from the real world who are magically transported to Narnia, where they are sometimes called upon by the lion Aslan to protect Narnia from evil. The books span the entire history of Narnia, from its creation in The Magician's Nephew to its eventual destruction in The Last Battle.

                • Cover of The Traitor Spy Trilogy
                  The Traitor Spy Trilogy

                  series · 3 books · 2010

                  part of Kyralia series

                  similar byadventuroussecondary worldwizardsfantasy+1 more

                  Trudi Canavan is an Australian writer of fantasy novels, best known for her best-selling fantasy trilogies The Black Magician and Age of the Five. While establishing her writing career she worked as a graphic designer. She completed her third trilogy, The Traitor Spy trilogy, in August 2012 with The Traitor Queen. Subsequently, Canavan has written a series called Millennium's Rule, with a completely new setting consisting of multiple worlds which characters can cross between. Though originally planned as a trilogy, a fourth and final book in the Millennium's Rule series was published.

                • Cover of The Lord of the Rings
                  The Lord of the Rings

                  series · 13 books · 1954

                  part of Tolkien's legendarium

                  similar bysecondary world+4 more

                  The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.

                • Cover of Wizard World
                  Wizard World

                  series · 3 books · 1980

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                  Roger Zelazny's Wizard World duology, Changeling and Madwand, follows Pol Detson, a man raised on Earth who discovers he's heir to a world where magic and technology sit at opposite poles of the same underlying force, and where the balance between the two shapes who can wield power. Torn between the two, Pol has to master an art he was never trained for in order to survive his own inheritance. The two novels form a self-contained sword-and-sorcery adventure distinct from Zelazny's better-known Amber series.

                • Cover of A Wizard in Rhyme
                  A Wizard in Rhyme

                  series · 8 books · 1986

                  completed

                  similar byadventuroussecondary worldwizardstransported to another worldfantasy

                  A Wizard in Rhyme is a series of fantasy novels by American writer Christopher Stasheff. The series follows the character of Matthew Mantrell, an English literature Ph.D. student, who is transported to a magical world where poetry is used to cast spells. There his knowledge of poetry, gained through his literature studies, establishes him as a powerful wizard and positions him as "lord wizard of the realm". The series consists of eight novels, and is said to have hints of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt.

                • Cover of The Immortals
                  The Immortals

                  series · 6 books · 1992

                  part of Tortall

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                  Tamora Pierce's Immortals quartet follows Daine, a young woman whose 'wild magic' lets her communicate with and shapeshift among animals, as she's drawn into the kingdom of Tortall's defense against immortal creatures -- griffins, dragons and darker things -- released back into the world after centuries sealed away. Beginning with Wild Magic, the four books pair Daine's personal coming-of-age with an escalating magical threat, and connect to Pierce's earlier Song of the Lioness quartet through several shared characters.

                • Cover of The Wizard Knight
                  The Wizard Knight

                  series · 2 books · 2004

                  completed

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                  The Wizard Knight is a series of epistolary novels written by fantasy and science fiction author Gene Wolfe. It chronicles the journey of Able of the High Heart, an American boy transported to a magical world and supernaturally aged to adulthood. Able becomes a knight, and because of his connection with the magical and spiritual elements of the world around him is soon also dubbed a wizard.

                • Cover of Angel Mage
                  Angel Mage

                  Garth Nix · standalone novel · 2019

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                  Angel Mage is a 2019 young adult science fiction novel by Garth Nix.

                • Cover of Riftwar Saga
                  Riftwar Saga

                  series · 7 books · 1982

                  part of The Riftwar Universe

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                  The Riftwar Saga is Raymond E. Feist's debut fantasy trilogy, opening with Magician, in which an orphaned apprentice named Pug is swept up when otherworldly invaders emerge through a dimensional rift into the frontier kingdom of Midkemia. Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon carry the resulting war to its close, and the trilogy became the founding entry of Feist's much larger Riftwar Cycle.

                • Cover of The Princess and the Goblin
                  The Princess and the Goblin

                  series · 2 books · 1871

                  completed

                  similar byadventuroussecondary worldfantasy

                • Cover of Halfblood Chronicles
                  Halfblood Chronicles

                  series · 3 books · 1991

                  similar byadventuroussecondary worldwizardsfantasy

                  The Halfblood Chronicles is a series of fantasy books originally written by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey. The series is set in a mystical world of elves, wizards and dragons. The series was originally released by Tor Books, and comprised three books: Elvenbane (1991), Elvenblood (1995), Elvenborn (2002). Elvenbred, the fourth book in the series, remained unfinished due to the death of Andre Norton.

                • Cover of Restoree
                  Restoree

                  Anne McCaffrey · standalone novel · 1967

                  similar byadventuroustransported to another worldscience fantasyscience fiction+1 more

                  Torn from Earth by a bizarre and nameless black force, Sara has no idea where she is or why she inhabits a beautiful new body. Controlled by brutal guards and tamed by terror, she can not comprehend her role as a nurse for a man who appears to be an idiot. She discovers that the planet she had been brought to was Lothar and that the man she was caring for was its Regent, Sara knows the restorees had to escape. When they do, they become fugitives on a world of multiple evils. (adapted from the back cover of the Baen edition)

                • Cover of Dying Earth
                  Dying Earth

                  series · 27 books · 1950

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                  Dying Earth is a speculative fiction series by the American author Jack Vance, comprising four books originally published from 1950 to 1984. Some have been called picaresque. The series includes short story collections, fix-ups, and novels.

                • Cover of Jack of Shadows
                  Jack of Shadows

                  series · 4 books · 1971

                  similar byadventuroussecondary worldfantasyscience fantasy

                  Roger Zelazny's Jack of Shadows (1971) is a single novel set on a tidally locked world split between a permanently lit hemisphere ruled by science and a permanently dark one ruled by magic. Its protagonist, Jack of Shadows, draws his power from shadow itself and is nearly helpless in full light or full darkness but formidable wherever shadows fall; the book follows his quest to recover a lost artifact, the Key called Kolwynia, and the power -- and responsibility -- that comes with finding it.

                • Cover of Quag Keep
                  Quag Keep

                  series · 2 books · 1978

                  completed

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                  Andre Norton's Quag Keep holds a notable place in gaming history as the first novel set in Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk, written after Norton took part in an actual Dungeons & Dragons session with Gygax himself. The novel and its later sequel, Return to Quag Keep (finished with Jean Rabe), follow a party of adventurers whose fates are bound to enchanted dice, blurring the line between players and the characters they inhabit.

                • Cover of Elenium
                  Elenium

                  series · 3 books · 1989

                  completed

                  part of Sparhawk

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                  The Elenium is a series of fantasy novels by American writer David Eddings. The series consists of three volumes: The Diamond Throne, The Ruby Knight, and The Sapphire Rose. The series is followed by The Tamuli. The Elenium is Eddings' third fantasy series.

                • Cover of Incomplete Enchanter
                  Incomplete Enchanter

                  series · 23 books · 1940

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                  Harold Shea is the protagonist of five science fantasy stories by the collaborative team of L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, as well as later stories by de Camp alone, Christopher Stasheff, Holly Lisle, John Maddox Roberts, Roland J. Green, Frieda A. Murray, Tom Wham, and Lawrence Watt-Evans. De Camp and Stasheff collectively oversaw the continuations. The series is also known as the "Enchanter" series, the "Incomplete Enchanter" series or the "Compleat Enchanter" series.

                • Cover of Green Star Rises
                  Green Star Rises

                  series · 5 books · 1972

                  completed

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                  Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin. In the 1970s he was editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which introduced readers to many overlooked classics of the fantasy genre.

                • WS
                  World of Septimus Heap

                  series · 12 books · 2005

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                • Cover of Magic Kingdom of Landover
                  Magic Kingdom of Landover

                  series · 8 books · 1986

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                  The Magic Kingdom of Landover is a series of six fantasy novels by Terry Brooks following the adventures of a former trial lawyer named Ben Holiday, who purchases a magical kingdom.