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

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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 Experimental Magic

anchored on:urban fantasyour worldcontemporarycozy mysterywitchesmagic schools+4 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 Witchcraft Mysteries
                  Witchcraft Mysteries

                  series · 11 books · 2009

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasymysteriouscozy mysterywitchesmurder investigation+1 more

                • Cover of Myrtlewood Mysteries
                  Myrtlewood Mysteries

                  series · 8 books · 2022

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasywitchesour worldsmall town+4 more

                • Cover of Bewitching Mysteries
                  Bewitching Mysteries

                  series · 7 books · 2006

                  similar bycontemporarycozy mysterymysteriousmurder investigationwitchessmall town+3 more

                • Cover of Magical Bakery Mystery
                  Magical Bakery Mystery

                  series · 10 books · 2012

                  similar bycontemporarycozy mysterymurder investigationsmall town+5 more

                • Cover of Rivers of London
                  Rivers of London

                  series · 32 books · 2011

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasymysteriousmurder investigation+1 more

                  The Rivers of London series is a series of urban fantasy novels by English author Ben Aaronovitch, and comics/graphic novels by Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel, illustrated by Lee Sullivan.

                • Cover of Joe Grey
                  Joe Grey

                  series · 22 books · 1996

                  completed

                  similar bycontemporarycozy mysterymurder investigationsmall town+2 more

                • Cover of Black Dragon
                  Black Dragon

                  series · 2 books · 1983

                  similar bycontemporarymysteriousurban fantasyour world+1 more

                  R. A. MacAvoy's Tea with the Black Dragon pairs Martha Macnamara, a folk musician searching for her missing daughter, with Mayland Long, a courtly stranger who reveals himself to be a dragon living in human form, as they investigate a computer-fraud scheme in 1980s San Francisco. Its low-key blend of contemporary mystery and gentle fantasy proved popular enough to spawn a sequel, Twisting the Rope, following the same pair into a new case years later.

                • Cover of Magical Dressmaking Mystery
                  Magical Dressmaking Mystery

                  series · 6 books · 2011

                  similar bycontemporarylightheartedmysteriouscozy mysterymurder investigationsmall town

                • Cover of The Dark Elite
                  The Dark Elite

                  series · 3 books · 2009

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasymagic schoolsour world+2 more

                • Cover of Ophelia And Abby
                  Ophelia And Abby

                  series · 7 books · 2005

                  similar bycontemporarymysteriouscozy mysterywitchesmurder investigation+2 more

                • Cover of Heart of the Witch
                  Heart of the Witch

                  Alicia Dean · standalone novel · 2009

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasymysteriousour worldwitchesmurder investigation

                  A beautiful young witch must choose between maintaining the anonymity of her coven and trusting the detective who would bring a heartless serial killer to justice.

                • Cover of Reason Cansino
                  Reason Cansino

                  series · 3 books · 2005

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasyour worldwitches+3 more

                • Cover of Half-Moon Investigations
                  Half-Moon Investigations

                  Eoin Colfer · standalone novel · 2006

                  similar bycontemporarymysteriouscozy mysterymurder investigationsmall town+1 more

                  Half Moon Investigations is a novel by the Irish author Eoin Colfer. It was first published in United States in March 2006 and was released in the UK and Ireland on 1 June 2006. The paperback edition was released in the UK on 5 July 2007. It has also been adapted as a television series starring Sebastian Charles & Rory Elrick, which aired on the BBC from January 2009.

                • Cover of Whisper Hollow
                  Whisper Hollow

                  series · 3 books · 2015

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasy+5 more

                • Cover of Chintz 'n China
                  Chintz 'n China

                  series · 7 books · 2003

                  similar bycontemporarymysterious+5 more

                • Cover of Washington Witches / Jane Madison
                  Washington Witches / Jane Madison

                  series · 6 books · 2006

                  part of Magical Washington

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasywitches+3 more

                • Cover of The Hollows
                  The Hollows

                  series · 39 books · 2004

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasywitches+2 more

                  The Hollows is a series of urban fantasy novels by Kim Harrison, originally published by HarperCollins Publishers and by Ace Books since 2020. The series includes 18 novels, numerous novellas and short stories, two graphic novels, and one compendium resource; a 19th novel, Absolute Demon, is forthcoming in 2027.

                • Cover of Collars and Curses
                  Collars and Curses

                  Sharon Skinner · standalone novel · 2017

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasylightheartedour worldwitchessmall town

                  Think being a High School sophomore is hard? Try doing it when your messed up genetic code turns you into a wolf every full moon. Not only does Merissa have to deal with high school divas, bullies and pop quizzes, she also has to hide the awkward truth that once a month she really does get bitchy. And just when she thinks she's found someone she to whom she can actually relate, her new classmate Bree turns out to be an arrogant witch. Literally. If they weren't the only non-Norms in the entire town of Fair Glen—aside from the annoying half-Elf, Jeryd, who shows up and complicates things—Merissa might not give Bree the time of day. But when Bree is drawn into a curse that causes chaos at school and threatens the town, Merissa must find a way to vanquish the dark power behind the curse and keep her parents from finding out about it. All without failing biology.

                • Cover of A Merry Ghost Inn Mystery
                  A Merry Ghost Inn Mystery

                  series · 3 books · 2017

                  similar bycontemporarylightheartedcozy mysterymurder investigationsmall town+1 more

                • Cover of The Curse of the Zwilling
                  The Curse of the Zwilling

                  Don Sakers · standalone novel · 2003

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasymysteriousmagic schoolsmurder investigation+1 more

                  "Patapsco University: a small, cozy liberal arts college like so many others - except for the Department of Comparative Religion, where age-old spells are taught and magic is practiced. When a favorite teacher is found dead under mysterious circumstances, grad student David Galvin finds that something evil has arrived at Patapsco. A malevolent force that is after the powerful magical tomes and artifacts stored there. Something that will stop at nothing to feed its own growing power. And now David, along with four novice undergraduates, must face the ancient, malignant terror known as the Zwilling." — quoted from this book's product page on Amazon as of 2018-03-12.

                • Cover of Bailey Ruth Raeburn
                  Bailey Ruth Raeburn

                  series · 10 books · 2008

                  similar bycontemporarycozy mysterylightheartedmurder investigation+2 more

                • Cover of Southern Witch
                  Southern Witch

                  series · 5 books · 2009

                  similar bycontemporaryurban fantasywitchessmall town+2 more

                • Cover of All Souls
                  All Souls

                  series · 5 books · 2011

                  similar bycontemporarywitchesvampires+4 more

                  A Discovery of Witches is a 2011 historical-fantasy novel and the debut novel by American scholar Deborah Harkness. It follows Diana Bishop, a history of science professor at Yale University, as she embraces her magical blood after finding a long-thought-lost manuscript and engages in a forbidden romance with a charming vampire, Matthew Clairmont.

                • Cover of Kenni Lowry
                  Kenni Lowry

                  series · 6 books · 2016

                  similar bycontemporarycozy mysterymurder investigationsmall town+3 more