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 Tinker

anchored on:fantasyelvesnear futureurban fantasyscience fantasynorth america+3 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 Wall and the Wing
                  Wall and the Wing

                  series · 2 books · 2006

                  similar byadventurousnear futurefantasyurban fantasynorth americabig city+1 more

                • Cover of Blackwing Saga
                  Blackwing Saga

                  series · 1 book · 2017

                  similar byadventurousnear futurescience fantasynorth america+2 more

                • Cover of The Hobbit
                  The Hobbit

                  series · 2 books · 1937

                  completed

                  part of Tolkien's legendarium

                  similar byadventurouselvesfantasy

                  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 Friday
                  Friday

                  Robert A. Heinlein · standalone novel · 1982

                  similar byadventurousnear futureidentitynorth america

                  Friday is a 1982 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It is the story of a female "artificial person", the eponymous Friday, genetically engineered to be stronger, faster, smarter, and generally better than normal humans. Artificial humans are widely resented, and much of the story deals with Friday's struggle both against prejudice and to conceal her enhanced attributes from other humans. The story is set in a Balkanized 21st century, in which the nations of the North American continent have been split up into a number of smaller states.

                • Cover of The Gone-Away World
                  The Gone-Away World

                  Nick Harkaway · standalone novel · 2008

                  similar byadventurousnear future+2 more

                  The Gone-Away World is the debut novel of British author Nick Harkaway, a science fiction story set in a post-apocalyptic world crippled by the 'Go-Away War'. The book was first published in June 2008 by Heinemann.

                • Cover of Artemis Fowl
                  Artemis Fowl

                  series · 15 books · 2001

                  similar byadventurousfantasy+2 more

                  Artemis Fowl is a series of eleven fantasy novels by Irish author Eoin Colfer, revolving around various members of the Fowl family. The first cycle, the Artemis Fowl series, consists of eight books, and the second cycle, The Fowl Twins series, is a trilogy. Both releases have received commercial success and positive critical reception in the children's literature genre, and also originated graphic novel adaptations. As of 2013, the novels have sold more than 21 million copies in 44 languages, and are one of the best-selling series of all time. In 2010, Artemis Fowl was voted by readers as their favorite Puffin Books title of all time.

                • Cover of Halfblood Chronicles
                  Halfblood Chronicles

                  series · 3 books · 1991

                  similar byelvesadventurousfantasy

                  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 InterWorld
                  InterWorld

                  series · 3 books · 2007

                  similar byadventurousscience fantasyfantasyparallel universe+1 more

                  InterWorld follows Joey Harker, an ordinary teenager who discovers he can walk between parallel Earths and is recruited into a band of alternate versions of himself defending the multiverse from two rival forces, one of magic and one of science, that want to conquer every reality. Michael Reaves developed the story with Neil Gaiman, and Reaves's daughter Mallory Reaves co-wrote the two sequels. It's a fast-moving, portal-hopping adventure aimed at younger readers rather than a slow-burn epic.

                • Cover of Jack of Shadows
                  Jack of Shadows

                  series · 4 books · 1971

                  similar byadventurousfantasyscience fantasy+1 more

                  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 Quantum Gravity
                  Quantum Gravity

                  series · 6 books · 2006

                  similar bynear futurescience fantasy+4 more

                  Justina Robson's Quantum Gravity series opens with Keeping It Real, set six years after a catastrophic 'Quantum Bomb' tore open the boundaries between Earth and other dimensions, leaving humans in uneasy contact with elves, elementals, and demons. The series follows cyborg special agent Lila Black across five novels as magic and technology collide.

                • Cover of Apprentice Adept
                  Apprentice Adept

                  series · 7 books · 1980

                  similar byadventurousscience fantasyparallel universe+2 more

                  Apprentice Adept is a heptalogy of fantasy and science fiction novels written by English American author Piers Anthony. The series takes place on Phaze and Proton, two worlds occupying the same space in two different dimensional planes. Phaze is a lush planet of magic, where Proton is a barren mining planet of science. As the series opens, each person born on Phaze and Proton has an alternate self living on the other world. But if a person on either world lacks a duplicate, he can cross to the other through an energy "curtain" that circumscribes each frame.

                • Cover of The Door Into Summer
                  The Door Into Summer

                  Robert A. Heinlein · standalone novel · 1957

                  similar byadventurousnear futurenorth america

                  From the first page of the Signet 6th printing: "An electronics engineer invents a wizard robot... only to find himself shanghaied by his ruthless partner and his gold-digging fiancee. The crafty pair forces him to submit to the "long sleep" - suspended animation for thirty years. But when he wakes up in the year 2000 A.D. the inventor makes a startling discovery. He learns that it is possible now to twist time forwards or backwards. And so he returns to the past bent on a mission... of revenge."

                • Cover of The Crimson Deathbringer
                  The Crimson Deathbringer

                  series · 1 book · 2019

                  similar byadventurousnear futurefunny+1 more

                • Cover of Elfhome / Steel City
                  Elfhome / Steel City

                  series · 24 books · 2003

                  similar byurban fantasybig city+4 more

                • Cover of The Flying Inn
                  The Flying Inn

                  G. K. Chesterton · standalone novel · 1914

                  similar byadventurousnear futurefunny

                  The Flying Inn is a 1914 novel by English writer G. K. Chesterton. It is set in a future England where the temperance movement has allowed a bizarre form of Progressive Islam to dominate the political and social life of the country. Because of this, alcohol sales to the poor are effectively prohibited, while the rich can get alcoholic drinks "under a medical certificate". The plot centres on the adventures of Humphrey Pump and Captain Patrick Dalroy, who roam the country in their cart with a barrel of rum in an attempt to evade prohibition, exploiting loopholes in the law to temporarily prevent the police taking action against them. Eventually the heroes and their followers foil an attempted coup by an Islamic military force.

                • Cover of Snow Crash
                  Snow Crash

                  Neal Stephenson · standalone novel · 1992

                  similar byadventurousnear futurebig city

                  Snow Crash is a 1992 science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson. Like many of Stephenson's novels, its themes include history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, memetics, and philosophy.

                • Cover of Brown Girl in the Ring
                  Brown Girl in the Ring

                  Nalo Hopkinson · standalone novel · 1998

                  similar bynear futurefantasyurban fantasynorth americabig city+1 more

                  Brown Girl in the Ring is a 1998 novel written by Jamaican-Canadian writer Nalo Hopkinson. The novel contains Afro-Caribbean culture with themes of folklore and magical realism. The novel received critical acclaim, winning the 1999 Locus Award for Best First Novel. It was shortlisted for numerous other awards, including the Otherwise Award, Philip K. Dick Award, and Crawford Award.

                • Cover of The Last Hot Time
                  The Last Hot Time

                  John M. Ford · standalone novel · 2000

                  similar byelvesfantasyurban fantasynorth americabig city+1 more

                  From the front flap: When Danny Holman leaves the cornfields of Iowa for the bright lights of the City, he expects his life to change. He just can't guess who much and how fast. A violent incident on the road brings Danny the favor of a man known only as Mr. Patrise, who gives Danny a job, a home, and a new identity. The City is a different world from the one Danny (now called Doc) knew, and literally so. The long-vanished lands of the Elves have again opened doors into our reality. Humans cannot cross these thresholds, but the Elves can. Mr. Patrise is a power in the Levee, the shadowy, lawless region between the two worlds, where elf and human gangsters skirmish with sorcery and submachine guns and where anything can be sold, smuggled, or stolen. But the nature of that power--over his people, the City, and the unpredictable new forces of magic--is a mystery. The more Doc learns about the City and his responsibilities in it, the more he wonders if he's in over his head...

                • Cover of War for the Oaks
                  War for the Oaks

                  series · 2 books · 1987

                  similar byadventurousfantasyurban fantasynorth americabig city

                  Emma Bull's 1987 urban fantasy debut follows Minneapolis rock singer Eddi McCandry after a faerie noble conscripts her into the ancient war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, forcing her to keep her band and her life together while fighting a battle she never asked for in her own city. Widely credited with helping found the urban fantasy genre, it won the Locus Award for Best First Novel.

                • Cover of Eccentric Circles
                  Eccentric Circles

                  Rebecca Lickiss · standalone novel · 2001

                  similar byelvesadventurousfantasyurban fantasynorth america

                  She inherited a home. And she inherited a world. Piper Dickerson's grandmother has passed away, leaving her Victorian cottage and acre of land as an inheritance. Piper and her grandmother shared a passion for words, and the house full of books and manuscripts is the perfect place to pursue her writing aspirations. But what the will doesn't specify is that the back door leads to an endless forest with a brook, populated by an extremely handsome elf, a mischievous dwarf, and a crotchety old wizard, among other fantastical creatures. Piper's home is the gateway to a magical adventure beyond her wildest dreams. And it is also a gateway to something darker - as Piper discovers the truth about her grandmother's death and the evil she must face to save two worlds. (from the back cover)

                • Cover of The Great Cities
                  The Great Cities

                  series · 3 books · 2016

                  similar byfantasyurban fantasynorth americabig city+2 more

                  N. K. Jemisin's Great Cities duology imagines that great cities can awaken as living, sentient avatars defending themselves against extradimensional threats. It began as her short story 'The City Born Great' before expanding into The City We Became (2020) — her first novel after completing the Broken Earth trilogy — and its sequel, The World We Make.

                • Cover of InCryptid
                  InCryptid

                  series · 53 books · 2012

                  similar byadventurousurban fantasynorth america+2 more

                  InCryptid is a series of urban fantasy novels by American author Seanan McGuire, published by DAW Books. They follow multiple generations of a family of cryptozoologists who protect supernatural beings from discovery by humankind.

                • Cover of The Android's Dream
                  The Android's Dream

                  series · 2 books · 2006

                  similar byadventurousnear futurefunny

                  A minor diplomatic insult with a genetically engineered sheep breed spirals into a full interstellar crisis when the last surviving specimen of the 'Android's Dream' breed, needed for a critical ceremony with the alien Nidu, turns out to have been hunted to extinction by a Nidu faction bent on provoking war. John Scalzi's The Android's Dream follows ex-soldier Harry Creek as the hunt for a replacement leads him to Robin Baker, an ordinary woman carrying hidden sheep DNA that makes her the key to avoiding a war. It's a standalone comic space opera rather than an ongoing series.

                • Cover of Lord of Light
                  Lord of Light

                  series · 5 books · 1967

                  similar byadventurousscience fantasy+2 more

                  Lord of Light is Roger Zelazny's 1967 science fantasy novel about the surviving crew of a colonizing starship who use salvaged technology and mind-transfer to make themselves effectively immortal, then rule their colony for a thousand years under the guises of Hindu gods. One of their own, called Sam, breaks with the pantheon to return forbidden knowledge to the ordinary people they rule, touching off a war among the self-styled gods. A standalone novel, it won the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Novel.