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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 Will Power

anchored on:fantasytransported to another worldsecondary worldadventurousportal fantasywar+1 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 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 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 Narnia
                  Narnia

                  series · 26 books · 1950

                  part of Narnia Universe

                  similar bysecondary worldfantasyadventurousportal fantasy+2 more

                  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 Hobbit
                  The Hobbit

                  series · 2 books · 1937

                  completed

                  part of Tolkien's legendarium

                  similar bysecondary worldadventurousfantasy+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 Abarat
                  Abarat

                  series · 3 books · 2002

                  similar byfantasytransported to another worldadventuroussecondary worldportal fantasyyoung adult+1 more

                  The Books of Abarat are a series of young adult fantasy novels written and illustrated by English writer and visual artist Clive Barker. The series is intended to contain five books, three of which have been published from 2002 to 2011. The series takes place on the Abarat, a fictional archipelago consisting of twenty-five islands, one for each hour of the day.

                • Cover of Five Kingdoms
                  Five Kingdoms

                  series · 5 books · 2014

                  similar bysecondary worldadventuroustransported to another worldfantasyportal fantasy+2 more

                • Cover of Almuric
                  Almuric

                  series · 1 book · 1964

                  similar bytransported to another worldsecondary worldadventurousfantasy

                  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 Spellsinger
                  Spellsinger

                  series · 9 books · 1983

                  similar bysecondary worldtransported to another worldfantasyadventurousportal fantasy

                  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 Quag Keep
                  Quag Keep

                  series · 2 books · 1978

                  completed

                  similar bytransported to another worldsecondary worldfantasyadventurousportal fantasy

                  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 Beyonders
                  Beyonders

                  series · 4 books · 2011

                  similar bysecondary worldtransported to another worldadventurousportal fantasy+3 more

                • Cover of The Questing Road
                  The Questing Road

                  Lyn McConchie · standalone novel · 2010

                  similar bysecondary worldadventuroustransported to another worldwarfantasyportal fantasy

                  Acolytes to a dark god have crossed the gulf between worlds to abduct an innocent tariling, not even a year old, dooming it to become a sacrifice in a ceremony that will unleash an army of supernatural creatures upon an unsuspecting kingdom. Yoros and Kyrryl know that this is no mere animal, but to its own (felinoid) kind is a cherished child. With their warrior niece, Ashara, they follow its trail through a dimensional gate, little realizing their simple quest will become a desperate fight for survival in the middle of an all-out war. They can't know of the atrocities that decimated the plains tribes of the strange world beyond the gate. Nor can they know of the massive revenge that threatens an entire civilization. If they are to save themselves and their lost tariling, they must follow its magic through the unknown terrors of a bizarre world of alien creatures and mortal perils beyond their wildest imagining.

                • Cover of A Game of Dark
                  A Game of Dark

                  William Mayne · standalone novel · 1971

                  similar bytransported to another worldsecondary worldfantasyadventurousportal fantasy+1 more

                  A twentieth-century teenager finds himself existing as squire to the lord of a medieval village threatened by a giant predator-worm.

                • Cover of Märchenmond / Magic Moon
                  Märchenmond / Magic Moon

                  series · 2 books · 1983

                  similar bytransported to another worldsecondary worldfantasyadventurousportal fantasyyoung adult

                • Cover of The Codex Alera
                  The Codex Alera

                  series · 6 books · 2004

                  similar bysecondary worldwaradventuroustensefantasy

                  Furies of Calderon opens The Codex Alera in a Rome-flavored fantasy world where nearly everyone commands elemental spirits called furies, except Tavi, a teenager with none, whose resourcefulness becomes the series' recurring answer to raw magical power. Jim Butcher's six-book series, continuing through Academ's Fury, Cursor's Fury, Captain's Fury, Princeps' Fury, and First Lord's Fury, builds from small-scale political maneuvering into full-scale war.

                • Cover of Ranger's Apprentice: The Early Years
                  Ranger's Apprentice: The Early Years

                  series · 3 books · 2011

                  completed

                  part of Ranger's Apprentice

                  similar bysecondary worldadventurousfantasyyoung adult+1 more

                  Ranger's Apprentice: The Early Years is a book series by John Flanagan. It is a prequel to the original Ranger's Apprentice series. The series follows Halt and Crowley and is preceded by the short story "The Hibernian" in the book The Lost Stories, which is the 11th installment to the Ranger's Apprentice series.

                • Cover of The Barbed Coil
                  The Barbed Coil

                  J. V. Jones · standalone novel · 1997

                  similar bytransported to another worldsecondary worldfantasyadventurousportal fantasy

                  The Barbed Coil is a fantasy novel by J. V. Jones, published in 1997. It is a portal fantasy. Publishers Weekly described it as a "predictable hybrid of fantasy adventure and romance".

                • Cover of Dwellers in the Mirage
                  Dwellers in the Mirage

                  A. Merritt · standalone novel · 1932

                  similar bytransported to another worldadventurousfantasyportal fantasy

                  From the back cover of the Avon 1976 printing: Angry warrior, modern man - Leif Langdon was suddenly ripped from the 20th century and plunged into the ancient world of The Mirage. But his entrance into this awesome land awakened the slumbering Dwayanu, who in this strange incarnation was also Lief. This, two-men-in-one battle with the beautiful witch-woman Lur and the ethereal beauty Evalie for the glory of the Mirage.

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

                  series · 2 books · 1871

                  completed

                  similar bysecondary worldfantasyadventurous+1 more

                • Cover of Redwall
                  Redwall

                  series · 22 books · 1986

                  completed

                  part of Redwall Universe

                  similar bysecondary worldadventurousfantasy+1 more

                  Redwall is Brian Jacques's long-running series of fantasy novels for young readers, set within the redwall-universe of Redwall Abbey and its community of anthropomorphic animals. It opened in 1986 with the mouse Matthias searching for the lost sword of the legendary Martin the Warrior to defend the abbey from the invading rat Cluny the Scourge, and grew across 22 largely stand-alone novels published through 2011, each set in a different generation of the abbey's history and following its mice, otters, badgers, and vermin adversaries.

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

                  series · 13 books · 1954

                  part of Tolkien's legendarium

                  similar bysecondary world+3 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 The Ship of Ishtar
                  The Ship of Ishtar

                  A. Merritt · standalone novel · 1926

                  similar bytransported to another worldadventurousfantasyportal fantasy

                  From the back cover of the 1991 Collier paperback: The ship in the stone - When John Kenton first gets the shipment from an ancient Babylonian site, he finds a block of stone nothing more. But when he strikes the stone, it answers with a strange sound that challenges him - summons him - to release whatever secret lies buried within. When he finally manages to crack open the rock, a mist escapes. When the air clears the stone is gone except for its hidden contents: a perfectly sculpted Babylonian ship riding atop the turquoise waves of a turbulent sea. Before he knows what happened, Kenton is swept away from the room in which he stands, to the deck of the ancient ship, alive, with the priestesses of Ishtar and the priests of Nergal agape before him. This is but the start of an adventure that will consume John Kenton and seize his life forever. One look at the radiant beauty of the Goddess's favored servant, Sharane, and he knows that he must possess this woman, no matter what terrible trials lie in his way.

                • Cover of The Secrets of Droon
                  The Secrets of Droon

                  series · 44 books · 1999

                  similar bysecondary worldadventurousfantasyportal fantasy+1 more

                  The Secrets of Droon is a fantasy book series by Tony Abbott aimed at elementary school-age children. The first book, The Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet, was published on June 1, 1999. On October 1, 2010, the final book of the series, The Final Quest, was released, concluding its eleven-year run. The series was named by the American Booksellers Association among the top ten books for Harry Potter fans.

                • Cover of The Door to the Lost
                  The Door to the Lost

                  Jaleigh Johnson · standalone novel · 2018

                  similar bysecondary worldtransported to another worldfantasyadventuroustenseportal fantasy+1 more

                  "After a mysterious accident that closes a portal to another world, magic is banned in Talhaven. But there are those like Rook who are stranded in Talhaven and still have the power to wield magic. Living in exile, a stranger offers Rook and her friend safety, but appearances can be deceiving and the pair soon find themselves in serious danger"--

                • Cover of The Wizard Knight
                  The Wizard Knight

                  series · 2 books · 2004

                  completed

                  similar bytransported to another worldsecondary worldadventurousfantasy+1 more

                  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 Guardians of Ga'hoole
                  Guardians of Ga'hoole

                  series · 17 books · 2003

                  similar bysecondary worldfantasyadventurouswar

                  Guardians of Ga'Hoole is a fantasy book series written by Kathryn Lasky and published by Scholastic. The series contains a total of 16 books, and although it was originally intended to conclude with the 2008 publication of The War of the Ember, it has a prequel, The Rise of a Legend, published in 2013. Apart from the main series, there are a few more books and spin-offs set in the same universe. The first three books of the series were adapted into the 2010 animated 3D film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, directed by Zack Snyder.

                • Cover of Spearwielder's Tales
                  Spearwielder's Tales

                  series · 3 books · 1993

                  similar bysecondary worldtransported to another worldadventurousportal fantasyfantasy

                  R. A. Salvatore's trilogy follows Gary Leger, bored with life after college, who wanders into the woods behind his house and stumbles into a fantasy world populated by elves, dwarves, witches, and dragons, and finds himself mistaken for the realm's long-lost hero. The Woods Out Back, The Dragon's Dagger, and Dragonslayer's Return follow Gary as he's pulled back into that world again and again, growing into the role thrust on him.