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I was in a discount store when I happened upon a compendium of old short stories from fantasy called hero's of valour. It was an amazing read detailing some of the day to day lives of the ordinary people, the drill sergeants and the brettonian peasantry and a drunk Tilean painter and a questing knight and a university magisterial who dabbles in necromancy and the daily trails of a witch hunter. It just so perfectly encompassed what I loved about the old world and the fantasy fluff and what I felt was missing in the aos fluff.

What other fantasy novels could you suggest to help me remember the old days? I found a lot of the end times books to delve to far into high fantasy for me.

There are a few short stories in The Laughter of Dark Gods that might suit. Also Mark of Heresy (based around time of the Storm of Chaos) is more foil-the-conspiracy than high fantasy imo.

Gotrek and Felix is a superb series. I understand what you I mean about a gritty medieval, "realistic" world and there is some of that there. For fantasy in general, Warhammer has tons of great books but I would consider Howard's Conan, moorcocks Corum and Elric series, leibers fafhrd and gray mouser, anything with a franzetta cover like Kane, to be required reading and great adventures, I just finished the broken sword and it was good but dark and sad, followed it with Prisoner of the horned helmet and while not Warhammer it was a good one too. Started onto Blood of Elves in the witcher series - the translation holds up - both short story books were good and the first third of this book has been excellent as well. William Kings Kormak series is also good and you can get the first book for free on an ebook , great for reading at work when you can stare at your phone but can't quite break out the paperback! Next up I'm going to go for either Jack vances dying earth or one I picked up titled Imaro


I'll be sure to check out Lords of Valour !

RighteousnessInkhornate wrote:
Gotrek and Felix is a superb series. I understand what you I mean about a gritty medieval, "realistic" world and there is some of that there. For fantasy in general, Warhammer has tons of great books but I would consider Howard's Conan, moorcocks Corum and Elric series, leibers fafhrd and gray mouser, anything with a franzetta cover like Kane, to be required reading and great adventures, I just finished the broken sword and it was good but dark and sad, followed it with Prisoner of the horned helmet and while not Warhammer it was a good one too. Started onto Blood of Elves in the witcher series - the translation holds up - both short story books were good and the first third of this book has been excellent as well. William Kings Kormak series is also good and you can get the first book for free on an ebook , great for reading at work when you can stare at your phone but can't quite break out the paperback! Next up I'm going to go for either Jack vances dying earth or one I picked up titled Imaro


I'll be sure to check out Lords of Valour !

I'd have to disagree on Gotrek & Felix. The first few novels were well done and atmospheric. It began to get very repetitive quickly, with later books being pretty much the same plot with 'insert new enemy name in title here'. And I say that even before William King left the series and characters; it was even more so after that. It was a good concept, stretched a little too far. It burned brightly, but very briefly for me.

I agree that Trollslayer was one of the best in the series, but I disagree - although everyone likes different things. I thought Giantslayer by King was actually the most mediocre book in the series, which is surprising because he is a good author, and I liked all the others and thought they were memorable and fun reads, Elfslayer was actually tied with Trollslyer for best book in the series to me, I just finished Zombieslayer and thought all 12 were great. I even liked Vampireslayer quite a lot, similar a bit to Morningstar by Gemmell (Another good one) and I read many didn't like it. Beastslayer, Dragonslayer! All great reads, to me


The same plot thing (with some changes) doesn't really bother me personally as long as there is well written action and imagery, I did say Conan was superb and it can be much worse than G&F in this regard!

To be fair, if you're looking for high quality fantasy books you need to move away from Black Library. Whilst I enjoyed the entire Gotrex series, it did get pretty repetitive to the point I couldn't tell you what happens in which.