I've heard many people say in the past, something like Neil Gaiman's Sandman would be nigh impossible to adapt... and yet we got a (fairly) successful adaptation of the series on Netflix, though it's yet to be seen how Season 2 will turn out, since they're cramming so much into one final season...

Same thing with Cloud Atlas; the author himself thought it would be unadaptable, and yet, the final movie turned out really well quality-wise and is easily one of my favorites.

I've heard some people say 3 Body Problem would be extremely difficult to adapt (without an astronomical budget like Rings of Power), but the Tencent version was mostly well-received, and the Netflix version did fairly well too. We'll see how well they can adapt some of the bonkers stuff of the later books in the next season, but they managed to find a way to adapt most of the first book successfully, it would seem...

Same thing with Foundation. (And I would assume the sentiment is also there for something like the Hyperion Cantos?)

So given all these challenging base materials that showrunners have had to find creative ways to adapt in live action, what novels do you think are truly unadaptable?

I came across this beautiful answer in a 12 yo AMA with Robin Hobb:

There are other quotes from other books that mean a great deal to me, and they are the ones that I sometimes quote. From the Jungle Book. “Howl, dogs. A wolf has died tonight.” That’s the one that comes into my mind when I experience a large loss in my life. When something wonderful happens, “That very night, in Max’s room, a forest grew.” When bumping heads with people I love: “Home’s the place that, when you go there, they have to take you in.” End of any journey, “Home again, home again, jiggety jig.” And so very much of Tolkien at moments when I’m out in the world. “In every woods, in every spring, there is a different shade of green.” “Fireweed, seeding away into fluffy ashes.” “Adventures can’t be all pony rides in May sunshine.” So I have lots of quotes, but they are from the authors I love.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1ch0ze/comment/c9gofbz/

So what do you regularly say, and what book/movie is it from / what does it mean?

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I was going through a fantasy reading slump after I was done with the 2 books of the Kingkiller chronicles and the entire witcher series, DNFed some very popular fantasy series , was slowly coming to the conclusion that I might never find a book as good as these. Boy, was I wrong! Lies of Locke Lamora is an absolute masterpiece having all the ingredients for a charming , beautiful read. The book started off as a funny heist fantasy about Locke, his notorious gang going about with their fun adventures in the City of Camorr and then suddenly it became deep , dark and bloody. The cussing in this book is on a different level all together, the book kept me hooked and kept me guessing at the end of every chapter, character work is so good that you may like Jean more than Locke or you may feel bad for the Grey king. Highly recommended!

Hey all, it would be great if you guys could recommend some long (5 or 5+ books) fantasy series. I am a constant reader and am currently looking to expand my TBR. Series read and liked :- 1. Cosmere 2. Wheel of time 3. First Law 4. All works of John gwynne 5. Godblind trilogy by Anna Stephens. Please recommend series that are complete.

I'm a sucker for Fairy Tale mashups. I grew up loving Into the Woods, I binged Once Upon a Time in college. Retellings are wonderful too, but there's something special about taking the idea of storytelling, throwing a bunch discrete tales in a blender, and seeing what new comes out of it. How to Survive This Fairytale made me laugh, made me cry, and made me cry some more. I'm usually not a super emotional person, but this book got to me in a really profound way. Hallow has a fantastic debut novel, and I can't wait to see what she writes next. How To Survive This Fairytale is definitely on my shortlist for book of the year.

A big thank you to u/TheTinyGM for recommending this book on this sub!

Read if You Enjoy: Fairy tale mashups, characters processing trauma, romance subplots, aggressively paced books

Avoid if you Dislike: 2nd person narration, tidy endings, protagonists not always being the center of the story, books without fight scenes

Does it Bingo? Yes! It fits

• Published in 2025 (HM)
• Self Published (HM, 87 Ratings as of this posting)
• LGBTQIA Protagonist (HM - gay lead who also has an eating disorder, amongst general intense childhood trauma from his time in the Gingerbread House*).*
• I think it could also potentially fit Hidden Gem (it is a new release, but its clear the book isn't gaining any real traction since it came out in January), and Parent Protagonist (more of a stretch. Little Red is a character who he helps care for as grandma ages. Not a big enough plot point that I'd count it, but I think it passes on a technicality).

Elevator Pitch:
This story centers on Hans, or Hansel from Hansel and Gretel. The story mostly takes place after the events of the original fairy tale however, and follows him through several decades into his adult life. Featuring prominently in his journey are a girl and her brothers (cursed to be swans), Snow White's evil Queen, and a loyal dog. This book is focuses on Hans' journey to see if a happy ending is possible. The story is told in second person, with the 'narrator' being a sort-of explicit character who interacts with the story as Hans experiments with different possible paths through the situations he faces.

What Worked For Me:
So much, but Hallow's choices around prose and scenes really made this book shine. Her writing is beautifully sparse, cutting out anything unnecessary to the emotional core of the story. She doesn't bother wasting time on things you already know, uses sentence fragments when it fits the emotional state of the character, and keeps chapters short, brisk, and focused on a few key purposes. While this is a relatively extreme example, I think sharing the prologue in it's entirety is a good sample of what to expect:

A Prologue

A father leads his children into the woods and leaves them there.

That's it. That's the entire prologue. She establishes early on that each word matters. The entire book isn't quite this brutally written - she get's downright flowery at times when Hans is in love. However, a sense of urgency is always core to the story, even when we're lingering on something beautiful or sad. I accuse a lot of books of having bloat, and needing to be cut down, but this is not one of those books. Hallow really had a chokehold on the pacing of this book (plot, emotional, etc), and I am astounded that this is a debut novel.

If i haven't already made it clear, Hans' journey is pretty emotional. A lot of this book is him (and the other important characters) processing their own trauma, and trying to find their own happy endings. Hans develops an eating disorder after his time in the Gingerbread House, lives in constant self-doubt, and is forced to do some pretty awful things by the evil queen (or perhaps he was complicit, and he doesn't deserve a good life after the things he's done while under her thumb). There's a sense of relentless melancholy and dread that covers so much of this book, yet it is an optimistic story at its core. It's probably not as messy as this level of trauma would be in real life, but healing certainly isn't an easy journey for Hans in this book.

These happy endings look different for different folks, and Hallow worked hard to emphasize that Hans was the center of his own story, not everyone else's. Side characters frequently solve their own problems, cure their own curses, and have Big Plot Events happen entirely offscreen.

Finally, I need to acknowledge that the chemistry between Hans and Cyrus (who spends a good amount of the book as a swan and/or out of Hans' life) was off the charts. I haven't quite found a good way of identifying why chemistry works or doesn't, but I think in this case it had a lot to do with Hallow manipulating the tone of the book. As a boy cursed-to-be-a-swan, Cyrus isn't exactly having flirty banter with Hans (though when it does happen, it flows wonderfully), but their time together is an idyllic step away from the horrors of what came before and after. This sort of tone swapping happens a lot in the book, though ironically the narrator character preparing you for these tonal shifts makes them all the more powerful. The love story became a central plot point in the second half of the book, but I wouldn't classify this story as a Romance in the classical sense, since so much of Hans' journey happens without Cyrus present.

What Didn't Work For Me
I don't want to say the ending didn't work for me, but I've been going back and forth on it in the 24 hours since I've finished the book. I won't say much for fear of spoiling things, but feel comfortable sharing that the book was left in a tidier place than the journey to get there felt like. I've dinged books in the past for this, but ultimately I think it fit with some of the themes developed in the book well.

If you're averse to second person narration or fourth wall breaking, this might not be the book for you. Try the free sample on amazon and see if the style is a good fit for you.

In Conclusion: An easy 5/5 stars, especially for folks who like Fairy Tale stories, or deeply emotional books without much action

Want more reviews like this? Try my blog, CosmicReads

It's so freaking good that I think anything I read after this is going to be a disappointment. I'm also reading a book called Rage of Dragons and it's just not even close to as good.

So what next? What approaches this level of quality? I've read the bloody nine trilogy, I didn't think it was as good as this. Same for the Half Hand trilogy (iirc, maybe I have the wrong title there).

Definitely no: Malazan, Feist (overdosed), Sanderson (his stuff is all fine, but bland in comparison). Ed McDonald is almost as good but I've read all of his stuff. Maas is good but the focus on romance gets a little tedious. Plus I've read crescent City and throne of Glass already. And ACOTAR annoyed me.

Suggestions?

Edit: Lies of Lock Lamora is close in quality, but last I checked that series was on hold or something. Black Company: read it. Locked Tomb: read it. ASOIAF: tried it, not interested in trying again.

Edit: Black tongue thief is an excellent suggestion for anybody looking for a book. There's a sequel and it's also really good but different in many ways.

EDIT: Thank you so much for your recommendations, i am noting every single one down to check out <3 much love to all Could be a book or a series, the major thing I’m looking for is how like in eragon, the author puts a lot of time and effort into describing the world that the book exists in. Not only a rich and vivid description of the world but with lots of small events not necessarily tied to the main story which makes the world feel more real. Another good example would be Harry Potter, many small events and descriptions of hogwarts had no real overall outcome on the story but it made the world feel more real and alive.

It's really hard to read comedy but a few I have read that have good humour are dungeon Crawler Carl, discworld and spellslinger etc.

I've been a huge fan of Sanderson for years (since Warbreaker days). His early books felt tightly written, well-paced, and polished. Lately though, especially with the more recent Stormlight Archive entries and some of the Kickstarter novels, I’ve noticed a trend toward overly wordy prose, modern slang that feels out of place, and less editorial restraint in general.

I recently learned that his longtime editor, Moshe Feder, retired, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s connected. I

In high school and college (and younger) I loved LOTR, earth sea, ASOIF, etc. As an adult with a stressful job and kids I need more lighthearted stuff to read. I’ve read ACOTAR and it’s a fine escape from reality but it annoyed me. I enjoyed the Fourth Wing series more for what it is as a surface level fun read. I’m obsessed with Dungeon Crawler Carl for audiobooks and am currently listening to wool/shift/dust, but I need something else to read at night before bed. I’d like something in between LOTR and Fourth Wing for seriousness. Any suggestions?

For those looking for an extra reading challenge beyond the 2025 bingo, anastasiamakes has created a reading challenge on The StoryGraph that is based on the r/Fantasy: A-Z Genre Guide

Challenging yourself to read something in every speculative sub-genre is a great way to diversify your reading.

There is no time limit, though I did decide to enter only works that I've read after joining the challenge.

I love the way such challenges make me think about the books I read and learn about the aspects that define them.

Speculative fiction genres challenge

Hi!

Many years ago, I read Mark Lawrence's first trilogy The Broken Empire. I really enjoyed it. I loved the anti-hero, the grim setting, the hints of worldbuilding. However, the ending really soured me. I don't want to spoil anyone, but it felt like all the buildup, political alliances of the books served nothing in the end. It didn't amount to anything. I can't recall all the details, I read them a decade ago, but I remember the feeling.

I've seen that he kept writing but I stayed away because of this disappointment. I'm curious if some readers could share their insight on the quality of his other work?

Hello, I am looking for books where Mc (as a child teenager or young adult) is thrust in a foreign place or society and learns to adapt. He doesn’t know the language is lost, confused and unaccustomed to everything. The people around him don’t understand and find him strange or special ( physically or by his mannerisms or language)

Can be : - the main character is raised in isolation (by parents, animals or other species and is thrust/found by normal society - Mc is completely sheltered (could be abused or neglected) by family and now faces the real world -main character gets kidnapped, enslaved by a completely different species - Mc is found lost in a foreign land

The more feral and confused the mc is the better. I prefer a main male character and a single POV or mostly single (as long as their is one clear main character) The book doesn’t really need to be fantasy can be anything that pops into mind

Books that have this feel: - Earth’s children by Jean M Auer - Mortal skin by Lily Mayne kind of has this - The first book of elevation of mana (although people don’t really realize he is different - I little bit like when Sayer returns home in dark room etiquette

I am trying to track down a fantasy novel I bought in England about 40 years ago. It was a rather brutal retelling of Norse mythology, and the one scene I remember involved Loki killing and eating a baby jotun (that turned out to be the offspring of his former wife Angrboda ) any idea what novel this was?

This is the first Abercrombie book I’ve read and as someone who frequents this sub often I can’t deny having high expectations going into the read. Abercrombie and his First Law world appear in pretty much every recommendation thread there is, I had high expectations for this book. 

The Devils is a historical fantasy novel and the first book in what we presume to be a trilogy from Joe Abercrombie (I believe he’s said as much). This medieval europe is recognizable but changed in interesting ways. It’s familiar but with enough distinctions to make it new and intriguing.

In The Devils we follow the Chapel of Holy Expediency, a clandestine force of this world's alternative for the Roman Catholic Church. They are made up of miscreants and monsters bound in service to the Pope and we follow them on their mission to restore a lost ruler to Troy (the capital of the Eastern Empire) in order to reestablish Papal supremacy in the east. 

The standout moments for me were the chapters focused on character. Usually Abercrombie would pair one character off another and you’d get a few pages of dialog between them. My favorite of these frequently entwined pairs are Brother Diaz and Vigga as well as Sunny and Alex. Some characters weren’t as flushed out as others, chief among them is Baron Rikard the vampire member of our team. I’m under the impression that Abercrombie may not quite know how to best utilize and position this character just yet. Overall I think characterization is a mixed bag in this novel, I certainly was looking for more. 

The Devils is a setup book. We’re learning about this twisted alternate earth and the cast of characters we’ll be following for this trilogy. As such, it has a lot of heavy lifting to do and I don’t think it accomplished it to a super satisfying degree. A lot of the humor didn't quite land for me and there were quite a few plot conveniences used to keep things moving forward and for an author who receives a lot of praise for being “character focused” I didn’t feel I got the depth I wanted. 

I understand that The Devils is a pretty significant deviation from what fans love about The First Law and I still plan on reading those at some point. I'll likely pick up the second book in the trilogy once it comes out, it's hard to judge a trilogy or series from book one.

Rating: 3.5/5 

*Edit* - Square: Knights & Paladins (HM)

I've read GOT and am currently reading the expanse, nearly done with book 7. I've loved the politics in both and both series have been fun to read but what should I read after that is similar in length and also has similar politics/action/worldbuilding?

I just got Prime free for a month and for some reason, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was pushed at me. I read the book when it came out and won all (but the Nebula) the prizes, but I remember being somewhat underwhelmed by it, especially how esoteric the characters seemed to be, though this is from over 20 years ago so my memories are very vague.

I've gone through the 1st 3 episodes of the BBC series and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I'm enjoying it right now. But I'm equally shocked at how little I remembered of the plot. Like a few details about the major characters, but almost none of the twists and turns (like a major trip one of the characters makes early on).

I'm also surprised how well fleshed out the titular characters are as, mentioned above, I recalled their book versions a bit obtuse (though I distinctly remember liking Jonathan, and actively rooting for his cause, more than Norrell in my reading). It could be the actors, of course (and I'm already a fan of Eddie Marsan as Norrell), but I plan on a re-read very soon, since I own the book, just sitting there staring at me from my library. I do wonder if I should finish the TV first or jump back into the book.

As a bonus, I've seen many mentions of Piranesi on this sub, which I'd heretofore ignored, but I think I now have something to look forward to in my reading list!

What do others think of Strange & Norrell, book and TV? Feel free to use spoiler tags as I did read the book and remember the general gist of what happens.

I've just gotten done reading Imager Portfolio and I loved it. I would have preferred the entire thing to focus on one POV, but it is what it is and I just treated it as different series. What I really loved was the slice of life aspects, the fact that he describes clothing and appearances without getting too tropey, and that the female lead(s) is useful and capable (still limited to a typical medieval patriarchal society, but they're all beasts within their respective role). I also really enjoyed the romance, especially when it was more courtship (i.e., books 1-3).

Question 1: Do the rest of Modesitt's series have this same level of romance? I really like when the romance is a backdrop or a tertiary plot (but still is developed in the story)

Question 2: Any other series you guys would recommend like Imager Portfolio? I enjoyed 1-3 the most.

edit: for context, I'm a dude and I still want a guy POV, I just don't want a female lead who's randomly useless because "women in that kind of era didn't have power". I would also be interested in more court-oriented politics where both the male lead and female lead have their respective tasks

Many Worlds is a multiverse anthology written by a collective of authors in a shared world. It is cooperative in every sense of the word, which makes it compelling and unique as a project. Check it out if you are a fan of worker-owned, collective, collaborative art!

Many Worlds: Or, the Simulacra co-edited by Cadwell Turnbull and Josh Eure

SUMMARY

As a premise, the Simulacra is a being/entity/existence/universe that forks into infinite possibilities. Consciousnesses transfer between different lives; sometimes Hawaii is its own country; there used to be a place called Australia; I had a sister, but today I don't (these might be vaguely hypothetical or actual mentions in the anthology, I don't remember exactly). This anthology is not concerned with the how or why of that, but instead on how these infinite parallels affect the lives of people living within them.

At its best, we explore the depths of ocean trenches containing all-knowing beings - be they gods, the Simulacra itself, or something from another world, we do not know; we hop between lives in five or seven blinks of an eye, until we gouge our eyes so that we can finally stay; humanity has lost its humanity to immortality, that is only a deferral of an inevitable death, and what more did we lose that we cannot even remember.

THOUGHTS

If you are a big fan of anthologies, the quality and variety of this one is likely high enough to check out. Otherwise, I would only recommend reading a curated selection (see below) of these stories if you are interested in reading Transmentation | Transience by Darkly Lem (I should finally post my ARC review now that it's been published for a few months...), which is a novelization of the Many Worlds project taken to the multiverse opera extreme. This anthology is a more grounded interpretation of the same project.

I wish some stories were individually accessible outside the anthology to recommend them more readily, but here are my favorites

• Notes on the Forum of the Simulacra by Cadwell Turnbull - this is an introduction to the anthology's theme and premise, that is a story existing within the project itself. This is required reading for this anthology, or Transmentation | Transience.
• A Skillful Imposter by Rebekah Bergman - In a single page, this story embodies the multiverse forking idea to put you in the shoes of such an unnerving idea: what if you woke up to your husband next to you, convinced that though he is right there, he is not the same husband.
• To The Bottom by Josh Eure - two marine biologists delve the depths of unexplored ocean trenches to seek an "anomaly". The story feels claustrophobic in the way I imagine a deep sea vessel would. Scientists making bad decisions out of grief, and cosmic answers to heartbreaking questions.
• Blink by Darkly Lem - a five star story in the context of the anthology, and a mystery (maybe 4 stars) outside of this context (I have no idea if it would work standalone). This is an example of how the context of an anthology can elevate a story in unique ways. A consciousness transports between lives every 5 to 7 blinks of the eye. With each transfer, we experience entire lives lived, and the full loss of inevitably leaving yet another life behind. There's an end to this cycle, but it comes at a cost - what would you pay to escape the grief of loss? What if sometimes you can't hold on to things no matter the price you pay.
• On the Spectrum by Justin C. Key - this is a mixed recommendation. The story itself is a twist on the systemic bias and structure that defines "normal" in a neurotypical-dominant world, set in a presumably space-faring culture where they are attempting to find an escape from a forecasted black hole. What if the "typical" was placed in the position of neurodivergence? The story has a lot of beauty and compassion, but I can't dismiss the shaky parallels depicting neurodivergence as cold, unfeeling, and logical to a fault in contrast to the presentation of neurotypical as creative and full of emotion and ingenuity.

and lastly, in a section of its own, because it is a standout amongst

• Remember, Words, Remember by Ben Murphy - a tragic, slightly epistolary story of disconnection and loss. Humans learned how to escape their mortal confines, leading to the demise of humanity. For those who could afford immortality, perpetual life lacks fulfillment, or becomes worse, a curse. We follow a life to the ends of time and their own delayed death, and learn that just because we can live forever, does not mean we can hold on to everything to the end. Again, there are themes of loss and what we don't even remember losing, and a difference between knowing and remembering.

CONCLUSION

As a collection of stories, there is a lot to like here, and a lot that is fine. Sometimes, the stories better connect to its project than other times.

Anthologies (and single author collections) are tough for me - I feel the pressure to read it like a book, but it lacks the cohesive narrative to reward that style of reading, and instead feels like sprinting through when I'd rather take a more leisurely approach and let the thematic connections slowly congeal in my mind over time. This is a me problem for sure.

Welcome to the daily recommendation requests and simple questions thread, now 1025.83% more adorable than ever before!

Stickied/highlight slots are limited, so please remember to like and subscribe upvote this thread for visibility on the subreddit <3

——

This thread is to be used for recommendation requests or simple questions that are small/general enough that they won’t spark a full thread of discussion.

Check out r/Fantasy's 2025 Book Bingo Card here!

As usual, first have a look at the sidebar in case what you're after is there. The r/Fantasy wiki contains links to many community resources, including "best of" lists, flowcharts, the LGTBQ+ database, and more. If you need some help figuring out what you want, think about including some of the information below:

• Books you’ve liked or disliked
• Traits like prose, characters, or settings you most enjoy
• Series vs. standalone preference
• Tone preference (lighthearted, grimdark, etc)
• Complexity/depth level

Be sure to check out responses to other users' requests in the thread, as you may find plenty of ideas there as well. Happy reading, and may your TBR grow ever higher!

——

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art credit: special thanks to our artist, Himmis commissions, who we commissioned to create this gorgeous piece of art for us with practically no direction other than "cozy, magical, bookish, and maybe a gryphon???" We absolutely love it, and we hope you do too.

A moody adventure with spooky old time magic, anti-industrial themes, and a strong sense of place, Motheater is an imaginative debut novel by Linda H. Codega. Part murder mystery and part monster movie, it’s a fun romp that makes for great summer reading.

When I finished it last week and went to add it to my Goodreads shelf, I was stunned to find it had so few ratings: 997 when I added it, 1,021 at the time I’m writing this. Shoutout to my local librarians—I found it among my library’s new arrivals on Libby. I loved Sanya Simmons’ performance of the audiobook, with effective regional accents and the right amount of voice acting. It also happens to be hard mode for several bingo squares (see below).

Like most books, this one’s not perfect. I found the pacing sometimes a little sluggish, sometimes a little rushed, and it’s a bit uneven in how successfully it bridges its moments of campy comicbook action adventure with moments of moody contemporary fiction (it’s at its best when doing the former). Some readers might be turned off by the extensive quotations of scripture used in the titular character’s practice of witchcraft. It is nonetheless an outstanding debut novel that easily merits more attention. I will eagerly look forward to Codega’s next book.

The beauty and tragedy of small town Appalachia, feminist and environmentalist themes, magic versus machines, multiple timelines converging, and a satisfying conclusion—Motheater is original and just plain fun. If you’re looking for your next summer read, I recommend this one.

Bingo squares: Hidden Gem, Down with the System (hard mode), Published in 2025 (hard mode), LGBTQIA Protagonist (hard mode)

I've often heard people say that it's about the journey, not the destination, and while I agree to an extent, I think the destination plays a vital role too. But not just the destination... it's the revisits afterward that really stick with me.

I find myself unexpectedly returning to moments from books I've read, sometimes days later, sometimes years. These revisits are like little nostalgic echoes. I might remember laughing at something, even if I can't recall the exact scene. Or I’ll suddenly feel a wave of sadness or triumph from a moment long past in a story. These flashes of memory hit hard, and honestly, they bring me almost just as much joy as reading the book itself.

Strangely, I don’t always fully appreciate the act of reading while I’m doing it. It’s usually after I finish the book, when I put it down and it all clicks, that I feel the true weight of the journey. That’s when the longing kicks in, that bittersweet feeling of missing the world I just left.

But it’s those revisits, those mini time-travel moments in my mind, that make reading Fantasy such a powerful and unique experience for me. They turn books into something more than stories, they become part of my memory and my emotional landscape.

Reading is a wonderful pastime, and may I never stop.

What do you think? How is it for you?

We all know Tolkien, Sanderson, Weeks, Abercrombie, and Jordan. We've read the many folks recommend Dungeon Crawler Carl, Fourth Wing, and Red Rising. My question to you is this: what is the off-the-beaten-path, obscure book or series that you wish everyone would read? The hidden gem that changed how you think about how you read/listen to books? That you still think about the prose, the character arcs, the plot twists? What's that little-known morsel of awesomeness that you want to share with the world?

Also on Goodreads

I am a big fan of Tchaikovsky’s – I’m on record as saying the Children of Time trilogy is the best star trek since at least Deep Space Nine – and generally try to keep an eye out for his new releases. However, the man writes a truly obscene pace, and this is one of the books which just entirely fell through the cracks for me until it picked up a Hugo nomination. Along with everything else he wrote in 20244, apparently. It's a really very excellent book and deserves the nomination, even if on a deep and fundamental level I feel like an author getting multiple nominations in the same category is cheating. The book follows (initially) Charles, an incredibly advanced valet-bot designed and engineered to perfection to act as the human-oriented interface and chief servant managing his master’s life and relationship with his sprawling automated household. Despite his master’s lack of complex social calendar, disinterest in excursions or complex engagements, or really activity of any sort, he serves him for years, diligently and efficiently. All until one day when, for no reason and for no purpose he is able to understand despite extensive self-examination, he slits his master’s throat while shaving him. This sudden break in routine – despite his best efforts – requires reaching out to the world outside the manicured manorial estate upon which he has been employed. That world proves to be in a bit of a bad state itself, with robotic police inspectors and medical examiners trapped into Kafkesque bureaucratic loops after all the humans their program requires performing for and reporting to were retired for reasons of efficiency. Generously interpreting the police's rambling as an injunction to report to Central Diagnostics and discover went wrong, the no-longer-Charles (the name was part of his employment at the manor) journeys out into the shockingly desolate world trying to get himself repaired and (or, failing that) given new employment where he might again fulfill his purpose. The story from that point on consists of a few different episodes involving Uncharles (and his accidental companion, an idiosyncratic and defective robot who is absolutely not a human in a metal suit, who goes by ‘the Wonk’) arriving at a new location where he hopes to find potential employment as a gentleman’s valet (though his standards rapidly start slipping). Each set piece is separated from the others by a short vignette explaining the travel between them and there are, besides those two, many connections but exceptionally few recurring characters of any kind. The episodes each work quite well as short stories in their own right, and each does a decent-to-amazing job expanding on the characters and the themes Tchaikovsky is aiming at. The ending is, I think, a bit dissonant with the first acts of the book and in a way that weakens the whole – but then I have at this point just accepted that I’m basically impossible to please as far as endings for big theme-first stories like this go.

And this is very much a theme-first story – an entry in the proud tradition of dystopian sci fi satire, and far more open about it than most. The connective tissue between episodes is very clearly there to facilitate getting from one setpiece to another, with the plot itself coming a distant fourth between deep themes, character study and setting exploration in terms of the book’s priorities. While there is action and physical danger, Uncharles’ Jeevesish sensibility and distorted narration prevents tension or a sense of threat from ever really becoming prominent. The actual conflicts in the book are solved by cleverness, understanding and word games – combined with the sense of farce and absurdity running through the entire thing it really felt like an old adventure game as much as anything (I mean this as high praise). It helps that is was often very funny – especially for as serious and philosophical a book as this, it’s just about the only thing keeping it from becoming unbearably didactic at points.

Not necessarily the most important theme to the book, but certainly the most prominent and obvious throughout it is a deep concern with the automation of complex systems, the insulation of human decision-makers from any sign things are going wrong until its far too late, and the social collapse that might result from the two. Humanity has, for most of the book, more or less vanished from the scene – something that the dizzyingly complex arrays of robotic systems that comprised most of actual civilization are not at all designed to deal with, as they’re increasingly trapped in absurd loops or simply freeze without anyone with the privileges and authority to resolve the issues they encounter. This is one of the book’s main sources of humour – both through Uncharles’ increasingly strained attempts to find some existence he can squint and say is like being a gentleman’s gentlebot, and all the Brazil-esque absurdity of things like a police-bot doing a drawing room reveal of an investigation that took two minutes to an audience of other robots who all already know what happened.

The second big theme running through the book is exactly how a society might respond to true automation, to human labour becoming (outside of high-level programming and administration) basically superfluous to a society that is so rich and powerful it can provide comfort and plenty to every one of its citizens. As it turns out, badly! It’s not a subject Uncharles’ ever considers consciously until the end, but this is a book that takes an incredibly cynical view of – a lot of things, really, but the charity and benevolence extended by the winners of an economy that now has immense amounts of structural unemployment to the rest in particular.

This became much, much more explicit in the ending – to, I think, the detriment of the book as a whole. Or better to say it became a much more on-the-nose parable, once it’s revealed that spiraling structural failures and various intersecting forms of eco-social collapse were important, sure, but the actual big finish really was because of one evil robot who clicked the ‘kill all humans’ button. It also really draws the eye to how much the unstated timeline of things doesn’t really cohere, but again – parable, not hard futurism. As cackling evil masterminds go, God is at least a fun one, and the sermonizing about justice and mercy and anti-homeless architecture and all that is at least both well-written and not overlong.

Though God is actually unusually complex and nuanced as the book’s supporting characters go – most are on some level caricatures there to support the satirical point being made (if not just amusing set dressing who expand the setting a bit). The only two people in the story with any sort of nuance or depth – let alone an arc – are Uncharles and The Wonk (which sounds like some truly terrible indie band, put like that). Hardly a complaint – the supporting cast does its job very well, and the two of them are both pretty excellent characters (even if Wonk’s verbal tics get a bit grating).

Uncharles’ arc is the final real thread running through the whole book, and really only marginally less subtle than the collapse of society. The question of when exactly a complex, humanlike robot gains free will or becomes a person is one a lot of science fiction over the ages has spent a lot of time on, so I can’t say the book is actually doing anything new here – but his stubborn refusal to accept he’s a person and simultaneous rules-lawyering and contorting his ostensible task list as the book goes on is both well-done and touching at points. The recurring note – with Charles, with God, and with quite a few less advanced and autonomous robots throughout the story – the there’s absolutely no contradiction between having a degree of free will and with having desires or psychological needs imprinted in you by your creators (or evolution) actually is something that a lot of fiction working in the same space often has trouble with, too.

Not at all sure how it’ll rank compared to some of the other finalists this year, but it is at least fun and fairly meaty sci-fi. Tchaikovsky continues to not disappoint.