The Ultimate Guide to Grimdark Fantasy! | What is it and the best books in the genre! 

Definitely a fantasy book is better than watching it. You're imagination is much more powerful and it's personal to you.

All 10 books in Joe Abercrombie's First Law series are incredible! 10 including Sharp Ends, a collection of short stories

ooooh thank you for the recs, i've been looking for more darker fantasy books and these sound right up my alley!

Great to discover your channel! I love horror and I was thinking of branching out a bit, Grimdark sounds like the perfect fit. Thanks for the recommendations. The Poppy War and Empire of the Vampire sounds right up my alley. Maybe you should dip your toes into some horror! 😀

First law trilogy was my introduction to Grimdark. Unlike most people, I didn’t love it. I liked it ,but the writing itself left much to be desired. As well as I can’t stand Logen Ninefingers. So, I read the Broken Empire trilogy and I loved it. Everything Joe Abercrombie is praised for I found it in Mark Lawrence’s writing. That being said I do plan to read the second trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. Simply, out of curiousity and its likely he has improved the execution a bit.

Perfect! I am obsessed with this these kind of books! I had know idea what this genre was called but good to know that I’m not alone in my love for this genre 😅

impressed, your delivery is great. Donaldsons covenant... was my first grim dark at a time fantasy was still holiday...today grimdark is a morticians fantasy with bent balls..

This is a great video, thank you now I have to had a whole bunch of new books to my TBR haha! But already wanted to read the Poppy War trilogy it looks so good! Also, I've read volume 1 of Game of thrones and its absolutely dark as heck

Definitely checking out the vampire novel.

LK3 Great Upload Kizzi! Happy Bookish Sunday Friends🤩😘

If you liked Rin, I think you'll like Jorg :D . I love Abercrombie's books, I think Best Served Cold would be a good introduction to his work if someone does not want to read all three books from The First Law trilogy. My introduction to grimdark fantasy was The Night Angel trilogy, which I also recommend. I am now reading Beyond Redemption and I think it is a next-level grimdark book, I can't hype it enough.

Just discovered this channel!

After reading Juniper & Thorn, i just cant stop thinking about it- and decided to delve on the gothic-fantasy genre. Though, Juniper & Thorn is considered Gothic-Horror, but after seeing the elements of GDF. It checked all the box. Though the world is not apocalyptic but the setting is like the mc's father enslaves his children and has no freedom so thats that. I love also raw scenes here and there. You convinced me to read the poppy war tbh

The Fifth Season is so good! I also have yet to read The Stone Sky but I'm ready to be destroyed :) Locke Lamora is one of my all time favorites! I'd say it almost borders on Grimheart because of the stellar friendship between the two main characters. If you want another suggestion I would HIGHLY recommend Gunmetal Gods by Zamil Akhtar. It's a middle eastern based world in the middle of a holy war. You want morally gray characters? Look no further!

Maan, Empire of the Vampire sounds and looks awesome 😮😁

Thanx for the info, might have to pick up some of those titles. Not quit the same type of books and not sure you'd like them (I'm surely not a great salesman) but two of my favorite apocalyptic books are - Alas, Babylon - Pat Frank - 1959 (the first or one of the first books written about the aftermath of a nuclear attack) One Second After - William R. Forstchen - 2009 (EMP attack) Will you sign my petition to bring back Duels? Ten steps forward and then BAMMMM

Prince of Thorns was my intro to grimdark and became one of my favourite series of books. Did tou get round to reading them?

"Why do I still live? What more do you want from me? I gave everything I had to you, to them. Look what they've made of our dream. This bloated, rotting carcass of an empire is driven not by reason and hope but by fear, hate and ignorance. Better that we had all burned in the fires of Horus' ambition than live to see this." -Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines, reflecting upon the state of the Imperium of the late 41st Millennium and his devotion to the Emperor of Mankind

First grimdark series I read was the broken empire series (prince, king and empower of thorns) and loved it. Set the bar high though and can't seem to find a series more brutal and dark. I'm on the last of the first law trilogy and am gonna read the eleventh cycle after so maybe those will scratch my itch mark lawrence left lol

Big fan of grimdark here! Looove all that Abercrombie touches. The guy is really good at giving motives and building up characters. By the other hand, I didn't like the Prince of Thorns trilogy. I found Jorg a masculine version of your average Mary Sue, very edgy without a good cause, and full of plot armor. The story is crowded with really hollow characters, bad story, and an ending you can see coming a mile away. I personally find Mark Lawrence a mediocre writer, and I don't understand all the hype with his books. If I could give a grimdark recommendation with sci-fi, read the Red Rising double trilogy. It starts very Hunger Games, but it catches up very fast, and by the 5th book, oh oh oh, that's pure bleakness

Scholomance is dark harrypotter . The last kingdom is the same as the Netflix show but good . The rage of dragons is a African story about a servant becoming a champion against nobility and a different tribe with dark magic and dragons .

Red Sister is a trilogy …Holy Sister book 3

GRIMDERP!

Im a massive Game of Thrones/ASOIAF fan and I cannot recommend these books enough! Biggest stain on its legacy is that it's not finished yet.

Hey there

Ok, honestly. Poppy War and Empire of the Vampire are not Grim Dark, they are edgy YA. First law is technically Grimdark, I mean Mr Abercrombie even has "LordofGrimdark" as his twitter handle. Today when people say grimdark they talk about ASOIAF, First Law, Witcher, Malazan etc. Now these are definitely darker than the average fantasy. But that's only true because most fantasy is very black and white and very tame. To me these books fall under "realistic fantasy" or "adult fantasy" When I hear Grimdark, I think of "in the grim darkness of the far future" .. I think of Warhammer 40k and fantasy/sci fi settings like that. Where people eat crpse grease and even the good guys are satirically over the top fascistic zealots. To me, the First Law is just more adult fantasy. A world where characters are more realistic (aka grey). Most people in the world are grey. A lot of fantasy readers want to be cuddled and never feel uncomfortable ever. But that's not how life works. The world is a dark place where being at the wrong place at the wrong time can result in horrific things happening to you, done to you by other people. Now imagine a world where there is no police, there is no internet, there is no 9/11 etc. You can't hop into your car and visit the opposite side of the country, you have to travel by foot or horse or caravan and hope you don't get robbed, attacked or much, much worse. E.g. In the American wild west, this family started a small store. This was on the road that all the pilgrims / settlers took. So a lot of settlers would stop and buy some supplies. These people, would lure unsuspecting travelers to their store, then end them and steal all their belongings. That's the reality of our world. It's not all sunshine and "the one evil wizard / group / dictator / mosnster" that the "perfect good guys take out at the end of the story". Go watch a few "true crime documentaries" and tell me more about how "grey characters are edgy" for example (not that you did that, but some do, some really want every book to be a cuddle fest). So anyway, I don't consider any of this grimdark. But if we're going to use grimdark for First law and stuff. Then please don't also use it for stuff like Empire of the Vampire.

GrimDark fantasy but you neglected to mention The Black Company series let alone Glen Cook. Are you even reading the right books?