Initially I thought people were recommending Wizard’s First Rule. Stay away from those.
Lots of great suggestions here. I’d like to repeat 2 of them
I’ll put in a recommendation for the Nifft the Lean books by Michael Shea. They’re very much influenced by Vance, and in fact Shea wrote a book set in the Dying Earth milieu with Vance’s approval. They’re set in demon-filled worlds, with grim and surreal events. In one of the stories the characters literally go to Hell in a handcart.
Just to provoke discussion, some of Cormac McCarthy’s novels might be interesting to readers of dark fantasy, especially Blood Meridian, Outer Dark, and Child of God. McCarthy often uses fantastic tropes.
Hey, far out. Thanks for this rec.
[edit]Someone stole the SFPL’s copy of The Incompleat Nifft, but I bought a copy of the Dying Earth book.
Definitely SPA by B.F. Camis - It will knock you out.
Another vote here for Finch.
What is Finch?
It’s not dark fantasy (I wouldn’t think so) but I’m going to ahead and recommend Lies of Loche Lamora anyway
It is a book by Jeff Van Der Meer, the third of a loosely connected series of books. They’re all set in the same world, with recurring characters, but at different times, without much shared action between them, so you could likely jump on at any point, though there are some pretty interesting payoffs in Finch from the earlier books. There is a significant variation in style and tone between the books - City of Saints and Madmen is the first, then Shriek: An Afterword, and then Finch. Finch is more noir, more hardboiled in tone, about a detective in a world gone very badly wrong, with corruption all around him, and very little justice. Finch also has a soundtrack by Murder by Death.
Shriek is set up as an annotated memoir, and the changes between the author and his annotator are quite nice. City is a collection of short stories, all about the same city, but with multiple characters. His work reminds me of ‘New Sun’ Gene Wolfe, Borges (but I repeat myself) and a bit of Mieville’s weirdness, though I think Van Der Meer’s prose is a bit richer than Mieville’s.
Cool, that sounds interesting. “prose is a bit richer than Mieville’s” is hard for me to parse, but we’ll see =)
Interestingly enough he also wrote a Predator book. City of Saints and Mad Men is not available on Kindle, but I just downloaded samples for Finch and Shriek.
I would definitely recommend having a look at Clive Barker. His early works are more on the horror tip, but when you start getting into Imajica, Weaveworld and The Great and Secret Show, there really is no-one quite like him.
Absolutely second Gemmel. The Drenai series gritty, dark, old style pulpy hack n slash. Also the Stones of Power/Sipstrassi series as well.
I echo many of the above (Cooke, Abercrombie) and want to third Gemmell. Heroic fantasy at its finest. Somehow he can tell similar stories with a completely different characters, but give me goose bumps when that character starts doing his serious business. I have never head “Hack n’ slash” used as a descriptor, but that fits precisely the style and it is a style Gemmell does better than most.
Legend is one of my favorite books in the entire fantasy genre.
If someone wanted to see what Gemmel was like, what book would you folks recommend?
The first book of the Drenai series is Legend. Think 300 meets old man Conan.
The Stones of Power/Sipstrassi series reminds me a little bit of the Dark Tower in a post-apocalyptic world where Atlantis erupts and flips the world on its axis. The protagonist, Jon Shannow is a … gunslinger. If you loved the DT, you will love this. You can start with Wolf In Shadow.
Not sure how dark it is, but in terms of the characters being well written and gritty, I am a fab of Robin hobb.
If you are going to read Hobb. Start with Assassin’s Apprentice.
If it is not in my local bookstore, I usually do not pick things up and the Stones of Power books of Gemmell have never been there. I have wondered if it is worth searching them out. I did enjoy the Rigante books as well.
I have read, I think, all of the Drenai books of which there are 9. They are most all terrifically fun, easy reads:
Based on the OP’s spec sheet, I’m also going to recommend The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. It’s set in history but with buckets of magic and myth crossing over, and is a hell of a great book besides.
H.
You might like the Shadows of the Apt series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. First one is called Empire in Black and Gold.
Richard Morgan’s The Steel Remains was pretty decent, especially if you liked The First Law series.
Really, any book. He writes the same story over and over. I say that with love as I’ve read them all and loved them all. His Rigante series is my favorite. I wouldn’t really call his books “dark” though, except perhaps the bloodstone books (the Jon Shannow series?).
The Mistborn series by Sanderson is pretty dark.