AmongReaders.com Add a tiny library
📚 AmongReaders — track what you read, talk chapter by chapter without spoilers, and read with friends. Free.Join AmongReadersSign in

🧲 Books like this

The Cold Commands

Richard K. Morgan · back to the book

What’s in it

Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.

24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

Berserk, Vol. 12

Kentaro Miura · 216 pages

The Band of the Hawks’ rescue of their leader, Griffith, has brought them no ease. Broken beyond healing, a frail ghost of his former glory, Griffith is now more an object of pity than a man, and the Hawks, who’ve grimly hung together under duress and death during his absence, are now on the verge of splintering to the winds. But Griffith’s dreams and ambitions, built on the bodies of his troops a

GrimdarkDark FantasyAnti-HeroViolent
❤️
GrimdarkDark FantasyAnti-HeroViolent
❤️

The Trouble with Peace

Joe Abercrombie · 509 pages

Conspiracy. Betrayal. Rebellion. Peace is just another kind of battlefield . . . Savine dan Glokta, once Adua’s most powerful investor, finds her judgement, fortune and reputation in tatters. But she still has all her ambitions, and no scruple will be permitted to stand in her way. For heroes like Leo dan Brock and Stour Nightfall, only happy with swords drawn, peace is an ordeal to end

GrimdarkDark FantasyAnti-HeroViolent
❤️

Blackwing

Ed McDonald · 360 pages

"Set on a postapocalyptic frontier, Blackwing is a gritty fantasy debut about a man's desperate battle to survive his own dark destiny ... Hope, reason, humanity: the Misery breaks them all. Under its cracked and wailing sky, the Misery is a vast and blighted expanse, the arcane remnant of a devastating war with the immortals known as the Deep Kings. The war ended nearly a century ago, and the ene

GrimdarkDark FantasyAnti-HeroViolent
❤️

Beyond Redemption

Michael R. Fletcher · 495 pages

A darkly imaginative writer in the tradition of Joe Abercrombie, Peter V. Brett, and Neil Gaiman conjures a gritty mind-bending fantasy, set in a world where delusion becomes reality... and the fulfillment of humanity's desires may well prove to be its undoing.

GrimdarkDark FantasyAnti-HeroViolent
❤️

Empire of the Damned

Jay Kristoff · 709 pages

Dark FantasyGrimdarkAnti-HeroDark
❤️

The Black Company

Glen Cook · 319 pages

Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must, burying their doubts with their dead. Until the prophesy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more. There must be a way for the Black Company to find her... So begins one

GrimdarkDark FantasyAnti-HeroViolent
❤️

Bloodstorm

Dan Abnett, Mike Lee · 416 pages

Malus Darkblade is forced to seek a number of magic artifacts when he is possessed by the daemon Tz'arkan or his soul will be forfeit, in this second novel in the Darkblade series.

GrimdarkDark FantasyAnti-HeroDark
❤️

Blade of Tyshalle

Matthew Woodring Stover · 725 pages

Twenty-seven years ago, they said Hari Michaelson didn't have a chance. He was just a loser, a street criminal from a disgraced family. He'd never make anything of himself. They were wrong. He made himself into Caine: Killer. Superstar. Hero . . .THE BLADE OF TYSHALLESix years ago, Ma'elkoth--a god of Overworld--held Pallas Ril in his merciless grip. Earth's ruling elite wanted her dead. Caine swo

Dark FantasyGrimdarkAnti-HeroViolent
❤️

Shadow's Edge

Brent Weeks · 656 pages

Kylar Stern has rejected the assassin's life. In the wake of the Godking's violent coup, both his master and his closest friend are dead. His friend was Logan Gyre, heir to Cenaria's throne, but few of the ruling class survive to mourn his loss. So Kylar is starting over: new city, new companions, and new profession. But when he learns that Logan might be alive, trapped and in hiding, Kylar faces

Dark FantasyGrimdarkAnti-HeroDark
❤️

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Marlon James · 640 pages

GrimdarkLGBTQ+ ProtagonistAnti-HeroViolent
❤️

Sword of the North

Luke Scull · 480 pages

It is the Age of Ruin, a time in desperate need of heroes. But heroes are in short supply. The only candidates a motley company at best are scattered to the four winds. Former rebel Sasha has now become an unwilling envoy between the powerful. Eremul the Halfmage languishes in disgrace, his warnings of approaching war falling on deaf ears. Yllandris, sorceress of the High Fangs, servant to a demon

GrimdarkDark FantasyAnti-HeroViolent
❤️

Blood Follows

Steven Erikson · 107 pages

All is not well in Lamentable Moll. A sinister, diabolical killer stalks the port city's narrow, barrow-humped streets, and panic grips the citizens like a fever. Emancipor Reese is no exception, and indeed, with his legendary ill luck, it's worse for him than for most. Not only was his previous employer the unknown killer's latest victim, but Emancipor is out of work. But perhaps his luck has

Dark FantasyGrimdarkAnti-HeroFantasy
❤️

The Burning God

R.F. Kuang · 622 pages

The exciting end to The Poppy War trilogy, R. F. Kuang’s acclaimed, award-winning epic fantasy that combines the history of twentieth-century China with a gripping world of gods and monsters, to devastating, enthralling effect. After saving her nation of Nikan from foreign invaders and battling the evil Empress Su Daji in a brutal civil war, Fang Runin was betrayed by allies and left for dead. Des

GrimdarkDark FantasyAnti-HeroViolent
❤️

She Who Waits

Daniel Polansky · 407 pages

Low Town: the worst ghetto in the worst city in the Thirteen Lands. Good only for depravity and death. And Warden, long ago a respected agent in the formidable Black House, is now the most depraved Low Town denizen of them all. As a younger man, Warden carried out more than his fair share of terrible deeds, and never as many as when he worked for the Black House. But Warden's growing older, and th

Dark FantasyGrimdarkAnti-HeroDark
❤️

The Children of Húrin

J.R.R. Tolkien · 320 pages

The ‘Great Tale’ of The Children of Húrin, set during the legendary time before The Lord of the Rings. Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwells in the vast fortress of Angband in the North; and within the shadow of the fear of Angband, and the war waged by Morgoth against the Elves, the fates of Turin and his sister Nienor will be tragically entwined. Their brief and passionate lives are dominated by

Dark FantasyGrimdarkAnti-HeroFantasy
❤️

Elric of Melniboné

Michael Moorcock · 192 pages

**Elric of Melniboné** is a 1972 fantasy novel by **Michael Moorcock**. It is the first original full-length novel to feature **Elric**, the last emperor of the stagnating island civilisation of Melniboné who wields the cursed, soul-drinking sword **Stormbringer**.

Dark FantasyGrimdarkAnti-HeroFantasy
❤️

The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

Jesse Bullington · 464 pages

Hegel and Manfried Grossbart may not consider themselves bad men - but death still stalks them through the dark woods of medieval Europe. The year is 1364, and the brothers Grossbart have embarked on a naive quest for fortune. Descended from a long line of graverobbers, they are determined to follow their family's footsteps to the fabled crypts of Gyptland. To get there, they will have to brave

Dark FantasyGrimdarkAnti-HeroDark
❤️

Empire Ascendant

Kameron Hurley · 460 pages

Every two thousand years, the dark star Oma appears in the sky, bringing with it a tide of death and destruction. And those who survive must contend with friends and enemies newly imbued with violent powers. The kingdom of Saiduan already lies in ruin, decimated by invaders from another world who share the faces of those they seek to destroy. Now the nation of Dhai is under siege by the same force

Dark FantasyGrimdarkLGBTQ+ ProtagonistDark
❤️

Bloodstone

Karl Edward Wagner

Dark FantasyGrimdarkAnti-HeroDark
❤️

A Game of Thrones

George R.R. Martin · 801 pages

***A Game of Thrones*** is the inaugural novel in ***A Song of Ice and Fire***, an epic series of fantasy novels crafted by the American author **George R. R. Martin**. Published on August 1, 1996, this novel introduces readers to the richly detailed world of Westeros and Essos, where political intrigue, power struggles, and magical elements intertwine. The story unfolds through multiple perspe

Dark FantasyGrimdarkAnti-HeroViolent
❤️
Dark FantasyGrimdarkLGBTQ+ ProtagonistFantasy
❤️

The Desert Spear

Peter V. Brett · 689 pages

The sun is setting on humanity. The night now belongs to voracious demons that arise as the sun sets, preying upon a dwindling population forced to cower behind ancient and half-forgotten symbols of power. These wards alone can keep the demons at bay, but legends tell of a Deliverer: a general--some would say prophet--who once bound all mankind into a single force that defeated the demons. Those t

Dark FantasyAnti-HeroGrimdarkDark
❤️

The Tower of the Swallow

Andrzej Sapkowski · 445 pages

GrimdarkDark FantasyViolentDark
📖 New 2026 Kindles just released. See them on Amazon ↗