Whenever I have a conversation with someone about fantasy fiction, we always seem to end up recommending the same things. Things like The Name of the Wind by Rothfuss (the Kingkiller Chronicles), The Lies of Locke Lamora by Lynch (Gentleman Bastard series), or the Earthsea books – I revisited these recently and books one and two are still absolute bangers – by le Guin. Tolkien is always implied, maybe Philip Pullman and George R.R. Martin too, and Sapkowski's popular now too.
And this – this merry-go-round of the same recommendations – it started to bother me. It's not because the books are rubbish; obviously they're not. But they're known. Fantasy is saturated by them. And their voices, excluding le Guin, are all quite similar. I realised I'd become a bit trapped by their influence, and I realised I wanted something new.
