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Books like The Rage of Dragons

Evan Winter · 2017 · US · fantasy
Book 1 of 2 in The Burning
★ 4.30 Goodreads · 51,792 ratings

In a caste-bound warrior society locked in endless war, a low-born young man with little talent swears revenge on the nobles who killed his father and drives himself through brutal training to get it.

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12 books for readers of The Rage of Dragons

Prince of Thorns

Mark Lawrence · 2011 · UK 97% match ★ 3.82 Goodreads · 126,944 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Broken Empire
shares: dark fantasy, revenge, propulsive, grimdark · action-packed, violent

A tortured prince fights his way to the throne through a grimdark medieval world where cruelty is the only currency and survival is the only virtue.

The Poppy War

R. F. Kuang · 2018 · US 96% match ★ 4.15 Goodreads · 557,801 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Poppy War
shares: dark fantasy, brutal, war, grimdark · earnest, speculative

A war orphan with shamanic powers is drafted into a military academy where she must survive both the brutality of training and the awakening of ancient gods.

The Shadow of the Gods

John Gwynne · 2021 · UK 96% match ★ 4.17 Goodreads · 120,598 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Bloodsworn Saga
shares: action heavy, revenge, brutal · action-packed, earnest

Three hundred years after the gods of Vigrið destroyed one another, Orka, a farmer's wife with a violent past, Varg, an escaped thrall hunting his sister's killer, and Elvar, a warlord's daughter with a war-band, are drawn into a hunt for the gods' remains.

Best Served Cold

Joe Abercrombie · 2009 · UK 96% match ★ 4.25 Goodreads · 119,953 ratings
Book 1 of 4 in The First Law: standalones
shares: dark fantasy, revenge, propulsive, grimdark · action-packed, speculative

A mercenary general plots revenge after being betrayed, hiring a motley company for a blood-soaked campaign across a war-torn land.

The Way of Shadows

Brent Weeks · 2008 · US 96% match ★ 4.15 Goodreads · 179,563 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in Night Angel
shares: dark fantasy, action heavy, brutal · action-packed, speculative

Azoth, a street orphan in the slums of Cenaria, begs the legendary wetboy Durzo Blint to take him as an apprentice in the art of killing, and has to give up his old life and his name to do it.

The Black Company

Glen Cook · 1984 · US 96% match ★ 3.93 Goodreads · 56,869 ratings
Book 1 of 11 in The Black Company
shares: dark fantasy, brutal, war, grimdark · speculative, action-packed

The annalist of a hard-bitten mercenary company records the year his brothers-in-arms took a contract with a sorceress-empress and found themselves fighting for the wrong side.

A Game of Thrones

George R.R. Martin · 1996 · US 95% match ★ 4.45 Goodreads · 2,827,310 ratings
Book 1 of 5 in A Song of Ice and Fire
shares: dark fantasy, brutal, war, grimdark · speculative, action-packed

As summer ends in the Seven Kingdoms, the noble houses scheme for the Iron Throne while an exiled princess gathers dragons and something ancient stirs beyond the Wall.

Red Rising

Pierce Brown · 2014 · US 95% match ★ 4.27 Goodreads · 1,005,632 ratings
Book 1 of 6 in Red Rising
shares: revenge, propulsive, class · action-packed, speculative

On a colonised Mars, a miner discovers the brutal caste system's darkest secret and is recruited for a revolution from the inside.

Jade City

Fonda Lee · 2017 · Canada 95% match ★ 4.05 Goodreads · 130,653 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Green Bone Saga
shares: martial arts, propulsive, brutal · earnest, speculative

On the island of Kekon, two clans of jade-wielding warriors control the city of Janloon and its trade in magical jade, and when a new drug lets anyone use jade, a gang war begins.

Fourth Wing

Rebecca Yarros · 2023 · US 94% match ★ 4.56 Goodreads · 4,012,377 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Empyrean
shares: dragon, propulsive, brutal · action-packed, speculative

A young woman enters a brutal war college for dragon riders, where the dragon chooses you or kills you on the parapet.

Unsouled

Will Wight · 2016 · US 94% match ★ 4.13 Goodreads · 64,065 ratings
Book 1 of 12 in Cradle
shares: martial arts, action heavy, propulsive · speculative, action-packed

A boy born without the ability to use his world's magic system sets out to prove that willpower can overcome any limitation.

The Warded Man

Peter V. Brett · 2008 · US 94% match ★ 4.24 Goodreads · 134,536 ratings
Book 1 of 5 in The Demon Cycle
shares: dark fantasy, brutal · earnest, speculative

Every night demons rise from the ground to hunt and humanity cowers behind magical wards; after his mother's death, eleven-year-old Arlen Bales leaves his village sure that people should fight back, while an herb gatherer's apprentice and a young jongleur find their own ways to survive.