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Books like The Wisdom of Crowds

Joe Abercrombie · 2021 · UK · fantasy
Book 3 of 3 in The Age of Madness
★ 4.59 Goodreads · 45,457 ratings

A demagogue rises to power as three lives intertwine in a world where revolution devours its own children.

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12 books for readers of The Wisdom of Crowds

The Blade Itself

Joe Abercrombie · 2006 · UK 98% match ★ 4.22 Goodreads · 339,692 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The First Law
shares: cynical, dark fantasy, morally ambiguous, grimdark · violent, morally murky

A barbarian, a torturer, and a nobleman are drawn into a war they don't understand, in a grimdark world where nobody is the hero.

The Heroes

Joe Abercrombie · 2011 · UK 98% match ★ 4.35 Goodreads · 82,601 ratings
Book 2 of 4 in The First Law: standalones
shares: cynical, dark fantasy, morally ambiguous, grimdark · ironic, violent

Three days of a brutal battle over a hill and a ring of standing stones, told from many sides: heroes, cowards, schemers and everyone muddling through in between.

The Black Company

Glen Cook · 1984 · US 97% match ★ 3.93 Goodreads · 56,869 ratings
Book 1 of 11 in The Black Company
shares: cynical, dark fantasy, morally ambiguous, grimdark · morally murky, dark

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 96% match ★ 4.45 Goodreads · 2,827,310 ratings
Book 1 of 5 in A Song of Ice and Fire
shares: dark fantasy, morally ambiguous, brutal, grimdark · intricate plot, dark

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.

Prince of Thorns

Mark Lawrence · 2011 · UK 94% match ★ 3.82 Goodreads · 126,944 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Broken Empire
shares: dark fantasy, morally ambiguous, brutal, grimdark · dark, cold

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 94% match ★ 4.15 Goodreads · 557,801 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Poppy War
shares: dark fantasy, brutal, grimdark · dark, violent

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 Pariah

Anthony Ryan · 2021 · UK 94% match ★ 4.15 Goodreads · 19,666 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Covenant of Steel
shares: morally ambiguous, brutal, grimdark · dark, cold

Alwyn, raised among the outlaws of the Shavine Forest, is captured after his band is ambushed and sent to the mines, where he learns to read and write, and the road that follows leads him to Lady Evadine Courlain, a captain whose visions speak of a coming apocalypse.

The Last Wish

Andrzej Sapkowski · 1993 · Poland 94% match ★ 4.14 Goodreads · 439,372 ratings
Book 1 of 9 in The Witcher
shares: dark fantasy, morally ambiguous · cold, ironic

Geralt of Rivia, a witcher who hunts monsters for pay, rests at a temple of the goddess Melitele after a hard fight and remembers the jobs that brought him there.

Promise of Blood

Brian McClellan · 2013 · US 92% match ★ 4.07 Hardcover · 538 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in Powder Mage
shares: revolution, political, multiple narrators · cold, speculative

Field Marshal Tamas leads a coup against the king of Adro and sends the royal cabal of mages to the guillotine, but their dying words hint at a threat from the gods, and his son Taniel, a powder mage, and Adamat, a retired detective, set out to learn what it means.

Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening

Marjorie Liu · 2016 · US 91% match ★ 3.96 Goodreads · 67,016 ratings
Book 1 of 10 in Monstress
shares: dark fantasy, brutal, political, grimdark · dark, cold

In an alternate matriarchal Asia after a cataclysmic war, a teenage half-breed carries a monster inside her and hunts the sorceresses who made her a weapon.

Foundryside

Robert Jackson Bennett · 2018 · US 90% match ★ 4.16 Goodreads · 59,888 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Founders
shares: industrial · speculative, deep world-building

A thief in a city of magical industry discovers that the technology everyone depends on has a terrifying sentient origin.

The Rage of Dragons

Evan Winter · 2017 · US 89% match ★ 4.30 Goodreads · 51,792 ratings
Book 1 of 2 in The Burning
shares: dark fantasy, brutal, grimdark · violent, action-packed

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.