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Books like Unsouled

Will Wight · 2016 · US · fantasy
Book 1 of 12 in Cradle
★ 4.13 Goodreads · 64,065 ratings

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

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12 books for readers of Unsouled

I Shall Seal the Heavens

Er Gen · 2014 · China 99% match
shares: cultivation, underdog, power progression · plain prose, speculative

Meng Hao, a failed scholar, is kidnapped by a cultivation sect and becomes a cultivator, a ruthless and resourceful one.

Coiling Dragon

I Eat Tomatoes · 2008 · China 98% match
shares: cultivation, power progression, coming of age · easy read, plain prose

Linley Baruch, son of a fallen noble house in a world of magic and warriors, finds a ring with an ancient spirit inside and begins his rise.

The Rage of Dragons

Evan Winter · 2017 · US 97% match ★ 4.30 Goodreads · 51,792 ratings
Book 1 of 2 in The Burning
shares: martial arts, action heavy, propulsive · speculative, 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.

Solo Leveling

Chugong · 2014 · South Korea 97% match ★ 4.38 Goodreads · 11,907 ratings
shares: underdog, power progression, action heavy · easy read, plain prose

In a world where gates to monster-filled dungeons have opened, Sung Jinwoo, the weakest of the hunters, survives a deadly dungeon and finds he can level up alone.

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit

Nahoko Uehashi · 1996 · Japan 95% match ★ 4.04 Goodreads · 3,075 ratings
shares: martial arts · easy read, speculative

Balsa, a thirty-year-old spear-wielding bodyguard, saves the young prince Chagum from drowning and is hired to protect him from his own father's assassins, who believe the spirit egg the boy carries must be destroyed.

Dawn of Wonder

Jonathan Renshaw · 2015 · US 95% match ★ 4.35 Goodreads · 26,179 ratings
shares: underdog, coming of age · easy read, earnest

A boy enters a legendary military academy where the training is brutal and the mysteries of an ancient power lie buried beneath.

The Alloy of Law

Brandon Sanderson · 2011 · US 93% match ★ 4.19 Goodreads · 316,215 ratings
Book 1 of 4 in Mistborn: Wax and Wayne
shares: action heavy, propulsive · easy read, speculative

Three hundred years after the Mistborn trilogy, a lawman back from the frontier and his irreverent sidekick take on a gang hijacking trains in a city of railways and electric light.

A Darker Shade of Magic

V.E. Schwab · 2015 · US 92% match ★ 4.03 Goodreads · 448,775 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in Shades of Magic
shares: propulsive · easy read, speculative

Kell, one of the last magicians who can travel between parallel Londons, Grey, Red, White and long-dead Black, smuggles objects between them, until a dangerous artefact and a thief named Lila Bard draw him into a deadly plot.

Sufficiently Advanced Magic

Andrew Rowe · 2017 · US 92% match ★ 4.10 Goodreads · 28,377 ratings
shares: power progression, progression · speculative, plain prose

Corin Cadence enters the spire, a tower whose trials grant magical powers to those who pass, hoping to find his brother, who went in five years ago and never came out.

Throne of Glass

Sarah J. Maas · 2012 · US 92% match ★ 4.18 Goodreads · 2,728,581 ratings
Book 1 of 8 in Throne of Glass
shares: propulsive · easy read, speculative

An eighteen-year-old assassin pulled from a salt mine competes to become the king's champion, while something in the glass castle kills the other contestants one by one.

Foundryside

Robert Jackson Bennett · 2018 · US 92% match ★ 4.16 Goodreads · 59,888 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Founders
shares: action heavy, propulsive · speculative, easy read

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

Jade City

Fonda Lee · 2017 · Canada 92% match ★ 4.05 Goodreads · 130,653 ratings
Book 1 of 3 in The Green Bone Saga
shares: martial arts, propulsive · speculative, easy read

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.