Fantasy with Friends: Underrated Fantasy Books

Fantasy with Friends is a weekly meme hosted by the good people over at Pages Unbound. Fantasy with Friends poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.

This week’s prompt is:

What is an underrated fantasy book you would recommend?

When I saw this prompt, one title jumped immediately to mind. “Well, this is going to be an easy post,” I said to myself. And then I felt bad that I didn’t think of another book. Then another came to mind, and when I started actually writing. I will do my best to stop thinking about it so I can actually finish this post.

The Tufa Series by Alex Bledsoe

I’ve never seen anyone else talk about this fantastic series about a small ethnic group in Appalachia who are supernaturally wonderful musicians. And just supernatrual, too. I loved each and every one of these, even if I didn’t write about them all. For more information, check out https://alexbledsoe.com/the-tufa/.

The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu

Despite having loved this so much, I’ve yet to read the other two books in the trilogy. There’s Chosen One, who turns out not to have been; there’s a cranky old woman who’s the greatest martial artist alive–who teaches the spoiled brat who turns out not to be that Chosen more than anyone expected; there’s an assassin going around causing trouble and…so much else going on. I was blown away by this wuxia-inspired novel and highly commend it. (as I tried to express here)

The Hero Interviews by Andi Ewington

This is the one that jumped immediately to mind. Ewington’s satire/celebration/commentary on D&D and related fiction/games is ridiculous and thoughtful. In this book, a non-adventurer goes around interviewing all sorts of Fantasy types who are adventurers or are adventurer-adjacent about what it means to be a hero. He finds a lot more than that–and maybe learns a bit about himself. (I gushed about it here)

The Part About the Dragon Was (Mostly) True by Sean Gibson

Speaking of hilarity…this book tells the story of how a group of adventurers vanquish a dragon. It’s a well-known historical account. This book also is a telling of what really happened that didn’t quite make the official account. That’s as succinct as I can put it. Don’t miss it. (I rambled about it a bit more here)

I’m sure some of the other posts in response to this prompt will be more thoughtful and will include titles I need to add to my list. I’m looking forward to reading them. Do you have responses to this? (either for the comment section below or from your own post)