As promised on August 10, I’m adding to my June 22nd post on newer fantasy series that are similar to The Wall of Night by bringing you the companion list-of-five for older and “formative” (for me!) series that I consider “of like kind” to the WALL series.

I started with The Lord of the Rings, of course — how could I not?! 😀 — but today I’m going with a series that I understand was written as a kind of counter-culture to The Lord of the Rings. For example, Elric is as much, if not more, antihero than hero and definitely not a paragon like Aragorn. All of which is completely fine by me, since I love them both. 😀

Similarly, much as I loved The Lord of the Rings from first picking it up, I was also blown away by my first encounter with Elric, which was in a book titled The Sailor on the Seas of Fate. Yes, I know, it’s a great title — and the read that followed did not disappoint!

In particular, I loved its weird, with supernatural and demon realms overlaying the real world and lashings of equally weird magic; my first encounter with a soul-sucking sword (Stormbringer); a mysterious and enigmatic hero (or anti-hero); and a decaying but still potent empire and web of politics. All qualities that characterized the other books in the series, which I then proceeded to read.

If you aren’t spotting elements-in-common with The Wall of Night series yet then you should be, because The Sailor on the Seas of Fate and subsequent Elric reads definitely fired my imagination. 😀

The only caution I would sound, if you haven’t read any Elric yet and are wondering if it would repay a look, is that it is way more weird than WALL, despite the latter’s “strange magic” a la Robin Hobbs. But if you’re ready to embrace your weird and dive into a series with plenty of the mysterious, alongside magical and sometimes horrific adventure, then Elric of Melniboné could be just what you’re looking for.