Game of Thrones gave millions of readers and viewers a taste for political fantasy that doesn't flinch — morally grey characters, unexpected deaths, intricate plots, and a world that feels lived-in and brutal. These 20 series deliver the same experience, and many of them are actually finished.
If George R.R. Martin is the reason you love complex, morally ambiguous fantasy, Joe Abercrombie is your next author. The First Law is darker, funnier, and more subversive than A Song of Ice and Fire — and it's complete. Three volumes, then a series of devastating standalones set in the same world. Start with The Blade Itself.
Ten volumes of the most ambitious epic fantasy ever written. Erikson's scope makes Westeros look small — empires rise and fall, gods walk the earth, and armies of tens of thousands clash across continents. The learning curve is steep (Gardens of the Moon throws you in at the deep end) but Deadhouse Gates is one of the greatest fantasy novels ever written.
If the court politics of King's Landing are what hooked you, Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy delivers the same experience with more emotional depth and better character writing. FitzChivalry Farseer navigates a royal court where every ally is a potential betrayer, and the cost of service to the crown is everything.
Martin famously struggles to finish his series. Sanderson famously cannot stop finishing things. The Stormlight Archive is epic in scope, politically complex, and already four enormous volumes in with the finale planned. Different in tone from ASOIAF — more hopeful, less sexualised — but equal in ambition.
The most purely political fantasy novel ever written. Baru Cormorant is an accountant trying to destroy an empire using its own financial systems as weapons. The plotting is Machiavellian, the moral stakes are enormous, and the ending of the first book is the most shocking thing in recent fantasy. For readers who loved the politics more than the dragons.
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Try the Fantasy Oracle →A city built on crime, a gang of gentlemen thieves, and plots within plots. Lynch's Camorr is Westeros scaled to a city-state — beautifully detailed, morally complex, and full of unexpected betrayals. The political structures of the Camorri underworld are as intricate as any royal court.
View on Amazon →For readers who found the Red Wedding's unflinching brutality compelling rather than off-putting. Kuang's trilogy is inspired by 20th century Chinese history and does not flinch from depicting what war actually does to people and nations. Among the most powerful and disturbing fantasy novels ever written.
The Age of Madness trilogy returns to the First Law world a generation later, during something like an industrial revolution. The politics are denser, the world is larger, and Abercrombie has grown as a writer. If you've already read the original trilogy, this is essential.
Worth listing separately from the trilogy because The Blade Itself's opening — introducing Logen Ninefingers, Inquisitor Glokta, and Jezal dan Luthar — is one of the best trilogy openings in the genre. If Game of Thrones' character introductions are what hooked you, start here.
View on Amazon →For Game of Thrones readers who want to go darker and stranger. Bakker's Second Apocalypse series is philosophical epic fantasy about a world where a millennia-old war is about to restart, and a figure called the Warrior-Prophet is manipulating everyone around him. Dense, demanding, and extraordinary.