What would be the use of having a team of book reviewers at your disposal if you didn’t occasionally round them up and mine them for recommendations??

This is precisely what we enjoy to do every Women In SFF (and they love me for it…)

This year, we decided to go hand-in-hand with our Photo Challenge on Instagram and offer up recommendations based on particular tropes in SFF. This first week, we’ll be looking at the most traditional of fantasy tropes: Quests!

Beth: I don’t think there are that many new fantasies that deal with the quest trope, as it’s a little done to death – but if anyone can breathe new life into a done-to-death trope, it is of course the genius that is Jen Williams, and this is exactly what she’s done in Talonsister. In fact, there are three quests in this story, because why bother doing anything by half? My favourite journey is that of Leven. To become the magic-enhanced warrior she is, she had to sacrifice her memories. Now however, she’s experiencing debilitating flashbacks. The sight of griffins in these flashbacks lead her to the last place they reside, Brittletain, where she encounters Druins, spirits, and warring Queens aplenty.

Beth’s review | Available now

Book One

Nils: As Beth has mentioned, this is a trope I feel has been dying out too, and I might be in the minority here but I’m sad for that. Give me quests spanning across sweeping fantasy lands and oceans, give me a quest to find hidden artefacts and lost magic and give me a race against time to save the world. These are the kind of stories I thoroughly enjoy escaping into and I hope for it to make a resurgence. Having said that, a trilogy which I completed just last year gave me exactly this—The Drowning Empire by Andrea Stewart. My favourite two characters to follow were Lin and Jovis, who both had personal quests alongside ones for the empire, and I also became besotted with their animal companions. 

Read-along | Available now

Kat: Quest books are an instant yes for me. They’re a classic and hugely underrated breed of story and so easy to love when they’re well-executed. My current favourite is definitely Nine Goblins by T Kingfisher: a short novella about a gang of goblins that get unexpectedly transported from their side of the battlefield to the enemy’s side and having to find their way back again. It’s hilarious and heart-warming and just a bundle of fun. It makes me sad that it only exists as an eBook. 

Available on Amazon

Cat: I love fantasy that deviates from the Tolkien tradition (which I do enjoy, but it has been copied a LOT). My favourite female authors who’ve taken the life-or-death save-the-world mission and run with it have been Jacqueline Carey with the Kushiel books – not only a strong woman, but essentially a kinky Lady of the Night too – and Tamora Pierce’s Lioness series. These start as simple survival, with girls who need to find their way in the world against a system set against them, to literal journeys into the unknown with everything at stake. They aren’t defined by their roles or societal expectations; they carve their own paths bravely, and that guarantees my attention every time.

Available now

What’s your favourite Quest story? Let us know on socials using #WomenInSFF!