Currently reading The Black Prism by Brent Weeks. Not far enough in yet to really make a judgement call. Magic system is interesting for sure. The vibe is a lot of political jockeying, largely structured around the nature of the world's magic.
Audiobook, currently listening to Warping Minds and other Misdemeanors by Annette Marie and Rob Jacobsen. At first it didn't appeal to me as much as The Guild Codex: Spellbound (in the same world), but it's been growing on me.
In A Realm Reborn, flying for all zones unlocks immediately after the end of the 2.0 quests, so you'll have flight during all the patch quests.
In the expansions, flight is unlocked by a combination of doing certain side quests and finding a certain number of aether currents in the zone. Once you've done all of them, you get flight in that zone. Typically, the last quest you need to get flight is locked behind completing most of the story in that area.
I really liked the narration of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. Two narrators actually, one who does the first person narration of Amina which accounts for the majority of the story, and one other narrator serving as a story teller filling in narrative details, letters that appeared between chapters, and that sort of thing.
The narrators felt like they were part of the world the book describes, and Amina's parts in particular are told as though she's recounting her story at a tavern (complete with occasionally turning away to shout at a particularly obtuse listener). In short, it feels exactly like you're listening to the pirate captain recounting her own tale.
Below, ser mentioned Dragonlance Chronicles and Riftwar Cycle, and I have to second those. They are older, and while I feel they've aged with a certain amount of grace, there are certainly standout newer series that have raised the bar, but I still enjoy them. Riftwar in particular had an interesting take on magic and gods that made it fascinating for me.
I also think, however overhyped it may be, that the first two trilogies about Drizzt Do'urden are solid reads. The first trilogy of Homeland, Soujourn, and Exile is some of the best worldbuilding I've seen in fantasy of its time, and Icewind Dale is a great adventure as well. The later books do tend to suffer a lot from power creep and the series runs far too long for my tastes, but the first two trilogies are solid.
I'd also recommend anything by Robin Hobb, who has a deep and fascinating fantasy world and an excellent mind for characterization. Also pretty good at twisting the knife on her readers from time to time. She has a lot of trilogies/series that take place in the same world, and any of which would be a reasonable place to start, so skim through and pick one that seems like it might be appealing.
For historical fantasy, there's a lot, but to name one I loved, S.A. Chakraborty writes some truly fascinating and exciting adventurous escapades through the world of middle eastern mythology. Her recent Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is both a really fun adventurous romp across the 12th century Indian Ocean, and a thoughtful insight into motherhood, and the ways in which it changes you and leaves you the same.
Or, if you like a historical war fantasy, R.F. Kuang wrote the trilogy The Poppy War that takes place in what is essentially an alternate world fantasy-China that starts off a little Harry Potter, but very quickly becomes a long, drawn out story of war, rebellion, and the many wrongs that happen along the way. You may wish to consider reading trigger warnings on these books.
Or, if you want some urban/contemporary fantasy (meaning fantasy stories that take place here in our modern real-world Earth, except there's magic), Jim Butcher has a very gritty urban series called Dresden Files about being a noir-style detective investigating crimes involving magic that is extremely popular.
On the opposite urban fantasy mood, I've recently stumbled into Annette Marie's series The Guild Codex: Spellbound, wherein a human woman desperate for work accidentally stumbles into the magical world when she applies for a bartending position at what turns out to be a guild of mythics (people with magical powers), which she survives through sheer force of personality, no small amount of sass, and expert aim with a margarita. It hooks with its premise, but really the character growth and world development in this series has had me addicted lately.
And to suggest something a little off the beaten path, Jim C. Hines wrote a series of novels beginning with The Stepsister Scheme which asks, "What if those fairy tale Disney princesses were actually badasses?" The main characters (not actually based on their Disney versions of course, as these stories existed long before Disney) have a lot of depth that gets revealed over the course of the story. There is some very dark backstory here, so consider checking trigger warnings if that's a concern. Mostly though this is a Charlie's Angels style (minus Charlie) more action-focused series.
I have always thought that "Let's keep our land..." would be a more positive and active take than just asking God to take care of it for us.
Staying caught up with Nick & Lever, that one is nuts in the best possible way.
Read through The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All. I'd caught bits and pieces of it on the sub in the past but finally caught up with it. Cute, fun, great style.
Demon Magic and a Martini, by Annette Marie
Book 4, first book is Three Mages and a Margarita. After some heavier reads I'd been looking for a lighter story to listen to on my work commute, and the premise of a woman stumbling into a bartending gig for a guild of mythics (people with magic, hidden from the rest of society) by accident and handling it all through sheer force of personality and no small amount of sass sounded fun. It was all that, but it also became an engaging world with interesting and thoughtful characters, individual and mutual character growth, and well, now I'm four books in and trying out some of her other series.
Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang
Kuang's Poppy War trilogy in fact is among those heavier books I mentioned having read above, so I knew her works were good. With all the recent talk of AI plagiarism plus the ongoing topic of who can tell what stories and so on, I thought this would be an interesting read. Kuang does a good job of painting what exactly the world is like - the publishing world, but also the online world, society in general, the people out of the loop... this book doesn't answer the questions so much as it makes you think about them from all the different angles. It's really well written and thought out.
The City of Brass, by S.A. Chakraborty
This kept getting recommended to me when I'd look for steampunk stuff, which is weird, because it's decidedly not that at all. Still, it seemed interesting enough, and once I picked it up, it was incredibly engaging. Main character Nahri has been hiding a magical talent, accidentally uses a bit too much and summons a djinni, and this lands her smack in the middle of a political mess in the titular city between the various elemental beings of middle eastern mythology. Each time I thought I figured out what this book was going to be, it seemed to veer in another direction, yet always a predictable one if you really thought about the characters and their backgrounds and motivations. Looking forward to book 2. For a more adventurous, sea-faring romp by the same author, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is an incredible story, and the audiobook's first person narration could not be better (City of Brass I read in epub form, not audio, so I can't speak to it).
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, by Sangu Mandanna
It seems like the subgenre of cozy slice-of-life fantasy has been really popular post-pandemic, and this contemporary fantasy is a pretty great example of one. Finding family, finding acceptance, being a small, positive change in the world, and being able to be yourself around the people you love and who love you. A super cozy read.
Yeah it used to be great. I've kept around a bit on it for book club stuff and custom notifications, but I mostly use Storygraph in its place these days. A bit rough around the edges yet but has been working decently for me.
Pity Amazon got its claws on Goodreads though.
For some chill, positive vibes that had me up rather too late flipping pages, I'd recommend either or both of:
They're basically the novel version of a slice of life comic/manga. L&L is more high fantasy, while Very Secret Society is here on Earth if witches were real. It feels like there's a sub-genre of these kinds of stories popping up post pandemic and I'm all for it.
For something more action-packed, this one was incredibly engaging:
Dug back into Dragon's Dogma (2016) recently. Still really enjoy that game. Maybe the best character creator in a non-soulslike single player game, which I think is the itch I was trying to scratch. Currently C$6.39 on Steam (so I'd guess probably US$5 or so).