What to read after “The Death of the Necromancer” by Martha Wells: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.
In a city of canals and thieves, Locke Lamora leads a small band of con artists who rob the nobility. A hidden power turns the tables, and the crew find themselves caught in a scheme far larger than any of their own.
In an ash-covered empire, a street thief is trained in allomancy, the magic of burning metals. She joins a crew planning to overthrow the immortal Lord Ruler, though the prophecy around her may be a lie.
A street criminal offers six dangerous outcasts a fortune to break into an impregnable fortress and rescue a captive inventor. The heist needs a plan no one has tried before, and none of the crew trusts the others.
Severian is raised in the guild of torturers and exiled from his city after an act of mercy. He narrates his own travels across a dying world, but his perfect memory is perfect only in his own account, and the past conceals far more than he admits.
When the Empire of Masks conquers her island home, Baru Cormorant hides her hatred and joins the imperial civil service. Sent to a restless province as an accountant, she works to rise high enough to free her people, even as her choices cost her the woman she loves.
Yeine Darr is summoned from her northern homeland to the city of Sky, where she is named an heir to the Arameri throne after her mother's death. As she learns the rules of a court that keeps gods as servants, she finds that the contest for the succession is also a trap.
Mia Corvere survives the murder of her family and is taken in by the Red Church, a hidden order of assassins. To earn her place she must pass brutal trials, while her shadow companion and her hunger for revenge push her toward a choice she may not survive.
Kell is one of the last Antari, magicians who can travel between four parallel Londons: Red, Grey, White and the lost Black. After a smuggling exchange goes wrong, he flees into Grey London and meets Lila Bard, a thief who talks her way into his journey. Together they must keep a dangerous object from falling into the wrong hands.
Azoth survives as a guild rat in the slums of Cenaria, where life is cheap. To escape he apprentices himself to Durzo Blint, the city's most feared assassin, and must abandon his old name and life to become Kylar Stern, a killer schooled in dangerous magic and politics.
Carolyn and a dozen other orphans were raised by a man they call Father, who taught them strange arts from a library that may hold the secrets of creation. When Father vanishes, the siblings turn on one another for his power, and Carolyn must decide what she will trade to win.
Mercedes Murcatto, a mercenary general, survives an ambush by the duke she served and loses her brother in the same fall. Assembling a crew of killers and madmen, she begins a patient campaign of revenge in which no method is too cruel and no ally is safe.
Csorwe was raised to be a sacrifice to the Unspoken One, until the wizard Belthandros offers her another life. Trained as his assassin and servant, she is sent to find a lost city and a door between worlds, and begins to wonder whether her second life is any freer than her first.
Arsène Lupin robs the rich with flawless manners and a wink, slipping past locked doors and out of police traps alike. A master of disguise who lives both as an elegant gentleman and as France's most wanted burglar, he steals jewels, paintings and secrets, and often turns his schemes against people who deserve it. The stories follow his ingenious thefts and the detectives who try to catch him.
Fitz is the unacknowledged bastard son of a prince, raised in the shadows of the royal court. Trained secretly as an assassin and bonded to a wolf through the forbidden Wit, he must decide where his loyalty lies as the kingdom's politics turn treacherous.
A. J. Raffles is a celebrated cricketer welcomed into London's best clubs, and by night a daring burglar. His friend Bunny Manders, drawn into the schemes, narrates a series of elegant robberies that mix careful planning with narrow escapes. Raffles steals from the wealthy, keeps his manners, and treats each job as a sport, while the pair dodge the growing danger of being caught.
Sabriel has grown up safely across the Wall, far from the Old Kingdom and its dead. When her father, the Abhorsen, vanishes, she crosses into a land where the dead walk and takes up his bells and his duty. With a free magic creature and a trapped soldier, she sets out to find him.
The Omehi have fought an unwinnable war for generations, where a rare few can call dragons or transform into killing giants. Giftless Tau plans to escape, until betrayal murders those he loves. To avenge them he trains to become the greatest swordsman alive, whatever it costs.
Kinch Na Shannack owes his guild of thieves more than he can ever pay. To settle the debt he tags along with a scarred knight on a journey to find women taken by goblins, through a world of old wars, hungry gods and creatures that would happily eat a thief.
Twelve-year-old Jack Sawyer sets out from New Hampshire to California to find a talisman that may save his dying mother. His road runs through the Territories, a parallel world where many people have counterparts, and where the same journey carries dangers he could never face in his own world.
The Black Company is a band of mercenaries who once served the light and now fight for one side in a war of dark powers. Croaker, the company's physician and annalist, records their grudging days, where the line between good and evil has blurred and surviving matters more than any truth.
Sancia Grado is a thief in Tevanne, a city where scribing commands objects to obey written orders. Hired to steal a key, she finds it holds power that could break the four merchant houses' grip on magic, and the houses will kill to keep that power buried.
Nine-year-old Jorg watched raiders murder his mother and brother. By thirteen he leads a band of killers, and by fifteen he means to take his father's throne. Ruthless and brilliant, he treats cruelty as a tool and will pay any price for the crown he believes is his.
In the city of Tova a solar eclipse is coming, and with it an old prophecy of a god reborn. Xiala, a disgraced sea captain, is ordered to carry a strange young man to the city, while Serapio has been shaped since childhood for a ceremony he does not fully understand.
Logen Ninefingers only wants to be left alone, but his past will not release him. Elsewhere a spoiled nobleman, a crippled inquisitor who tortures for the state, and an old magician are drawn into a conspiracy that could decide the fate of the Union itself.
What should I read after “The Death of the Necromancer”?
Start with “The Lies of Locke Lamora”, “Mistborn: The Final Empire”, “Six of Crows”: they are the closest to “The Death of the Necromancer” in tropes and mood. Under each book in the list you will see what exactly it has in common.
How are similar books chosen?
We compare tropes (for “The Death of the Necromancer” these are Gentleman Thief, Heist, Revenge), genre, plot, era and tone. It is not “readers also bought”; it is similarity in the content itself.
Are there recent books in this list?
Yes. Among the newer ones are “The Lies of Locke Lamora”, “Mistborn: The Final Empire”, “Six of Crows”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
