Books like “The Magicians”

What to read after “The Magicians” by Lev Grossman: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Atlas Six
Olivie Blake · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
Six talented magicians are invited to the Alexandrian Society, a secret fellowship that guards lost knowledge. Only five can be initiated at the end of the year, and the recruits must decide how far they will go to keep their places, and whom they are willing to betray.
2
Vicious
V. E. Schwab · 2013
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
- Found Family
Victor and Eli are brilliant, lonely college roommates who turn a theory about near-death experiences into something real. Ten years later Victor leaves prison to hunt the friend who became his enemy, each armed with dangerous powers and neither willing to stop.
3
A Deadly Education
Naomi Novik · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia” and “Dark Fantasy”
The Scholomance is a magic school with no teachers, where students learn spells while monsters pick them off between lessons. Galadriel 'El' Higgins, feared for the dark power a prophecy says she will wield, has to survive to graduation and the hungry things waiting in the dark.
4
Vita Nostra
Marina Dyachenko and Sergey Dyachenko · 2007
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia” and “Dark Fantasy”
Sasha Samokhina fails her exams and is told to attend a remote institute instead. There the lessons are strange and punishing, and students are asked to do things that break the usual rules of the world. Obedience may unlock a terrifying kind of power.
5
The Traitor Baru Cormorant
Seth Dickinson · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
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.
6
The Way of Shadows
Brent Weeks · 2008
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Coming of Age
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.
7
The Poppy War
R. F. Kuang · 2018
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
Rin, a war orphan from the impoverished south, tests into Sinegard, the empire's elite military academy, and discovers a shamanic power tied to the gods. When war with the Federation erupts she is forced to use it, and the cost turns out to be monstrous.
8
If We Were Villains
M. L. Rio · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
Seven acting students at an elite Shakespeare conservatory are so close they share every role. When one of them is found dead during their final year, the friends must decide what story to tell the police. Ten years later, one of them finally explains what really happened.
9
The Name of the Wind
Patrick Rothfuss · 2007
Similar setting: “Magic Academy”
- Magic Academy
- Coming of Age
Kvothe, once a renowned magician and musician, tells a scribe the truth behind his own reputation. His story moves from a travelling troupe to a brutal city and the magic school where he learned far too much.
10
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
N. K. Jemisin · 2010
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
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.
11
Lord Foul's Bane
Stephen R. Donaldson · 1977
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
- Portal Fantasy
Thomas Covenant, a leper shunned by everyone, is struck down and wakes in the Land, a place where his white gold wedding ring carries power. He refuses to believe any of it is real, even as its people hail him as a saviour.
12
The Shadow of the Torturer
Gene Wolfe · 1980
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Fantasy”
- Dark Fantasy
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.