A Game of Thrones
George R. R. Martin
1996
Books with the “Grimdark” trope
A brutal world without heroes, full of violence, cynicism, and little hope of anything better.
Search with filters
17 books3% of the catalog
Atmosphere and mood · Grimdark
Books with this trope
The Blade Itself
Joe Abercrombie
2006
Best Served Cold
Joe Abercrombie
2009
Gardens of the Moon
Steven Erikson
1999
The Black Company
Glen Cook
1984
Perdido Street Station
China Miéville
2000
The Poppy War
R. F. Kuang
2018
The Fifth Season
N. K. Jemisin
2015
The Darkness That Comes Before
R. Scott Bakker
2003
The Warded Man
Peter V. Brett
2008
The Shadow of the Gods
John Gwynne
2021
Prince of Thorns
Mark Lawrence
2011
Empire of the Vampire
Jay Kristoff
2021
Between Two Fires
Christopher Buehlman
2012
The Court of Broken Knives
Anna Smith Spark
2017
Priest of Bones
Peter McLean
2018
The Blacktongue Thief
Christopher Buehlman
2021
Often found together with
Combinations that already exist in the catalog. Click to search for both.
Dark Fantasy
Morally Grey Character
RevengeRelated tropes
Dark Fantasy
A bleak fantasy world without clear good or evil, where magic always comes at a high price.
Cozy Mystery
A gentle whodunit full of tea, small towns, and amateur sleuthing rather than graphic violence.
Creeping Dread
Horror that slowly builds a quiet sense that something is terribly wrong, instead of using jump scares or gore.
Magical Realism
Magic and the strange are woven naturally into everyday, ordinary life.