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John Gwynne is one of the best fantasy writers working today — and I don’t say that lightly. The Faithful and the Fallen is the series that established him, and it’s the series I recommend most often to readers who tell me they love grimdark fantasy but want something that actually makes them care about the characters.
Because that’s the thing about Gwynne. He writes battles with real weight, consequences that stick, and deaths that hurt. But his characters are warm in a way that most grimdark writers don’t attempt. You don’t just respect them — you root for them. And in a genre where characters tend to be either grimly competent or expendably tragic, that’s rarer than it should be.
Four books. Read all of them.
Buy the complete Faithful and the Fallen series on Amazon
The World
The series is set in the Banished Lands — a continent locked in the ancient tension between the Faithful, who follow the Maker, and the Fallen, the corrupted descendants of his angels. The conflict is biblical in scale, but Gwynne keeps it grounded in the everyday: farming communities, family bonds, the slow rot of power, the loyalty of a dog.
That last one isn’t a throwaway. Storm, Corban’s wolf, is one of fantasy’s great animal companions, and the relationship between them is central to the whole series. If that sounds sentimental, don’t worry — Gwynne earns every emotional beat he goes for.
The world draws on dark-age history rather than the standard medieval European template, which gives it a texture and immediacy that a lot of epic fantasy lacks. Things feel real here.
Book 1: Malice — ★ 4.10
Malice follows Corban, a young man coming of age in a kingdom slowly being torn apart by war and betrayal. Gwynne takes his time — this is a confident, deliberate opening, not a fast-paced thriller. He’s building something, and he knows it.
Some readers find it slow to start, and I’d be lying if I said the first fifty pages fly by. Give it a hundred pages before you make a call. By the time Gwynne has his world properly assembled and his characters in motion, you won’t want to leave.
What sets Malice apart from the beginning is how it handles violence. Battles here are chaotic and terrifying rather than choreographed. They cost something. Characters you care about are put in genuine danger, and that danger feels real.
Book 2: Valour — ★ 4.18
This is where the series finds its footing. Multiple viewpoint characters — each with distinct, compelling storylines — are converging toward a conflict that feels genuinely inevitable. The stakes get bigger, nastier, and far less predictable. The battle sequences are extraordinary — large-scale but never losing the individual human thread.
Valour is where most readers go from interested to hooked. It’s the book I think about most fondly when I recommend the series to someone.
Book 3: Ruin — ★ 4.28
The best book in the series and one of the best third instalments in the genre. Everything Gwynne has been building toward starts to pay off: alliances fracture, characters are tested to their absolute limits, and the true shape of the war becomes clear. The emotional stakes are as high as the physical ones — which is saying something when the physical ones involve full-scale sieges and demonic armies.
Ruin is the book that confirms Gwynne is operating at the very top of the genre.
Book 4: Wrath — ★ 4.22
The finale pulls together everything from the previous three books and delivers a climax that’s both spectacular and emotionally earned. Gwynne doesn’t shy from tragedy — this is grimdark, and it shows — but neither does he leave his characters without agency or dignity. The ending is exactly what this series deserves.
Who Is This Series For?
You’ll love it if you enjoy The First Law but find Abercrombie’s relentless nihilism a bit much. You’ll love it if you want your epic fantasy grounded in real human emotion rather than abstraction. You’ll love it if you appreciate authors who take battle scenes seriously — not as spectacle, but as something that costs people dearly.
You might struggle if you need a fast-paced, action-heavy opening. Malice is patient, and it asks you to be too. The patience pays off. I promise.
What To Read Next
Gwynne’s follow-up trilogy, Of Blood and Bone, is set in the same world 130 years later. Start with A Time of Dread. If you’ve already read that, his Bloodsworn Saga — beginning with The Shadow of the Gods — is something else entirely and possibly even better.
For more from Gwynne, check out our deep dive into his complete bibliography.
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