If you loved riding with Whiskeyjack, Quick Ben, and Kalam—watching a whole squad’s loyalties and quips carry them through imperial schemes and sorcery—then you’ll click with Croaker’s annals of the Company. The Black Company follows a tight-knit band of mercenaries whose banter, grudges, and battlefield pragmatism echo the Bridgeburners’ vibe, as they serve terrifying powers and survive the same kind of grim, magic-drenched campaigns you saw at Pale and in Darujhistan.

When Moon’s Spawn loomed over Pale and rumors of T’lan Imass and Ascendants bled into imperial politics, you got a taste for conflicts too big for any single champion. A Game of Thrones delivers that breadth: great houses clash like the Malazan Empire and Darujhistan’s Council, while far to the north a threat gathers—much like the shadow of elder forces stalking the Bridgeburners. You’ll get shifting fronts, looming myth, and the sense that every victory opens a bigger, colder battlefield.

If the T’lan Imass, Azath Houses, and Warrens hooked you with the feeling that history is a living, dangerous thing, The Dragonbone Chair scratches the same itch. Osten Ard’s past—Sithi courts, Norn hatreds, and the secrets beneath the Hayholt—presses on the present the way Elder races and Ascendants shadowed Ganoes Paran and Tattersail. Expect patient, layered lore where every ruin, song, and sword has a story, and those stories wake up hungry.

Did you enjoy backing people like Anomander Rake, Kalam, and Adjunct Lorn—figures who do terrible things for reasons that still make you root for them? The Blade Itself puts you in the heads of equally thorny operators: Inquisitor Glokta’s cruelty and wit, Logen Ninefingers’ weary savagery, and Jezal’s vanity collide in ways that echo the assassins’ war in Darujhistan and the Empire’s ruthless statecraft. It’s the same morally muddy fun, heavy on steel and consequences.

If the crisscrossing plots in Darujhistan—the Council’s backroom deals, the assassins’ war, Kruppe’s quiet puppeteering, and the Bridgeburners’ covert mission—were your sweet spot, The Lies of Locke Lamora delivers that same layered thrill. In Camorr, Locke’s schemes smash into Capa Barsavi’s rule and the Gray King’s uprising, with Bondsmagi twisting the odds—much like Shadowthrone’s meddling. It’s witty, twisty, and every gambit hits another tripwire.