You loved how Zorian resets the month, stockpiles resources, and refines plans to unmask Red Robe and stop the Cyoria catastrophe. In The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Harry does the same across entire lifetimes—using the Cronus Club to pass messages between loops and outmaneuver a rival ouroboran whose project could end the world. If Zorian’s careful debugging of the loop, alliances with the aranea, and layered contingency plans hooked you, Harry’s relentless, methodical duel across repeating lives will scratch the same itch.

If Zorian’s mastery of simulacrums, mental defenses, and soulcraft—and the way he uses hard limits to pull off surgical strikes against threats like Quatach-Ichl—was your jam, The Final Empire delivers that same crunchy satisfaction. Vin learns Allomancy’s metal-based rules and, with Kelsier’s crew, turns precise abilities (steel, iron, pewter, and more) into meticulous heists and battlefield tactics, much like Zorian turning well-understood spells into decisive advantages.

Beyond the monsters and magic, Mother of Learning thrives on maneuvering—Zorian navigating Academy officials, covert cults behind the summer festival attack, and delicate bargains with the aranea and figures like Silverlake. The Traitor Baru Cormorant pushes that tension to the center: Baru infiltrates an imperial bureaucracy, weaponizes accounting and policy, and plays duchies against the Masquerade. If you relished the cloak-and-dagger currents beneath Cyoria’s chaos, Baru’s elegant, ruthless gambits will grip you.

Zorian starts curt and solitary, then—through endless loops, hard-won empathy for Kirielle and classmates, and trust built with Zach and the aranea—becomes the person who can coordinate an entire city’s salvation. The Way of Kings gives you that same arc writ large: Kaladin evolves from a bitter captive on the Shattered Plains to the heart of Bridge Four, learning discipline, purpose, and how to lead people out of despair. If Zorian’s growth moved you, Kaladin’s journey will, too.

If you thrilled to the reveal-laden hunt for Red Robe, the true origin of the loop, and the shifting lines between allies and enemies in Cyoria, The Black Prism stacks comparable surprises. Gavin Guile’s color-wielding power sits at the center of a web of secrets in the Seven Satrapies, and early assumptions are upended by identity twists and concealed agendas. Like the escalating “aha!” moments as Zorian peels back each layer of the conspiracy, this one keeps the floor moving under your feet.