If the sweeping stakes of Arithon and Lysaer’s feud—sparked by the Mistwraith and bound by geas and prophecy—hooked you, you’ll relish how The Way of Kings unfurls Roshar’s fate through Dalinar’s rediscovered oaths, Kaladin’s storm-forged resilience, and Shallan’s dangerous scholarship. Like the Fellowship Sorcerers’ long game and the Koriani’s schemes, the Knights Radiant’s shattered legacy and the looming Desolations stitch personal choices to epochal consequences.

If Athera’s layered lore—the Fellowship’s strict compacts, Paravian legacies, and the Koriani’s rigid order—made you linger over every page, Gardens of the Moon will scratch the same itch. Erikson drops you amid the Malazan Empire’s campaigns, where Warrens echo the dangerous reach of sorcery much like Athera’s bindings, and rival powers (Ascendants, the Claw, the Bridgeburners) collide with the same depth and lived-in complexity you loved around Arithon, Lysaer, and Dakar.

If the maneuvering behind Lysaer’s Alliance, the town councils’ compromises, and the Koriani’s calculated pressure fascinated you, The Traitor Baru Cormorant takes that knife-edge intrigue even further. Baru infiltrates the Masquerade to overthrow it from within, waging wars with currency reforms and trade policy the way governors in Athera wield edicts and embargoes—forcing the same harrowing choices between conscience, loyalty, and the cost of victory.

If Arithon’s compassion clashing with ruthless necessity—and Lysaer’s righteous zeal hardening into something darker—kept you torn, The Black Company lives in that gray. Croaker’s annals track mercenaries serving the Lady in campaigns as morally tangled as the hunts and sieges across Athera. Like Arithon’s hard calls to spare the many at the cost of the few, the Company’s decisions cut deep, asking what honor means when every path stains the hands.

If Janny Wurts’s lyrical cadence—whether in the Fellowship’s ritual bindings or the bitter, fateful clashes between Arithon and Lysaer—enchanted you, Tigana offers that same musicality. Kay’s prose shapes a rebellion against Brandin’s curse that erases a nation’s very name, much as the Mistwraith’s shroud warps truth and destiny. Devin and Alessan’s quiet plots carry the same aching beauty, moral weight, and resonant sorrow that gave Athera its haunting grandeur.