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Even 2+ years after playing it, I still wish I could experience Return of the Obra Dinn for the first time again 🥺 It had such mindblowing storytelling, despite (or because of) the 1-bit graphics, that I'll never forget it enough to enjoy each revelation to the fullest like that first time. Gonna go listen to the soundtrack again...

I re read it every few years not the same as the 1st time but still amazing. About 20 times now.

Stephen King is the opposite of G. R. R. Martin

Have you read Hyperion by Dan Simmons? Amazing sci-fi

Of course, The Martian would be the next step if you haven't read that too.

But also, I found it similar to The Andromeda Strain or multiple novels by Frederik Pohl.

Time for a second read through? I've listened to it about 3 times now, and from re listening to books (about 5ish on Dune series so a regular thing) it feels so satisfying to realize all the previous clues you didn't catch the first time.The Dark Tower is definitely a favourite, The Dark Tower definitely has lows that are harder to listen to as often as the Dune series though. And King can surely write emotion better than Herbert, I think he understands people in general better than many, which shows in his writing, as meandering as it gets. If I had a clue of the expanse of his story and multi universe I'd have read it SOOO much sooner, but I hadn't the idea how awesome it was when I was younger.

Okay time to hear the story of the Gunslinger again, thanks for the push! The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed....

And Ka rolls on...

Edit I wanted to include my favourite bits, it's not really a spoiler, but at one point the grizzled gunslinger is going towards an unknown danger with his pal, a dude from the 80s (if this is confusing and slightly interesting read the Dark Tower till book 2 or don't whatever), and he takes his friends hand to hold it. There's so few times you see much of that affection between men without people being awkward after in modern media but the characters knew they were there for each other whatever they came across. It's one of the things that makes King's writing awesome. If you've ever been through real trials with someone, you get it and it.

Or as I've recently come to calling it, GNU + Terry Pratchett

The second game is so good. So many people had a negative knee-jerk reaction to an event that happens early in the game, but I thought it was amazing.

And then playing from both Ellie and Abby's povs was the perfect way to tell the subsequent story. By the end you're just emotionally drained... But the story is so well told imo.

Maybe The Stand by Stephen King?

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson might do it.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons will almost definitely do it...

Baldurs Gate 3 and the original Deus Ex did that for me.

I wish I could get the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind treatment for those games.

Da Vinci Code

Definitely The Expanse series if you haven't read it yet. I loved so many of the charcters, a bit sad to not be reading about them anymore.

After reading all ten of Iain Banks' "Culture" novels, there was definitely a sense of "oh, okay, now what?".

Sanderson's big fantasy series right now, the stormlight archive. Oh my god, each book is just made to make you get drawn deeper, and deeper until you hit the end. The gap between the first and second book was so freaking long to wait. I think we're up to book five now, so you don't have to have that feeling for a while.

Alternatively, if you like blue fantasy (talking animals and wise spirit guides that help sometimes hapless humans), mercedes lackey did great things with her heralds of valdemar series. I'd actually recommend jumping into it at a later point because her writing greatly improved from the first trilogy. You could start with magic's pawn/promise/price, which has one of the earliest depictions of lgbt protagonists I ever read.

If you like more 'earthy' fantasy, the wit'chfire series (actual series name, banned and the banished) by james clemens (who I just found out is a pseudonym for a sci-fi author who didn't want to be 'smeared' as a fantasy author and has some other good books when i googled for the name) is really good. Don't start his other series, because even though it was fantastic, it's never going to be finished. I think we're at like 30 years now and never gotten the third book.

And then there's the big one, the bold one, the 'start you off so small and build you into a great, grand sweeping epic' jim butcher series: the codex alera. The first book was riveting from start to finish. I actually think it was the best one, because the worldbuilding was just so sublime. I loved the characters more and more with each added book, but the magic of the beginning was just amazing.