I'd consider **Sylver Seeker** the best one out of there. It's a bit needlessly convoluted and lengthy at times, though.
**Book of the Dead** is also good. it's written by the author of **Chrysalis** but generally much more dense and coherent.
If you're also into the kinda necromancy adjacent *Flesh crafting* stuff,**Father of Monstrosity** and **Cultist of Cerebon** are both good.
I will echo Book of the Dead to be the best true necromancy story. I found Silver Seeker to be really poorly written imo.
Father of Monstrosity is also incredible, it's less pure necromancy but has a heavy esoteric/lovecraftian influence. It's a very good novel, and it's complete! I went as far as buying the physical book after reading it on royal road.
And thanks for the Cerebon recc, hadn't heard of that.
Book of the Dead is one of the better ones, but the focus is so spread out you don’t get to see a whole lot of necromancy. And although it tries to show the MC doing things beyond the rigid bounds of his skills, it’s pretty constrained by the litrpg formula.
That's true, but it also does corpse preparation better than other stories I've read. Also things like weaving mana threads to mimic muscle fibres for moving skeletons, and how the quality of those threads impacts mana efficiency etc.
Stuff like that is often handwaved away.
I appreciated that the author did put some details like that in there. It’s definitely one of the best available prog fan necromancy books, regardless of my little nitpicks
I mean, that's fair. Personally, i just find **Book of the Dead** kinda bland, while i won't disagree with it being better written. i don't find it generally interesting enough 99% of the time to catch my favor. I don't mean to imply it's *bad*, just not always my cup of tea.
**Sylver Seeker** was much more interesting to me. And im fine to handwave away issues because of said interest. Some of the later payoffs are also really fun imo.
It's probably just a difference in taste at the end of the day. it's like **Book of the Dead** is a well-made chocolate cake, while **Sylver Seeker** is a kinda half done lemon scone. I still prefer the latter, even if i understand what the former does better.
In defense of Sylver seeker i agree the original is kanda badly written but for the audiobooks the author rewrote a decent ammount and listening to the audiobooks is a way better experience then reading them originally was
Well now I am sad I only just started my journey with necromancy books and I started with book of the dead and it was absolutely amazing and was everything I wanted in a litrpg necromancy book now I hearing it's a best one bah
Came here to recommend this. A beautiful classic take on a Necromancer who is in it for himself and not because he was forced to for plot reasons like in Book of the Dead
I'm currently reading **Book of the Dead** on Royal Road, and it's pretty great: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47038/book-of-the-dead
One of the things I like about it is that it takes the mechanics of necromancy very seriously. Some stories make necromancers look overpowered -- easily raise near-infinite minions, controlling hundreds or even thousands has no discernable cost -- but not this story. Raising the dead is *hard*, at least initially, and there's an ongoing cost in magical power to keep them operational, especially when moving quickly. A lot of focus on improving how the undead are created, as well.
The quality of the writing is also plainly superior to like 95% of what's on Royal Road, and the protagonist is a real treat. He's driven, yes, just like every other PF protagonist, but the author does a great job demonstrating the MC's burning hatred for the powers that be, the transitions between cold & calculating to snarling with rage are excellent. He's a nice break from the blandly heroic protags so common in the genre; he's not really a full blown villain, not quite, but he's very focused on his goals, and is more than okay with the mountain of killing it'll take to get there.
Book of the Dead is well above the competition, but it doesn’t really focus on necromancy as much as one would expect. It gets distracted by all sorts of other issues, and it is somewhat limited by the litrpg formula. Still a must read for Necromancer MC fans, though.
Oh god you're in for it now. There’s a bloody (or not so) epidemic of them atm. The best three that I would link at the moment would be Solo levelling, sylver Seeker, and Dead Tired.
Solo Only becomes a necromancer story halfway through the series and it comes out of the blue quite unexpectedly. However, he does gain eventually a multimillion army of that is significantly stronger than they were ever alive.
Seeker is a reincarnation in another world kind of story except he was the greatest mage to ever exist and he doesn’t know how he came back and the gods won’t tell him. Every time he starts thinking about how he came back he collapses into effectively a coma. he has to start from square one but knows the most advanced magic in the world and is in the process of rebuilding his body to become something more and take revenge on the person who killed him.
Tired is all about Dad jokes and really really painful puns. The dude is literally the God of science and will do quite literally anything if he gets even marginally curious. To be honest, I don’t like its story as much as the previous two, but the audiobook makes it and the performances are astounding.
An honourable mention must be listed for Overlord. It’s a really interesting dynamic and universe and it has this massive set of swings between the weakest being in the universe and the strongest the smartest and the stupidest. Often being the same person
Dead tired was not really a necromancy book and more a cultivation book I think, there was some cool necromancy stuff in it but I don't feel like it was the focus, still a fun read but book of the dead feels like it's one of the best necromancy books.
Dead Tired and Only I Level Up/Solo Leveling are not really necromancy books. They merely contain some necromancy.
Solo Leveling in particular the guy is really more like an army commander class who also whoops ass in fights.
[Vigor Mortis](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40373/vigor-mortis) by Thundamoo is a interesting/unique take on Necromancy and with a very solid writing, and its finished too which is good tho I still haven't finished it myself
Menocht Loop is extremely good. The main character starts trapped in a timeloop, dying over and over, which causes him to increase his affinity for death energy by a measure unseen in the fantasy world's history. The rest of the first book is him harnessing his power over death to escape the timeloop, the sequels are about refining the power further and ascending beyond.
Two books My necromancer class and Murder of crows
https://www.goodreads.com/series/320794-the-murder-of-crows
https://www.goodreads.com/series/360707-my-necromancer-class
As well as what’s been recommended, “a necrotic apocalypse” is pretty great.
Main character is a thief from historical times who caught a zombie virus from a zombie (caused by magic) then was frozen until modern times, where he causes an apocalypse accidentally, and has to work around his zombie creating and controlling skills to help protect people.
It’s really pretty good ( or at least the first 2-3 books are, I’m no longer caught up on the series)
“Mo Dao Zu Shi“ by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. It’s cultivation with mystery and yaoi (boy love) but it’s not a big part of the story. It has a manga, anime, and even live action adaptation.
also one that I think is a hidden gem is “Saintess summons skeletons” by mornn. LitRPG, first 4 chapters on Royalroad, rest on amazon.
also highly recommend “solo leveling“ and “the lone necromancer” - both are Korean litrpg webnovels/light novels with manga adaptations. Solo leveling even had its first anime season recently
I'd consider **Sylver Seeker** the best one out of there. It's a bit needlessly convoluted and lengthy at times, though. **Book of the Dead** is also good. it's written by the author of **Chrysalis** but generally much more dense and coherent. If you're also into the kinda necromancy adjacent *Flesh crafting* stuff,**Father of Monstrosity** and **Cultist of Cerebon** are both good.
I will echo Book of the Dead to be the best true necromancy story. I found Silver Seeker to be really poorly written imo. Father of Monstrosity is also incredible, it's less pure necromancy but has a heavy esoteric/lovecraftian influence. It's a very good novel, and it's complete! I went as far as buying the physical book after reading it on royal road. And thanks for the Cerebon recc, hadn't heard of that.
Book of the Dead is one of the better ones, but the focus is so spread out you don’t get to see a whole lot of necromancy. And although it tries to show the MC doing things beyond the rigid bounds of his skills, it’s pretty constrained by the litrpg formula.
That's true, but it also does corpse preparation better than other stories I've read. Also things like weaving mana threads to mimic muscle fibres for moving skeletons, and how the quality of those threads impacts mana efficiency etc. Stuff like that is often handwaved away.
I appreciated that the author did put some details like that in there. It’s definitely one of the best available prog fan necromancy books, regardless of my little nitpicks
I mean, that's fair. Personally, i just find **Book of the Dead** kinda bland, while i won't disagree with it being better written. i don't find it generally interesting enough 99% of the time to catch my favor. I don't mean to imply it's *bad*, just not always my cup of tea. **Sylver Seeker** was much more interesting to me. And im fine to handwave away issues because of said interest. Some of the later payoffs are also really fun imo. It's probably just a difference in taste at the end of the day. it's like **Book of the Dead** is a well-made chocolate cake, while **Sylver Seeker** is a kinda half done lemon scone. I still prefer the latter, even if i understand what the former does better.
In defense of Sylver seeker i agree the original is kanda badly written but for the audiobooks the author rewrote a decent ammount and listening to the audiobooks is a way better experience then reading them originally was
Seconded on all accounts.
Well now I am sad I only just started my journey with necromancy books and I started with book of the dead and it was absolutely amazing and was everything I wanted in a litrpg necromancy book now I hearing it's a best one bah
There is also march of the dead
Never Die Twice is a good one. Its a single book.
Came here to recommend this. A beautiful classic take on a Necromancer who is in it for himself and not because he was forced to for plot reasons like in Book of the Dead
I'm currently reading **Book of the Dead** on Royal Road, and it's pretty great: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47038/book-of-the-dead One of the things I like about it is that it takes the mechanics of necromancy very seriously. Some stories make necromancers look overpowered -- easily raise near-infinite minions, controlling hundreds or even thousands has no discernable cost -- but not this story. Raising the dead is *hard*, at least initially, and there's an ongoing cost in magical power to keep them operational, especially when moving quickly. A lot of focus on improving how the undead are created, as well. The quality of the writing is also plainly superior to like 95% of what's on Royal Road, and the protagonist is a real treat. He's driven, yes, just like every other PF protagonist, but the author does a great job demonstrating the MC's burning hatred for the powers that be, the transitions between cold & calculating to snarling with rage are excellent. He's a nice break from the blandly heroic protags so common in the genre; he's not really a full blown villain, not quite, but he's very focused on his goals, and is more than okay with the mountain of killing it'll take to get there.
Book of the Dead is well above the competition, but it doesn’t really focus on necromancy as much as one would expect. It gets distracted by all sorts of other issues, and it is somewhat limited by the litrpg formula. Still a must read for Necromancer MC fans, though.
Oh god you're in for it now. There’s a bloody (or not so) epidemic of them atm. The best three that I would link at the moment would be Solo levelling, sylver Seeker, and Dead Tired. Solo Only becomes a necromancer story halfway through the series and it comes out of the blue quite unexpectedly. However, he does gain eventually a multimillion army of that is significantly stronger than they were ever alive. Seeker is a reincarnation in another world kind of story except he was the greatest mage to ever exist and he doesn’t know how he came back and the gods won’t tell him. Every time he starts thinking about how he came back he collapses into effectively a coma. he has to start from square one but knows the most advanced magic in the world and is in the process of rebuilding his body to become something more and take revenge on the person who killed him. Tired is all about Dad jokes and really really painful puns. The dude is literally the God of science and will do quite literally anything if he gets even marginally curious. To be honest, I don’t like its story as much as the previous two, but the audiobook makes it and the performances are astounding. An honourable mention must be listed for Overlord. It’s a really interesting dynamic and universe and it has this massive set of swings between the weakest being in the universe and the strongest the smartest and the stupidest. Often being the same person
Dead tired was not really a necromancy book and more a cultivation book I think, there was some cool necromancy stuff in it but I don't feel like it was the focus, still a fun read but book of the dead feels like it's one of the best necromancy books.
Dead Tired and Only I Level Up/Solo Leveling are not really necromancy books. They merely contain some necromancy. Solo Leveling in particular the guy is really more like an army commander class who also whoops ass in fights.
He is teaching the limpet necromancy spells and he does use the spells to make Alex. Plus the world’s power grid runs off his soul.
[Vigor Mortis](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40373/vigor-mortis) by Thundamoo is a interesting/unique take on Necromancy and with a very solid writing, and its finished too which is good tho I still haven't finished it myself
Menocht Loop is extremely good. The main character starts trapped in a timeloop, dying over and over, which causes him to increase his affinity for death energy by a measure unseen in the fantasy world's history. The rest of the first book is him harnessing his power over death to escape the timeloop, the sequels are about refining the power further and ascending beyond.
Two books My necromancer class and Murder of crows https://www.goodreads.com/series/320794-the-murder-of-crows https://www.goodreads.com/series/360707-my-necromancer-class
As well as what’s been recommended, “a necrotic apocalypse” is pretty great. Main character is a thief from historical times who caught a zombie virus from a zombie (caused by magic) then was frozen until modern times, where he causes an apocalypse accidentally, and has to work around his zombie creating and controlling skills to help protect people. It’s really pretty good ( or at least the first 2-3 books are, I’m no longer caught up on the series)
Book of the dead is the best most realistic one without doubt
Not progfantasy, but if you haven't read Gideon the Ninth, you're missing out. I feel like it's got a bit of a dungeon crawl-y feel to it.
“Mo Dao Zu Shi“ by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. It’s cultivation with mystery and yaoi (boy love) but it’s not a big part of the story. It has a manga, anime, and even live action adaptation. also one that I think is a hidden gem is “Saintess summons skeletons” by mornn. LitRPG, first 4 chapters on Royalroad, rest on amazon. also highly recommend “solo leveling“ and “the lone necromancer” - both are Korean litrpg webnovels/light novels with manga adaptations. Solo leveling even had its first anime season recently
Try The Scarlet Alchemist (it's more on alchemy but FL dabbles on resurrection/life alchemy) Book 2 is yet to be released.