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What are the best books you have read, that are not popular and/or well known, and why is it a favorite (no spoilers please)?

There are so many good small publisher / independently published works, thought it might be interesting to see some from this group (I'll post a couple also).

Series: Mischief Mayhem Want and Woe Omnibus Books 1-3

Fantasy / horror / anti-hero with a bit of a nostalgic feel to the magic and writing style, similar to magic in fafhrd and the grey mouser is about as close a comparison as I can draw. Excellent and unforgettable characters and the books are very well written.

Difficult - some of my favourites are 50/60 years old, and not much read nowadays - but they were popular an widely read in their day! I shan't list them here.
From modern works . . . .
I really liked Out of Nowhere - my review here
And outside the usual genre for this group - I really like gentle English-style police procedurals with some dry humour - Stuart Pawson

Hmmm...as far as I know these are not/were not widely read.

The Chronicles of Scar by Ron Sarti. I found this book at the library's Old Book Sale several years back. Written in the early 90's. It's about a poor boy who turns out to be royalty, but he is SOOO not a hero. He's very snarky and does his best to get out of doing anything dangerous, but usually accidentally ends up looking good. I also liked the world--a post apocalyptic Tennessee/Kentucky. I liked it so much that I immediately found the other two books in the series.

Another obscure fave is a series by Carole Nelson Douglas that starts with Six of Swords. Early 80's fantasy...I liked the romance between the protagonists in these books, and I liked that their characters actually grew throughout the series.

And I don't know if these were ever that popular, but I loved S. M. Stirling's take on The Terminator series. There were 3 books starting with Infiltrator, and I thought Stirling nailed the characters (from the original movie) and had some great storylines.

Independently published series Clockwork Twist by Emily Thompson. The first two used to be free to download from Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ but doesn't seem that way anymore.

Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward

Middle grade series but a lovely portrayal of unicorns, the Firebringer series by Meredith Ann Pierce

Stuff by O R Melling such as The Hunter's Moon. Also YA or middle grade level.

I won Champion of Mars by Guy Haley through Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ and discovered I really enjoyed it. It wasn't what I thought it would be given the cover

If you like vampires, there's Generation V series by M.L. Brennan or the standalone collection of stories The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas

Another middle grade, The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier

Thought I read more obscure stuff but seems I was sticking to more popular things after all.

I don't read self-pubbed stuff so I've got nothing really rare but I think I'm the only person I know who's read these.

The Weaver by Emmi Itäranta is a spiritual sequel of sorts to The Memory of Water but with the role of water reversed. One of the most Le Guin-ish novels not by Le Guin,

The Floating Gods (which I think goes by a few different titles) by M John Harrison is a gorgeous piece of fever-dream logic fantasy. Clear precursor to the New Weird genre.

I think both these books are easy 5 stars but I'm just shouting into the void about it.

A Book Dragon by Donn Kushner, a lightsome book with a wonderful take on an unusual dragon. Alas, out of print.

The Wizard's Tale by Kurt Busiek. A delightful tale about a wizard who, though not very good at it, insists that he must be an Evil Wizard like his family -- then he gets trapped into a quest.

On the indie side: Discovery by Karina Fabian, the discovery of a long-ago crashed alien spaceship, and what it means for the people set to retrieve it; Torchship by Karl K. Gallagher, the adventures of a tramp starship in a future marked by an AI revolt; The Dragons of Dorcastle by Jack Campbell, magic and steam in what is hinted to be another planet; and NPCs by Drew Hayes, a tale about a world and a role-playing game

Thanks so much all - I have marked a ton of these to my list to try out.

And Mary - Drew Hayes is a favorite indie author of mine :) so cool to see you mention his NPCs books. Corpies was the best of his books so far (my opinion), while it requires reading in the Super Powereds series to fully appreciate it, it stands alone really well.

Couple more:

Series: King Henry Tapes

A heroic journey series with a many twists to the theme. The protag "King Henry Price" is also known as the foul mouth, he has no filters, if you are offended by language/PC themes stay away (it is "in character", and really fits, but if this is something that bothers you avoid the books). The story is told in parallels based off tapes he makes as he goes through his life, the first instance of this shift is so unexpected that it can be disconcerting, but it is both purposeful and very well done. The story itself is new enough to not feel like retread at all, somewhat in the genre defined by the Dresden Files, but completely original and unique.

Serial: Worm

, if this even sounds remotely interesting give it a shot, the first 9 arcs of the story are comparatively short to the rest of the story. The introduction (first few arcs) are a little rough in spots, its the first thing the author published. Avoid this story if you don't think that review sounds interesting, or if grey morality and violence are things you dislike in your reading.

Highly unexpected excellence in this serial, somehow mixing first person POV with the best written unreliable narrator I have ever come across, and adding a measure of rationality to a genre that is normally pure fantasy.

Worm has a large "cult" following around the world, so much so that a group of fans made an unabridged audiobook of the story (which is long, like almost 5x the length of Lord of the Rings). It has also spawned a RPG, is in the process of formal publication and potentially a media (tv) contract.

Probably my favorite books that no one as ever heard of areDark Hope by H.D. Smith and the rest of the series. It's just a really fun and interesting urban fantasy. It wasn't anything that I had seen before and I totally fell in love with the complexity.

Also, I LOVE The Wrong Unit: A Novel. Rob Dircks is hilarious and I highly recommend this one. It's laugh out loud funny.

I feel like I'm reading all bestsellers or well known works, except maybe books from Jonathan Stroud who is a much better writer than Rick Riordan but less known (hence always losing in Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ annual award!). Stroud's middle grade series, such as The Bartimaeus Sequence and the Lockwood & Co series, are amazing.

Thanks, I loved the Bartimaeus Sequence and wanted more Stroud but couldn't find any!

I'm a tad obsessed with Barb Hendee's series The Noble Dead. It's vampires done properly, elves, fae, assassins....the world building and magic system is brilliant and it just gets deeper and better with every book, without becoming confusing. And yet I have never met another fan of it.

The Lockwood series are pretty scary. But still funny and endearing.
Great characters. I love it alot. The last book is coming out later this year.

I heard he is going to write another Barty novel.

I feel like all of Brom's books are underappreciated. If you really like Joe Hill, you would like his books. Krampus, the Yule Lord is a great, creepy, Christmas read that's in the same vain as NOS4A2.

And The Child Thief is, yet another creepy take on Peter Pan. I've yet to read his latest release, The Lost Gods, but if you like your dark books that are very dark, I'd recommend Brom.

Plus, the art on his book covers and inside the story are also done by Brom.

The Golden Key (Rawn, Elliot, Roberson collab) is a book I really enjoyed, very different, yet few seem to have read it. Also the Coldfire Trilogy by CS Friedman.

I am reading The Best of Cordwainer Smith - Cordwainer Smith right now in hardcover. It is fantastic! And the introduction by J.J. Pierce alone, is worth the price of admission. CS was a PhD political scientist who lived all over the world and wrote some of the most influential SF/fantasy of the 1950's and early 1960's. He is known by (and influenced) just about every major SF writer, but otherwise, hardly known.
His writing is superb. His ideas astounding.

Cordwainer Smith truly was an amazing author.

Not to everyone's taste, to be sure.

I second the Coldfire Trilogy by Friedman.

alao check out:
Michael Scott Rohan
Adrian Tchaikovsky
David Farland
James Maxey
Mickey Zucker Reichert
Larry correia

Yes! Forgot about the Winter of the World Series by Rohan. Great read.

Dan wrote: "alao check out:
Michael Scott Rohan
Adrian Tchaikovsky
David Farland
James Maxey
Mickey Zucker Reichert
Larry correia"

Mickey Zucker Reichert's Renshai series was definitely one of my favourites years ago when I stumbled across it. It's a nice change, having a book effectively about a super soldier that doesn't feel pointless because they _are_ a super soldier.