Books like Bard

I first read this back in junior high or high school, and I was curious to see if it would stand up all these years later. I wasn't disappointed.Taylor's Bard is set in the early centuries after the Romans abandoned England and it sank into the dark ages. Enter a traveling Bard of Erin adventuring his way across Britain facing Jutes, warlocks, and werewolves. Told through a series of five novellas, Taylor creates a rich world with the ring of truth to it.For all its world-building and entertaining characters, what's really enjoyable here is the return to a simpler time in fantasy fiction. I was taken back to a time before massive multi-volume series with a cast of thousands filled with anti-heroes, and scarred characters struggling to rise above the nightmares of their past, or abandoned children forced to sell themselves on the streets of some river town or turned into assassins before they hit puberty. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that. I've read many of those novels and enjoyed them. That being said, there's still a place for fantasy that simply entertains and tells a good, fun, sexy story, and Bard is one of those.