Reddit reviews Carnival Of Fear (Ravenloft)

Mystara

Ah, Mystara. At first I thought that this one's more generic than Forgotten Realms, maybe that's why they put in the "yo dawg" situation. See, this world has another one inside, called Hollow World, inspired by our very own Hollow Earth, with its own Sun and everything. Also, instead of gods, it has ascended beings, called Immortals—in some ways they remind me of the Ancients from Stargate. Oh, and there's also a giant crashed space ship called FSS Beagle somewhere on the planet. Because, really, why not? Did I mention the Scottish lich? Or the Roman- and Egyptian-like people riding dinosaurs inside the Hollow World? Or the gnomes who live in their floating clockwork city... Wait, let me also tell you about how one of the planet's moons is inhabited by katana-wielding cat people samurai ninjas, who ride giant sabertooth tigers. In space. Wat.

On second thought, maybe this world isn't generic, just certifiably insane. Why aren't there dozens of novels in this setting? :(
Site: Vaults of Pandius.

• The Black Vessel by Morris Simon: Hey, Spanish elves!
  
• The Orcs of Thar by Bruce Heard: it's not a novel per se, but a sourcebook detailing the cultures of orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc. Filled with plenty of goofy jokes and stupidity, fun for every age! A bit too difficult to procure nowadays.
  
  Planescape
  
  Quite famous, thanks to the fantastic PC game, Planescape: Torment. This setting ties everything else together in a way, according to this world, belief has the power to change the fabric of reality and create the Outer Planes. The center of it is Sigil, which is a giant city that's floating above the Spire, a tower of rock of infinite height. Sigil is kinda like a railway junction of portals, from here you can go to any plane you fancy as long as you can find its portal.
  Sites: Planewalker and Mimir.net.
  
  
• Blood Wars Trilogy by J. Robert King: While formulaic, I found it enjoyable and it had some interesting moments, like hopping through various planes of existence, at some point the characters ending up on the floating body of a dead god.
  
• Planescape: Torment by ShadowCatboy: a novelization of the game expanding on the original dialog text, it's free. Flawed (after all, it's a script turned into a book by a fan) and complex, but fantastic.
  
  Ravenloft
  
  Maybe it's because I'm Transylvanian, but I'm a huge fan of Ravenloft. It's basically fantasy-infused gothic horror, many of its novels are re-imaginings of classic horror tales, like Frankenstein, Dracula or The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. The setting itself is rather interesting, it's a pocket universe that's "floating" in the Ethereal Plane, surrounded by the Mists, with its own laws of physics. It also features some very iconic evil characters, like Strahd and Lord Soth—all in all, grimdark warning!
  Notable fansites include The Fraternity of Shadows and Secrets of the Kargatane.
  
  
• Carnival of Fear by Robert King: my first Ravenloft novel, it got me hooked. Doubly enjoyable if you like media featuring traveling carnivals/freak shows.
  
• I, Strahd by P.N. Elrod: Great story featuring the most famous Ravenloft character, the vampire Strahd von Zarovich. Has a sequel, I, Strahd: the War Against Azalin. One novel! Two novels! Ah ah ah!
  
• Knight of the Black Rose by James Lowder: features a Dragonlance villain called Lord Soth, a true b'dass who's a pretty cool guy and doesn't afraid of anything.
  
  Spelljammer
  
  Fantasy in Space. Wooden spaceships with Elven crews, steampunk themes, interstellar travel, phlogiston, organic manta ray looking giant space ships, intelligent Orcs that are more like Klingons and actually called scro, easy traveling between Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, etc. Yes!
  Sites: Spelljammer.org and Spelljammer Wiki.
  
  
• The Cloakmaster Cycle by various authors: six books, as far as I know these are the only novels set in this universe.
  
  There are more campaign settings, such as Oriental Adventures, Mahasarpa, Jakandor, Pelinore, etc., however none of those have official novels.
  
  That's about it, I guess. I suspect it's roughly 500 novels in total; at the rate of one per week, it'll take you ~10 years to read them all. I probably wouldn't, as some of them genuinely suck.
  
  Ugh, this thing became far too long, apologies for that.

This book has an intense, dark secret for a town.

Basically, the person who runs the town created a Circus to act as the town's prison, and to help the townsfolk bleed out their worst urges. Every once in a while, there's a crime, and the person found guilty (not always the person responsible) is mutated through magic based into a circus freak based on what their life was like. Like, the town blacksmith is turned into a living sword-porcupine, and he's constantly slashed as swords grow out from his back. The people judged guilty also have their memories removed, so they don't even know anything about their lives before they started working at the circus as a mutant.