Every character in Max Gladstone’s “Craft Sequence” series wants to make their world better and this leads to such tremendous problems.
Real talk: I love this series. It follows people who actually put the hard, day-to-day, work in making their environment function better. There’s a king who’s made himself into an immortal ghoul just so he can continue overseeing the urban development of his city. There’s a community leader who fights an undead dragon to keep his under-served neighborhood from being gentrified. There are old dead gods who have become key pieces of infrastructure in a modern metropolis. And there’s more, so much more.
Tor Books just put all four of the books on sale for $5 each. That’s only $20 for a very entertaining book series. I recommend starting with Last First Snow. It’s extremely relevant to today’s political and economic discussions, and the magic fights in it are bonkers, totally bonkers.
Grab a $20, buy an entire book series. And tell Max I sent ya, because he doesn’t know who I am and it will confuse him greatly.