Start here
Fiction Reader runs on your own computer, phone or home server. There is no Fiction Reader account and no Fiction Reader service. Your library lives on hardware you control. The first decision is where you want that library to be.
Install the desktop app. It brings everything it needs, keeps the library in a folder you choose, and opens in its own window.
Run the Docker image on a spare machine. Every device on your network reads the same library in a browser.
Install the Android app. It can connect to your server, or keep its own library of your own books on the phone.
You can change your mind later. The desktop app can be pointed at a server instead of running its own library, and the Android app can switch between the two without losing either.
What it does
Six fiction sites are supported: Royal Road, Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.net, and the three XenForo forums SpaceBattles, Sufficient Velocity and Questionable Questing.
- Find a story by searching several sites at once, by browsing one site with its own filters, or by pasting a link.
- Subscribe to it. Fiction Reader fetches the chapter list and then checks for new chapters on a schedule.
- Download the chapters you want. Downloading is a separate switch from subscribing, so adding a story does not start an hour of traffic against someone else's site.
- Read in a view with nothing on screen but the words, with the typography, colours and spacing set the way you want them.
- Keep your place across every device signed in to the same library.
- Import your own books in EPUB, Kindle, PDF and other formats, and read them in the same app.
Every page
Installing it
Desktop, Android, server, browser, and the quick-subscribe extension.
Getting startedSetting up
Where the library lives, profiles, the guided tour, and turning sources on.
Using itFinding stories
Searching, filtering per site, pasting a link, and every subscribe option.
Using itYour library
Shelves, badges, tags, collections, the reading queue and reading history.
Using itReading
The reading view, typography, highlights and notes, and edited chapters.
Using itMy Books
Importing EPUBs and other files, folders, tags, and removing a book safely.
Beyond one deviceReading offline
Saving stories onto a device and reading them with no connection.
Beyond one deviceMore than one device
Keeping progress, notes and your own books in step through a folder or Google Drive.
Beyond one deviceThe Android app
Connecting to a server, the on-phone library, and background checking.
ReferenceSettings reference
Every card on the Settings screen and what it changes.
ReferenceRunning a server
Docker Compose, configuration, backups, upgrades and TLS. Technical.
ReferenceTroubleshooting
What to check when a story will not download or a device will not connect.
About the screenshots
Every screenshot in this guide comes from a running copy of Fiction Reader v0.7.1, in the dark theme, with real stories from Royal Road, SpaceBattles and Sufficient Velocity and three public-domain ebooks. Your own screen will show your own library, and the light theme looks the same in a lighter palette.
Fiction Reader does not host or redistribute any of that material. The titles and covers shown belong to their authors and to the sites they were published on.