Genre
The best Fantasy books
Secondary worlds with their own physics. Magic systems with rules. The dragons sometimes. The political economy of feudalism always.
86 reviews in this genre.
Editor's picks
Highest-rated fantasy on the shelf
A Clash of Kings
by George R. R. Martin
A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin 1998 review. Five claimants vie for the Iron Throne while a comet crosses the sky over Westeros. The middle volume of A Song of Ice and Fire and the one most committed Martin readers consider his peak.
A Game of Thrones
by George R. R. Martin
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin 1996 review. The book that rewrote what epic fantasy was allowed to do. Westeros, the Iron Throne, the deaths nobody saw coming. Required reading.
American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
American Gods by Neil Gaiman 2001 review. An ex-convict named Shadow takes a job as bodyguard to a strange man named Wednesday and learns the old gods of immigration are still here, dying slow. The defining American urban fantasy of the 2000s.
Mistborn: The Final Empire
by Brandon Sanderson
Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson 2006 review. A street urchin named Vin discovers she can use magic by ingesting and burning metals, and a crew of thieves recruits her for the impossible: kill the immortal Lord Ruler.
The Fifth Season
by N. K. Jemisin
The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin 2015 review. On a continent where seismic activity defines life, three women's stories converge as a fifth season begins. Hugo Best Novel 2016, the first volume of the Broken Earth trilogy, and the most important fantasy debut of the 2010s.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
by Neil Gaiman
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman 2013 review. A middle-aged man returns to his Sussex childhood home for a funeral and remembers something he had carefully forgotten. Late Gaiman at his most patient and most personal.
The Way of Kings
by Brandon Sanderson
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson 2010 review. On the storm-blasted continent of Roshar, an enslaved bridgeman, a disgraced scholar, and a young prince converge as the world races toward a forgotten war. The most ambitious epic fantasy debut since A Game of Thrones.
Children of Blood and Bone
by Tomi Adeyemi
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi 2018 review. In a West-African-inspired fantasy kingdom, a young woman fights to restore magic to her people after the king has it eradicated. The YA fantasy debut that defined the late-2010s book-club moment.
Six of Crows
by Leigh Bardugo
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo 2015 review. A crew of six outcasts attempts an impossible heist in the corrupt city of Ketterdam. The YA fantasy heist novel that defined the contemporary Grishaverse and made Bardugo the major YA fantasy writer of her generation.
The Lightning Thief
by Rick Riordan
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan 2005 review. Percy Jackson, twelve, discovers he is the son of Poseidon and that someone has stolen Zeus's master lightning bolt. The first Percy Jackson novel and the middle-grade fantasy series that defined the post-Harry Potter mythological-YA register.
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide
by Douglas Adams
The collected Hitchhiker's books in one volume. If you have not read these, you have a treat ahead. If you have, you already know.
Shardik
by Richard Adams
Richard Adams's 1974 follow-up to Watership Down. A religious epic about a hunter and a giant bear. Difficult, devastating, deeply serious.
The Plague Dogs
by Richard Adams
Richard Adams's third novel. Two laboratory dogs escape in the Lake District. The book that broke me as a 12-year-old.
Paladin of Souls
by Lois McMaster Bujold
Bujold's 2003 Hugo and Nebula double. The middle Chalion book. A middle-aged widow becomes the unexpected vessel of a god. One of the great fantasy novels of its decade.
The Curse of Chalion
by Lois McMaster Bujold
Lois McMaster Bujold's 2001 fantasy debut outside the Vorkosigan universe. A broken courtier in a Iberian-flavored fantasy kingdom, and a theology that actually works.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
by Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow's 2003 debut. Reputation economies, post-scarcity Disneyland, and one of the cleanest near-future SF visions of its decade.
The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig
A gorgeous concept executed with warmth and wit. The Midnight Library will make you think differently about the choices you have made - and the ones still ahead.
Fairy Tale
by Stephen King
Fairy Tale by Stephen King 2022 review. Charlie Reade inherits a Maine estate and discovers a portal to a fairy-tale world that has gone seriously wrong. Late-career King at his most generously narrative.
Tress of the Emerald Sea
by Brandon Sanderson
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson 2023 review. A young woman from a remote island sets out across treacherous spore seas to rescue the boy she loves from a sorceress. A standalone Cosmere novel that reads like a Princess Bride homage.
Fourth Wing
by Rebecca Yarros
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 2023 review. Violet Sorrengail, a fragile scribe, is forced into the brutal dragon-riding war college. The first book of the Empyrean series and the romantasy novel that defined the 2023-2024 BookTok moment.
Cinnabar Shadows
by Lynn Abbey
The second Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas novel. Lynn Abbey deepening the world and earning a real second act.
The Rise and Fall of a Dragonking
by Lynn Abbey
Lynn Abbey wrapping up the Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas. The series ending the setting deserved.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
by Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams writing comic SF detective fiction with time travel, an electric monk, and the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
by Douglas Adams
The Dirk Gently sequel, with Norse gods stranded in modern London. Funnier than its predecessor, slightly less ambitious.
Maia
by Richard Adams
Richard Adams's prequel to Shardik. A 1,400-page erotic-political fantasy that is one of the strangest entries in any major writer's bibliography.
A Romance of the Equator: The Best Fantasy Stories of Brian W. Aldiss
by Brian W. Aldiss
A Romance of the Equator by Brian W. Aldiss 1989 review. The Gollancz best-of fantasy collection from one of the most underrated short-fiction careers in British SF.
Changer of Days
by Alma Alexander
Changer of Days by Alma Alexander 2004 review. The conclusion to the duology that began with The Hidden Queen, escalating the political stakes without losing the patient register.
The Hidden Queen
by Alma Alexander
The Hidden Queen by Alma Alexander 2004 review. A Croatian-Australian fantasy debut that opens a duology about a princess in hiding learning to use magic she should not have.
Heartlight
by T. A. Barron
T. A. Barron's 1990 YA SF debut. A girl and her grandfather use light-based physics to travel to a dying star. Genuinely scientifically curious children's fiction.
The Ancient One
by T. A. Barron
T. A. Barron's YA fantasy about an Oregon old-growth forest and a girl who travels back in time to defend it. Eco-fantasy that takes its environmental stakes seriously.
Book of Iron
by Elizabeth Bear
Book of Iron by Elizabeth Bear review. A 2013 Eternal Sky fantasy novella, the prequel to Bone and Jewel Creatures. Bijou the Wizard, a desert expedition, sharp North African-inspired worldbuilding.
Steles of the Sky
by Elizabeth Bear
Steles of the Sky by Elizabeth Bear 2014 review. The final book of the Eternal Sky trilogy lands its Mongol-empire-inspired epic fantasy with rare grace.
The Spirit Ring
by Lois McMaster Bujold
Bujold's 1992 Italian Renaissance fantasy. Magic, metallurgy, and a heroine whose hands are her best weapon.
Enchantment
by Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card's Russian fairy tale novel. A graduate student in Kiev finds an enchanted princess in a glade. Card outside Ender, and at his most enjoyable.
Magic Street
by Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card writing Black urban fantasy in suburban LA. Risky for him, mostly successful, genuinely strange in the best way.
Dragon Season
by Michael Cassutt
Dragon Season by Michael Cassutt review. A 1991 contemporary fantasy with a Hollywood TV writer hero, a portal to another world, and the most underread urban-fantasy debut of its decade.
Sorcery Rising
by Jude Fisher
Sorcery Rising by Jude Fisher review. The first Fool's Gold fantasy. A young trader, an Allfair festival, and a fantasy world being built with serious craft.
Jerlayne
by Lynn Abbey
Lynn Abbey writing solo fantasy about an elf-woman caught between cultures. Quieter than her better-known shared-world stuff.
The Brazen Gambit
by Lynn Abbey
The first Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas book. Sword-and-sorcery with extreme heat. A Lynn Abbey shared-world entry.
The Nether Scroll
by Lynn Abbey
A late Lynn Abbey Forgotten Realms novel, working with a particularly chewy chunk of FR cosmology. For Realms completists.
Mostly Harmless
by Douglas Adams
The fifth Hitchhiker's book. Famously bleak. Adams said later he wrote it in a bad mood. You can tell.
The Golden Shield of IBF
by Jerry Ahern
Jerry and Sharon Ahern doing one of their late thrillers. Brigade-level military action wrapped around a recovered Nazi gold premise. Pulp in the warmest sense.
The Golden Shield of IBF
by Sharon Ahern
The Golden Shield of IBF by Jerry and Sharon Ahern 1984 review. A standalone Cold War paramilitary thriller about a CIA team racing to recover a Soviet defector's research notes before Spetsnaz gets to them.
Magic Mirror
by Orson Scott Card
Magic Mirror by Orson Scott Card 1999 review. An illustrated fairy-tale meditation about Hattie, a child who looks into a magic mirror and is asked who she wants to be.
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