Best Fantasy Books

Neil Gaiman's mythological fantasy follows ex-convict Shadow through a road trip across America with the god Odin, as old gods prepare for war against new gods born of technology and media.

The First Law trilogy's conclusion delivers one of fantasy literature's most ruthless and genuinely surprising endings — a masterwork of subverted expectations that recontextualises the entire trilogy.

A great god is reduced to living in the body of a small tortoise because no one truly believes in him anymore — only one novice monk does — and together they must reckon with what faith really means in a world dominated by the institution built in his name.

Joe Abercrombie's debut fantasy introduces the Union, a corrupt empire, and three deeply flawed protagonists: a disabled barbarian, a self-loathing torturer, and a vain nobleman who slowly discovers courage.

Severian, a torturer's apprentice exiled from his guild for showing mercy to a condemned prisoner, narrates his journey across a dying far-future Earth in a memoir he claims is perfectly remembered but which the careful reader will find riddled with unreliable omissions.

Three timelines converge as Essun and her daughter Nassun race toward opposite ends — one to save humanity, one to end it — in the Hugo Award-winning conclusion to the Broken Earth trilogy.

In a peninsula resembling Renaissance Italy, a sorcerer-tyrant has erased the very name of the province of Tigana from human memory as an act of grief and vengeance — and the few surviving Tiganans must restore it before their culture is gone forever.

Young Fitz, the royal bastard of the Six Duchies, is brought to the court of his grandfather King Shrewd and apprenticed to the royal assassin — learning to navigate palace politics, a forbidden magical bond with animals, and the profound isolation of being useful but never truly belonging.

Robert Jordan's final completed novel before his death in 2007: the storylines that had stalled across the previous two volumes suddenly and decisively accelerate, resolving long-running threads and propelling every major character toward the Last Battle.

A collection of linked short stories introducing Geralt of Rivia, a witcher — a professional monster hunter whose moral compass is tested by the creatures he hunts, the people who hire him, and the world that neither trusts nor welcomes him.

A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home and remembers an extraordinary summer when he was seven, a magical neighbor girl, and a darkness that threatened to consume the world.

Set in the same world as Perdido Street Station — Bellis Coldwine flees New Crobuzon on a ship that is captured by pirates and brought to Armada, a city built on a raft of lashed-together ships on the open sea.

The third Bas-Lag novel — as New Crobuzon convulses with revolution, a man named Cutter travels into the wilderness to find the Iron Council: a perpetual-motion train run by the workers who took it decades ago, still running through the badlands.

In the sprawling city of New Crobuzon, scientist Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is hired to restore a garuda's flight — and inadvertently unleashes nightmare creatures on the city. A landmark of New Weird fiction.

The Malazan Empire's elite Bridgeburners are caught between imperial ambition and the machinations of gods, ascendants, and ancient powers as the conquest of the city of Darujhistan begins — the first chapter in a ten-volume epic that drops readers into a fully formed world and refuses to explain itself.

An elderly Briton couple journey across post-Arthurian Britain to find their son in a land afflicted by a strange mist of collective forgetfulness, eventually uncovering a buried atrocity that the forgetfulness was designed to conceal.

A convicted murderer has escaped Azkaban prison and is believed to be hunting Harry Potter, forcing Harry to confront the true story of his parents' betrayal and death. The mystery that unravels is more complicated, more painful, and more morally instructive than any straightforward threat.

Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, unadventurous hobbit, is swept away by the wizard Gandalf and thirteen dwarves on a quest to reclaim a mountain kingdom from the dragon Smaug. The predecessor to The Lord of the Rings — shorter, lighter in tone, and the perfect entry point to Middle-earth.

In the kingdom of Westeros, the death of King Robert Baratheon sets off a brutal power struggle among the great houses. Ned Stark, appointed the King's Hand, finds himself in a web of treachery that threatens not only his family but the entire realm — while beyond the Wall, an ancient threat stirs.

The War of the Five Kings reaches its shattering climax as the Red Wedding, Joffrey's poisoning, and Jon Snow's transformation at the Wall change everything in Westeros.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione abandon Hogwarts to hunt Voldemort's Horcruxes, confronting betrayal, sacrifice, and the revelation that Harry himself is the final Horcrux. The series concludes with the Battle of Hogwarts and a resurrection that draws on the oldest mythological traditions.

Harry is mysteriously entered into the dangerous Triwizard Tournament while Voldemort's followers grow bolder, culminating in the Dark Lord's terrifying return to full power. The death of a fellow student in the graveyard permanently changes what the Harry Potter series is.

As Voldemort's war spreads beyond Hogwarts, Dumbledore guides Harry through Tom Riddle's past to find the key to destroying him, while a mysterious annotated textbook raises questions about the identity of the Half-Blood Prince. The year ends with Dumbledore's death and the series' darkest turning point yet.

An orphaned boy discovers on his eleventh birthday that he is a wizard, and begins his education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.