Best Fantasy Books

Rincewind is magically transported to the Counterweight Continent — an analogue of imperial China — where revolution is stirring and the Great Wizzard (i.e., him) has been prophesied. Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver Horde of octogenarian warriors are planning to steal the entire empire. Survival is, as always, Rincewind's primary career goal.

King Nikolai Lantsov of Ravka battles a dark curse living within him while navigating the political threats gathering at his borders — and two women he trusts with his kingdom but not his secret.

Lirael is a Daughter of the Clayr who has not received the Sight — the gift that defines her people. While she searches for her identity in the Great Library of the Clayr, Prince Sameth struggles with a destiny he doesn't want. The second book in the Old Kingdom series deepens its extraordinary world.

The second half of the original Magician novel: Pug becomes the great magician Milamber in the Tsurani world while Thomas rises to lead the elves and becomes something more than human. The Riftwar reaches its climax as two worlds are drawn toward war or reconciliation.

In a far-future world where cities have been mounted on enormous wheels and move across a barren landscape devouring smaller towns for resources, young historian Tom Natsworthy is thrown from London and must survive alongside a scarred girl who wants to assassinate London's most powerful man.

Richard Mayhew helps a wounded girl on a London street and falls through the cracks of reality into London Below — a dark mirror city beneath the streets, populated by the people society forgot.

Nona wakes up with no memory and a body she doesn't know — and she is living an ordinary life in a city at war while the people around her treat her with an intensity she doesn't understand. She loves dogs and has six weeks.

Neil Gaiman retells the Norse myths — from the creation of the Nine Worlds to Ragnarök — in his own voice, bringing the gods of the northern tradition vividly to life.

Six months after This Savage Song, Kate and August are in different cities, changed by what they survived. A new kind of monster — one that neither side of Verity created — emerges, and the only way to face it requires both of them to confront what they're becoming. The Monsters of Verity duology concludes.

Set immediately after Ignite Me — Juliette and Warner face the consequences of claiming the Reestablishment's power, as new threats emerge from within and without.

Nikolai and Zoya must end a devastating war, forge an unlikely alliance with their oldest enemy, and face the darkest power the Grishaverse has ever produced — before it consumes everything they have built.

In a small Illinois town in October, a carnival arrives just after midnight — Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show — and two thirteen-year-old boys discover that its attractions offer exactly what people most desire, at a price that cannot be paid.

Young Tristran crosses the wall separating his English village from the magical kingdom of Faerie to retrieve a fallen star for the girl he loves — only to find the star is a person with her own ideas about being retrieved.

Spensa goes undercover among the alien Superiority to discover the truth behind their war against humanity, only to find that the conflict — and her own abilities — are far more complicated than she was told.

Ten years after a cosmic event granted ordinary people superhuman abilities, the Epics have taken over as tyrants rather than heroes. David Charleston joins the Reckoners — ordinary humans who hunt Epics — to kill Steelheart, the most powerful Epic alive.

The conclusion of His Dark Materials — Lyra and Will descend into the land of the dead, the war against the Authority reaches its climax, and the full theological argument of the trilogy is made explicit. The first children's book to win the Whitbread Prize.

Five prequel novellas to Throne of Glass that follow teenage assassin Celaena Sardothien while she still serves the Assassins' Guild — charting her doomed romance with Sam Cortland and the betrayal that lands her in Endovier.

Apollo and Meg head west into a scorched California to confront the cruelest emperor yet and free a captive Oracle from the Burning Maze. Rick Riordan's third Trials of Apollo book is the series at its darkest, delivering a gut-punch that reshapes the saga.

Roland Deschain reaches the Dark Tower at last. Every thread of the series converges: the Crimson King rages on the Tower's balcony, the Beams must be defended, Patrick Danville's strange gift is the key to everything, and the fates of every character in the ka-tet are decided. King includes a foreword warning readers that the destination may not be what they expect — a warning that has generated debate ever since.

Rin survived the Burning of Speer, but the gods she channelled nearly destroyed her mind. Now she fights for the Nikara Republic against an Imperial loyalist faction — until she discovers the Republic has its own agenda, and her foreign allies have a plan for the south that looks disturbingly like colonialism. The Poppy War series darkens further.

Magic is draining out of Earthsea. Wizards are forgetting their spells. Ged and the young prince Arren must sail to the farthest reaches of the world to find the source of the wound in the world — and the entity responsible for it. The concluding volume of the original Earthsea trilogy is Le Guin's meditation on death, courage, and the limits of power.

Punished by Zeus, the god Apollo crashes to Earth as a flabby, mortal teenager named Lester Papadopoulos. Rick Riordan launches The Trials of Apollo with a vain, hilarious narrator who must claw back his divinity through humility, humor, and a return to Camp Half-Blood.

Jason wakes up on a school bus with no memory of who he is. Piper and Leo think he's their friend, but nothing about his past is real. Drawn into the world of Greek and Roman demigods, Jason must discover his true identity while leading a quest to free the goddess Hera and prevent an ancient enemy from waking.

T.H. White's retelling of the Arthurian legends follows Arthur from his education by the wizard Merlin — who lives backwards through time — through the founding of the Round Table, the love triangle with Lancelot and Guinevere, and the final destruction of Camelot.