Best Fantasy Books

The third book of Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy. With Arthur crowned and Camelot rising, Merlin reaches the height of his powers and the beginning of his decline, narrating the king's early reign, the shadow of Mordred, and the enchantment that will end the wizard's story.

The sixth and final Earthsea novel revisits the question that has haunted the series since The Farthest Shore — the nature of death and the afterlife in the world of the Archipelago. A sorcerer haunted by the dead comes to Roke, and the answer found will transform Earthsea's understanding of what comes after.

Carter and Sadie Kane discover they are descended from the most powerful magicians in ancient Egypt. When their father accidentally unleashes the chaos god Set, the siblings must master Egyptian magic fast enough to prevent Set from destroying the world — and find out why their family has been lying to them.

When a great witch dies, the boundary between worlds weakens and the elves see their chance to invade again. Tiffany Aching must hold the line across two countries at once. The fifth Tiffany Aching adventure and the final Discworld novel — Terry Pratchett's last book.

The mythological history of Middle-earth, from the creation of the world by the god-like Ainur through the ages of the Elves, the forging of the Silmarils, and the great wars of the First Age — assembled posthumously by Christopher Tolkien from his father's lifelong writings.

Set eight years after The Queen of Nothing, a new protagonist — Oak, the young prince of Elfhame — ventures into the north to recover a kidnapped human girl. What he finds is Suren, the former Queen of the Unseelie Court, living as an exile with a power she cannot control. A new duology in the Elfhame world begins.

Hart and Mercy are rival undertakers in a world of gods and demi-gods — they hate each other in person, but their alter egos have been falling in love by letter for months, neither knowing who the other really is.

Mika Moon is a witch who lives by the rules — never stay too long, never get attached. Then she's invited to tutor three young witches in secret at a rambling English estate, and everything she's built her life around begins to shift.

In a world where witches are real and unmarried women over twenty-eight are subject to mandatory state monitoring, Josephine Thomas must decide whether to comply with the law requiring her to marry or face government surveillance — while processing the disappearance of her mother, who may have been a witch.

In Verity, violence creates monsters — literally. Kate Harker is the ruthless daughter of the man who runs half the city by selling monster protection. August Flynn is a Sunai, a monster who feeds on souls — and who desperately wants to be human. When they become unlikely allies, the line between predator and prey disappears.

The monumental conclusion to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. As the undead Storm King's plan nears completion, Simon and the scattered alliance race to gather the three great swords and confront a doom that may unmake the world — in one of epic fantasy's largest and most influential finales.

A standalone Drenai novel from David Gemmell, the master of heroic fantasy. Waylander, a feared assassin who killed the Drenai king, seeks a path to redemption when he is charged with recovering a sacred artifact — a brutal, fast-moving tale of violence, honor, and second chances.

In the aftermath of the Red Wedding and the fall of King's Landing, power vacuums open across Westeros. Cersei Lannister consolidates control in the capital, Brienne of Tarth searches for the Stark girls, and Arya begins her training with the Faceless Men in Braavos — while the Iron Islands hold a kingsmoot that will reshape the shape of the war.

Poppy has been taken captive and must survive with Hawke — revealed as Hawke Flynn, a Prince and not the Royal Guard she believed him to be. With truths unravelling around her, Poppy must decide who to trust in a kingdom that has kept her blind.

On a far-future moon where humanity has retreated to let nature reclaim the continent, a tea monk named Dex leaves their comfortable life seeking something they can't name. In the wilderness, they encounter Mosscap — a robot who wants to understand what humans need. A Hugo Award-winning novella of gentle philosophy.

Charles Wallace, now fifteen, travels through time on the back of the unicorn Gaudior to change the course of history and prevent a nuclear war, while Meg participates from a distance through kything — a form of telepathic sharing.

Jace has disappeared — taken and bound to Sebastian Morgenstern — and Clary must go undercover to find him, pretending to join Sebastian while searching for a way to free Jace from the demonic tie that controls him. The stakes are higher than ever as Sebastian prepares to raise an army.

A dying wizard hands his staff to an eighth son of an eighth son who turns out to be a daughter. Esk's path to the all-male Unseen University drags Granny Weatherwax into the wider world for the first time, and Discworld's sharpest witch is born.

An orphan who can see the dead is summoned to a crumbling family estate where a wall divides the living world from a hungry shadow realm. V.E. Schwab crafts a hauntingly atmospheric gothic fantasy about belonging, grief, and the things that wait behind locked doors.

The conclusion of the Shattered Sea trilogy. As the High King's power threatens to crush the lands around the Shattered Sea, a young princess, a cunning minister, and the series' returning heroes are drawn into a war that will demand terrible compromises to win.

Alex Stern is done waiting. To rescue Darlington from hell, she'll break every rule of the secret societies that govern her. Leigh Bardugo's second Alex Stern novel plunges deeper into Yale's occult underworld with a descent-into-hell plot, fresh murders, and demons closing in.

Reformed con man Moist von Lipwig has tamed the Post Office and is bored — so Lord Vetinari hands him the Royal Bank and Mint, plus a small dog who is now legally the chairman. To save the city's money, Moist must invent paper currency and out-con an ancient banking dynasty.

Down to two witches and needing a third, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg head to Ankh-Morpork to recruit the gifted young Agnes Nitt — who has fled to sing at the Opera House. But the Opera has a masked Ghost, and the bodies are starting to pile up among the arias.

Will, an orphan boy at Castle Redmont who dreams of becoming a knight, is instead chosen as apprentice to Halt — the kingdom's most enigmatic and skilled Ranger — and must develop the arts of stealth, archery, and tracking to help face a rising evil threatening the kingdom.