Best Fantasy Books

Ursula K. Le Guin's collection of five stories and an essay deepening the world of Earthsea. Ranging across the archipelago's history — from the founding of the wizards' school on Roke to the eve of the events of The Other Wind — these tales enrich one of fantasy's most beloved creations.

Croaker, the Black Company's physician and annalist, chronicles the mercenary band's bloody journey as they are hired into the service of a terrifying sorceress called the Lady — and slowly realise there may be no good side in this war.

Two city-states occupy the same geography but citizens must 'unsee' the other city on pain of intervention by a mysterious force called Breach. A noir detective novel and a meditation on perception.

Poppy learns the truth about her origins and what she truly is — a revelation that shifts the entire Blood and Ash series into a larger, more mythological conflict. The third book takes the story from personal stakes to civilisational ones.

Still trapped as a mortal teen, Apollo journeys to Indianapolis to free a captive Oracle from the cruel emperor Commodus. Rick Riordan's second Trials of Apollo book deepens the fallen god's humbling, adding new allies and a chilling second member of the Triumvirate.

Set between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla, the ka-tet takes shelter from a deadly storm called a starkblast. As they wait, Roland tells a story from his early days as a gunslinger, within which young Roland tells a fairy tale to a frightened boy. Three nested narratives — frame, memory, and fable — make this the series' most structurally playful and tonally gentle entry.

Roland and his ka-tet arrive at Calla Bryn Sturgis, a farming village terrorised by the Wolves — armoured riders who sweep in every generation to steal one child from every pair of twins, returning them as 'roont' adults, permanently diminished. King structures the novel as a western, drawing directly on The Magnificent Seven, as the gunslingers agree to help the Calla defend itself.

Seven years after the Shades of Magic trilogy, the four Londons are uneasy. A rebellion stirs, a new Antari emerges, and old favorites return as V.E. Schwab launches a sweeping sequel series about who deserves power and what it costs to hold the worlds together.

The second Merlin novel covers Arthur's childhood in hiding, his education, and his discovery of Excalibur — following Merlin as he watches over the boy who will become High King from a careful, loving distance. Less structurally ambitious than The Crystal Cave but emotionally rich.

The fifth and final novel of the main Witcher saga. As the war between the Northern Kingdoms and Nilfgaard reaches its bloody climax and Ciri's destiny draws her between worlds, Sapkowski brings the stories of Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri to a haunting, melancholy close.

A false Aslan, an ape called Shift, and the Calormenes threaten Narnia in its final days. The seventh and final Narnia chronicle is Lewis's Revelation — an apocalyptic ending to a children's fantasy that is also a theological argument about the nature of reality.

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.

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.