Universe

Books like Earthsea: 9 series to read next

Earthsea is fantasy and epic fantasy, about wizards, set in secondary world, reflective in register. The 9 series below are ranked by how much of that they share — each card says which parts.

Earthsea is 19 books across 1 series, 1964–2025.

“There is a lesson every wizard of Earthsea learns young: to know a thing's true name is to hold its whole being, and to speak it is to move the balance of the world.”
from the catalogue description

The Earthsea page →Narrow this list →

Hainish
His Dark Materials
Prydain
The Dark Is Rising
The Broken Earth
Tolkien's legendarium
Narnia
Earthsea Cycle
Seraphina Universe

HainishSeries

seriesUrsula K. Le Guin33 books1964

Loreful pick

The same author turning the same anthropological eye on worlds instead of islands.

“The Hainish Cycle consists of a number of science fiction novels and stories by Ursula K. Le Guin.”
from the catalogue description
Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0

Start with Rocannon's World →

His Dark MaterialsUniverse

universe13 books1995

Loreful pick

A coming-of-age fantasy that respects its reader and takes death seriously.

“In a world like ours and unlike it, every human soul walks outside the body in the shape of an animal — a daemon, who speaks, who cannot be lied to, and who settles into one fixed form only when childhood ends.”
from the catalogue description

Reading order →

PrydainUniverse

universe16 books1964

Loreful pick

A short, complete quest cycle about an assistant pig-keeper learning what a hero costs.

“Taran is an Assistant Pig-Keeper, which is exactly as grand as it sounds, and the pig is an oracular white sow who will not tell him what he wants to hear.”
from the catalogue description

Reading order →

The Dark Is RisingSeries

seriesSusan Cooper5 books1965

Loreful pick

Myth pressing through the everyday, written with the same restraint and the same chill.

“The first book in the series, Over Sea, Under Stone, was originally conceived as a stand-alone novel, and the sequence gets its name from the second novel in the series, The Dark Is Rising.”
from the catalogue description
Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0

Start with Over Sea, Under Stone →

The Broken EarthSeries

seriesN. K. Jemisin5 books2014

Loreful pick

Power as an inheritance nobody asked for, in prose that carries as much weight per line.

“N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy is set on the Stillness, a single supercontinent wracked every few centuries by civilization-ending climate catastrophes called Fifth Seasons.”
from the catalogue description

Start with The Fifth Season →

Tolkien's legendariumUniverse

universe163 books1923

Fantasy, set in secondary world.

“Before the seas were bent and the mountains raised, there was Music — and from that Music came Arda, and in the west of Middle-earth the long defeat and stubborn hope of those who dwell there.”
from the catalogue description

Reading order →

NarniaUniverse

universe38 books1950

Portal fantasy.

“Once there is a wardrobe at the back of a spare room, and behind the fur coats the wood gives way to snow, and a lamp-post burns alone among the trees.”
from the catalogue description

Reading order →

Earthsea CycleSeries

seriesUrsula K. Le Guin18 books1964

Fantasy and epic fantasy, reflective in tone, about wizards, set in secondary world.

“As it happens in most of these cases, his talent for magic was recognised when he was a boy, a wizard had him as apprentice for a while, and then he was transferred to Roke, to the school for magic.”
from the catalogue description of A Wizard of Earthsea
Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0

Start with A Wizard of Earthsea →

Seraphina UniverseSeries

seriesRachel Hartman6 books2012

Fantasy, about identity, set in secondary world.

Start with Among Ghosts →

Why these

No sales rank, no star ratings, no readers also bought.

Shared terms are not a promise that a book feels the same. Two series can be far-future political intrigue and read nothing alike — what the ranking can say is what they are about, and each card says which parts it shares.

Questions readers ask

What should I read after Earthsea?: Hainish. The same author turning the same anthropological eye on worlds instead of islands.
How big is Earthsea?: Earthsea is 19 books across 1 series, 1964–2025.

Books like Earthsea: 9 series to read next

Read next in Earthsea

Why these

Questions readers ask

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