anchored on:epic fantasyprophecysecondary worldadventurousyoung adultchosen one+1 more
series2 books1937
completed
part of Tolkien's legendarium
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The Hobbit (1937) is J. R. R. Tolkien's children's fantasy novel following the reluctant burglar Bilbo Baggins, who joins a company of dwarves and the wizard Gandalf on a journey to reclaim treasure guarded by the dragon Smaug. It stands as a complete adventure on its own, but shares its setting with the rest of Tolkien's legendarium and leads into the events of The Lord of the Rings.
series6 books2004
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Furies of Calderon opens The Codex Alera in a Rome-flavored fantasy world where nearly everyone commands elemental spirits called furies, except Tavi, a teenager with none, whose resourcefulness becomes the series' recurring answer to raw magical power. Jim Butcher's six-book series, continuing through Academ's Fury, Cursor's Fury, Captain's Fury, Princeps' Fury, and First Lord's Fury, builds from small-scale political maneuvering into full-scale war.
series13 books1954
part of Tolkien's legendarium
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The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.
series3 books2014
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Twenty years after a war that toppled the god-like Augurs and stripped magic from the world, James Islington's Licanius Trilogy follows Davian, a young man bound by laws written to suppress the powers the Augurs once had, who discovers he can still reach forbidden abilities. His awakening coincides with the stirring of an ancient enemy and the appearance of an amnesiac stranger whose fate is bound to his. The three books trace how the old war's cover-up starts to unravel.
series14 books1996
part of World of Ice and Fire
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A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of high fantasy novels by the American author George R. R. Martin. Martin began writing the first volume, A Game of Thrones, in 1991, and published it in 1996. Martin, who originally envisioned the series as a trilogy, has released five out of seven planned volumes. The most recent entry in the series, A Dance with Dragons, was published in 2011. Since then, Martin has been working on the sixth novel, titled The Winds of Winter. A seventh novel, A Dream of Spring, is planned to follow.
universe6 books1989
Start hereElenium · Start here
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Sir Sparhawk is not a young man, and he has little patience for the pageantry his order pretends to. A Pandion Knight of the militant Elene Church, he rides home from a long exile to find his kingdom rotten with intrigue and his young queen, Ehlana, poisoned — kept alive only inside a shell of living crystal. To wake her he must find Bhelliom, a jewel with the power to remake the world or unmake it. So begins a long ride across the continent of Eosia. This is warm, character-first epic fantasy from David Eddings, told across two trilogies. The Elenium — The Diamond Throne, The Ruby Knight, The Sapphire Rose — pits Sparhawk against a corrupt church and a hungry elder god. The Tamuli — Domes of Fire, The Shining Ones, The Hidden City — carries him east into the vast Tamul Empire, where older enemies stir. Around him gathers a quarrelsome company: the Styric sorceress Sephrenia, the thief-boy Talen, the plain-spoken squire Kurik, and a small, imperious goddess who plays a set of pipes and always, somehow, gets her way. The pleasure here is the talk — grizzled knights trading dry insults between miracles and murders, a hero who solves as many problems with patience as with a sword. It never reaches for grimness or grand obscurity; it wants your good company for a long journey. Newcomers begin with The Diamond Throne and read the six in order: the Elenium stands whole on its own before the Tamuli widens the map.
series2 books2023
similar byepic fantasysecondary worldadventuroustenseyoung adultpolitical intriguerebellion and revolution
series2 books2023
similar byepic fantasysecondary worldadventuroustensepolitical intriguerebellion and revolution
James Islington's Hierarchy series opens with The Will of the Many, set in the Catenan Republic, an empire built on 'Will' — citizens' personal strength and drive, ceded upward to those in power. Its protagonist infiltrates the empire's most prestigious academy under a false identity to investigate a murder and search for a hidden weapon, refusing to surrender his own Will to the empire that killed his family. The Strength of the Few continues the story as book two.
series15 books2012
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Throne of Glass is a epic fantasy novel series by American author Sarah J. Maas, beginning with the entry of the same name, released on August 2, 2012. The story follows the journey of Celaena Sardothien, a teenage assassin in a corrupt kingdom with a tyrannical ruler, the King of Adarlan. As the story progresses, Celaena forms unexpected bonds and uncovers a conspiracy amidst her adventures. The series concluded with the eighth book in October 2018.
series3 books1989
completed
part of Sparhawk
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The Elenium is a series of fantasy novels by American writer David Eddings. The series consists of three volumes: The Diamond Throne, The Ruby Knight, and The Sapphire Rose. The series is followed by The Tamuli. The Elenium is Eddings' third fantasy series.
universe19 books2013
Start hereThe Powder Mage Trilogy · Start here
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Load your powder, and pray your sorcery outruns their cannon. Here the age of kings is ending at musket-point: a world where black powder is not merely fired but eaten, and the men and women called powder mages snort a pinch of it to burn a trance across the battlefield — igniting an enemy's cartridges from a mile off, bending a bullet mid-flight, reading a room by the taste of the air. Against them stand the Privileged, glove-fingered sorcerers of the old order who summon fire and frost, and above both, gods who have not finished walking the earth. Brian McClellan builds this flintlock world across two linked trilogies. The Powder Mage Trilogy — Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, The Autumn Republic — opens with a field marshal's coup against a rotten monarchy and the invasion, revolution, and divine reckoning that follow. Gods of Blood and Powder — Sins of Empire, Wrath of Empire, Blood of Empire — crosses the ocean a decade on to the colonial frontier of Fatrasta, where old soldiers, spies, and a heretic goddess collide. A run of novellas and short stories fills the corners between. Expect grapeshot and gunsmoke, siege lines and back-alley intrigue, generals and con men given equal weight. Begin at Promise of Blood and read in publication order — the trilogies run in sequence, and the short work is seasoning, not prerequisite.
series9 books2012
part of Grishaverse
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Leigh Bardugo is an American fantasy author. She is best known for her young adult Grishaverse novels, which include the Shadow and Bone trilogy and the Six of Crows and King of Scars duologies. She also received acclaim for her paranormal fantasy adult debut, Ninth House. The Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows series have been adapted into Shadow and Bone by Netflix, and Ninth House will be adapted by Amazon Studios; Bardugo is an executive producer on both works.
series15 books2010
part of Cosmere
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The Stormlight Archive is a high fantasy novel series written by American author Brandon Sanderson, planned to consist of ten novels. As of 2024, the series comprises five published novels and two novellas, set within Sanderson's broader Cosmere universe. The first novel, The Way of Kings, was published on August 31, 2010. The second novel, Words of Radiance, was published on March 4, 2014 and debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller List. This was repeated by Oathbringer and Rhythm of War. The fifth novel, Wind and Truth, was released December 6, 2024. Sanderson has indicated that he will start drafting the latter half of the series after he finishes writing the upcoming Era Three Mistborn trilogy and the two Elantris sequels. The series has been adapted as a VR Experience and a tabletop roleplaying game.
series15 books2013
part of The Powder Mage
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The Powder Mage trilogy is a series of epic fantasy novels written by American author Brian McClellan. It consists of the novels Promise of Blood (2013), The Crimson Campaign (2014) and The Autumn Republic (2015). In 2014, Promise of Blood received the Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer. Several short stories and novellas set in the world of The Powder Mage trilogy have been published, as well as an additional trilogy called Gods of Blood and Powder.
series3 books2018
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Tomi Adeyemi's Legacy of Orïsha trilogy opens with Children of Blood and Bone, following Zélie, a girl from a persecuted caste of former magic-users, on a quest to restore magic to a kingdom that outlawed and hunted her people. Children of Virtue and Vengeance and Children of Anguish and Anarchy continue the fallout of that restoration as new factions fight over who gets to wield the returned power. The series draws on West African mythology and languages for its magic system and setting.
universe44 books1982
Start hereRiftwar Saga · Start here
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On the world of Midkemia a tear opens in the air itself, a rift hung between stars, and through it march the armies of an empire from another world entirely. So begins the chronicle Raymond E. Feist has kept for three decades: the tale of Pug, a castle kitchen boy apprenticed to a magician on the very day the invasion lands, and of Tomas, his friend, who inherits the armor and the ancient fury of a dead dragon-lord. Around these two the Riftwar Cycle turns, widening book by book from one besieged frontier keep into the whole history of a world of kingdoms, guilds, thieves' dens and mage-towers. The cycle runs to roughly thirty novels, gathered into arcs a newcomer can enter and finish on their own. The founding Riftwar Saga (Magician, Silverthorn, A Darkness at Sethanon) sets the board; the Serpentwar Saga, Krondor's Sons and the Conclave of Shadows carry the story down the generations; the Darkwar, Demonwar and Chaoswar sagas bring it toward its close. Crossing the rift to the rival world of Kelewan, Feist and Janny Wurts wrote the Empire trilogy, opening with Daughter of the Empire, a court intrigue told wholly from the invaders' side and for many the finest thing here. Shorter Legends of the Riftwar and the game-born Riftwar Legacy fill the corners; later still, Feist opens an altogether new world in the Firemane books. Feist writes fantasy in its most companionable key: apprentices who grow into archmages, tavern boys who become spies and dukes, a world you return to the way you return to an old inn. The mood is adventure before dread, friendship and rank and hard-won craft, wars that cost something, all of it rendered plainly and at a gallop. Begin where it began, with Magician, then follow the arcs in the order they were written, and the rift will carry you the rest of the way.
series5 books1988
similar byepic fantasysecondary worldprophecyadventurouschosen one
The Darksword series consists of the initial three books of The Darksword Trilogy, a supplemental role-playing volume, and a single-volume sequel. It was written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman with cover art by Larry Elmore. It is the story of a young man, born without magic in a society where magic is life, who has been prophesied to destroy the world. The books are published by Bantam Spectra, the science fiction division of Random House. Each book of the trilogy reached the New York Times best seller list.
series6 books1988
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The Dragon Prince and Dragon Star trilogies comprise six connected fantasy novels written by Melanie Rawn. The Dragon Prince trilogy focuses on Prince Rohan of the Desert and his Sunrunner wife, Sioned, while the Dragon Star trilogy focuses on their son, Pol. The Dragon Prince trilogy consists of novels Dragon Prince, The Star Scroll, and Sunrunner's Fire. The books in the Dragon Star trilogy are Stronghold, The Dragon Token, and Skybowl.
series5 books1998
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James Paul Czajkowski, better known by his pen name of James Rollins, is an American veterinarian and writer of action-adventure/thriller, mystery, and techno-thriller novels who gave up his veterinary practice in Sacramento, California to be a full-time author. Rollins' experiences and expertise as an amateur spelunker and a certified scuba diver have provided content for some of his novels, which are often set in underground or underwater locations. Under the pen name James Clemens, he has also published fantasy novels, such as Wit'ch Fire, Wit'ch Storm, Wit'ch War, Wit'ch Gate, Wit'ch Star, Shadowfall (2005), and Hinterland (2006).
series5 books2010
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The Black Prism introduces Gavin Guile, the Prism — supreme religious and political authority over the Seven Satrapies, and the only person able to draft every color of magical light into solid, structural "luxin" — as an uprising and a hidden family secret both threaten to unravel the fragile peace he's built. Brent Weeks's five-book Lightbringer series pushes its chromaturgy magic system toward its physical and moral limits: drafters who overuse their color eventually "break the halo" and turn into monsters called wights.
series5 books2002
similar byepic fantasysecondary worldadventurouschosen oneyoung adult
Maerad has spent most of her life enslaved on a remote farm, until the wandering Bard Cadvan recognizes in her the Gift -- a rare and powerful magical ability -- and takes her from captivity into training. Alison Croggon's Books of Pellinor follow Maerad across the world of Edil-Amarandh as she's drawn into a prophecy naming her the only one who might stop the Nameless One, an ancient and corrupting sorcerer, while she also searches for her lost family. The series runs through The Gift, The Riddle, The Crow, The Singing, and the later prequel The Bone Queen.
series3 books2003
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The Farsala Trilogy is a series of three fantasy novels by Hilari Bell that includes Fall of a Kingdom, Rise of a Hero, and Forging the Sword.
series3 books2020
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Between Earth and Sky is a fantasy novel series by American writer Rebecca Roanhorse. It currently comprises three novels: Black Sun (2020), Fevered Star (2022), and Mirrored Heavens (2024). It is an epic fantasy series inspired by various pre-Columbian American cultures. Black Sun won the 2021 Alex Award and the 2021 Ignyte Award for Best Adult Novel; it was additionally a finalist for the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, Nebula Award for Best Novel, and Hugo Award for Best Novel. The whole series won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Series.