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10 underrated works of epic fantasy
There’s no shortage of underrated epic fantasy. There’s no shortage of epic fantasy at all, in fact, since epic fantasy as we know it today is the product of tried storytelling traditions from across the globe.

Critics disagree on when epic fantasy really emerged as its own subgenre. However, fantasy-dedicated imprints have consistently published series in this vein since Terry Brooks’s 1977 debut, The Sword of Shannara. And of course there are numerous notable earlier works, such as The Lord of the Rings or even The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, who coined the term “high fantasy.”

With 45+ years of clear history behind it, epic fantasy offers lots of choices for readers today. The sheer volume of epic fantasy works now in circulation has led to many interesting works being buried or forgotten (generally underrated). This post will take a close look at just a few of these, including:
1. The Sun Sword series by Michelle West
2. The Swan’s War trilogy by Sean Russell
3. Riddle-Master by Patricia McKillip
4. A Sword of Shadows by J. V. Jones
5. The Cathrand Voyage Quartet by Robert V. S. Redick
Before digging in, it’s worth confronting two overarching questions.

First: What is epic fantasy?

Longer articles than this one have tried to answer this question.

I’m not really going to equivocate about the nature of epic fantasy versus high fantasy, heroic fantasy, grimdark, or even military fantasy. Every work below contains the following characteristics: A big cast of characters (typically with multiple points of view in the same book), a secondary world setting, and storylines concerned with a grand, even earth-shaking scale of events.

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Second: What does underrated mean in the context of epic fantasy?

This is even more subjective than the question of what epic means. When I say “underrated epic fantasy,” I’m largely basing my assessment on works being less well-known. Most of the series I’ll address have devoted fans and have received high praise from their readers. They just aren’t as widely recognized as series like The Wheel of Time, Malazan, Riyria Revelations, The Broken Earth Trilogy, etc.

So, if epic is your jam and you want to find something a little different, here are ten underrated works of epic fantasy you might consider.

1. The Sun Sword by Michelle West (1997 – 2004)

As a child of the 90s, I have to think something magical was in the air at the time. Michelle West, also known as Michelle Sagara, is one of several epic fantasy authors to begin landmark series within just a few years. Like Robin Hobb, George R. R. Martin, and J. V. Jones (mentioned below), West had already shown her skill with other books before she launched into this series. She made an explosive mark on the relatively small corps of readers who got to experience it.

The Sun Sword series is also very like these works in its ability to take on darker, heavier themes with a more direct approach than much epic fantasy had in the 80s or earlier. West’s writing takes a zoomed in view of slavery, sexism, and oppression in general, making for a more challenging read than many of the adventure-focused fantasies that preceded authors like her.

West’s worldbuilding is detailed and deep, but where she really stands out is in her ability to humanize characters making drastic, compromised decisions. There are seemingly clear decisions, like whether to conceal magical powers that could make one a target. And there are much tougher ones for characters like Diora, who influence whether a catastrophic war will unfold or not.

Rich in imagination and immense in scope, West’s The Sun Sword stands up with the best epic fantasy of the 90s and beyond. But I have yet to meet a single reader in person who knows this series, reminding me what an underrated gem it is among epic fantasy.

Book Details
- Six books:
  - The Broken Crown (1997)
  - The Uncrowned King (1998)
  - The Shining Court (1999)
  - The Sea of Sorrows (2001)
  - The Riven Shield (2003)
  - The Sun Sword (2004)
2. The Swan’s War trilogy by Sean Russell (2001 – 2004)

Sean Russell often flies under the fantasy reader’s radar. Most of his books are unique blends of genre elements. (For instance, he’s one of the only authors I know who has written books about what it might have been like to have Francis Bacon discover magic while envisioning the modern scientific method.) The Swan’s War is a similarly fresh amalgamation of very different ideas, but it brings a strong does of familiarity for epic fantasy readers as well.

Russell himself describes this trilogy as a sort of fantasy take on both Romeo and Juliet–with two warring families and a not entirely happy love story–and a high fantasy version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It might sound hard to synthesize these very different premises, but Russell’s intriguing worldbuilding and clever plotting make it work well.

Here are a few elements epic fantasy readers might especially appreciate:
- A heavily martial theme as two aristocratic houses duke it out
- Epic landscapes that can be traversed quickly thanks to terrestrial navigation magic
- A mysterious river that might not cut the same path for any two voyagers
- Freakishly strong bull monsters attacking castles in the middle of the night
- Some very cunning wizards
Critics sometimes discount The Swan’s War because of similarities to The Wheel of Time–specifically in how three young men, who happen to be a lot like Rand al’Thor, Matt Cauthon, and Perrin Aybara, set out from their home and encounter a group of nomadic, peaceful people who are connected to an ancient cultural reversal and some big plot stuff. So yes, these are clear similarities at surface level.

That said, Russell’s work is not very much like The Wheel of Time in setting, tone, world-building or actual character development journeys. If Russell meant to copy Robert Jordan’s epic, he must have given up reading after book one or two.

With a fascinatingly vague magic system, exceptional examples of fantasy characters with disabilities, and some truly epic moments in each volume of the trilogy, The Swan’s War is a hidden triumph of the genre and a personal favorite on my list of underrated epic fantasy.

Good fit for readers of: Robin Hobb, Tad Williams, or Terry Brooks.

Book Details
- Three books
  - The One Kingdom (2001)
  - The Isle of Battle (2002)
  - The Shadow Roads (2004)
3. Riddle-Master by Patricia McKillip (1976 – 1979)

Patricia McKillip is an outstanding writer, with evident skill in several big fantasy subgenres. I’ve mentioned her elsewhere on this blog and will surely do so again.

The Riddle-Master trilogy stands apart in so many ways that I’m constantly surprised it isn’t more widely known. It’s worth noting upfront that Riddle-Master is less epic than any others on the list, given that it’s a shorter tale set in a smaller world with a slimmer cast and fewer big confrontations. It’s also the earliest inclusion on this list chronologically, having hit stores a year before even Terry Brooks’s The Sword of Shannara arrived with its tidal pull toward what we now know as epic fantasy.

Riddle-Master is an astonishingly fresh combination of familiar and distinctive storytelling. The main character, Morgon of Hed, is one part farmer and swineherd, one part unlikely scholar, one part prophecy fulfillment, and one part prince with a magical connection to the very land he rules. So if you’re looking for rags to riches, coming of age journeys, unexpected royalty, or other tropes so common in epic fantasy across the following few decades, Morgon fits the bill in a totally unconventional way.

Throughout this trilogy, McKillip shows her ability to breathe magical quality into everything about her world. The setting and political structures are vibrant and can’t be disconnected from the plot and characters. The various types of magic shown or simply hinted at make the setting a treasure to explore, from the ghost-cursed forests in the south to the lonely tundras populated by wizard deer in the far north.

McKillip has often acknowledged the huge influence Tolkien had on her work. I think her Riddle-Master trilogy might be the most Tolkien-like work I’ve read by any other author. And yet it’s wholly, unforgettably unique at the same time.

Good fit for readers of: J. R. R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, Patrick Rothfuss, or Katherine Addison.

Book Details
- Three books
  - The Riddle-Master of Hed (1976)
  - Heir of Sea and Fire (1977)
  - Harpist in the Wind (1979)
- The final book was nominated for both the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award; it also won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel
Recommended Reading: Top-Tier Epic Fantasy Written by Women

4. A Sword of Shadows by J. V. Jones (1999 – )

I first encountered J. V. Jones by seeing the outstanding cover for A Sword from Red Ice (below). I was probably too young to read it then, but I recognized the cover when I stumbled across Jones’s name four or five years later. This time I also heard Jones compared to George R. R. Martin and Steven Erickson, as a contender in the very top tier of epic fantasy writers of the day. That caught my attention even more than the cover art had.

Regardless of any assessment of who writes best in epic fantasy, A Sword of Shadows has some extraordinarily strong writing that most epic fantasy readers will enjoy.

Jones’s characters–especially the less obviously central ones–are incredibly compelling, nuanced, memorable, and interesting all around. Her setting is rich with lore, history, and mystery, while teeming with just the right details to bring her cold world to life in every chapter. The story’s stakes get higher and higher, with truly immense conflicts speeding forward even as Jones spends time and care on the very small, personal battles that make her world so believable.

The long incompletion of the series might be one reason readers steer away from Jones’s work. This is one of only two incomplete series listed here, and it might stay incomplete for years to come. Jones has released samples of the manuscript for Endlords, book five in A Sword of Shadows, but we’re still waiting for a release date–and it has been twelve years since book four came out. Also, it’s hard to find any real confirmation that the yet untitled book six will actually end the series.

Incomplete or not, however, A Sword of Shadows is an amazingly vivid story so far, and I for one have high hopes for the final two volumes. And if it’s never finished? Well, then there can be some underrated epic fantasy to mirror the very popular ones that aren’t yet done.

Good fit for readers of: Tad Williams, Peter V. Brett, or George R. R. Martin.

Book Details
- Planned as six books:
  - A Cavern of Black Ice (1999)
  - A Fortress of Grey Ice (2003)
  - A Sword from Red Ice (2007)
  - Watcher of the Dead (2010)
  - Endlords (TBD)
  - TBD (TBD)
5. The Cathrand Voyage Quartet by Robert V. S. Redick (2008 – 2013)

Of all the works listed here, The Cathrand Voyage Quartet might offer the most unconventional style and setting.

It’s epic in scope and character, no doubt. I’d contend that pretty much any books about emperors starting civil wars to weaken their enemies while secret sorcerers works to magically bring a banished king to power to take over the world have to fit some epic molds. But whereas just about every other book on this list features pseudo-European landscapes, long road trips, horseback chases, magical forests, and other familiar fantasy fare, Robert V. S. Redick’s four books bring a different flavor.

Many of the series’ events take place on or around the IMS Cathrand, a monstrously big unité d’habitation type of ship that can house a small city’s worth of people…perhaps forever. And what lives on this ship? Alien wizards, intelligent rats, and a captain who is sort of a 30% version of Ahab.

Oh, and there’s underwater treasure hunting.

In short, there’s lots to love about Redick’s books. The Cathrand Voyage Quartet delivers a more user friendly read than most others on the list as well, since it tends to speak to a younger audience overall without actually being dumbed down or written just for teens.

Good fit for readers of: Michael J. Sullivan, David Eddings, or Brian Jacques.

Book Details
- Four books
  - The Red Wolf Conspiracy (2008)
  - The Ruling Sea (2009)
  - The River of Shadows (2011)
  - The Night of the Swarm (2013)
More underrated epic fantasy worth mentioning

With additional time, I plan to share my thoughts on a few more series well worth noting on this list! Until then, here’s a slim breakdown broken down chronologically by the start of each series:
- Deverry by Katherine Kerr (1986 – ). At sixteen books and counting, Katherine Kerr’s Deverry series is the longest on this list. She does break it up, however, into smaller sub-series that make it more digestible (think three or four books each). Kerr takes a more distinctly high magic approach to her books than most epic fantasy included in this list. She also combines a firmly Celtic feel with numerous nods to Buddhism and a distinctive set of intelligent races.
- Monarchies of God by Paul Kearney (1995 – 2002). Think early flintlock with a noticeable shift toward grimdark. Kearney led that charge before the arrival of names like Joe Abercrombie, Richard Morgan, Kameron Hurley, or Mark Lawrence. Also worth noting: Steven Erickson loves this series despite it being, in full, about the length of just one Erickson novel. Kearney was a big name in epic fantasy at the turn of the century but seems to have been somewhat buried as a new generation of authors rose.
- Crown of Stars by Kate Elliott (1997 – 2006). Crown of Stars almost walks a line between historical and epic fantasy. Its expensive setting is strongly reminiscent of real cultures and peoples in Medieval Europe. Also worth noting: Kate Elliott is one of the early American pioneers in the world of getting a really big book split into two. Book four in this series was split first; the sixth volume in Crown of Stars wound up being 430,000 words long, necessitating an extension into seven volumes total. Maybe more publishers are cool with that size of tome now, but Elliot helped pave the way for many epic series becoming even more epic with multiple volume splits.
- The Kingdoms of Bone and Thorn by Greg Keyes (2003 – 2008). This series was quite popular around the time of its release but seems to have fallen from recognition since then. Monumental struggles between aristocrats, kingdoms, powerful churches, the undead, alternate dimensions (including possibly our own…), assassins, monks, sorcerer princesses, and musicians trying to discover forgotten arts are just a few of the things to epic fantasy readers might love about The Kingdoms of Bone and Thorn.
- The Godless World by Brian Ruckley (2006 – 2009). Brian Ruckley himself described his trilogy as “a fairly dark, uncompromising kind of fantasy.” Ruckley’s debut arrived in the U.S. right about the time Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch, and Patrick Rothfuss entranced fantasy readers with their own debuts. This glut of talent might be why his work didn’t get the attention other authors’ did. That said, despite some sometimes tropey plot devices, Ruckley’s trilogy brings a uniquely close look at both sides of an epic story, and he wraps the whole thing together in just three books.
Note: This article is a 2023 update of a previously published post.

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About the Author

Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
June 12, 2023
Why readers love Patrick Rothfuss: Digging into the data
I’d been seriously reading epic fantasy just a year or two when Patrick Rothfuss made his debut with the publication of The Name of the Wind. It was 2007. Rothfuss’s wasn’t the first big debut of the time. Scott Lynch and Joe Abercrombie had released their first books just the year before—and to immediate acclaim. In 2005 we got our first novel from Brandon Sanderson. Naomi Novik, Jim Butcher, Nnedi Okorafor and even Steven Erikson were all new names on the scene back then.

Despite this wave of compelling new voices, Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind made a bigger splash in circles I frequented. Publishers fought to be the one who brought it to print. Readers raved about it. Authors admired it openly. To this day, I haven’t seen a single debut catch fire in the same way.

There are plenty of explanations for Rothfuss’s success—such as his charisma, the intense energy of the blogging world at the time, and the serious pump-priming influence of authors preceding Rothfuss’s arrival. I’m not exploring these in this article. Rather, this article will look at actual reader data on why people love Rothfuss’s books. And for non-data kicks, I’ll share my own take on the topic too.

A note on my methods

]I employed a methodology almost identical to what I did for last year’s article looking at data on why readers love The Lord of the Rings. The only real changes this time around the sun are: a) that I studied reader reviews going all the way back to 2007, accounting for Rothfuss’s full publishing lifespan; b) that I studied only reviews for The Name of the Wind (though I’ll gladly expand this when the full Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy is published); and c) that I studied 50 reviews in all, as opposed to the 200 I examined for The Lord of the Rings.

I also came in with a clearer hypothesis about why readers love Rothfuss’s writing so much. I surmised that the top factor would have to do with the relatability of the story and character events. I don’t think I was 100% correct, but the data definitely doesn’t disprove this either.

Here’s what I found.

The top reasons readers love The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

And here’s the text-only version:
1. Captivation (26 references)
2. Beauty (21 references)
3. The characters (20 references)
4. World-building (8 references)
5. “Best” quality (8 references)
6. Wisdom and quotability (7 references)
7. Its uniqueness (7 references)
8. Relatability (6 references)
9. The magic system (5 references)
10. Cleverness (4 references)
Readers reported a number of other reasons not shown in this visualization, including humor, mystery, plotting, story structure, pacing, and foreshadowing. But the obvious top tickets merit a little more analysis.

Recommended Reading: 9 Underrated Works of Epic Fantasy

1. Readers find Patrick Rothfuss’s words captivating (26 references)

A whopping 52% of the positive reviews I analyzed mentioned some form of feeling captivated as they read The Name of the Wind. Some reviewers described this in terms of the book being hard to put down. Others commented on how engrossed they were, how vivid the reading experience was, or simply by saying the story captivated them.

Since narrative transportation makes the story memorable—and has a profound and even lasting impact on the reader over time—it’s little wonder that readers love a story that rivets their attention so successfully. It’s also interesting to note that five out of the remaining nine top reasons (beauty, characters, world-building, “best” quality, and relatability) all correlate highly with this first point. Put more simply, it’s very likely that more than just 52% of readers love The Name of the Wind for its ability to hold their attention and carry them to another place and time.

Art by BradSuttonArt.

2. Readers find plenty that evokes beauty in Rothfuss’s writing (21 references)

There’s enough common consensus on this front that it should be no surprise to see beauty make the list of reasons readers love The Name of the Wind. With 21 nods among the reviews I studied, the indicator is that 42% of readers feel the same.

Rothfuss has long been known among the fantasy community for his ability to write high quality prose. He’s not the most verbose in his descriptions, as far as fantasy writers go; he packs a lot in at the sentence, paragraph, chapter, and bookwide levels, however, and he does it using language that’s both fresh and digestible. Readers comment almost equally on the beauty of his language and on how easy it is to take in.

3. The characters (20 references)

Many 5-star reader reviews comment on how the reviewer really disliked Kvothe. In fact, this is the only consistent cause for not liking The Name of the Wind across all the reviews analyzed. Yet Rothfuss’s characters were a clear runner-up to the top two reasons readers love his writing, with love for them cropping up in 40% of the reviews analyzed for this article.

Art by DonatoArts.

It’s particularly interesting that there are no obvious favorite characters. A few reviews mention laughing at Elodin, admiring Kvothe, or loving Bast. Yet the overall praise of Rothfuss’s characterization is more abstract than specific—very unlike the review data on The Lord of the Rings. This might be due to the nature of the narrative, which so closely follows Kvothe as to have few characters present throughout the book. It might also be connected to the fact that Kvothe’s narrative gives himself much more credit than it offers to anyone else, totally changing the framework for how other characters come across on the page.

Whatever the reasoning, readers do really like the people Rothfuss puts in his world, even when their liking might be polarizing.

A few additional notes

These top three reasons appeared pretty equally across all three review platforms studied—Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes and Noble. If you’ve read many reviews on each, you’ll know that they are not birds of a feather. The Goodreads review is a genre unto itself. A Barnes and Noble review is likewise a very different animal than an Amazon review. Yet the cross-platform agreement is clear.

Furthermore, it’s probably not coincidental that the top three reasons readers shared for loving The Name of the Wind are among the very top reasons that readers love The Lord of the Rings. I don’t take that to mean these books are truly alike—but that readers are so often similar in what really catches their interest.

Last but not least, it’s worth a qualitative comment that readers who love Rothfuss seem to have a little more fire than do readers who love other fantasy writers. This is much harder to quantify than the items listed above—and I can’t compare it in detail to too many other batches of reviews—but the general sense of awe at Rothfuss’s storytelling skill makes these reader reviews stand out from other reviews with the same numeric ratings. (I might have to write another article on that topic.)

Conclusion: What I Love About The Name of the Wind

Apparently there’s a lot to love about The Name of the Wind. Here’s my own take on it.

I think Rothfuss is particularly good at capturing the personal elements in his story, meaning the elements that can be appreciated with Kvothe in isolation. Not that Kvothe doesn’t interact with other people—he does, in quite a variety of situations. But the parts of the book that speak most powerfully to me are in Kvothe’s loneliness, his poverty, his yearning to be admired and praised for his cleverness, and in his many failures. Nearly every reason readers listed above (and most of the reasons not shown) are manifest in the way Kvothe interacts with the frame narrative and the substance of the story.

In summary, I’d say Rothfuss’s greatest skill is making the story personal. Hence my hypothesis above that other readers would find the same thing. I don’t want to read too much into it, but a glance at Rothfuss’s own life experience probably explains a lot of this—such as his clearly stated love for the college experience, which plays such a huge role in Kvothe’s narrative.

Personal stories are captivating and beautiful. Stories that feel personal also tend to have characters that feel real and compelling to the reader. And that’s definitely how The Name of the Wind comes across to me.

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About the Author

Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
May 31, 2023
My personal favorite works of fantasy and science fiction

I’ve often written about foundational works of epic fantasy, high fantasy, and other speculative subgenres. But I haven’t talked much about my own favorite works—despite several of them slipping into the mix of content here on the blog.

While I can think of plenty of obvious reasons each book appears on my list, there are likewise plenty of reasons for readers not to love the same books as me. This list probably won’t match anyone else’s breakdown of favorite SFF novels. It’s personal.

I will of course describe some reasons I think other readers will likewise care about the books I’m mentioning. But at the end of the day, I’m listing them chiefly because of my own experiences with each novel listed.

In reverse ranking order, here goes.

10. Harpist in the Wind by Patricia McKillip

My loose summary: Magical bards chase each other because they like knowing stuff and out-harping one another. And to save the world from shape shifting monsters.

No surprise that Patricia McKillip would make the list. Harpist in the Wind is the climactic finish to the Riddle Master Trilogy, and as such, it’s one of the books that really answers riddles that have been posed across the previous two volumes. This, in particular, makes for a riveting conclusion to the trilogy.

Since I’ve talked about the Riddle Master Trilogy in some detail before, let me say simply that every time I read this series (and Harpist in the Wind in particular), I’m astonished at something. It might be the subtle structuring of Morgon’s journey. It might be the evocative beauty and sense of sorrow present in the world McKillip has created. It might just be that I forgot all the answers to the riddles and I love to find them anew.

There’s also the whole matter of mages dueling each other with mystical geolocational powers, shape changers chasing the main characters, Earth Masters showing up with magical demands, and so on. Little wonder that I love a novel so packed with musicians, mysteries, and wizards.

In any case, Harpist in the Wind is one of the strongest conclusions I know to any fantasy trilogy and sits firmly on my list of all-time favorite SFF novels.

9. The Sword of Kaigen by M. L. Wang

My loose summary: A mom and her teenage son deal with parallel disillusionment while also being martial arts masters and having to prove it to some aggressive people.

The only indie work on this list, The Sword of Kaigen is also the most recent addition to my stack of favorite SFF novels. (And yes, I’ve talked about this one elsewhere on the blog as well).

The Sword of Kaigen follows two main characters. One is the 14-year old Mamoru, who experiences a fresh but powerfully relatable coming of age journey as he grapples with governmental failures and a staggering amount of new responsibility protecting his home. The other chief protagonist is Mamoru’s mother, Misaki.

The novel is incredibly unique in how it follows these two very different characters (a teenage boy and an emotionally exhausted mother). Furthermore, it takes a decidedly unusual approach to form and story shape, building up to climactic moments much earlier in the story than is normal and dwelling longer on the resolution needed afterward. It feels like a near perfect balance between slice-of-life fantasy and martial arts epic, rolling the elements together in a way I find seamless.

This novel makes my list of favorites not just because it’s so different and refreshing. It also packs a profound emotional punch (due to its difference, in my opinion), making it unforgettable in nearly every aspect.

8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling

My loose summary: Harry Potter competes in games that might kill him but cares more about social footing and friends because that’s real life for you.

I love all seven Harry Potter novels, but Goblet of Fire very quickly became my favorite of the series. It’s not just that this is the only volume to win a Hugo or that Harry finally showed that he could be more uniformly competent. Those things help, but there’s so much more going well for this book.

On one hand, Goblet of Fire has an amazing cast of side characters, including Ludo Bagman, Barty Crouch Sr., Barty Crouch Jr., and Rita Skeeter. Every Harry Potter novel has a similarly wondrous cast of characters that are neither chief villain nor principal friend to Harry, but I think the ensemble shines brighter in this volume than in any of the previous books, paving the way for some serious expansion in the next two volumes.

Likewise, Goblet of Fire really set the tone for how the series could continue to be deadly serious while also zooming in on the everyday struggles of homework and having to go to a school dance. I think it’s fair to say that the plot is less fully baked in this book than in a few others in the series, but the constant tension between big stakes and small ones that really matter to the characters makes for a book that is constantly engaging, funny, warm, and heart-wrenching.

7. Eldest by Christopher Paolini

My loose summary: All the main characters realize they’re making serious mistakes and have to learn or do some big stuff or else get eaten by the Raz’zac.

Unusual though this may be, I often like book two in a series best of all (you’ll find three instances of book number two in a series on this list, actually). In most cases, the story doesn’t stand alone. The ending might not even be an end. But these still so often wind up as my favorites, as Eldest is among Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle.

Paolini (and everyone on this list) has plenty of critics, but one of his great strengths as a writer is his ability to create a story spanning a wide spectrum of emotions. Some writers try, rather, to get one consistent tone or feeling throughout the full novel. This might seem cohesive, on the surface level, but it’s actually draining to read (no matter what the emotion is) and unrealistic.

Eldest, in particular among Paolini’s books, weaves together smaller storylines about fear and suspicion, new friends found, pain, growth, unrequited love, unflinching love, new wounds forming, older wounds healing, and so many other parallel lines of feeling. There are within the manuscript great moments of failure, just as there are moments of immense hope.

Every volume on this list (not an exaggeration; every volume) stitches together a similarly wide band of emotions, but Eldest is one of the books that first made me conscious of this dynamic.

I think it could remain on my list of favorite books for that alone. After all, reading it has subsequently enriched my reading experience of all other stories.

6. The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

My loose summary: Four wildly smart people hatch secret plots to save the world while under constant up-close surveillance. Most of them end up getting tried for crimes against humanity.

The second second book on the list, The Dark Forest is the lesser known volume following Cixin Liu’s highly regarded The Three-Body Problem. It is, however, not only an exceptional sequel but an incredible novel in its own regard.

Part thriller, part mystery, part hard science fiction philosophical inquiry, The Dark Forest follows Luo Ji, a somewhat indifferent sociologist who gets thrown into an elite international circle and tasked with saving humanity from invading aliens. Various parties try to cripple or remove Luo Ji and his colleagues, so there’s no shortage of close calls, escapes, and intrigue.

The real heart of the novel, however, comes from the link between Luo Ji’s task and his motivation for actually trying to complete it. To keep this fairly spoiler free, I’ll simply say that Cixin Liu really brings together the best of character-led storytelling and compelling hard science fiction concepts. Your reading might be enriched if you’re familiar with the first law of thermodynamics or the Fermi Paradox, but the story itself is powerful even without its ties to physics and cosmic sociology.

5. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

My loose summary: Scientists and aliens try to understand each other and keep messing up, which risks their planet getting obliterated.

Another second book in a series, Speaker for the Dead often falls under the reputational shadow (this is a pun) of other Enderverse novels. But there’s a stellar story here about the cultural power of words and the pain and solace that accompany them.

Where Ender’s Game, mentioned later on this list, focuses on a much smaller cast of five or six key characters, Speaker for the Dead follows a large community of scientists, sentient aliens, families, and community leaders entangled in a search for knowledge.

It’s a fairly standard sequel in the sense that it directly follows the events of Ender’s Game. It’s a wonderfully different sequel in how it stands on its own, thematically, and tells several whole stories even without finishing the series. This is not the only book on this list that ends with many threads left untied, but it might leave the biggest ones handy of any books I’m mentioning here. That said, Speaker for the Dead also has one of the most vivid endings of any novel I’ve read—hitting with greater force than nearly any other.

Since I can remember the endings of eight books on this list well enough to quote them directly, I take Speaker for the Dead’s ending, almost alone, as evidence of its lasting impression on me.

4. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

My loose summary: A slave becomes a boss.

I was an early Brandon Sanderson reader. I got my hands on Elantris and later Mistborn shortly after they were released, with high hopes for both. It wasn’t until The Way of Kings came out and my brother gifted it to me that I became a Sanderson fan, however.

The Way of Kings isn’t just next level for Sanderson. It’s next level epic fantasy in many genre-reaching ways. The scope and breadth of the story are, of course big (for lack of a more appropriate word that hasn’t been bandied plenty often already). But The Way of Kings still manages to thrive in smaller, more personal moments about perseverance, purpose, curiosity, belief, and fellowship. Long story short, the epic moments are about as epic as epic fantasy goes. And the personal moments are poignant in ways that bely the book’s massive wordcount.

The worldbuilding is incredibly refreshing, the action is gripping, but what I love most about The Way of Kings is how hopeful it feels. Even as it tells a story about cycles of cataclysmic collapse, it presents a stalwart optimism that there’s a way forward. For all the instances of brutal mistreatment of underlings—some who are soldiers and some who are slaves—it’s a story about people rising above circumstances they shouldn’t be able to control by themselves.

In most instances, The Way of Kings is about how people nurture each other’s hope and buoy one another only by banding together. Interestingly, nearly half the books on this list are about serious loners. Whether because of that trend in my tastes or in spite of it, The Way of Kings puts its stake in a wonderfully different spot of ground.

3. The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

My loose summary: The world’s coolest wizard goes on an epic sea quest to stop everyone in Earthsea from getting seriously depressed.

My loose summaries are obviously a little silly, but this one actually speaks to one of my favorite parts of this novel. The Farthest Shore isn’t a story about how horrible it would be if Thanos snapped his fingers and half of everyone died, or if Sephiroth called a meteor and it blasted the planet to bits. The stakes are much lower on the cosmic scale and much more real on the personal one.

Where countless other fantasy novels are about the danger of everyone dying, The Farthest Shore is about the danger of everyone in the world losing their love of life.

Magic, music, artistry, poetry, all these crafts are vanishing from the world, leaving people discouraged, listless, and hopeless. In a very Le Guin way, the novel’s events demand a solution that fits the issue, so instead of seeing a heroic character like the wizard Sparrowhawk get killed to save the world, we see many characters give up something beautiful and go on living anyway, not really knowing how they’ll proceed.

It’s tragic, heroic, epic, poetic, and I never get tired of revisiting it.

Oh, and there’s plenty of cool wizardry along the way.

2. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

My loose summary: A lonely kid has to save the human race from aliens because the grown-ups won’t let him have friends until he does.

Another hard science fiction novel, another novel about finding a way for humanity to survive the threat of alien invasion, and the first author repeat on this list, I’ll leave most of Ender’s Game unsummarized. Since this is the second most well-known book on the list, you’ll probably be familiar with the concept, at least: After narrowly surviving one alien invasion, humanity has turned for help to a small coterie of highly intelligent children in anticipation of another.

Ender’s Game is in many ways about how children and adults are so very alike. It’s also concerned with the ones we call our heroes are very much like the ones we call our enemies. At any rate, what I love most is how packed this short novel is with keen insights into why we do the things we do. It’s a masterwork in terms of worldbuilding, pacing, and point of view, but for me the wisdom and paradox of the narrative outweigh even the expert assembly that make a story of them.

1. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

My loose summary: The world’s coolest wizard goes on an epic sea quest to confront his childhood trauma and personal mistakes.

This is the novel I’ve read the most times of any on this list (by far). Like Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore, A Wizard of Earthsea has presented me with new gems to treasure each time I return to its pages.

On the surface, this looks like a simple coming of age redemption story. A reckless young wizard looses a monster on the world and has to stop it before it ruins everything. In standard Le Guin fashion, however, the stakes are actually personal rather than explosive. Yes, there’s a risk of trouble and even destruction if Sparrowhawk fails in his quest, but the real prices are for friendships that fail, boats that get broken, pets that get left behind in the snow, and the loss of selfhood threatening Sparrohwawk at every turn.

I’ve written more about this book on the occasion of A Wizard of Earthsea’s golden anniversary in 2018, but for the sake of this already lengthy post I’ll just leave it at this: I waffled for years between reading and not reading, having a legitimately hard time believing I’d find a book worth my time. But after reading A Wizard of Earthsea, I’ve never stopped reading new ones.

Since this book made a hungry reader of me, I can’t praise it enough.

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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.

April 13, 2023
Top-tier epic fantasy written by women
I’ve many times seen strange comments on Twitter or Reddit about a lack of good epic fantasy written by women. Maybe the people making these comments just haven’t gone looking—because there’s plenty out there to find.

Not all readers will agree on what I’m qualifying as epic fantasy today. But the works I’ll mention below all fit a few main criteria. They feature large storylines and casts of characters, secondary fantasy settings (even when they feel more like historical locales and cultures), the involvement of godlike magical beings, or just magical occurrences on an epic scale.

With these criteria in mind, here’s a modest handful of outstanding epic fantasy written by women, including:
The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb: Epic, coming of age fantasy written for adults

Robin Hobb, also known as Megan Lindholm, has a huge library of hard-hitting fantasy to her name(s). Her Realm of the Elderlings series spans 16 books. The Farseer trilogy is where most readers discover the series and remains Hobb’s most popular work to date.

Farseer has plenty in common with other epic fantasy. There’s a medieval setting, magical training, and quests for the main character. The story also features mysterious enemy entities threatening the protagonist’s home, complex internal politicking, etc. Most epic fantasy readers will have read something with a similar macro plotline. What really makes Farseer stand out is Hobb’s unique delivery.

On one hand, Hobb is refreshing in her choice to tell an epic story—which features a big cast of involved characters—all through the first-person point of view of a single character. Hobb’s approach to the coming of age journey in Farseer is unique as well. It follows FitzChivalry Farseer from his childhood into maturity in a way that’s clearly written for adults in the first place.

I can’t say enough about Hobb’s ability to put distinctive characters and settings on the page. Skill for skill, I consider her at the top among epic fantasy writers. She’s an obvious choice when looking for epic fantasy written by women.

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The Lotus Kingdoms Trilogy by Elizabeth Bear: Deep works without the monstrous wordcount

Like Hobb, Elizabeth Bear is a veteran author with a large library of works to show for herself. Bear has published over 65 short stories and 30 completed novels (all within just 20 years or so). She has shown her skill across epic fantasy, science fiction, and alternate history, among other speculative subgenres.

Perhaps thanks to her serious work writing short stories, one of Bear’s notable powers is telling a story quickly. This skill is especially rare among epic fantasy writers. Yet Bear demonstrates it across multiple epic series, such as her Eternal Sky Trilogy and The Lotus Kingdoms.

Bear’s books feel as if they were written with a clear sense of what the author wanted to say. So rather than being just another series about a band of misfits running interference in an inter-kingdom war, The Lotus Kingdoms brings its own refreshing sense of perspective to the type of story many epic fantasy readers expect. The story stands apart as a result. And it’s worth repeating how consistently Bear tells expansive stories in fleshed out settings without resorting to immense page counts.

The Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin: Smart books that honor their readers

I could just comment on how N. K. Jemisin is a MacArthur genius or the only author to win the Hugo award for all three books in one trilogy. But let’s talk writing quality as well.

I recall feeling a little underwhelmed when I first began The Inheritance Trilogy. I soon realized it was because I had just read several books that insisted on explaining everything. Unlike many of her peer authors, Jemisin rarely dumbs things down for her readers. She writes with a great level of respect for the people picking up her books. The narrative skims over parts readers can figure out for themselves, leaving things understated rather than making them too obvious.

That’s not to say that she refuses to offer any exposition or that her books are impossible to follow. But it is to say that Jemisin (a lot like Bear) packs more inside by using fewer words. Her books also offer higher reader rewards as you figure things out, follow characters’ logic, make sense of the setting on your own terms, and so on.

Outside onlookers often comment first on Jemisin’s literary qualities—such as her audacity to write epic fantasy in second person. While, yes, this is an interesting thing about works like Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy use second person, I think there’s a lot more smarts and heart at work than just what this kind of surface level analysis will reveal. Given Jemisin’s consistent quality, she’s a must-read on my list of epic fantasy written by women.

The Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart: Writing what the author wanted

I’ve read several Arthurian fantasies, but none as striking as Mary Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy written in the 1970s, before epic fantasy as we now know it was much of a thing. Maybe this one stands out because it’s more about wizardry and technology and mysticism and less about being a king.

Stewart’s trilogy feels like a historical fantasy. It’s particularly carefully crafted in terms of its connected lore. But it also feels like the result of an author simply writing what she wanted to read, unrestricted by genre bounds and storytelling tropes. And maybe this is also a result of the timing. So few fantasy works were mainstream yet, making the whole trilogy courageous and new.

The long and short is that Stewart’s trilogy is dark, political, tragic, inventive, sometimes astonishing. It’s always magical in tone and delivery. It’s not an easy tale to read, by any means. Yet it’s one I don’t think I’ll forget any time soon. And it’s already been fifteen odd years since I read any of it.

Crown of Stars by Kate Elliott: Epic fantasy for readers who want doorstoppers

In the 80s and 90s, publishers really began to realize that many epic fantasy readers were looking for long, continuous stories that stick with the same characters over time. Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan is probably the most popular series giving rise to this, with George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire following several years later, and Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen coming soon thereafter. Kate Elliott was one of the first women to write such a doorstopper series, Crown of Stars.

While the first few volumes read fairly well on their own (in order, at least), the series quickly becomes one that demands a long reading journey to find answers. At seven large volumes, Crown of Stars is packed with large casts of characters, many different settings and cultures drawn from medieval Europe, and magical convergences on a grand scale.

Like so many other epics, Crown of Stars still manages to focus on coming of age storylines as well, following two young outsider characters who have to find their place in the world during the midst of these political, monumental events. In this way, particularly, the series feels a lot like what fans of Tad Williams or Robert Jordan were looking for as these books first came out.

Sword of Shadows by J. V. Jones: A highwater mark in high fantasy

As I’ve mentioned on the blog before, I’m a big fan of J. V. Jones’s Sword of Shadows, a monumental series that merits a lot more reader attention. Sword of Shadows can rightly be compared to works like Malazan and A Song of Ice and Fire. Jones writes with truly remarkable skill establishing setting, populating her world with unforgettable characters, and digging deep into the story, not just spreading it wide—as often happens in multivolume works of fantasy.

Sword of Shadows is particularly significant in how consistently it humanizes both its heroes and its villains (some who are clearly horrible and some who are much more nuanced). While the story follows a few main characters on their quest to stop the Endlords from destroying the world, Jones spends a large amount of time in the minds of her antagonists as well. The stakes get high very quickly as a result.

Furthermore, Jones validates her high stakes quickly by letting the world make permanent marks on its characters. Like Erikson, Martin, and Hobb mentioned earlier, Jones lets her characters face serious consequences for their own choices and the actions of others in their world. The result is a setting that feels as dangerous and alive as the villains in whose heads we spend some serious time.

All in all, Jones writes with the best in the genre.

The Green Rider series by Kristen Britain: A friendly entry point to epic fantasy

Kristen Britain’s Green Rider series is fairly long (and still growing), but might offer the most accessible starting point on this list for readers new to epic fantasy. Britain bridges the gap between YA and adult fantasy in many ways, gradually easing into the series with smaller plots, fewer characters, and shorter books at first, but a good amount of expansion and depth with each new volume.

Like Hobb and Jemisin, Britain also does a lot to connect readers to the smaller storylines and less epic doings of her characters. But like everyone on the list, she brings in kingdom-crushing consequences and high stakes for her characters and setting as well.

Last but not least, Britain is one of many epic fantasy writers with a clear and abundant love for horses. There are many essays to be read on how writers do or don’t get horse facts right in their books, but I’d bet on Britain’s equestrian experience and know-how, based alone on the care she devotes to it in these books.

Many More Epic Options

There are far too many stellar works and authors for me to write about them all here. So here’s an additional list you might want to investigate:
- Katherine Kerr’s Deverry Cycle
- Rebecca Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky
- Melanie Rawn—just about anything she’s written, but the Dragon Prince trilogy for sure
- Fonda Lee’s The Green Bone Saga, which won’t fit everyone’s definition of epic fantasy but is, in Lee’s own words, “an epic fantasy that was not set in medieval Europe,” (and is definitely epic)
- Barbara Hambly’s Winterlands series
- Kameron Hurley’s The Worldbreaker Saga
- Karen Miller’s Kingmaker, Kingbreaker
- Rachel Neumeier’s Tuyo
And all this isn’t even to mention my personal favorite high fantasy authors Patricia McKillip and Ursula K. Le Guin, both who have written some very epic stuff—in eras where their publishers were very dominated by male authors.

I’ll conclude as I started, plus one addition. First, Twitter and Reddit are full of people saying nonsense things. And second, if you want to find top-tier epic fantasy series, trilogies, or even standalone works written by women, there’s a lot out there to like.

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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
March 10, 2023
One year since Candle and Claw hit shelves
I’m a little surprised that it’s already been a year since I released Candle and Claw. I generally stick to talking about larger book topics on the blog, but for this occasion I want to share a few overall updates and some recap of what’s happened in the past year.

If you keep up with my newsletter, much of this will be old hat, but here’s what I’ve got.

An epic map of Foneth

I tend to believe that epic fantasy merits maps, and I intended from the start for Candle and Claw to have such a map to guide the reader along (even though the geographic scope of the book is small). It took me longer than planned to find the right artist and make it happen, but here it is, thanks to the very skilled and imaginative Corey Egbert.

The map is now available in ebook form and will be included in all print versions of the book by the end of the month.

Just as important, having the map in front of me has been hugely helpful as I write Glyph and Glaive—and much easier to read than my own scribbly version of it.

Candle and Claw won a grant from the 2022 Indie Fantasy Fund

The Indie Fantasy Fund (IFF) selected Candle and Claw for a grant in 2022, which was AMAZING NEWS. This funding paid for the map shown above, as well as some additional advertising for the book.

https://www.indiefantasyfund.com/winners

I’m deeply grateful for how these funds supported my writing over the past year. Here’s the announcement video, by the way.

Draft one of Glyph and Glaive is complete

Finally, I’ve been working since before Candle and Claw came out to write book two in the Witherclaw Trilogy. As of this very week, I’ve completed the first draft of Glyph and Glaive.

There’s lots of work still to do, but I’m ready to share more detail than I’ve made public yet!
- Glyph and Glaive features plenty of returning characters from the previous volume, including Giovel Ullin, various military and political leaders of Foneth, and Varan Witherclaw herself.
- There’s a new(ish) protagonist as well, whom I’m excited to introduce in detail before the month is up—a character who appeared in some capacity in the previous book but who will really be the star for this volume.
- The novel is currently 50% longer than Candle and Claw, and I already have a list of stuff to add for draft two. I know I can trim some as well, but it will definitely be chunkier than the first book in the trilogy.
- Last but not least, I’m on track to release Glyph and Glaive in 2024. It won’t be ready before then, and I don’t have a firm date to promise yet, but I’m eager to get it into readers’ hands.
That’s it! Thanks for reading.

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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
February 7, 2023
Actual data on why people love The Lord of the Rings
The question has never been whether but why so many people love The Lord of the Rings. It can be a polarizing topic, largely because the series has so many devoted fans.

Since it has been almost 70 years since the books were first published, there’s no shortage of opinions on their virtues and shortcomings. Readers routinely look for like books as well.

I believe some illumination on the root of The Lord of the Rings’s fandom might explain why people have strong feelings about Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy, Amazon’s new Rings of Power TV show, and the various other hot topics adjoining the books. So, I’ve fielded some firsthand data on why people claim affinity with The Lord of the Rings. And I looked through 200 different reader reviews to gather primary accounts of readers’ experiences.

To see my methods in full, skip to the end. Let me just be clear that I’ve gathered data on why people like the books—not any other media officially or unofficially associated with the lore of Middle-earth.

Here’s what I’ve found.

The top reasons readers love the The Lord of the Rings books

Across the 200 reviews I studied, readers gave a total of 401 reasons for loving the books. While I found a decent measure of variety in why people love these books, there were some obvious recurring themes:

Here’s a closer look at the top five categories of reader response, plus a few other findings.

1. The characters (81 responses)

More than 40% of positive reviews showered love on the characters. Believe it or not, I was pretty sure this would be the winner long before I looked at the data.

Readers praised both the underdog characters like Frodo and Sam (Sam especially), but they also love specific iconic scenes starring numerous other characters. Many readers mentioning transportation, heroism, and theme also indicated love for the characters. For the purposes of this article, I didn’t code these references as mentioning characters, but I think it’s safe to say there are even more reviewers than the 40% I found who would also list characters among their chief reasons to love these books, making it the clearest reason by far that people love The Lord of the Rings and keep coming back to this series.

2. The quality of being the absolute BEST in epic fantasy or literature itself (63 responses)

Well over 25% of reviews call The Lord of the Rings the greatest work of fantasy, if not the finest work of literature in English or any other language.

Few reviews spelled out why they hold this precise belief, so this is a unique category. Whereas other categories were often layered—for instance, readers typically mentioned both heroism and the cast of characters within the same review—the quality of being the absolute best often appeared as the whole substance of the review.

I think it’s safe to say some of these reviewers were just lazy and didn’t want to write things out. Furthermore, I’d weight this number a little lower in the overall list of reasons, even though it occurred so often in the data.

3. Potential for / enjoyment from rereadability (48 responses)

Nearly 25% of reviews mention that this is not their first time reading The Lord of the Rings. More than half of these reviews mentioned that the reviewer had, in fact, read the series many times.

I landed on a few overall conclusions from this finding. First, readers really love The Lord of the Rings. Second, there’s clearly something unique here that invites readers to come back again and again. Third, it’s also clear that only a work that has been published nearly 70 years could have such a strong corps of readers who’ve read it again and again. Readers just haven’t had as much time to reread all of a newer authors’ works.

It’s worth mentioning the multiple globally newsworthy media tie-ins too. Big movie adaptations always spur renewed interest in the books. Having many adaptations through the years clearly hasn’t hurt the series’ potential for being read and reread.

4. Transportation of the reader (35 responses)

Another reason why people love The Lord of the Rings: They feel like they can go to Middle-earth by reading. Many reader accounts (close to 20%) indicated feeling like they were present in the setting while they read.

These readers talk about losing track of time. They also report feeling emotional connections to the people and events of the story, and being truly sad to reach the end of the series and must return to their own lives. Quite a few readers attribute this to Tolkien’s rich world-building and vivid imagery, so there’s some clear overlap between transportation and other topics at work here.

5. World-building depth and creativity (34 responses)

It goes perhaps without saying that Tolkien’s breadth of world-building is almost totally unmatched across the landscape of fantasy worlds. It’s likewise no surprise that so many readers find themselves immersed in the story and uncover new gems every time they reread the series. There’s just a lot there to make the story come to life.

That said, world-building was also one of the two biggest complaints across positive reviews: Many readers want less. They didn’t always want everything Tolkien offers.

Additional observations from the book data on The Lord of the Rings

Even if world-building and transportation were summed together, readers’ love for the characters in The Lord of the Rings is the clear leader, categorically. Readers have long praised Tolkien’s characters to the heavens. The likes of Samwise Gamgee and Aragorn appear especially often in the tomes of reader responses. Éowyn was the character mentioned next most often—and her scene with the Witch-king of Angmar was the single scene mentioned most often throughout all reviews studied.

The overall breakdown of favored attributes is different depending on the book. For instance, reviews of The Fellowship of the Ring were less likely to talk about the battles or the sense of hope present in the text, as compared to the following two volumes. Also, reviews of The Return of the King were much more likely to say something to the effect of “this is the best fantasy series ever” than reviews of the other two books were.

Bonus findings: Outliers and common complaints from readers who love the books

The most common complaint throughout positive reviews is that the books are slow. I haven’t studied what people who hate the books are likely to hate. But I think it’s validating to share that readers get tired of the long descriptions—and specifically the poetry—even among the most loyal cohorts of fandom. So you’re totally allowed to say that the books are sometimes slow, no matter how much of a devotee you are.

Outlying readers (one each) also mentioned the following as their reasons for loving the work:
- That The Lord of the Rings got them to read other books
- That they loved the complexity of the interwoven plots and lore
- That the wizards are awesome
Conclusion

An analysis of 200 reader reviews can’t truly capture all the reasons why people love The Lord of the Rings. Numerous fan reviews say, in fact, that they can’t explain why they love the books so much. The number of repeated, impassioned references to the same topics, however, truly does elucidate a lot of the enduring power The Lords of the Rings embodies for its readers.

If you’d like to take a look at how I went through my data-gathering and analysis, read on!

Summary of methods

Here’s a moderately detailed breakdown at how I went about my analysis.
- I analyzed 200 reader reviews in total: 64 each for The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, and 72 of The Return of the King
- I only studied 4 and 5-star reviews, using these numeric rankings as markers that the readers really do love (or at least seriously like) the books
  - My bald assumption is that if readers don’t love a book, they won’t give it more than 3 stars
- I farmed my reviews across Amazon, Goodreads and Barnes and Noble, weighting for the platforms with more reviews. In essence, I studied about 50 each from Amazon versus 10-15 each from Goodreads and 8-12 each from Barnes and Noble.
  - One one hand, this accounts for the different volume of reviews available on each. Amazon has the most reviews of the three, followed by Goodreads, with Barnes and Noble housing the smallest corpus of reviews.
  - I also chose to work across platforms because the mode of review is VERY different on each. For instance, Goodreads reviews were often written as miniature pieces of fan fiction (no lie).
- I chose to use public-facing reviews as a sort of marker of the reader community’s values. Because I was working entirely with self-reported data, you have to take it all with a grain of salt. I believe it’s about as accurate as any qualitative fandom data can be.
- As I analyzed each review, I qualitatively coded the texts to find common threads, terms, topics, etc. represented above. I’ve maintained the data unique to each book in the series. However, I lumped it all cumulatively together for purposes of my actual analysis.
- I essentially avoided doing any sentiment analysis, since the free form of a review doesn’t account for how much each reader rated each different thing they loved. Basically, if they say “the characters are amazing,” I coded it as a single point for the “characters” topic. So readers might in fact love the world-building much more than they love the characters. It’s just that more unique readers mentioned the characters than anything else.
  - Many reviews log multiple points (characters, prose, world-building, etc.), while some only had one.
  - I ignored any reviews that said the books were great without saying at least something specific about them.
  - I also had to toss some reviews out, by nature of the product review system; some were only describing the physical product itself and not the substance of the books. So I discarded about 70 reviews that just mentioned the book cover being scratched, the delivery packaging being trashy, the cover art being amazing, etc.
- During my analysis, I also compared side-by-side to see whether reviewers on Amazon, Goodreads, or Barnes and Noble noted readers noted different categories across each book. Basically, readers said the same things in every platform. Oddly enough, reviewers were much more likely to describe how hot Orlando Bloom was in Barnes and Noble reviews. Gandalf or Éowyn also got a lot more praise in Goodreads reviews.
  - While the substance of reviews stayed consistent across platforms, the style and length of reviews varied immensely. Suffice it to say that the review platform does play a role in making the review itself different.
Thanks for reading to the end!

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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
September 6, 2022
9 unmistakable epic fantasy artists
I love to track the work of epic fantasy artists almost as much as I love keeping up with epic fantasy itself. But there’s plenty of forgettable cover art in epic fantasy. It’s probably no one’s fault; there are plenty of forgettable books in the genre to begin with. It’s also typical that no one involved in making a book cover gets much time, context, or money for their work.

Book publishing authorities sometimes put forward another theory: That publishers produce a bunch of drab covers to make amazing ones truly shine. Whether you buy this or not, you can definitely find amazing, standout covers parting the clamor of so many others.

Here are a few epic fantasy artists whose work truly distinguishes itself:
1. Magali Villeneuve

Self-taught French artist Magali Villeneuve is probably best known for her Stormlight Archive paintings or her illustrated edition of Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy. She has also done cover art for Mercedes Lackey, Trudi Canavan, Jon Skovron, and Andrzej Sapkowski.

While Velleneuve’s work tends to be extremely character focused, it’s easy to recognize her expansive backdrops and epicly detailed backgrounds as well. As such, her art consistently stands out among the ranks of top-tier epic fantasy artists.

2. Todd Lockwood

If you’re an epic fantasy reader, you’ve probably seen a Todd Lockwood cover before. His work includes cover illustrations for The Wheel of Time, Malazan, many of R. A. Salvatore’s books, and his own novel The Summer Dragon.

Lockwood has done work in quite a few styles, ranging from crisp and clear to more gritty, ethereal, or even minimalistic art. If there are any common threads throughout, it’s that Lockwood is known for his high magic types of scenes and his many, many distinctive dragons. Few epic fantasy artists have a catalog of work as expansive as his.

Recommended reading: 10 Underrated Works of Epic Fantasy

3. Ivan Belikov

Speaking of dragons, here’s a bold one. Ivan Belikov’s fantastical artwork gained a lot of acclaim when he created the cover art for Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree—which is a strong representation of Belikov’s overall style.

Through just about all of Belikov’s work you’ll find audacious textures, vibrant color palettes, and huge, snarling critters. It’s not a style you’re likely to forget once you’ve seen it.

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4. Rovina Cai

Like Belikov, Rovina Cai brings a style that seems completely unashamed to be illustrated. Her work is quickly recognizable for its clear, stark strokes, which Cai uses to draw the eye in an incredibly organic way. She also makes impressive use of negative space, disguising one element as another on the regular.

Cai has provided art for authors like Darcie Little Badger, Naomi Novik, and Patrick Ness, along with numerous pieces for Tor.com’s short fiction. You’ll regularly find her work up for SFF’s top awards.

5. Michael Whelan

Few artists have worked as widely across the industry as Michael Whelan. Marion Zimmer Bradley, Michael Moorecock, Tad Williams, Ray Bradbury, Anne McCaffrey, Arthur Clarke, Barbara Hambly, Sean Russell and Stephen King are just a very few of the authors for whom Whelan has provided cover illustrations.

Whelan has proven himself to be unbelievably adaptable, providing pulpy covers one moment and esoteric work the next. He seems to have traveled with the zeitgeist many times, almost reinventing his style as it would seem. Little wonder that he’s still covering (that’s a pun) the biggest names in SFF today. And little wonder that he stands out among so many epic fantasy artists.

6. Tommy Arnold

Robin Hobb, Joe Abercrombie, John Chu, and David Dalglish have all benefited from Tommy Arnold’s artwork, and he has provided covers across nearly every major U.S. publisher of science fiction or fantasy.

Arnold has perhaps the most elevated modus operandi of any names on this list, with an obvious skill for near photorealistic depictions—though many of his illustrations are boldly stylized as well.

7. Kinuko Y. Craft

Elevated might be the right term for Kinuko Y. Craft’s work as well. Craft’s knowledge of European art is apparent in her many covers for Tanith Lee, Patricia McKillip, and some bard called William Shakespeare. You’ll find in these covers a baroque sense of detail and an almost high renaissance style of composition, with musical instruments, fruit, doves, and other symbolic elements populating most of the work. Oh, and she literally did a series of Roman goddess artwork too.

Most of all, Craft’s fantasy book covers are entirely distinct. Other than a few pieces of work that might pass for paintings by Botticelli or Dante Gabriel Rossetti, her imagery is quickly recognizable wherever it sits.

8. Richard Anderson

With any artist on this list, the fastest way to get the gist of their work is to go take a look. Richard Anderson’s book covers evoke a gritty, lived-in sense of setting that will stick with you quickly after seeing just a few of his works.

Anderson has provided truly iconic covers for authors like Elizabeth Bear, Brian Staveley, Kameron Hurley, and Victor Milán. On that note, I can’t think of another artist who could so skillfully make knights on dinosaurs look 100% plausible. Technique like that deserves a place on the A-list of epic fantasy artists.

9. Raymond Swanland

Lockwood depicts dragons, Belikov paints colorful monsters, and Raymond Swanland’s portfolio is filled with interesting weaponry, especially unique swords or spears shown midstroke. Like Anderson, Swanland is on the grittiest edge of the artists listed here, typically employing a bleak palette across intensely energetic scenes. Little wonder that his work most often crops up for darker or military-focused fantasy.

Swanland’s covers for The Black Company (Glen Cook) are among his most famous—and truly his style is ideal for a series about mercenaries and monsters. Swanland has also done awe-inspiring covers for Brent Weeks, Joe Abercrombie, L. E. Modesitt Jr, Robert Jordan, James Barclay, and R. A. Salvatore, as well as many other Forgotten Realms works.

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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
July 30, 2022
There are many paths to tread (Part II): 6 different publishing paths for indie fantasy authors
What paths lead from an idea to getting that idea in front of an audience of appreciative readers? In last month’s blog post, I explored this topic with five authors who partnered with literary agents and traditional publishers. This month, I’m looking at the publishing paths of six indie fantasy authors.

What publishing paths to indie fantasy authors take to launch and sell their books?

The path is different here since indies can publish pretty much immediately. So, I’m showing the publishing paths of indie authors who have actually built meaningful audiences and established themselves as writers to watch.

As with last month’s article, I want to emphasize that I see each of the authors as exceptional, not the default. I don’t expect anyone else to reap the same results they have simply by following the same steps. However, the evidence is that many authors are seeing similar success with the same kinds of steps. So there’s value to considering these publishing paths, even if those paths aren’t golden tickets to stardom.

On with the examples.

M. L. Wang: As indie as Indiana Jones

M. L. Wang’s best-known work is The Sword of Kaigen, which she published in 2019. The Sword of Kaigen is a highly unconventional novel. It’s unique in terms of structure, pacing, and the organization of viewpoint characters. It’s difficult to describe or market in genre-wide terms. But reviewers and readers (including me) love it.

Wang self published two books before The Sword of Kaigen, but neither of these took off in the same way this one did. Word really got out about Wang’s writing when she entered and won Mark Lawrence’s 2019 Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) contest. This win alone secured numerous reviews and lots of visibility for the novel even before new sales started coming in.

Her journey to making the book available might look simple. Wang’s success with The Sword of Kaigen is a huge example of the distinctive strengths of independent publishing, however: Giving space for books that don’t fit cookie cutter formats preferred by large publishing houses. This is a novel with a singular shape. It’s hard to imagine where most bookstores would shelf the book or which audience a large press would target. Most publishing houses would not have taken a chance on The Sword of Kaigen in the first place.

But Wang did, and it’s paying off for her.

What I see as the takeaways: Like Rothfuss and Muir (see last month’s post), Wang benefited from the visibility of a well-known award. Few awards are likely to influence serious sales boosts like her book has experienced, however. In the end, it’s the strength of her writing that makes this book memorable and relatable. As with traditional publishing paths, writing a quality book is the best thing an indie author can do to create their own space.

Michael R. Miller: Narrowing the audience

Michael R. Miller has found considerable success with his first series, The Dragon’s Blade Trilogy, which has topped Amazon’s bestseller lists for epic fantasy, sword and sorcery, and YA fantasy among other categories. As if that isn’t impressive enough, his next series–currently in the works–has pushed him forward to an even bigger and more loyal audience.

Here’s the pitch for Miller’s Songs of Chaos series: “A servant boy defies society to save a blind dragon from death and rises to become a dragonrider!” If it sounds familiar, it’s probably because it is. It’s strikingly similar to a) Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle, and b) book three of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern trilogy. Oh, and there’s also a very clear progression fantasy play at work in this series, to add to the mix of clear influence.

So, with such obvious and well-beloved influences, how did Miller go about marketing his new series? He does it obviously. Here’s some copy from the first book’s Amazon page: “…combining the best of Eragon and Pern with the hard magic of Brandon Sanderson and Will Wight.”

Miller isn’t actually making an outlandish claim here. That’s what the books read like: Cradle + Eragon + Pern.

What I see as the takeaways: Miller’s path to indie publishing is almost the opposite of Wang’s above. Miller entered the scene with some traditional publishing experience behind him. Then he found a space with hungry audiences and targeted those audiences narrowly, repeatedly, specifically. Whether Miller wrote his books intending to reach this existing audience or not, I don’t know, but his precision targeting (which really helps his landscape of advertisements) has helped him find a large and loyal audience.

Daniel Greene: Writing from a strong platform

Daniel Greene, aka your disheveled goblin host, is most well known as a YouTuber. He entered indie publishing last year with his debut novella, Breach of Peace, following this up with a short novel several months ago.

Greene reported 30,000 sales of Breach of Peace within the first week of its publication. Based on its sales rankings since then, it has likely sold over 250,000 copies now, just 14 months since publication.

For context, Brandon Sanderson just reported that he too reached 250,000 sales in the first year for one of his more widely anticipated releases. This figure isn’t terribly surprising, since Sanderson is a massive name in the genre, with 16 years of consistent bestsellerdom behind him. So, for Greene to come anywhere close to that figure is an astonishing win.

In the end, though, Greene moved books in a really similar way to how Sanderson does it now: He’s a community player with a platform he has built carefully over time (over 300K YouTube followers when Breach of Peace came out, for instance, and now over 400K). He did a lot of leg work beforehand, not just to get the word out but in a way that other influential figures like reviewers and YouTubers would also get the word out.

What I see as the takeaways: Plenty of authors publish and sell books without having an audience in place before the book is available. I think it’s fair to say this is the case for most people who write fiction. But in the end, having an audience from the date of publication definitely helps. Note that science fiction writer John Scalzi took a similar path with his very successful blog (through which he published his first novel).

Evan Winter: Moving from indie to trad

Evan Winter made quite a splash with the publication of The Rage of Dragons. Fans pretty much love the following book as much as the first.

Winter published his first novel through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). In his own words, he didn’t expect his writing to be more than a hobby. He found almost overnight success after sharing information about his book on r/Fantasy, a community he’d been a part of for some years by then. His debut quickly climbed to the top 250 books selling on Amazon that day. Soon thereafter, an editor from Orbit contacted Winter with interest in a book deal.

After an initial phone conversation, Winter relates that “the editor got back in touch to say that Orbit was going to make an offer and that I should get an agent.” Shortly thereafter, Winter had both an agent and a deal to publish not one but four books. More importantly, perhaps, people just keep reading and loving what Winter writes.

What I see as the takeaways: Like Greene, Winter was part of the community. When he wanted to find readers, he knew where they were and knew how to communicate with them. Also, when you write something people want to read, publishers tend to take notice.

For additional examples of the indie to traditional path, take a look at:
Michael J. Sullivan: Building a backlist

Michael J. Sullivan is a particularly interesting case as a hybrid author. Like many others, he completed numerous manuscripts, sent them to agents and editors, and collected a list of rejections before ever publishing anything. He also worked with a small press which couldn’t deliver on the printing and distribution volumes Sullivan’s work evidently merited.

Eventually, Sullivan regained publishing rights for The Riyria Revelations and began publishing them himself. His sales numbers grew as he expanded the series. He eventually began selling about 1000 books per month. He also got a six-figure book deal–his runway into traditional publishing with a big New York press. Before this deal was ever made public, Sullivan’s sales leaped up to 10-12K copies per month, earning him upward of $35,000 for each of those months.

Perhaps because of this success, Sullivan has retained a close connection to the indie world, even after releasing quite a few volumes through traditional publishers. Sullivan has run multiple successful kickstarters to fund new books, for instance. He has worked closely with Grim Oak Press—a small publisher—as well.

What I see as the takeaways: Sullivan is a great example of building an audience via multiple volumes. The majority of indie authors establish loyal audiences over time by releasing several, even many books. These writers (see Lindsay Buroker as another example) don’t often see large sales numbers until they have a backlist of books to their names, just as Sullivan did.

One final example: Christopher Paolini

Christopher Paolini’s indie publishing path might be even more exceptional than the rest I’ve mentioned. He was only 15 when, with the help of his family, he published Eragon. That said, it’s also one of the more illustrative examples out there.

Paolini had the benefit of some in-family expertise. His family operated a small press that had previously published a few other books. He also emerged at a time of voracious interest in fantasy for middle grade and young adult audiences. This reader interest undoubtedly helped secure his eventual book deal with Knopf and his 121 consecutive weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list.

What was not exceptional for Paolini was that he first grew his audience by going out and sharing his work. He attended over 135 in-person events to promote his first novel, making as many as 70 stops in a single year.

What I see as the takeaways: People buy books that are recommended to them. This is true even when the author is the one going out to make the recommendation.

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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
May 30, 2022
There are many paths to tread (Part I): 5 unique publishing journeys of fantasy authors

Though Peregrin Took usually gets the cinematic credit, it was Bilbo Baggins who penned the line “there are many paths to tread.”

In this month’s post, I’ll use Bilbo’s “A Walking Song” to dig into the many varied paths fantasy authors traverse from coming up with a story idea to getting that idea published.

As a genre, fantasy has an interesting relationship with the world of publishing. Take the very circuitous journey of The Lord of the Rings in the USA as an example. It’s no surprise that authors face all sorts of difficulties when trying to break in, to get a book deal, to find an audience, etc. Likewise, I find a sort of solace in the fact that so many top tier authors take their own unique publishing journeys.

So how do fantasy author get their books published?

First note before digging in: I’ve limited my list to authors who published their first novel since the turn of the century. This is mostly to account for the internet as part of the road to publication. Also, most of the authors I’m talking about have large readerships and have sold quite a few books. I believe every author I’ll mention is exceptional. None of their paths to publishing should be viewed as straightforward, direct, or any kind of easy. Yet I find a lot of insight in how these different writers undertaken their professional publishing journeys.

Second note: I’ve provided some visuals to help make these publishing journeys more digestible. The caveat is that these images are necessarily (and purposefully) reductive.

Final note: In this month’s post I’m only looking at examples of authors entering the world of traditional publishing. Next month’s post will dig deep into author examples across indie publishing.

N. K. Jemisin: Step-by-step among publishing journeys

It’s hard to find a living writer more lauded than N. K. Jemisin–inside or outside speculative fiction. Some of her more recent accolades include a MacArthur Fellows “Genius Grant” in 2020 and winning the Hugo Award for best novel three times in a row (which has never happened before) for all three books in her Broken Earth trilogy.

Jemisin found acclaim early on in her publishing career, but her path to get there was fairly incremental.

After collecting rejections for two finished novels, Jemisin went to Viable Paradise, an intensive, one-week writing workshop focused on speculative fiction. Her experience there led her to start writing short stories. Those stories then found homes in semipro and professional publications such as Ideomancer, Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, and Clarkesworld.

Meanwhile, Jemisin wrote a new, big idea novel. With some short stories to her name and a standout new manuscript, she secured a representation deal with her literary agent, Lucienne Diver. Diver shared the novel with a number of editors, but no one bit yet. It was only after Jemisin’s short fiction received both Hugo and Nebula nominations and she wrote another novel (which sold at auction in a six-figure deal) that her previous manuscript was published as well.

This was still before she even got to her Broken Earth trilogy. That work really propelled her into wider recognition across epic fantasy, science fiction, and other genres.

What I see as the takeaways: Jemisin’s success was anything but overnight. She kept writing new stuff and seeking new ways to improve. I think it’s fair to say–from each of her works I’ve read–that she never stopped producing her own kind of stories, even when editors told her they weren’t marketable. Her path to publishing success built that uniquely Jemisin momentum up over a long time.

Patrick Rothfuss: Taking a few big steps in the publishing journey

Patrick Rothfuss hit the scene hard in 2007 with the debut of his first novel, The Name of the Wind. It was perhaps the most hyped fantasy debut I’ve ever observed, with a big auction for the publishing rights, rapid chatter throughout the ecosystem of blogs and forums (yep, forums were a big thing back then), and advance reviews and sky-high praise from dozens of authors I love.

This early buzz was even more remarkable given that Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie, Brandon Sanderson and several other big names had just debuted as well, with additional books already hitting shelves in 2007.

Rothfuss’s is one of the more linear publishing journeys out there. For starters, Rothfuss took longer to write his first novel than most writers do, working on the same story from 1994 until book one of the tale was finally published in 2007. Rothfuss’s main step toward getting an agent–who subsequently brokered his book deal–was submitting to the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest. His submission, an excerpt from his then unfinished second novel, won him a quarterly prize in the contest and led him to meeting Tim Powers and then his agent, Matt Bialer.

With Bialer’s help, Rothfuss continued polishing his manuscript a few more years and then secured a three-book contract with Daw.

[image]

It’s hard to overstate, however, that while this path doesn’t have many steps or tales of rejection letters, these were extraordinary steps. First off, Bialer was already one of the most recognized and connected agents in epic fantasy. Secondly, it still took several years to move from agent to book deal to published manuscript, and Rothfuss reports working through extensive phases of editing, writing new story threads, and revision at this time. Third, winning a quarterly prize in the Writers of the Future contest was no easy feat either. Last of all, Rothfuss’s debut novel was exceptionally strong. His journey paid off for readers, not just for himself, with a book that was well worth all the hype and excitement.

The Name of the Wind and Rothfuss’s second book combined have sold well over 10 million copies worldwide.

What I see as the takeaways: Although quality doesn’t always win out, it definitely can. Rothfuss’s success isn’t based on writing 100 solid novels. It’s based on writing and polishing and rewriting one really good book that got agents, editors, other writers, and readers really excited. This path looks to me like a particularly tough one to mirror, but it definitely worked for Rothfuss.

Tamsyn Muir: Some of both

Although Tamsyn Muir has been publishing SFF since 2010, she began garnering much more notice with the release of her genre-busting first novel Gideon the Ninth. The book not only captured the attention of many readers and writers but earned World Fantasy, Hugo, and Nebula nominations as well as the 2020 Locus Award for Best First Novel.

Perhaps it goes without saying, but very few books earn nominations for SFF’s four biggest award programs, let alone wins in any of them.

Like Jemisin, Muir took both the route of professional workshops (Clarion, in her case) and short fiction. She placed stories and novelettes in magazines such as Lightspeed, Nightmare, Clarkesworld, and the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Her first publication, “The House That Made the Sixteen Loops of Time” was a story she wrote during her final week at Clarion.

When Muir’s fourth short story came out, it collected nominations for the Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy and Nebula awards, among others. Subsequently, an agent approached her with interest in representing her work. Muir didn’t end up working with that first agent, but she did instead get an offer of representation from Jennifer Jackson, long-time agent for a few big names like Jim Butcher (see below), Elizabeth Bear, and Martha Wells.

What I see as the takeaways: Professional workshops can really move the needle for speculative fiction writers. Short fiction often opens doors toward bigger publishing journeys. And winning some major genre awards never hurts either. Also, once legitimate agents start approaching you, you’re probably more than ready to successfully approach such agents in return.

Jim Butcher: Retracing some steps on the path to publication

Jim Butcher’s audience has grown steadily for two decades. Most of this has come with the expansion of his urban fantasy / mystery series The Dresden Files. He now has 17 out of 22 planned volumes in print with the same publisher (plus two other series). It all stems from one initial book deal.

Butcher’s own account tells the story well. He queried numerous agents and editors for a few years without success. Over time he identified a specific agent he thought would be a fit, based on what else she represented. Butcher queried her. She responded with a no.

Not to be deterred, Butcher found out what conventions and conferences this agent would be attending. He armed himself with relevant conversation-starters, and went to meet her in person. If you’ve heard Butcher speak before, you’ll know he has a lot of charisma (probably no surprise if you’ve read The Dresden Files either). So, with an in-person chance to make an impression, Butcher got himself invited to lunch. He received an offer of representation–that same day. Six months later, he had a book deal.

What I see as the takeaways: Butcher did his research and stuck to his strengths. He didn’t throw in the towel when he faced rejection. He kept writing along the way as well. Consequently, he had more than just one book ready when he finally had a deal. In Butcher’s own words, “Here’s the secret of how to get published: keep going.”

Brandon Sanderson: Betting big on replicable publishing journeys

Brandon Sanderson is probably most well known for his Mistborn novels and completing The Wheel of Time after Robert Jordan’s death. His reputation extends far beyond selling books, though he has at least 21 million sales to his name since last year.

Despite his astronomical success, Sanderson’s path to publishing was exceptionally practical. He wrote novels, queried editors and agents, stacked up rejections, queried new projects, collected more rejections, and then started attending professional events to try meeting the right agents and editors in person.

Eventually, he met his future editor Moshe Feder in person. Feder agreed to look at a manuscript, but took 18 months to do it. Sanderson had given up on that particular submission when Feder called him up with an offer to buy the book.

With a book deal at his door, but not finalized, Sanderson then went back to his agent search. He contacted Joshua Bilmes, whom he’d also met in person and queried multiple times. Bilmes agreed to represent Sanderson and helped secure an even better book deal with Feder / Tor Books.

You could say there are other big steps in here as well. Sanderson’s involvement in The Wheel of Time didn’t hurt. Nor did running the biggest Kickstarter campaign ever. But he built a strong name for himself before doing either of these things.

What I see as the takeaways: No one should expect to build a reading community like Sanderson has. The steps he took to get in the door are pragmatic and repeatable, however. He wrote a lot. He queried. And he networked at the right events, looking for editors and agents who were very likely to fit his work. Like Jemisin, he wasn’t an overnight success. He put in the hard work, got his foot in the door, and grew from there.

Other paths to publication

Stay tuned next month for another look at publishing journeys. That post will analyze how several indie and hybrid fantasy authors have navigated their own publishing paths.

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Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.

April 30, 2022
Epic comparisons and reading recommendations: Finding the right high fantasy to read next
Perhaps the first misconception I encountered about the fantasy genre is that if you like one series you’re bound to like another. For example, I recall as a teenager getting reading recommendations for Joe Abercrombie, Naomi Novik, Sharon Shinn, and China Meiville all in conjunction with one another.

None of these authors share much territory as fantasy writers.

Taste is taste, so there’s no reader-proof way to map out who will like what. However, I’ve been searching a long time for means and methods to truly know if a certain series or even just a lone book is the right fit for me before I dive in to try reading it. I always have an overly long list of books to read. Too often, however, the books on that list don’t match what I thought I was told to expect, and I end up spending my time and energy elsewhere.

Barnes and Noble’s recommendation for related books.

In this article, I’ll share a few resources and ideas on refining book recommendations and navigating the densely-populated landscape of high fantasy worth reading.

My usual methods for growing my to-read list

I typically seek out books I’ve already heard of, rather than cold reading recommendations.

I’ve almost never read a book without having it recommended, reading a review, hearing someone rave on a podcast, or knowing something about the author first. I do know people who will purchase–and read–just based on the cover art or the blurb, but I tend to want a lot of background information before ever considering a book. I don’t feel as if I have time to do otherwise.

The problem is, I then spend so much time reading about books that little is left for the books themselves.

Maybe I’m just tired of the indiscriminate comparisons to Game of Thrones–and not just because I’d rather have books compared to A Song of Ice and Fire anyway. But I’m convinced there must be more effective ways for readers in high fantasy, epic fantasy, or any genre at all to find the sorts of books they truly want to read without all the guessing and wondering and trial and error.

Existing resources to find your next high fantasy read

Many smart creators have grappled with this subject before me, so there are valuable resources out there to help readers find the right thing to read next. Here are a few.

Charts, quizzes and lists
- NPR surveyed over 60,000 fantasy and science fiction readers to find their favorite books, and SF Signal took that list and turned it into a truly epic flow chart. This was back in 2011, however, so many amazing SFF works we have now just weren’t around yet. The list (and flow-chart) also lack lots of detail on sub-genre, length, and other factors readers often care a lot about. Last but not least, it’s a little overwhelming and difficult to navigate as one large, spread-out image.
SF Signal’s fantasy and science fiction reading flow chart.
- There are simpler charts, like The Azrian Portal’s 2019 fantasy flow chart, but smaller charts like this necessarily leave a lot of great works off the radar.
- Some people take a more interactive approach, like Playbuzz’s quiz to identify your next perfect fantasy read. I have yet to find any quiz, however, that really offers more than 20 different end options for the genres I want to read. Result: Far too basic to be helpful for serious readers. More than being an actual solution, I consider quizzes like this to be mere evidence of how hard it can be to determine what to read next.
- Because story length is such a point of interest for fantasy readers, length-only comparisons can be helpful too. Here’s one from Thoughts on Fantasy, looking at lengths of individual books in epic / high fantasy, paranormal / urban, and YA / MG. This chart on the fantasy subreddit details series length–not just book length–so it gives another type of counterpoint. Bookwraiths took a list approach to show 30 of the longest series in fantasy, which is also helpful.
r/fantasy’s fantasy series length chart, created by reddit.com/u/Temibrezel.
- Money Inc took a different approach with this 2019 list of the 20 best-selling fantasy series. It might not help you choose what to read, but it does show some social proof for what other people cared enough to buy.
Readers also like…
- I remember being incredibly excited when Goodreads appeared on the scene. I thought my woes with reading recommendations would be over. Unfortunately, Goodreads hasn’t really evolved since its launch. There are some useful lists there, though.
- I have found moderate value using Amazon’s “explore similar books” and “products related to this item” lists. The big problem is that buying a book is such a commitment (especially in genres with long works, like high fantasy), that plenty of people buy the book and never read it. This means that who bought what isn’t nearly enough data to tell you who liked what and why.
Amazon’s recommendations for products related to my epic fantasy novel, Candle and Claw.
- The fantasy subreddit mentioned above is a solid place for actual book recommendations and conversations. It’s fairly well-moderated and quite an active community. It has also grown steadily for years. In the end, however, even a community as large as this one has some odd slants and biases, so I typically hear about the same 30 or so authors again and again there.
- Last but not least, Literature Map is an excellent resource to get a high-level picture of which authors readers tend to see as being similar. For instance, in the example below you can see that J. V. Jones (an epic fantasy author I admire a lot) is often compared closely to some of the military and grimdark crowd (Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, Anthony Ryan) while being more distantly related to authors like Tad Williams and Robin Hobb. I agree with this mapping. The issue is that Literature Map only shows a decontextualized view of the author and not of any individual works. This might work well for authors who write within a narrow range, but for writers like Daniel Abraham, Ursula K. Le Guin, Stephen King, or dozens of others, there’s just too much missing information. Also, many authors don’t appear at all, which continues to limit the tool.
Literature Map’s orientation around J. V. Jones (highlights added for clarity).

What else?

The best way to find out if you’ll like a book is still, typically, to read reviews. Lots of them.

Buying books is not like buying other media. The commitment of your funds is almost never proportional to the commitment in time to listen to or read the story. For instance, you can buy an album (yes, some people still do that) for $9.99 and listen to it in an hour, or buy a movie (people do that too) and watch it in a few hours–consuming the content in one sitting.

Books are almost never like that, and the time commitment is bigger for high and epic fantasy than for just about any other genre. Even if you pay only $30 or $40 to get an entire series, you might be looking at 60 – 200 hours of reading to go from start to finish.

Maybe it’s unrealistic, but I want a little more confidence that I’ll treasure that journey before I set out. Good reading recommendations are how I get there.

Next month’s post will dig deeper on this same topic with my own new look at just how this might be done.

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About the Author

Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogy as well as short fiction appearing in The Future Fire, MYTHIC Magazine, The Centropic Oracle, and other publications. His short story “Only an Ocean” won a Silver Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. When he’s not writing, he’s often playing his violin or wandering in the woods.
March 31, 2022