I recently revisited Sharon Shinn’s The Twelve Houses series. I’d read the first book back when it was new. It stuck with me enough that I remembered it, 20 years later, and picked it back up.
Book one was much like I remembered. The following books far exceeded my expectations.
I’m surprised Sharon Shinn isn’t better known, given how much craft and story this series have to offer. Here are five main reasons high fantasy readers should consider The Twelve Houses.
1. The Twelve Houses series brings together a great cast of characters
The story kicks off with a group of mystics (mages) and King’s riders (elites) embarking on a sort of reconnaissance mission across the realm. Within a chapter or two, it’s clear that this will be a motley crew sort of story. The following books hold true to that promise.
Each book in the series follows one main character, with plenty of alternating sections in others’ points of view as well. Senneth, the star of book one, comes off the page quickly. Within a few hundred pages, the rest of the leads do as well, and the character writing never looks back. Every volume brings major character growth. What really stands out, however, is the dimension their relationships bring to both subsequent character development and the overall plot.
There’s a lot to love if you grow attached to any one main character. And there’s plenty to keep coming back for if you want deep comradery like in The Lord of the Rings or other early epic fantasy. As interesting as the setting and story are, it’s the characters who carry these books most consistently.
2. Shinn’s exploration of her magic system is fascinating
At surface level, the magic in The Twelve Houses isn’t particularly groundbreaking. You’ll find shapeshifters, fire witches, magical healing, concealment, and a smattering of other skills at play. By early in book two, however, it’s clear that Shinn knows how to push her magic system to its limits, finding interesting ways to solve problems within well-trodden types of sorcery.
Brandon Sanderson, a dedicated champion for this type of magic maxing, has often remarked that it’s limitations that make magic most interesting. Shinn leans into that idea again and again (long before Sanderson was known for such a thing).
Her magic system is on the harder side of things without being difficult to grasp. Each book adds both depth and breadth, fleshing it out further. And, most interestingly, Shinn continually pulls out new ways to cleverly embrace her own rules and boundaries.
3. There’s something refreshingly accessible about The Twelve Houses
This is a series most readers can tackle without fear. Booksellers today would likely categorize it as romantasy, but it blends genres in a way that makes it a great entry point for readers new to romantasy, epic fantasy, or sword and sorcery (which is what it was often labeled as when the first few books came out).
On the romantasy side, each book features a main romantic plot/couple, complete with outright confessions of love and a few weddings. On the sword and sorcery side, the series begins literally following a sword-wielding sorcerer (who needs both her physical and magical skills at various points). And on the epic side, there’s a big long quest/journey, a broad cast of political powers, the looming threat of war, and pitched magical battles in some instances.
The Twelve Houses series is never the most romantically-focused or the most epic. But this middle ground across genre lines makes it immediately readable and quite different from standard fare.
4. Each book tells a full story
Each volume in this series has a beginning, a middle, and an end. This might not be a high bar in other genres, but for high fantasy, this sense of book-by-book completion really stands out (and it stood out even more when it was first published). If you’ve read other articles in this blog, you’ll know I place a premium on the storytelling skill it takes to write this sort of series.
The series currently sits at six volumes (five novels and one novella). As epic as the scope can become, however, the individual books are fairly short. Most are between 400 and 500 pages. Even with moderate pacing (never all that fast) throughout the series, this combination of brevity and breathing room makes it a manageable reading investment for almost anyone who likes high fantasy. You’ll never find so much plot or so many characters that you can’t keep up. And you don’t have to read 2000 pages before finding out if you’ll like anything that happens.
In all, it’s continually impressive at how clean and compact each book feels.
Which connects to the final and (IMO) most impressive characteristic of all.
5. Any book in the series could be a reader’s favorite
Not only does every book tell its own story. Each volume is powerfully distinct in terms of theme. So while the series feels consistently like itself, no two books are really about the same things.
What this does is make for a series in which any book could be a reader’s favorite (which impresses me more than anything else Shinn does here). If you want the book with the most military motion, you can pick that one (and it stands on its own quite well). Or if you want the most introspective or gentle, you have a few other options. If you want the best of all, take book one or four, or maybe three. I ended up liking book two least, but even that one hit hard and delivered on numerous promises to readers.
The point is that there’s strength balanced well across the entire series. Imagine if a series as long as The Wheel of Time achieved something like this (hint, almost no series that long ever has).
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About the Author
Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogyas 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.
“Infinite are the arguments of mages,” wrote Ursula Le Guin. Likewise, infinite are the arguments about the best magic systems empowering those mages. This article will scarcely scratch the skin of that debate. But, as a reader and writer who cares a lot about interesting ways to use magic, I have some takes on the topic.
Out of hundreds of possible options (probably thousands), here are the eight magic systems I think are most interesting in terms of how the author actually uses them.
1. True names | The enduring magic system of Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle
Numerous magic systems use naming as a means to control things, generally centered on the concept of a true name. This system has roots in various religions and folk traditions. Unsurprisingly, Le Guin latched onto it and built a fascinating magic system around it.
At its heart, the idea is this: By knowing the true name of a thing, a wizard can control it. Sparrowhawk, the titular character in Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, uses this principle to befriend birds, to tame a dragon, and to heal himself. It’s a simple enough concept for readers to follow to interesting ends. The ways Le Guin problematizes it are even more compelling.
For instance, it’s not enough to know the sea’s name. A wizard might need to know the name of every drop of water before controlling an entire sea. Le Guin’s books also describe some things that don’t know their own names and are so free they can ignore the call even when issued by wizardry. Most fascinating is the way in which most trained wizards essentially subdue their own sexuality through use of their power (a concept only hinted at for the first few books of The Earthsea Cycle).
Le Guin’s magic system is unfathomably powerful, yet it’s tempered with very real costs and risks. And above all, Earthsea is a place that uses wizardry for endlessly interesting things.
Instead of the binary battle spells so common in early fantasy (heal wounds or cause them), Le Guin gives us a full array of tasks wizards might accomplish through magic.
Her wizards fix pots and heal cataracts. They manage the winds for sailors. They repair boats and herd goats. Sometimes they send messages, and sometimes they refrain—because any use of their power is perilous to the wizard who understands it. Wizardry feels like a lived-in, economic element in Earthsea. It’s so fully incorporated that I can’t imagine the setting without it. That alone is why I rank it above all other magic systems in high fantasy.
2. Luxin drafting | Creative and beautiful magic in Brent Weeks Lightbringer books
Brent Weeks famously yelled at Brandon Sanderson when the latter published Warbreaker just a year before Weeks’s The Black Prism hit shelves. The issue? Color-based magic. Weeks wanted to do it first. Regardless of any common hue (pun intended), Weeks’s system of luxin drafting stands very much on its own.
This magic system combines vision with physical substance.
First, vision. Drafters (mages) can typically only draft one or two colors. These are only available when they have some source of that color in sight—which leads to all sorts of clever tricks like colored lenses for the drafters or reflective armor to counter mages.
Next, substance. Whatever colors a drafter can access, the accessing mechanism spawns a physical substance, luxin, of an associated color. Luxins bring unique characteristics like durability, flammability, stickiness and so on. The evocation of luxin also allows build-up within a drafter’s body and expulsion (shooting streams or bolts of it out, for instance). There’s plenty of dueling and fighting to be done with luxin in these books. But there’s also an immense measure of craft and commerce connected to drafting.
Drafters use luxin to track one another, to build vehicles, and even to fortify a city. As with Le Guin’s system of true names, a measure of this magic system’s appeal is its utility for so many different things. Combine that with numerous cool ways to manipulate the system, and it makes for an original and compelling magic system throughout the Lightbringer series.
3. Death witnessing | An inglorious religious magic in Katherine Addison’s most popular works
Imagine a magic system that’s basically just used for feeling what a dead person felt, or thinking what they thought. And there you have the essence of death witnessing.
Addison introduces readers to this magic in a sort of mystery plotline within The Goblin Emperor. Witnessing for the dead plays a central step in finding the truth, absolving the innocent, or tracing the guilty. These of course have big narrative implications and opportunities. But death witnessing also leads to smaller ones, particularly in Addison’s novella The Witness for the Dead.
As powerful as this form of magic is, it’s the least glamorous on this list. And like most great magic systems, there are costs and gambles tied to it. In this case, the costs are primarily emotional and social. Witnesses for the dead get some formal respect but not much popularity. And it will be no surprise that feeling an almost-dead person’s almost-dead experiences won’t usually be fun.
Combine these elements and you get a magic system with a really unique fit into larger worldbuilding. It has a lived-in feeling to it that makes it deeply believable, but it also inspires a little fear—as most magic truly would in fantasy settings. Readers like me sometimes forget to be awed at the idea of a wizard wielding powers outside what I can harness. Addison’s books bring a lot of that awe back to me.
4. The One Power | A deceptively named and deceptively fascinating system in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time
The One Power is neither one nor solitary. But it is a power, easily ranking number two on this list in terms of raw potential. If you read The Eye of the World, book one in The Wheel of Time, you’ll find magic that feels routine among other epic fantasy of the 80s. Keep reading and you’ll find new layers in almost every following volume.
First there are fireballs, bolts of lightning, and generic healing spells. Then there’s protective magic and dark lord sealing (also fairly generic). And finally you get faster-than-light travel, mind control, military reconnaissance, the transfer of lava straight from a volcano onto baddies, and lots more.
Perhaps the biggest weakness in how this system shows up is that the first several books of Wheel of Time ignore magic’s massive logistical impacts. That changes later in the series, especially when Brandon Sanderson gets involved. By the end, The One Power feels widely integrated into how the world works. An equally important strength is that magic users themselves feel valuable and exceptional, even the weaker and less trained ones.
There’s plenty of room for mages in this system to invent and be smart, as well as to win the day with sheer power. All in all, it’s one of the most accessible and diverse systems to make it into a big series. And like Addison’s death witnessing or Le Guin’s true names, the One Power lends itself well to evoking dread and wonder.
5. Forging/soulstamping | Brandon Sanderon’s most contemplative and timely magic system
Speaking of Brandon Sanderson, almost any of his magic systems could make this list. He has come up with several distinct, graspable, and mind-bendingly spectacular ways to utilize magical powers in fantasy worlds. He also makes incredible use of the spelled out (another pun intended) limitations of each system. From allomancy to stormlight to rithmatics, there’s plenty to love.
Forging, introduced in The Emperor’s Soul, stands out as one of the most deliberate magic systems Sanderson has created. Allomany or stormlight—invaluable as they are in more pedestrian life—see most of their biggest use in colossal struggles like combat between demigod-like mages. Forging is a much slower magecraft in almost all cases shown. It’s a system of using seals (stamps) to imprint the form of something onto an object. This soulstamping process is a bit like imposing an artificial likeness. The nearer the form to the object’s actual nature, the more effectively the forgery takes.
The plotline of The Emperor’s Soul involves some somewhat desperate forging to survive. It’s also deeply concerned with how artistry and imitation coincide. I’m fairly certain Sanderson wasn’t thinking about generative AI when he wrote this (15 years ago), but it’s deeply relevant today. His recent keynote speech on art and AI reflects some of the same musings, albeit with more concrete outcomes. If you want a thoughtful companion to that speech, take a close look at the forging system.
And if you simply want a magic system that is fresh, look no farther.
Honorable mentions: 3 other great magic systems
Skill and Wit in Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings
Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy introduces two seemingly separate but philosophically connected magic systems.There’s the Wit, which is about communication between animals and humans. Then there’s the Skill, which is more or less about the same things from human to human. What makes them stand out so profoundly is the way Hobb ties them to real storytelling stakes.
Warrens of Magic in Steven Erikson’s Malazan
Erikson’s system of Warrens is about drawing magical powers from a series of vaguely connected sources. It’s easy enough to follow how it shows up in Erikson’s first books, but it’s intricately layered. Most intriguing of all, there’s a sense of impermanence, given how Warrens shift, get flooded, become the settings for whole subjourneys, and so on. The magic system itself feels as old and as mortal as the rest of the world.
Sympathy in Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles
Sympathy is only one of several distinct magic systems in Rothfuss’s primary work. It’s the most unique and interesting so far, however. The main idea is about energy transfer through sympathetic links—joining like objects together. It’s limited, like virtually everything listed above, but allows endless invention. It’s the sort of magic system a group of DND players would likely break to no end, which is a good sign that it’s useful, multifaceted, and actually fun.
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About the Author
Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogyas 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.
Despite being a lifelong fan of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, I don’t typically go out looking for another work that strikes the same chord. But there are plenty of great books for fans of The Lord of the Rings.
I’ll be the first to admit being frustrated at the non-Tolkienesque recommendations I receive. “There is only one Lord of the Rings,” as Gandalf says in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the three-volume epic. My ensuing recommendations are high fantasy or epic fantasy works that evoke a similar sense of beauty, adventure, heroism, depth, and melancholy as J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
Take them with your own grain of salt, though. These recommendations draw largely from data I’ve gathered on why readers continue to love The Lord of the Rings. There’s always some personal taste involved as well.
Here are just seven series that share key similarities—all which stand well on their own merits, it’s worth adding.
Fusing the ordinary and the very epic: Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Earthsea Cycle (1968 – 2001)
Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Earthsea Cycle follows the coming-of-age journey of a wizard called Sparrowhawk, along with some of his treasure-hunting adventures, his attempts to bring real peace to a war-torn world, and a quest to stop wizardry itself (and all crafts of beauty and power) from disappearing. It’s also a series about the power of being very ordinary.
Earthsea is one of the most obviously unique of all the works this article discusses. There are, however, so many ways in which reading this series feels like reading The Lord of the Rings.
For the sake of brevity, here are a few high level items to consider:
In Earthsea, as in Middle-earth, magic seems to have touched everything. Yet the omnipresence of magical events has not diluted the power it brings to the page in this high-magic setting.
Readers might be fooled into thinking The Lord of the Rings is a long work of fiction. At 575,000 words, it’s about the size of two George R. R. Martin books, 1.25 books in the Stormlight Archive, and the final solitary volume in Tad Williams’s Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn (referenced later on). In short, The Lord of the Rings is short for high fantasy, epic fantasy, or similar genre organizers. And so is The Earthsea Cycle, the entire work spanning less than 500,000 words.
Short or not, Earthsea shows Le Guin’s uncanny ability to tell a great story with few pages. This is a skill Tolkien shared too, as noted above.
Earthsea is full of minor characters doing seemingly unimportant things. Yes, there are heroics like Aragorn’s or Gandalf’s. But the story’s mostly concerned with more ordinary events. This brings it closer to real life than your standard work of epic fantasy. It also makes it much more harmonious with Tolkien’s own work, which is greatly concerned with ordinary, daily, non-epic goings on.
Fans of The Lord of the Rings will admire Le Guin’s skill with little things
This last point might be most Tolkien-like of all: Earthsea’s clearest heroes don’t solve their problems by strength of arms.
Le Guin meticulously crafts stories in which killing a bad guy doesn’t actually fix the world. Yes, you’ll find epic clashes of armies or magical powers in The Lord of the Rings. Earthsea has some similar moments. Yet it’s in quieter instances and less obvious decisions that both works bring their stories to a point of resolution.
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Music is magic in The Riddle-Master Trilogy by Patricia McKillip (1976 – 1979)
The Riddle-Master Trilogy by Patricia McKillip tells the story of a young land-heir, swine-herd, beer-brewer, amatuer riddler, would-be-scholar, and prophesied hero all rolled up into one. Along the way, there’s plenty of murderous chasing, ancient riddles, and magical harping to keep readers interested. Much like Middle-Earth, McKillip’s fantasy world is filled to the brim with magic, much of it left almost wholly unexplained.
In an earlier blog post on underrated works of epic fantasy, I’ve noted Tolkien’s critical influence on McKillip. What’s especially interesting is that McKillip tells such a different story in such a different style than Tolkien, despite numbering him among only a very few speculative fiction writers to shape her early work (Le Guin was another).
“Tolkien just opened the doors to imagination.”
—Patricia McKillip, 2010
Where The Lord of the Rings divides an epic journey up across a party of disparate compatriots, there’s a much lonelier journey going on in The Riddle-Master Trilogy. The main characters—Morgon, Raederle, and Deth—spend a great deal of time alone or with little company around them. Also, much like The Earthsea Cycle mentioned above, there are no Helm’s Deeps or Pelennor Fields with armies fighting on them in this trilogy. Just a wizard or two and a long, well-tuned string of riddles to lure the curious reader forward.
What feels most Tolkienesque about McKillip’s trilogy is the author’s evident respect for the beauty of the world she created. It’s stunningly unique, even when weighed against the almost 50 years of high fantasy following it. Like Tolkien, McKillip made something that feels too distinct to be properly replicated.
An epic story with elves, quests, magic swords, and mystical mentors: The Sword of Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks (1977 – 1985)
The past two works on the list are less apparent in their Tolkien-like trappings. Terry Brooks wore his clearly from the start of his career.
The Sword of Shannara Trilogy, which contains three whole, standalone stories, draws on similar plotting, quest structures, and even hero party makeups. It doesn’t feel too fresh upfront, truly. But Brooks’s debut does show a great deal of skill and imagination all the same. Books two and three (and Brooks’s many Shannara stories after that) do a lot to distinguish themselves in their own right.
Here’s a quick for instance on the similarities. Book one (The Sword of Shannara) follows the quest of a semi-orphaned villager and his adoptive brother as monstrous creatures chase them from their home and they set out to destroy a dark lord. Along their journey, they team up with a mysteriously knowledgeable druid, a dwarf, two bow-wielding elves, and the crown prince of a powerful kingdom that guards the border between the dark lord and the rest of the known world.
And here’s an example of where Brooks does his own thing: The hero of book one doesn’t succeed through fighting, escaping, or purposefully destroying a magical relic. He succeeds by using truth and paradox to confound the deluded dark lord head on.
Filled with immense monsters, ancient magic, fast-paced chases, and courageous confrontations of evil, The Sword of Shannara Trilogy embraces the sense of adventure and heroism that so many readers love in The Lord of the Rings. Where Tolkien leans more heavily into lore and detail, Brooks’s very American storytelling is a little more pulpy and action-packed. This makes for a different read than the previous works on the list. It’s one that has resonated with many Tolkien fans in the years since this trilogy helped launch epic fantasy as a commercial, formalized genre in the U.S.
A work that captures the sorrow of a closing age: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams (1988 – 1993)
Tad Williams has written quite a variety of speculative fiction. To date he is most well-known for his million-word epic trilogy Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. It’s worth noting that George R. R. Martin is one of the series’s many vocal fans. He particularly credits Williams with influencing him to write his own epic fantasy.
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn shares more than one strong similarity with The Lord of the Rings. It’s very much a story about small people (physically and socially) stepping into heroic roles they shouldn’t have to shoulder. It’s also one of the more rigorous of early epic fantasy stories in terms of overall setting and worldbuilding.
There’s a particularly powerful parallel between Middle-earth and how Williams portrays ancient, magical peoples withdrawing from the world of humans. Much as Tolkien’s elves are leaving the lands of mortals, Williams’s magical races have in many ways already distanced themselves from the doings of humankind. This creates a growing distance between the ordinary world and magical occurrences underway. It also sets readers up for a huge sense of awe whenever pretty much anything magical comes about. Many low-magic series have followed. I have encountered few that bring such a sense of age and scope as Williams’s original trilogy—in a way that feels very much like reading The Lord of the Rings.
Going epic on epic Fantasy: Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen (1999 – 2011)
Critics have often called Robert Jordan (author of The Wheel of Time) the American Tolkien because of the size and scope of his massive fantasy story. Don’t forget the Canadian Tolkien, though. His name is Steven Erikson.
Erikson’s 10-book epic is more often compared to A Song of Ice and Fire than to The Lord of the Rings. It’s hard to find any writer in any genre who rivals Erikson’s depth of world-building (and that includes Tolkien himself).
Where Tolkien uses his immense knowledge of philology and poetry to inform his worldbuilding, Erikson draws on archeology and anthropology as well. He creates economies, social contracts, militaries, and magic systems that feel incredibly plausible because they follow patterns so identifiable in human history.
And this is to say nothing of Erikson’s sheer skill with words. Erikson graduated from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, the most celebrated writing program in the world. And he makes his wordsmithing prowess plain from early on in book one of Malazan.
Critics often describe Erikson as being too challenging for typical fantasy readers today. With a focus on warfare and imperialism, Malazan also sits more on the military fantasy side of the genre spectrum. It’s therefore a departure from the lofty, high fantasy space The Lord of the Rings craved for itself. That said, Erikson’s rich lore, expansive setting, immense cast of characters (god and human alike), and very character-oriented storytelling make his work an excellent fit for the many Tolkien fans who want something epic, well-imagined, and unforgettable.
A magical mix of everything: The Swan’s War Trilogy by Sean Russell (2001 – 2004)
Perhaps the least well known series on the list, The Swan’s War trilogy feels like an even amalgamation of the elements in almost all the above series. It follows several converging storylines, including the coming of age journey of a few village boys, a sort of Montagues and Capulets rivalry that goes full-blown medieval war, and the secret quest of an almost roguish wizard.
I’d venture to guess that author Sean Russell knows one of Tolkien’s oft-forgotten secrets: Don’t explain everything. The Swan’s War trilogy feels almost like a dark fairy tale, when you get deep into it. The lore is less expansive than most items on this list. Yet it still feels deep and awe-inspiring without taking 5000 pages to get there.
Like in The Fellowship of the Ring, particularly, there’s plenty of chasing and escaping from mysterious forces. Like in The Two Towers or The Return of the King, readers will find interesting stories about royal families, political intrigue, and warfare. And through it all, there are simpler tales about a few young cousins trying to find their way safely home.
Much like The Lord of the Rings as a whole, Russell’s trilogy is fascinated with landscape and the journey itself. These books present a setting that feels as magical when uninhabited as it does when warring enchanters hunt each other across it. There’s plenty of imagination and adventure as well. But the unique sense of location is perhaps the single item that makes it feel most Tolkien-like.
Celebrating fellowship: Michael J. Sullivan’s Riyria Revelations (2011 – 2012)
Michael J. Sullivan’s six-book trilogy follows the oft-illegal adventures of two companion thieves, Royce and Hadrian. Sometimes they’ll be taking a job to make some quick cash. Sometimes they set out because they’ve been framed for jobs they didn’t do. They always collaborate, however, and their teamwork is part of the appeal.
Riyria Revelations feels in many ways the most light-hearted and hopeful of the works on this list. Not that dark things don’t happen. They do in every volume. But as in The Lord of the Rings, there’s a present sense of fortitude or even optimism that largely stems from the comradery between its characters. Royce and Hadrian foil each other more blatantly than Frodo and Sam or Gimli and Legolas. The series visits themes of loyalty and fellowship again and again, however, both with its protagonists and with other characters.
Make no mistake. There are also instances of arcane wizardry, skillful swordplay, epic monstrosities, and the search for lost royalty. Most fantasy readers will find something to like here, The Lords of the Rings fans or not. While Riyria Revelations is less of a bildungsroman than any other work on this list, it still feels relevant and a little classic. But it’s the ever present thread of friendship that feels most relevant to Tolkien.
A few others worth mentioning
As mentioned earlier, many Tolkien fans found something new to love in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. I see the appeal. It’s a long journey to the end of the series. It’s also the type of expansive tale that couldn’t be told without showing the length of the road from Emond’s Field to Tarmon Gai’don.
Guy Gavriel Kay is another high fantasy author well worth including on this list. Kay not only writes poetic, distinctive, powerful fantasy on his own. He also played an integral role in bringing The Silmarillion to light.
I’d also add Kristen Britain’s Green Rider series for consideration. In a similar vein to Terry Brooks, Britain wears many Tolkien influences on her sleeve. Few fantasy writers match her great love of horses—while Tolkien is one who seems to have shared it.
Last but not least, if you’re a fan of The Lord of the Rings, you can always go read it again. I like to encourage people to try new books. But this is one work that surely has a lot to give over repeat readings. Tolkien’s tomes are full enough that you might find a new story or two there each time.
Updated May 30, 2026. Post originally published in 2023.
FAQs
What books should fans of The Lord of the Rings read?
Fans of The Lord of the Rings often enjoy fantasy series with similarly immersive settings, rich casts of characters, epic scopes, and thematic depth. These readers often enjoy Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle, Tad Williams’s Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, and Terry Brooks’s The Sword of Shannara Trilogy, among other works.
What books have deep world-building like The Lord of the Rings?
Few fantasy series have ever come close to the depth of world-building in The Lord of the Rings. Steven Erikson’s Malazan series has a particularly deep scope of history woven into the story. Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time and Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere books are also similar in the complexity and size of their settings.
What books have epic journeys like in The Lord of the Rings?
The Lord of the Rings practically invented the subgenre of epic fantasy about long physical journeys. Whether based in a specific quest or a more generic search for adventure, journeys have been a mainstay in epic fantasy ever since. Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, Patricia McKillip’s The Riddle-Master Trilogy , Terry Brooks’s Shannara series, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle, and many other series feature stories with long physical journeys at their hearts.
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About the Author
Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogyas 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 my violin or wandering in the woods.
Regulars on this blog will know that I hold Ursula K. Le Guin in the highest literary regard. She wrote numerous unforgettable books, but all of my favorites in her portfolio are part of her fantasy opus The Earthsea Cycle. Which I happen to believe is as every bit as good as any fantasy series out there.
In this article I’ll explore six main reasons fantasy readers should try The Earthsea Cycle for themselves:
Before diving into the details, let me share a little background and summary.
The Earthsea Cycle is a six-book series following three main characters. There’s Arren, a princeling who learns quickly that wizardry is greater than the sword. There’s Tenar, a girl who was raised as a priestess to a malicious power. And there’s Sparrowhawk, the greatest voyager wizard (pretty much the greatest wizard in all ways) in the archipelago. Each character features prominently in two or three volumes—one coming of age novel and one book that is completely different.
The macro story is about making peace between people from different lands and intelligent species who’ve made diverging choices in their pasts. It’s a lot less overtly epic than most multi-volume high fantasy. It’s a lot smarter and more unique as well.
Here’s what I mean.
Each volume delivers a whole story and takes readers to a new place
When Le Guin began publishing The Earthsea Cycle, there were no cliffhanger-ending doorstop fantasy series to be found. Before the series hit its halfway mark, however, Tad Williams, Anne McCaffrey, R. A. Salvatore, and others had made such series the norm for high fantasy. Le Guin stayed the course, giving a full story in each book.
One of the greatest virtues to this approach is that it allowed Le Guin to take readers to new places (thematically and in terms of worldbuilding) with each story. Several overarching themes recur, but each book is incredibly distinct. The pacing, style, cast, setpieces, and ultimate resolutions are their own—not just continuations of something from before.
The distinctive wholeness of each volume was even more unique by the time Le Guin finished the series in 2002. Imagine, in contrast, if every novel of The Wheel of Time,The Sword of Truth, Deverry, Shannara, or Dragonlance brought a fresh thematic cycle (and simultaneously managed to deliver a beginning, middle, and end within less than 300 pages). Of course, Le Guin was writing a different kind of book than her peers. But that’s the real point to begin with.
The macro Earthsea story is cohesive and complete
On a similar note, Le Guin still instilled a single through story into The Earthsea Cycle. Continuous character arcs, expanding scopes, and connection points both subtle and overt in nature give the series both a red thread and momentum to the end.
The interesting thing is that Le Guin actually intended to end it multiple times. She published the first three volumes close together, but she planned for A Wizard of Earthsea (the first book) to be a true standalone novel. Only after writing The Tombs of Atuan (which she first called a sequel) did she move onto the idea of The Earthsea Trilogy. A whopping 17 years later, she realized she had more to write in this world, eventually expanding it to six books.
If you read them back to back, you might never realize so much time had passed in the telling. The consistency of style and the harmonious paradigm in each book makes it feel as if Le Guin never paused to work on anything else.
Oh, and when she added a final short story 17 years after the last book hit shelves, she really did make it clear that the series was done. Le Guin passed away that same year, marking a full 50 year gap between the beginning and end of the series.
But she finished it. If only more fantasy authors could claim the same.
Any book in the series could be a reader’s favorite
Another witness to Le Guin’s skill is the variety of responses fans share when asked to name a favorite Earthsea novel. The first three are almost equally popular. Book four in the series has a smaller base of diehard fans but tends to elicit an extra strong (and positive) response for those who buy into it. And if you scan all the Le Guin subreddits, you’ll find plenty of people naming book six as their all-time favorite as well. It’s only the very different fifth volume (a short story collection) that I haven’t heard fans vote for.
Still. To have five out of six in the running (83%) for fan favorite is all but unheard of. Harry Potter is the only similar example I could find—contrasting with numerous high fantasy series where the fans’ pick is clear and overwhelming.
The long and short is that Le Guin didn’t write many novels. But she only wrote good ones.
Earthsea offers rich lore without a bloated page count
Speaking of the long and short. The entire Earthsea Cycle spans just 320,000 words or so. That’s about one volume of long epic fantasy (Wheel of Time or Malazan, for instance). Even MG and YA novels routinely net longer word counts than her books have.
Le Guin began writing in a time when shorter novels were more of the norm, even for SFF, but there’s still something amazing happening here. Her worldbuilding outshines dozens of longer works. There’s a strong sense of place in each book. History springs up everywhere. There’s cultural variety. And the magic at work in Earthsea is much more developed than many other works with hard magic systems.
I’m continually mind-boggled at how much story and lore Le Guin managed to pack into just six short books. And I’m in awe at how conclusively she tells so many stories with so few words. The recent graphic novel adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea even managed to cut a chapter or two (close to 20%) of plot events without losing a clear storyline.
Earthsea’s worldbuilding has been incredibly influential
Short and sweet can be just as sticky as anything from a longer series. Look at the magic system in Earthsea as an example.
Within this system, mages derive much of their power from their ability to find and speak the true names of a given thing or being. While Le Guin isn’t the first person to come up with the idea of names having power, her systemized use of it made for one of the most robust and comprehensible magic systems in fantasy for decades to come. And this alone has been adapted (or copied wholesale) by numerous SFF authors.
A few examples:
“True Names” by Vernor Vinge
The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini
Numerous works by Tanya Huff
The Books of Pellinor by Alison Croggon
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter by Michael Swanwick
The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Even more importantly, Le Guin did a great deal to normalize the departure from purely European-inspired fantasy settings and white casts of characters. One of Le Guin’s most vocal criticisms about her own series (there are many) is about how her publishers consistently avoided depicting a person of color in cover art and illustrations. She wrote a non-white hero and wanted him to appear on the cover. I’m hard-pressed to find many fantasy authors doing that before the turn of the century, let alone having the courage to criticize publishers for hiding it.
There’s a true sense of magic and wonder in every book
At the end of the day, Earthsea inspires wonder. It’s a unashamed example of high magic—higher than almost any peer works I can name—with Le Guin proving she was worth her Gandalf Grand Master Award at every turn. From my first few minutes with the first book, I found storytelling wizardry at every turn, and the following five books maintained the magic effortlessly.
If you want to magic on the page, you can’t do much better than picking up The Earthsea Cycle.
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About the Author
Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogyas 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.
Almost from the first time I heard of them, I was told to tread with caution where Steven Erikson’s Malazan books are concerned. Even his diehard fans say this series is hard to read. Some even intimate that The Malazan Book of the Fallen (the series’ official name) is the most difficult epic fantasy series to read of any written by a living author.
I was about sixteen when I picked up the first volume. I backed off after just a page or two. This was mostly thanks to accounts of the Malazan learning curve—and not actually due to anything I was reading. Now, four books into the series, I seriously wish I’d pressed on instead of moving on in search of simpler series.
Malazan isn’t really so hard to read. It’s complex, to be sure, and Erikson doesn’t hold readers’ hands like some other authors do. But I’m convinced that thousands of epic fantasy readers are missing out because of exaggerated reports about the challenges of reading this series. Many readers also steer away, unfortunately, because of the vigor of Erikson’s valiant fans, who can, in their zeal for the books, often attack and insult potential readers.
I believe there’s a lot of happy middle ground, so here’s my take and TLDR pitch for the series: If you love unique epic fantasy, you should seriously consider reading Malazan. It truly isn’t that hard to digest—and there’s assuredly as much to admire as Erikson’s fervent fans proclaim.
First, some background and a few notes on the Malazan learning curve.
What is the Malazan series about?
Malazan is a story about: godlike beings breaking free from their imprisonment; an empire crumbling, rallying, and redefining itself; a squad of veterans fighting to survive; individual people struggling to stay individuals (not just pawns in ascendants’ hands).
Readers often have a hard time describing the plot because there are, in fact, many plots. In fact, the interweaving of so many is one of the sources of difficulty for most readers, although most Malazan storylines by themselves will feel plenty familiar to fantasy readers.
Is Malazan really that difficult to read?
This is a legitimate question. Here are some of the things real world readers say about Gardens of the Moon (the first book in the series) in Amazon reviews:
“Erikson seriously erred beginning this story in medias res.”
“What I found… was a turgid, impenetrable mess.”
“Everything stops reading like nonsense about halfway through.”
“Things seemingly come out of no where [sic]. No explanation. No rules.”
“The book is too difficult.”
And here are a few comments from experienced reviewers:
Library of a Viking: “I barely understand a single thing.” (commented in the middle of book two.)
Daniel Greene: “This is for epic fantasy fans only.”
Bookborn: “I thought I was too stupid for the series.”
I tend to disagree with the tenor of the comments above. But coming to grips with Malazan is obviously a challenge for many smart readers.
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Some authors tell you three or four times how everything works in their fantasy settings. Erikson respects reader intelligence a lot and spreads his telling more thinly. Sometimes he lets you figure things out all on your own, which can make it difficult to read Malazan.
Easy example: Characters in Malazan refer often to the unfortunate dead crossing Hood’s Gate. Erikson doesn’t sit down and go into expository detail about Hood being the god of death or his worship being one of a few sanctioned religions before the Malaz conquest of Kartool Island. He generally just lets characters say things like, “He’s already at Hood’s Gate.” There’s enough context to figure out quickly what these characters really mean.
Not so simple example: Erikson famously assumed hordes of readers would deduce the identities of several new ascendants (gods, more or less) based simply on the timing of their ascent. In book two or three he says outright, “Those new ascendants are in fact such and such characters.” I read book one and most of two without ever putting the pieces together. That’s how it goes for almost all Malazan readers out there. (Sidenote: it doesn’t actually matter whether readers picked up the hint or not. The plot still makes plenty of sense up to the point that Erikson does share the information more forthrightly.)
Malazan readers do still need to come to grips with a lot. There’s a vast high fantasy setting, with a big cast. The world has unique races, a large pantheon of important players, and an incredibly important magic system. All without much overt guidance from the author. The thing is, Erikson anchors the reading experience so expertly that you don’t need to know everything. Not by a long shot. His effective use of prose, characterization, and plot go a long way to proofing his books against gaps in reader memory or notice.
You get some whole stories without reading to the end
Another chief way Erikson offsets the learning curve is by giving a solid ending with just about every book in the series. Malazan stands head and shoulders above many other truly great works of epic fantasy by delivering substantive stories without requiring quite so much of the reader’s blood to access each one.
Gardens of the Moon, for instance, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It doesn’t have all the endings it could have. But it provides a satisfying stopping point for readers who decide they’ve had enough. Deadhouse Gates (book two) does this even more profoundly, finishing a few amazing stories while continuing and beginning others. It strikes a balance sort of halfway between Terry Brooks’s original Sword of Shannara trilogy—in which each book ended its own tale more or less completely—and Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive—in which each book has a strong conclusion without closing many doors.
So. If the idea of a 10-book series scares you, take comfort. Malazan is a much safer, less difficult investment than The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Sword of Truth or many other peer series. You can bail out at the end of almost any book and you’ll still get some solid, whole stories.
Malazan’s greatest strengths are tied to its moderate difficulty level
One of the things that amazes me most, having read just a quarter of the series so far, is how much story Erikson has already packed in. The pace is unyieldingly quick, with major events advancing in every chapter. Part of the genius of the books is how much Erikson elects to skip. Other authors might fall into the trap of overexplaining or making sure it’s all crystal clear (e.g. where other authors often do overexplain or overemphasize). Not Erikson.
It’s surprisingly like William Gibson’s Neuromancer in this way. So much happens so quickly, often with little contextual information shared in the moment. But the heart of the story is clear without much context anyway. Truly, the author’s choice to skip the boring parts doesn’t hurt. It just keeps things interesting.
Difficulty level or no, Malazan sets an unfathomably high bar for epic fantasy
The biggest reasons to read Malazan are, of course, not about the level of difficulty or the time commitment required to read it. You should read the series because the books are amazing.
It’s not great because of the 700 character-cast. It’s great because of the depth of human insight they bring to the story or the riveting relationships those characters form.
The series doesn’t need the careful stitching together of 30 different plotlines to be exciting. It’s exciting because of the quality of storytelling in each smaller story Erikson develops.
Malazan isn’t about Erikson’s obvious love for history, either, regardless of the hundreds of thousands of years of lore bleeding onto the page. Malazan is about being transported to an unforgettable setting.
It’s bigger than The Wheel of Time and richer than Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn—with a larger world, a stronger history, deeper cultures, and a more lively cast of characters. Its moments of breathtaking heroism rival anything in the genre, from The Lord of the Rings to Elfstones of Shannara to the Lightbringer series. The deep human insight pervading these books is particularly unique, measuring up with the best of Robin Hobb, J. V. Jones, Sean Russel and many other top tier fantasy authors. In short, there’s something outstanding here for just about any epic fantasy reader.
Conclusion: Epic fantasy readers should seriously consider Malazan
I first learned about Erikson thanks to a Terry Brooks fan forum. It was in this same forum that I—as a hungry young fantasy reader—first heard of R. A. Salvatore, Anne McCaffrey, Guy Gavriel Kay, Naomi Novik, and many other authors old and new alike.
Everywhere Erikson came up, his work was regarded on par with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, often with no competing comparisons. It was this consistent attribution of quality that finally convinced me to try Malazan again after 15+ years since my first attempt.
From where I am, a mere 25% through the series, I genuinely believe those claims.
Reference information
The number of named characters in the Malazan series: Malazan has about 700 named characters. For comparison, A Song of Ice and Fire has about 1000 so far, and The Wheel of Time boasts a whopping 2700.
Word count of the Malazan series: All told, the ten books in this series total about 3,325,000 words. That’s about three times as long as the entire Harry Potter series and a million words shy of The Wheel of Time.
Publication history of the Malazan series: The entire 10-book series was published between 1999 and 2011, averaging close to 15 months between each book.
FAQs
Why is Malazan so hard to read?
Steven Erikson’s Malazan is not as hard to read as many reviewers describe it. However, the series is long and complex, with a massive world, a many-layered plot, and a huge cast of key characters. Malazan also forbears from many instances of repeated explanation. The lack of expository reminders puts more onus on readers to remember what they’ve already read.
Is there an easy way to read Malazan?
Malazan is best read in publication order. Whether readers move immediately on to the next book or not, it can be helpful to review the dramatis personae included in most publications of the books. Fans have created a dedicated Malazan Wiki, which also helps readers refresh core details between books.
What’s the best reading order for Malazan?
Although the timeline jumps back and forth in parts, Malazan Book of the Fallen is written in strict order from books one to ten. The simplest reading order is in order of publication. Subsequent connected works like The Kharkanas Trilogy (a prequel trilogy) or The Tales of Witness (a sequel series) are best read after the main series, since these books offer spoilers into key events of the main series.
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About the Author
Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogyas 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.
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:
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
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 Trilogyas 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.
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:
Captivation (26 references)
Beauty (21 references)
The characters (20 references)
World-building (8 references)
“Best” quality (8 references)
Wisdom and quotability (7 references)
Its uniqueness (7 references)
Relatability (6 references)
The magic system (5 references)
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.
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.
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.
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 Trilogyas 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.
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
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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About the Author
Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogyas 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.
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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About the Author
Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogyas 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.
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:
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.
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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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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About the Author
Stephen Taylor is the author of The Witherclaw Trilogyas 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.
