10 most popular fantasy books of all time
We wear mithril on Wednesdays.
You can’t sit with these fantasy series.
Seriously, these fantasy books are so popular that they sit at the cool kid’s table in high school. Do you even own mithril? They wear mithril on Wednesdays. I’m sure someone could text you the rules, but they only use palantírs to communicate, so … sorry. What else would you expect? These are the 10 most popular fantasy series of all time, after all.
If you haven’t read these yet, what are you waiting for? They’re popular for a reason!
10. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
You know things aren’t looking good when twelve-year-olds are more popular than you. To be fair, these particular twelve-year-olds were chosen by an ancient prophecy, so don’t feel too bad. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is about a girl named Lyra Belacqua, who lives in a world kind of like ours, except it’s ruled by an evil church, and every human being has an animal familiar that serves as the living embodiment of their soul. After Lyra stumbles upon a metaphysical secret that the church would rather keep that way, she embarks on a dimension-hopping quest to discover the truth of existence—one that could topple Heaven itself in the process. She befriends gay angels, talking polar bears, and thousand-year-old witches. She’s popular with everyone!
9. Discworld by Terry Pratchett
While posers only know Terry Pratchett for his Angel x Demon comedy novel Good Omens, popular fantasy kids know that he’s been authoring books since the ’80s, and Discworld is his most famous series. Just how popular is it? Popular enough for Pratchett to write 41 books, each following their own individual cast of characters in his loopy high fantasy world. The Colour of Magic is the first novel, and it’s about a nobody wizard named Rincewind and his quest to become somebody—even if that means taking a job protecting an insurance agent from a foreign kingdom from getting assassinated. This book is really funny, but if you’re not one of the popular kids, like, you wouldn’t get it.
8. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
If you’re in with popular kids, you’ll know that Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander is the biggest fantasy romance series ever. Sarah J. Maas? Don’t know her. These books are about a former World War II nurse named Claire who travels to Scotland with her husband and touches a magic rock, and then she’s transported back in time to 18th century Scotland during the Jacobite Risings. Scottish clans are fighting to overthrow the English king, and Claire just so happens to end up warping right into the arms of a seriously hot Highland warrior. To help out in the rebellion, she uses her nerd knowledge about medicine and stuff to help the warriors in their battles, and then she finds out her actual husband’s ancestor is one of the dudes that they’re fighting against. Awkward.
7. The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice
Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles might not have swords and wizards, but popular fantasy kids know the deal. Interview With the Vampire is a dark fantasy story about a creature of the night named Louis telling a journalist about his unlife, which got really complicated when a rich vampire named Lestat turned him in 18th century Louisiana. Louis has to learn the vampire ropes from Lestat, 90% of which is killing and the remaining 10% is brooding. The pair even start a weird vampire family when they turn a little girl and adopt her as their daughter, even if that means she’s cursed to have a child’s body forever, even as she gets older. It’s a seriously dark story and is only a part of the multi-book narrative. Wait until Lestat becomes a rockstar in the ’80s; that’s when things get really crazy.
6. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
Popular and unpopular fantasy kids alike have seen Game of Thrones. It was the biggest show on TV for almost a decade. But only the popular fantasy in-crowd have read the books that the HBO series was based on. George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire has been cool with the popular fantasy kids since the ’90s and tells the real story of household names like Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen before they were famous. The book series has more drama than a high school homeroom, but the big story here is Daenerys’ quest to take over the kingdom of Westeros with dragons while Jon tries to stop an army of undead ice monsters from doing it first.
5. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
The Wheel of Time is a story about a chosen one, basically the most popular kid in all the land. He’s so popular that the metaphysical wheel that governs the laws of the universe reincarnates him throughout the ages as the Dragon Reborn, a warrior whose job it is to fight The Dark One for all eternity. If you couldn’t tell from the name, the Dark One is totally evil, as farm boy Rand al’Thor discovers after learning that he’s the Dragon Reborn … reborn. Now Rand has to go on a quest to fight the Dark One, but at least he’s popular enough to have friends to come with him. And then he makes more friends. Lots of friends. So many friends that the series branches out into enough subplots to produce 14 books. Being popular is hard work.
4. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Before it was a semi-popular movie series, C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia was a super-popular fantasy series about four kids coming out of the closet. Wardrobe. Whatever. Basically, four British siblings discover a magical piece of furniture in their house which transports them to the land of Narnia, where they have to help a talking lion fight an evil witch—and that’s only the first book. Throughout the series, the siblings go back and forth between their world and Narnia, and because time passes at different speeds between the two different places, they have a different adventure every go around. Lost princes. Talking horses. Snow queens handing out Turkish delight. In Narnia, you never know what you’re going to get.
3. Alice’s Adventure’s In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
So there isn’t hard proof that Lewis Carroll used hard drugs when he was writing Alice’s Adventure’s In Wonderland, but it sure reads like he was. Unless you smoked enough caterpillar hookah to forget your own name, you probably know the story of Alice, an unsupervised kid who followed a rabbit into a magical hole in the ground. She ends up in the world of Wonderland, where she chugs size-changing potions, sips tea with crazy hat makers, and inhales second-hand caterpillar smoke, all while trying to avoid getting her head cut off by a homicidal queen. Maybe the real adventure was the drugs she did along the way.
2. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
The Wizard of Oz is one of the most important movies ever made—maybe the most important movie ever made. Before it made silver screen history, it was a novel by L. Frank Baum. Well, actually, it was the first of 14 Oz novels that Baum wrote, and after his death, other authors wrote dozens more. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the tale of one little girl discovering she’s not in The Great Depression anymore. Yay! This series made history as it features one of the first trans characters in fantasy, the Princess Ozma, who was changed into a boy by the Good Witch Glinda to hide from the Wicked Witch and then changed back into a girl as a teenager.
1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Unless you’ve been living under the Mines of Moria, you’ve heard of The Lord of the Rings. While everybody has seen the Peter Jackson movies, only the truly committed popular fantasy kids have read the books they’re based on. J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the best-selling fantasy authors ever, and his series has sold hundreds of millions of copies around the world. It’s the story of a random Hobbit named Frodo, who suddenly becomes a popular kid after his famous uncle gives him some rare jewelry. Nepo baby? I think so. He joins a fellowship of warriors who also have rich and famous parents and goes on a quest to destroy the evil ring in the fires of a volcano. Don’t believe that Frodo’s loaded? He has a gardener who goes with him the whole way.
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