Fantasy Books: The 100 Best Fantasy Novels of All Time

Did you know that about 200 new books are published on the German-speaking market every day? 5% of these are fantasy titles. Even the biggest fantasy freak can’t read them all because that would still be ten books a day! To help you choose and to show you which fantasy titles are worth your while, here are our top 100 best fantasy novels of all time. You can be curious!

1. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

The title character Alice, while her sister is reading to her, out of curiosity, follows a talking white rabbit, equipped with a pocket watch, into its burrow and falls not only down into a room with many doors, but also out of time and space, as it were, into the world of fantasy. Because behind the doors, in a realm called Wonderland, quite abstruse characters cavort, for example, the Cheshire Cat or the Mad Hatter. The characters Alice meets are not only crazy but also not very scary. She meets the King of Hearts, who would like to decapitate someone. In addition, flamingos are used as rackets and hedgehogs as balls in the game of croquet. It’s good that in the end, everything turns out to be a dream – Alice wakes up lying next to her sister.

What makes “Alice in Wonderland” special is that the protagonist’s height is a major theme. At first, she is too big to enter Wonderland and shrunk first. Today, doctors use Alice in Wonderland Syndrome to describe a perceptual disorder in which those affected perceive themselves, others, or their surroundings as enlarged or diminished.

2. Song of Ice and Fire 01. The Lords of Winterfell – George R.R. Martin

The Lord of Winterfell, Eddard Stark, lives with his family in the northern kingdom of Westeros. Winters are cold there and can last for decades. Eddard becomes his king’s closest confidant and must now choose a deputy to rule Winterfell. The choice falls on his heir Robb. But besides his bastard son Jon, plenty of powerful enemies make life difficult for Eddard and his large family. And suddenly, not only the future of Winterfell is endangered, but also the kingdom of Westeros threatens to perish.

With “The Lords of Winterfell,” Martin succeeded in kicking off the global success of the “Game of Thrones” series. The associated television series caused a huge sensation worldwide.

3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – Joanne K. Rowling

On his eleventh birthday, the orphan Harry Potter receives an invitation to the Hogwarts boarding school. Before that, Harry suspected that he was not an ordinary boy because the strangest things kept happening around him. The family of his aunt, with whom Harry grows up after the Death of his parents, has concealed from him that he has magical abilities. For she belongs to the “Muggles,” that is, people without any magical talent. However, at Hogwarts, Harry’s real-world opens up, and as a first-grader in magic, he learns to wield a wand and a flying broom and meets truly legendary characters.

Harry Potter also shows that there is something unique lying dormant in every boy, no matter how much others belittle him.

4. The Little Hobbit – J.R.R Tolkien

The hobbits populating Middle Earth are peaceful dwarf creatures. They could also be described as a little lazy and unadventurous. When Bilbo Baggins is about to retire, he is asked by the wizard Gandalf to help in the fight against the dragon Smaug. This one is said to have stolen the treasure from Gandalf’s retinue.

In the end, Bilbo captures a ring, which is passed on to his nephew Frodo. Thus, “The Little Hobbit” is to be understood as the origin story of the trilogy “The Lord of the Rings,” which nevertheless stands alone.

5. The Lord of the Rings. Part One: The Fellowship – J.R.R. Tolkien

In the first book of his trilogy, Tolkien develops around his heroes, the hobbits, a struggle of good against evil. The magic ring, around which everything in the story revolves, must be protected at all costs from falling into the wrong hands. That’s why Frodo is supposed to destroy him in the Doom Gap.

The immersion in Middle Earth is great fun and getting to know the characters of the hobbits is a science in itself.

6. The Neverending Story – Michael Ende

The boy Bastian reads in amazement a book about land fantasies. Before he knows it, he becomes part of the action, flying with the dragon Falkor and the warrior boy Atreyu through the realm that threatens to be destroyed by “nothingness.” The Childlike Empress has charged Atreyu with saving Fantasia. Along the way, the young warrior also tries to keep the Childlike Empress, who is suffering from an unknown disease.

At the beginning of the book, Bastian feels misunderstood and neglected by his father. After returning to the real world, he tells him about his experiences, and the two become closer.

7. Conversation with a Vampire – Anne Rice

The first part of the “Chronicle of the Vampires” tells how young Louis, at the end of the 18th century, meets a vampire. He becomes a vampire in the early twentieth century. His teacher Lestat introduces him to the undead world, but he also puts a lot of pressure on him. Therefore, with Claudia, Louis tries to kill Lestat, which does not succeed. In the end, the two have to flee from the southern American states to Europe.

Special about this vampire novel is the speed with which the story is told. The tension can hardly be increased!

8. The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern

Marco and Celia become a couple and are infinitely in love with each other. But even more than their feelings, they should follow family ties. Both fathers are powerful magicians, but they are at enmity with each other.

Everything is either black or white in their world, the Night Circus. The environment as well as the feelings of others. The book’s suspense is whether both of them will be able to hold their own against this.

9. Grim Reaper – Terry Pratchett

Even Death needs a vacation. Therefore, his apprentice Mort must serve as his substitute. However, Mort has his hands full with the procedures surrounding the demise. Exceedingly true personalities such as kings or wizards must be visited by the Grim Reaper himself before their last hour strikes. When Mort falls in love with the beautiful Princess Keli, he neglects his duties and refuses to kill her. But in doing so, he completely upsets the structure of the Discworld, where the story is set and gets Death into the most significant trouble.

Rarely has dying been written about so humorously as by Terry Pratchett. “Death” is, therefore, a wonderful introduction to Pratchett’s Discworld, which forms its cosmos of fantasy literature.

10. Guardians of the Night – Sergei Lukianenko

They are the so titled Others: Vampires, witches, mages, and changelings. Unrecognized, they live in Moscow amid the Guardians of Darkness and the Guardians of Light. These two groups are at war with each other; an agreement that has been in place for ages has so far prevented conflict and escalation. But now, the balance between the two secret societies threatens to tip and turn Moscow into a theater of war.

The book is a successful mixture of fantasy novels and horror narratives, which combines the best of both genres.

11. The Dwarves – Markus Heitz

Tungdil, a journeyman blacksmith, is an extraordinary dwarf. Together with the best comrades of his guild, he wants to forge the Blade of Fire and, with its help, free the world from evil in the end. In the process, he proves himself immortal, which is a big plus in the fight against dark forces, Albae, and false friends who turn out to be traitors.

Markus Heitz’s dwarves touch the reader’s heart because here, for once, the smallest becomes the greatest.

12. The Name of the Wind: The Kingslayer Chronicle. First day – Patrick Rothfuss

Kvothe is now a very well-known wizard in his world. However, as a young man, he had first devoted himself to music. It’s no wonder because he comes from a family of minstrels. Since his parents were murdered, he tries to find their murderer and risks his life for it. At the University for Magicians, he then learns the art of the name spell and hopes to get behind all the secrets and finally catch the perpetrators.

The story is set in a medieval fantasy world, and Rothfuss describes it so well that you can feel, see and smell the Middle Ages.

13. The King of Narnia – C.S. Lewis

“The King of Narnia” is the prelude to the series “The Chronicles of Narnia.” During World War II, siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are sent away from London to the village to protect against air raids. They live there with an old professor who has a mystical closet: whoever steps through it lands in Narnia, where giants and dwarfs, talking animals, nymphs, and other fairy tale characters are up to mischief.

For children and young people, the Chronicles are exciting and fairy-tale stories. Adults often see the Christian background and can test their bible strength.

14. Eragon Part 1. The Legacy of the Dragon Riders – Christopher Paolini

One day, the teenage orphan boy Eragon finds a blue stone, as he believes. However, the blue something is a dragon egg from which a small dragon soon hatches. From now on, Eragon is a dragon rider and suddenly finds himself in a world full of elves and monsters and is supposed to fight evil there. But Eragon is not alone, for his dragon Saphira will not leave his side…

The Eragon tetralogy is a truly heroic story, especially suitable for young readers. The author himself was only 15 years old when he started writing Eragon, thus capturing youth’s tone.

15. The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman

Lyra’s home in Oxford, where she lives in a college and visits her uncle Asriel. He’s a strange rascal and wants to find backers in Oxford for an expedition to the far north. That alone would not be strange: however, Asriel firmly believes in finding a fantastic world there. Shortly after he leaves again, the children suddenly disappear. When Lyra’s best friend also disappears, she travels after Asriel and meets a bridge to the other world in the north.

The trilogy “The Golden Compass” creates a unique parallel world that closely examines religious traditions and is therefore not uncontroversial among conservative Christians.

16. The elves – Bernhard Hennen

Albenmark is protected from the human world by a gateway. Here live the elves with their queen Emerelle. However, Emerelle’s kingdom is threatened, and she appoints Farodin and Nuramon as the kingdom’s saviors. They have to travel through different ages and worlds, and Emerelle almost forgot one thing: the two are warriors, but above all, they are rivals. One, as well as the other, vie for the favor of sorceress Noroelle.

Anyone involved with this book would do well to read Hennen’s other elf novels since the plot is mixed and intertwined. Understandably, the first part presented here is also standalone.

17. The Sword of Truth 1: The First Law of Magic – Terry Goodkind

The series “Sword of Truth” has eleven parts. In the first volume, Richard the ranger rescues a young woman being pursued. His life is to change completely from then on because the rescued girl comes from a magical realm, which threatens to be pushed into misfortune by the wizard Darken Rahl.

If you like accurate and entertaining character drawings and have a thing for romance, this is the book for you.

18. The Princess Bride – William Goldman

Goldman tells the story of the beautiful buttercup. The stable boy Westley is very much in love with Buttercup, but with Prince Humperdinck, an adversary makes their life difficult. In addition, there is everything the fantasy heart desires: good and evil, princes and princesses, miracles and kidnappings, giants, trolls, fairies, and all the rest of the staffage.

However, the most interesting thing about this book is that the author has not created a classic novel but a story within the story. As a commentator, he repeatedly addresses the audience himself.

19. The Rebel. The Black Mages Guild 01 – Trudi Canavan

Sonea is a streetwalker living in the city of Imardin. The mages’ guild does not recognize her. Out of rage, she injures a wizard who until then was considered invulnerable. Only now do the mages become aware of Sonea. Above all, they are afraid that she will not be able to control her magical powers without proper guidance and may cause mischief with them.

The novels about Sonea are real page-turners. Trudi Canavan always surprises her readers with unexpected twists and turns, making it a pleasure to read her books in one go.

20. The heritage of the elves. The Witcher Saga 01 – Andrej Sapowski

In a world shaken by war and crisis, it seems that everyone is fighting everyone else. Sorcerers are the most neutral people in this world, fighting for good. The sorcerer Geralt of Riva finds Cirilla, who is the heiress to the kingdom’s throne. He keeps them hidden to protect them, but soon they are being searched for.

The Witcher saga is so good it’s been made into a movie for Netflix. Witcher fans should also be captivated by Sapowski’s books.

Places 21-100 of the best fantasy books of all time:

Fantasy authors, as you have seen, have a lot to tell. The fewest titles are self-contained, and most of them are multi-part series. So if you like one title, you have a lot of reading material with the remaining volumes.