Greatest Fantasy Book Series Ever
a Yourlist ranking · the crowd decides the order
From Middle-earth to Roshar, which fantasy saga truly deserves the crown? Vote and rank these legendary series by their impact, quality, and staying power.
What counts: Best is judged by a blend of critical acclaim, cultural influence, and lasting popularity; sales, book counts, and start years are approximate and rounded for readability.
The Lord of the Rings
Tolkien didn't just write a fantasy series, he invented the genre's DNA, spinning philology and personal trauma into Middle-earth's elves, orcs, and one cursed ring. Frodo's long walk to Mount Doom became the template every quest narrative since has either imitated or rebelled against. No list can be argued without it sitting at or near the top; it's the bedrock everything else was built on.
Acclaim: 9.5/10Books in Series: 3Year Started: 1954Copies Sold: 150 million
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Harry Potter
A boy under the stairs discovers he's a wizard, and suddenly an entire generation was reading eight-hundred-page books by flashlight. Rowling's seven-volume arc from cozy school mystery to genocidal war turned children's fantasy into the most commercially dominant fiction franchise on Earth. Its cultural footprint—midnight release parties, theme parks, a shared vocabulary of Muggles and Horcruxes—makes it impossible to leave off any serious ranking.
Acclaim: 9/10Books in Series: 7Year Started: 1997Copies Sold: 600 million
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George R. R. Martin took the genre's comfortable rules and torched them at a wedding, proving that no one, not even the hero, was safe. The Red Wedding alone reshaped audience expectations for the entire medium, and the show it spawned made grimdark politics mainstream dinner-table conversation. It sits high here despite its unfinished state precisely because of how thoroughly it rewired what fantasy was allowed to do.
Acclaim: 9/10Books in Series: 5Year Started: 1996Copies Sold: 90 million
added by IJRA Song of Ice and Fire
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The Wheel of Time
Robert Jordan built a sprawling wheel of reincarnation and prophecy across fourteen doorstop volumes, essentially inventing the modern epic fantasy megaseries as a commercial category. Its influence on shelf space and reader expectations in the 90s and 2000s is enormous, even if the middle books famously bog down in banquets and braid-tugging. Brandon Sanderson's completion of Jordan's final trilogy after his death is its own legendary act of authorial devotion.
Acclaim: 8.5/10Books in Series: 14Year Started: 1990Copies Sold: 90 million
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Discworld
Terry Pratchett took a flat world balanced on four elephants standing on a turtle and used it to smuggle in some of the sharpest satire of the late 20th century. Across forty-plus novels he made Death a sympathetic scythe-wielding pragmatist and turned witches, wizards, and a cynical city watch into vehicles for genuinely humane comedy. Few series manage to be this funny and this wise in the same sentence, which is exactly why it belongs here.
Acclaim: 8.8/10Books in Series: 41Year Started: 1983Copies Sold: 85 million
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Sanderson's magnum opus stacks up Words of Radiance-sized volumes that somehow keep getting bigger without losing momentum, built on a magic system so meticulously engineered it feels like clockwork. Kaladin's descent into and climb out of depression gave modern epic fantasy one of its most emotionally honest arcs in years. It's the series most likely to inherit Wheel of Time's mantle as the genre's reigning doorstop epic.
Acclaim: 9/10Books in Series: 5Year Started: 2010Copies Sold: 15 million
added by IJRThe Stormlight Archive
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The Chronicles of Narnia
A wardrobe becomes a door to a snow-locked kingdom ruled by a lion who dies and comes back, and generations of kids got their first taste of allegory without ever noticing the lesson. Lewis's seven slim books proved fantasy for children could carry real theological and moral weight without sacrificing wonder. Its lasting popularity and constant adaptation keep it firmly canonical even as critics argue over its politics.
Acclaim: 8.5/10Books in Series: 7Year Started: 1950Copies Sold: 100 million
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0Sanderson flips the genre's central premise by starting after the dark lord already won, then builds an ingeniously physical magic system out of swallowed metals and allomantic pushes and pulls. Vin's rise from street thief to godslayer gave the 2000s one of its most satisfying trilogy-length payoffs, capped by a finale that reveals the entire cosmology was a puzzle box all along. It's the series that made
Acclaim: 8.6/10Books in Series: 7Year Started: 2006Copies Sold: 15 million
added by IJRMistborn
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Dense, sprawling, and beloved by hardcore fantasy fans for its sheer ambition.
Acclaim: 8.5/10Books in Series: 10Year Started: 1999Copies Sold: 3 million
added by IJRMalazan Book of the Fallen
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His Dark Materials
A philosophical, multiverse-spanning trilogy that challenges young readers to think big.
Acclaim: 8.5/10Books in Series: 3Year Started: 1995Copies Sold: 17 million
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0The Dark Tower
Stephen King's genre-blending magnum opus tying together his entire fictional universe.
Acclaim: 8.2/10Books in Series: 8Year Started: 1982Copies Sold: 30 million
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The First Law
Grimdark fantasy at its sharpest, funniest, and most morally grey.
Acclaim: 8.4/10Books in Series: 6Year Started: 2006Copies Sold: 3 million
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Gorgeous prose and a legendary bard's tale — even if book three never seems to arrive.
Acclaim: 8.3/10Books in Series: 2Year Started: 2007Copies Sold: 10 million
added by IJRThe Kingkiller Chronicle
0Earthsea Cycle
Ursula K. Le Guin's quietly profound saga that influenced countless fantasy writers.
Acclaim: 8.3/10Books in Series: 6Year Started: 1968Copies Sold: 5 million
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Percy Jackson & the Olympians
Greek myths reborn for a new generation, funny and endlessly quotable.
Acclaim: 8/10Books in Series: 5Year Started: 2005Copies Sold: 100 million
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0Redwall
A beloved animal-fantasy saga that introduced countless kids to epic adventure.
Acclaim: 7.8/10Books in Series: 22Year Started: 1986Copies Sold: 10 million
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A classic quest fantasy that defined the genre's tropes for a generation of readers.
Acclaim: 7.8/10Books in Series: 5Year Started: 1982Copies Sold: 10 million
added by IJRThe Belgariad
0Shannara
One of the longest-running fantasy sagas, proving post-Tolkien fantasy had staying power.
Acclaim: 7.5/10Books in Series: 30Year Started: 1977Copies Sold: 25 million
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A teenager's dragon-rider saga that became a surprise phenomenon.
Acclaim: 7.2/10Books in Series: 4Year Started: 2002Copies Sold: 33 million
added by IJRThe Inheritance Cycle
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