The Best Epic Fantasy
Epic fantasy is generally serious in tone and often epic in scope, dealing with themes of grand struggle against supernatural, evil forces. Some typical characteristics of epic fantasy include fantastical elements such as elves, fairies, dwarves, magic or sorcery, wizards or magicians, invented languages, quests, coming-of-age themes, and multi-volume narratives.
Whether a single book or a series, what do you think is the best epic fantasy of all time?
Tags:
epic, fantasy, and series
Whether a single book or a series, what do you think is the best epic fantasy of all time?
11
45
by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman (Goodreads author) 22 people voted »
48
52
61
73
86
Lists are re-scored approximately every 500 seconds
comments (showing 1-16 of 16) (16 new)
date
newest »
newest »
Not saying it shouldn't be included, but I don't think of Pratchett as epic fantasy. I guess I don't know what to call Pratchett, so maybe epic is the best place for him.
wow i was looking for another fantasy to read and this helped a LOT (however i hate the word epic when used to describe books, movies, etc.)
I think Diane Duane's work has yet to be acknowledged. She is the kind of author who makes sensible fantasy. With rules. Her universe is beautiful. She never gets as much attention as she deserves.Any how I'm also quite fond of Madeline L'Engal's work.
"Children's books who can only be enjoyed by children are not very good children's books"
- C.S Lewis
David wrote: "Bit of a stretch to have the foundation trilogy on an epic fantasy list, isn't it?"I agree, and it's the same for Ender's Game, which would be more at home in a science fiction list, where I could vote for it.
I guess some people are just voting for books they like, regardless of whether they are even in the right genre.
Wow, this list is pretty damn suspect, there's a lot of pulpy crap in it.
Why are peoples expectations so low when it comes to fantasy as a genre exactly? Sure, not every writer can be a Pullman or a Tolkien or even a Bradley, but Dragonlance pulp novels? Robert bloody Jordan? People are just listing the crap they like, and it's the fact that those awful writers create books that become best sellers that keeps the entire fantasy genre permanantly looked down upon by the rest of the literary world.
Until we as readers start demanding more, fantasy will always be 90% awful.
When I think of "epic" fantasy I think of long ranging battles that are well epic, elves, castles, swords and great feats of magic. Some of the books in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series definitely fit the bill in my opinion. Beauty and the Beast (while a great story, depending on the interpretation) not so much.
flag as offensive (?)
