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The 100 Most Popular Fantasy Books on Goodreads
Dragons, demons, kings, queens, and the occasional farm boy (with a special destiny, of course): Fantasy literature has it all! To celebrate our favorite fictional worlds and characters, we went on a quest for the 100 most popular fantasies of all time on Goodreads, as determined by your fellow members.
Of course, as fantasy readers know, the journey itself matters just as much as the destination. To create our list, we first sought out the most reviewed books on our site. Additionally, each title needed at least a 3.5-star rating to join our fellowship of titles. And, since fantasy is known for its epic sagas, in the case of multiple titles from the same series we chose the one with the most reviews.
Here are the top fantasy books on Goodreads, listed from 1 to 100.
How many have you read? Tell us in the comments below, and don’t forget to add titles that catch your eye to your Want to Read shelf!
#1
#2
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#100
How many of these books have you read? What’s your favorite fantasy novel of all time? Let’s talk books in the comments!
Comments Showing 51-100 of 289 (289 new)
So wonderful to see Circe, Uprooted, Spinning Silver, and Daughter of the Forest on this list! And The Golem and the Jinni! I’ve rarely seen these works get the recognition they deserve.
Only 19 read but I did finish 9 of the top 12.
Jain wrote: "Dikshita wrote: "Where is Harry Potter?"Seriously, this fantasy list is bizarre. The earlier SF list was annoying in that it excluded children's and YA books without actually saying that it was e..."
Completely agree with what is absent!
wow not s single book from Wheel of Time Series? you dumb or something?
Almost all I've read or want to read. I'm not a big fan of Gaiman or grimdark, so those I've not bothered with.So glad most of the cringy YA fantasy isn't there.
I mean, would you not call The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings the same series? And the Silmarillion? Doesn't a lot of Brandon Sanderson's stuff inhabit a shared universe?
Dilip wrote: "wow not s single book from Wheel of Time Series? you dumb or something?"Yeah totes it would slot in perfectly at like, number 17.
Sanderson's Cosmere is the same universe but each world is very different. So I wouldn't consider Mistborn and Stormlight the same series.It looks like it's what's most popular now, so older books like WoT very likely won't appear.
I’ve read 19 on this list. Favorites are Game of Thrones, Gentleman Bastards, and Lord of the Rings.
How come Throne of glass or Harry Potter didn't make the list??
Audrey, DillipAh, was that not clear enough? Book number 17 on this list is The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, book one of the Wheel of Time.
There are heaps and heaps of 'older' books, that is, they would be considered older without context but also, a few that are older than Eye of the World like The Hobbit, LOTR, The Silmarillion, The Colour of Magic, Magician, The Dragonbone Chair, and more, if the correct dates are showing on the popups.
I read 12 out of 100..so many good books are waiting to be read yeayy!! The Golem and The Djinni is really good..i can't wait to read the sequel
There is something very wrong with this list. There are several YA and children's books included in the list, and yet there's no Harry Potter (and a few other extremely popular titles). How about you just title the list "Top 100 favourite fantasy books of the people who curated this list" and get it over with?
Where are Six of crows and Throne of glass and Red queen
Arianasa wrote: "Where are Six of crows and Throne of glass and Red queen"Don't know where the others are but pretty sure Throne of Glass is in the trash where it belongs.
So "The 100 Most Popular Fantasy Books on Goodreads" but you don't include Harry Potter. Right.... or Eragon btw.
I'm surprised that I don't see Percy Jackson and the Olympians on here. And I'm also very surprised that I didn't read as many of these as I thought I did. I have more books I want to read from this list then books I have read or are reading!
I have read 38. Harry Potter definitely belongs on this list in the top ten.
Shelly wrote: "Where is the Neverending Story?"#41 on the list.
Not a single one of David Gemmel...I'm really surprised
Happy to see a few Brandon Sanderson books on here! His fantasy books are amazing. Definitely my favorite author.A little disappointed that Harry Potter is missing though.
I read 21 of these. I added a lot more to my wish list.
I've read 12 of these, DNFed 2, and tried to start about 4-5 others with no luck. And out of those 12 there was only one I legitimately enjoyed (Ten Thousand Doors). Fantasy is my fave genre but I am apparently really picky about it!
Read 47. Again a bit of an odd 100 books, drawn from which books most people have put on a Fantasy shelf.
Jessi (Novel Heartbeat) wrote: "I've read 12 of these, DNFed 2, and tried to start about 4-5 others with no luck. And out of those 12 there was only one I legitimately enjoyed (Ten Thousand Doors). Fantasy is my fave genre but I ..."I think I am the same. Five or six were two stars for me.
How did the worst discworld book (his first one before he got into the swing of things) get on here but none of the hughly popular other books?
Jain wrote: "Dikshita wrote: "Where is Harry Potter?"Seriously, this fantasy list is bizarre. The earlier SF list was annoying in that it excluded children's and YA books without actually saying that it was e..."
Ikr?
I was shocked to not see any of these.... But HARRY POTTER?! I mean, that's like the most popular YA fantasy ever, isn't it? Maybe they didn't include it there because of what's happening with JK Rowling, which is reasonable... But agreed!!
Is it possible the YA shelf/category and the fantasy shelf/category are considered mutually exclusive descriptors in the algorithm? So HP, PJ, etc are categorised under YA and Howl, Hobbit, etc are categorised under fantasy? And in which case, if/when goodreads does a YA list, HP, PJ would appear in that list, but Howl and Hobbit would not?
I'm not suggesting they should do that, but merely speculating on how exactly the algorithm worked.
(On another note, Howl is one of my favourite books ever and I'm so pleasantly surprised that so many people have read it)
Couldn't agree more. Does goodreads ever respond to these comments? Seems like this is an obvious issue to address. If not, how can we take any of their ranked lists as reliable instead of a semi-random selection or Amazon sales pitches?Jain wrote: "Dikshita wrote: "Where is Harry Potter?"
Seriously, this fantasy list is bizarre. The earlier SF list was annoying in that it excluded children's and YA books without actually saying that it was e..."
No Tamora Pierce on the list which is a sad oversight.
Boradicus wrote: "I'm surprised that one of Sabaa Tahir's isn't on this list."IKR...
I'm surprised. Own 20 that I haven't yet read (many of them on the Nook), added 3 to my TBR, read 14. I keep saying fantasy is my favorite.!?
I'm quite surprised that not one of Katharine Kerr's Deverry books are on this list. Most of them have a minimum rating of 4 and they must surely be considered as classics in the genre?
Very interesting list. I have read some. I really enjoyed some of Andre Norton's books of which there were many. "The Beast Master" was made into a movie. Surely with the many she wrote there was at least one that should have been included on your list. Andre Norton-"The Beast Master". DeeAnn
I've read 17 of these. Not a big fantasy fan, but I do love the Harry Potter books, which aren't represented here.
32 read, more on the TBR, and a few don't appeal to me.
I have read only 6 of these, but have 30 on my tbr list. At least I know my future reads are going to be great xD
I've read 22 of these, and only a few are currently on my to read shelf, though some of them look like they might be interesting, will have to dig deeper to see how many to add to my to read list. Which is already too large, it would take me something 4 years to clear my to read list if I didn't read anything except what's on it.
Omer's wrote: "Maybe they didn't include it there because of what's happening with JK Rowling, which is reasonable..."Definitely NOT reasonable. It's supposed to be a book community, not Nazi Germany, to engage in cancel culture and book burning.
This list is really poor, many books are missing for no real reason other than the fact goodread clasified then wrong.Then due to the formular goodread uses the books that are listed are no way near the best works by that aurthor for example the color of magic is the first book in Terry Pratchetts Discworld Series so most fans eventualy read it (mentioning how he had not quite found his way yet). But then Discworld gets confusing, this is because there are a total of 41 books folowing eight diffrent story lines in no particular order . Now most people don't tend to read the whole series so the fans all go off in diffrent directions meaning that while the other books have a higher overal rating than the first book, less people have rated the folow ons compared to the first one so the algorithim fails (as it only goes on total votes).
Then once you get down to 90 I attempted to read itbecause it was by fry but it was so bad I had to put it in my I could not finish section and I am not the only one of my friends on here than did so .
By far the most superior adult fantasy books I have ever read(and I've read a lot) are byR. SCOTT BAKKER 'THE PRINCE OF NOTHING' Trilogy, there are 6 books in total. Donaldsons 'Thomas covenant chronicles' is also very good
I would have thought Raymond E Feist and Guy Gabriel Kay would have been higher on the list and have several of their novels. Two of my favourites.
fulviof79 wrote: "Not a single one of David Gemmel...I'm really surprised"Well Gemmell only had a fantasy award named after him. And he was British.
I agree. I've read everything fantasy that Gemmell wrote and I didn't dislike one. I can't even say that about Roger Zelazny, my favourite author. Who doesn't get a guernsey even though he wrote a bit of Nebula/Hugo winning fantasy.
I'm just curious to not see Harry Potter on there.
Or *shudders* twilight.
I suppose they fall under Young Adult?