Looking for Fantasy books with over 100,000 ratings on goodreads with at least 1000 tags as fantasy.

Books with less than hundred thousand ratings or <1000 tags as fantasy should be deleted from this list without comment.

So is horror fantasy? If there is any doubt, call it out on the discussion board. But in general if it has 1,000 shelves as fantasy. Or has vampires or werewolves or elves or magic, in general for purposes of this and related fantasy lists, it is fantasy,

Some Subgenres:
Best Epic Fantasy
Best Heroic Fantasy
Best Historical Fantasy
Best Urban Fantasy

Fantasy by Time Period:
Pre-Tolkien Fantasy (Fantasy up through 1937)
Classic Fantasy (Fantasy written before 1980)

Fantasy by Decade:
1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s
1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s

Locus Recommended Fantasy:
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015,
2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

Fantasy By Ratings:
More than 100000, 50000 to 99999, 25000 to 49999, 10000 to 24999
1000 to 9999, 100 to 999, Less than 100

Other Fantasy Lists of Note:
Best Fantasy Books of the 21st Century
Best Fantasy of the 20th Century
Best Forgotten Fantasy of the 20th Century
Popular Highly Rated Fantasy

Related Lists By Topic:
All, Anthropology, Astronomy, Biography, Biology, Botany, Climate, Children, Classics, Computer Science, Economics, Epic Fantasy, Fantasy, Genetics, Geography, Graphic Novels, Horror, Judaism, Language, Manga, Military Science Fiction, Music, Mysteries, Non-Fiction, Philosophy, Picture Books, Poetry, Politics, Productivity, Psychology, Romance, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Space Opera, Steampunk, Travel, Young Adult
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3.97 avg rating — 1,278,728 ratings
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4.28 avg rating — 704,903 ratings
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4.03 avg rating — 396,650 ratings
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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,092,221 ratings
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4.05 avg rating — 601,469 ratings
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3.97 avg rating — 376,806 ratings
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3.91 avg rating — 660,979 ratings
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4.11 avg rating — 382,339 ratings
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4.01 avg rating — 358,564 ratings
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3.86 avg rating — 561,379 ratings
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4.06 avg rating — 606,767 ratings
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4.37 avg rating — 1,205,725 ratings
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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 509,033 ratings
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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,854,282 ratings
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4.02 avg rating — 423,534 ratings
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4.28 avg rating — 443,720 ratings
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4.13 avg rating — 212,562 ratings
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4.02 avg rating — 565,023 ratings
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3.98 avg rating — 481,894 ratings
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4.16 avg rating — 217,967 ratings
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3.83 avg rating — 1,183,588 ratings
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3.97 avg rating — 559,792 ratings
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4.30 avg rating — 338,486 ratings
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4.20 avg rating — 305,739 ratings
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3.87 avg rating — 254,225 ratings
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3.99 avg rating — 839,257 ratings
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4.56 avg rating — 582,225 ratings
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4.23 avg rating — 524,461 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 513,812 ratings
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672 books · 1,287 voters · list created April 14th, 2013 by Mitchell Friedman (votes) .
278 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Mitchell 11518 books
168 friends
Daniel 2066 books
6 friends
Orit 968 books
18 friends
Sarah 13852 books
227 friends
Helen 2283 books
30 friends
Lori 2691 books
8 friends
Mariama Lei 1513 books
281 friends
Ellinor 6694 books
624 friends

More voters…


Comments Showing 1-36 of 36 (36 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman could you please remove all books that have less than 100 thousand ratings.


message 2: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Deleting Alif the Unseen, Wizard and Glass, The Truth, Sandman vol 5, The Sandman vol 9, The Wiseman's Fear, The Once and Future King, Fragile Things, The Anubus Gates, On Stranger Tides - all for not having 100 thousand ratings.


message 3: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Remove A Wizard of Earthsea, Isles of the Forsaken and Ison of the Isles, Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher, Heart-Shaped Box - all for not having 100 thousand ratings.


message 4: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Removed Jonathan Strange and Mrs. Norrel, Perdido Street Station and Anathem - all for not having 100 thousand ratings.


message 5: by Sophie (new)

Sophie Removed The Mark of Athena for not having 100,000 ratings.


message 6: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman I was considering a new list with fantasy books from 50,000 to 99,999 - with the same rules as this list. So sequels are fine, boxed sets are fine.


message 8: by Jason (new)

Jason Hmm, I've read every author on this list, though not every book listed for each author here.


message 9: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman I don't consider Divergent or Insurgent to be fantasy. Thoughts? Discussion?


message 10: by Sarah (new)

Sarah Mitchell wrote: "I don't consider Divergent or Insurgent to be fantasy. Thoughts? Discussion?"

Yeah, no. They fall under science fiction.


message 11: by Empress (new)

Empress "Science fiction is a genre of fiction in which the stories often tell about science and technology of the future. It is important to note that science fiction has a relationship with the principles of science—these stories involve partially true- partially fictitious laws or theories of science."

Aren't Divergent and Insurgent just fiction, or more accurately Dystopia?


message 12: by Marth (new)

Marth No simirillion?


message 13: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Marth wrote: "No simirillion?"

just looking on the first page of this list, The Silmarillion is 53rd with 13 votes.

That said, this list has been compiled by hand - I hope it is close to complete but I expect that there are fantasy books with over 100,000 ratings missing from this list.


message 14: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman check out this nice fantasy list I found r fantasy s Official Underrated and Underread Fantasy.

It's especially good in the 1000 to 9999 ratings fantasy books.


message 15: by Jsmh (new)

Jsmh #87 and 156 are duplicates.


message 16: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Jsmh wrote: "#87 and 156 are duplicates."

two duplicates found and removed


message 17: by Mitchell (last edited Oct 31, 2015 12:33PM) (new)

Mitchell Friedman removing books by Karl Edward Wagner. I'd have moved them to the appropriate lists if I only had the votes. I was able to add some of them.


message 18: by Noah (new)

Noah Can we put A Wizard of Earthsea back up here since it does have over 100,000 ratings?


message 19: by Mitchell (last edited Dec 03, 2015 08:44PM) (new)

Mitchell Friedman Noah wrote: "Can we put A Wizard of Earthsea back up here since it does have over 100,000 ratings?"

A Wizard of Earthsea is already on this list as #101 with 9 votes. If you were to vote for it, it probably would be on the first page.

But even if you couldn't find it on this list, you'd be able to add it yourself by clicking the [add books to this list] tab.


message 20: by Jonathan (new)

Jonathan Harbour Maybe I misunderstood the goal of this list, but there's a lot of horror on here (like Stephen King's IT), and a lot of vampire novels too. Isn't the goal 100k rated fantasy? Why the hell is Twilight on here? If you're going to allow horror, then might as well open up the list to sci-fi while you're at it. Right?


message 21: by Mitchell (last edited Feb 25, 2016 09:18PM) (new)

Mitchell Friedman Jonathan wrote: "Maybe I misunderstood the goal of this list, but there's a lot of horror on here (like Stephen King's IT), and a lot of vampire novels too. Isn't the goal 100k rated fantasy? Why the hell is Twilig..."

What is fantasy to a large degree is a matter of opinion, basically like what is science fiction. Given that there are apparently less than 200 books on Goodreads that could possibly be considered fantasy, that have more than 100,000 ratings - I think there's room. That said vampires are almost always fantasy. As are werewolves. And elves. Being scary is unlikely to make you horror without some supernatural element.


message 22: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Anyone looking at this list should really also take a look at the 50,000 to 99,999 rating list as well.


message 23: by Mitchell (last edited Aug 31, 2017 08:56PM) (new)

Mitchell Friedman Jonathan wrote: "Maybe I misunderstood the goal of this list, but there's a lot of horror on here (like Stephen King's IT), and a lot of vampire novels too. Isn't the goal 100k rated fantasy? Why the hell is Twilig..."

Specifically as relates to It, this is a book that was nominated for Locus Best Fantasy Award and World Fantasy Award and won the British Fantasy Award. And is shelved on goodreads 670 times as fantasy.


message 24: by Vicki (new)

Vicki What's the easiest way to see how many ratings a book has? That statistic does not show when one is in the process of adding what one thinks is a good candidate.


message 25: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Vicki wrote: "What's the easiest way to see how many ratings a book has? That statistic does not show when one is in the process of adding what one thinks is a good candidate."

Let's suppose you were thinking that Robin Hobb had books missing from this list. In another tab you open her link, and her books are sorted by number of ratings. The first book on the list, Assassin's Apprentice has 168,755 ratings - which you can see as the line about that book just to the right of the stars - "4.14 avg rating — 168,755 ratings — published 1995 — 116 editions"

And on that list she has 2 books with over 100,000 ratings. And 2 books with between 50,000 and 100,000 ratings. And 5 books with 25,000 to 50,000 ratings.


message 26: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Vicki wrote: "What's the easiest way to see how many ratings a book has? That statistic does not show when one is in the process of adding what one thinks is a good candidate."

Or you could look at your own big shelf (in another tab) - like something like https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/17756157-vicki?page=3&per_page=100&shelf=read&sort=num_ratings&utf8=%E2%9C%93


message 27: by Vicki (new)

Vicki I see 5 books among the ties for 216 that all have less than 10 ratings!


message 28: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Vicki wrote: "I see 5 books among the ties for 216 that all have less than 10 ratings!"

There is no locking on any of the lists. So anyone can publish books that don't fit the list criteria. And the list owner is not contacted when books are added. So it can take some time for such to be noticed, many times by people like you commenting on it. so thanks... looks like I have some deleting to do.


message 29: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman 1000 voters!


message 30: by Sue (new)

Sue Pick up any book by Tanya Huff or Charles de Lint and you will love it. Believe me.


message 31: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Sue wrote: "Pick up any book by Tanya Huff or Charles de Lint and you will love it. Believe me."

I love Charles de Lint especially the Newford Series. However his book with most ratings is The Blue Girl which only has 9,535 ratings. And so isn't eligible for this list. But his books certainly are on - the 1000 to 9999 rating fantasy list

Likewise Tanya Huff's book with the most ratings is Blood Price which has only 9,754 ratings. And so also isn't eligible for this list but should be findable on that same list.


message 32: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Apparently there are a number of science fiction books with 100,000 ratings and 1000 tags as fantasy. Considering changing the criteria to explicitly exclude those - probably something like - if it has 3x more tags as science fiction than fantasy - than it should not be on this list.


message 33: by Jason (new)

Jason I assume it's due to accidental deletions on someone's part at one point but...technically Inheritance 4 and Wheel of Time 5 have under 1k fantasy shelves.


message 34: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Jason wrote: "I assume it's due to accidental deletions on someone's part at one point but...technically Inheritance 4 and Wheel of Time 5 have under 1k fantasy shelves."

It's tough to enforce the shelf number - since it isn't that visible - Inheritance has only 786 but with 240k ratings.

The Fires of Heaven has only 369 but with 157k ratings


Mynameisntcollins Books with less than 1000 ratings and do not belong on this list; if a friendly librarian could please remove them...

#133 Timeaous Spark: And the Luck Curse by E. K. Kidwell

#255 Redemption: A Novel of the Creation of Sumer (The Alterran Legacy Book 4) by Regina Joseph

#259 In the Beginning Grace by Patricia Everett

#260 Cat Scratch Murder (Crystal Beach #1) by Karen McSpade

Also, there is a duplicate entry for The Will of the Many by James Islington (currently listed at both #652 and #656).


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