The 10 Greatest Fantasy Books of the 21st Century, Ranked
Diego Pineda has been a devout storyteller his whole life. He has self-published a fantasy novel and a book of short stories, and is actively working on publishing his second novel.
A lifelong fan of watching movies and talking about them endlessly, he writes reviews and analyses on his Instagram page dedicated to cinema, and occasionally on his blog. His favorite filmmakers are Andrei Tarkovsky and Charlie Chaplin. He loves modern Mexican cinema and thinks it's tragically underappreciated.
Other interests of Diego's include reading, gaming, roller coasters, writing reviews on his Letterboxd account (username: DPP_reviews), and going down rabbit holes of whatever topic he's interested in at any given point.
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Throughout the 21st century, several authors have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that the fantasy genre is as healthy as it always has been. It produced several of the greatest works of speculative fiction of the 20th century, and over the past 26 years, that has continued to be the case. From high fantasy epics to intimate low fantasy gems, the best fantasy books of the 21st century are all must-read masterpieces.
It can be the momentous conclusion of a hugely iconic book series, such as A Memory of Light, or the beginning of a new series of exceptional books, such as The Lies of Locke Lamora. Regardless of what subgenres of fantasy we're talking about, the genre's best outings from the 21st century should all be read by anyone who thinks that the Golden Age of fantasy literature is long gone.
10 'A Dance With Dragons' (2011)
With the Game of Thrones multimedia franchise nowadays being one of the biggest and most popular in the field of fantasy entertainment, there's almost no need to introduce George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novel series, the one that started it all. Regardless of whether the sixth book in the series will ever see the light of day, the fact of the matter is that the fifth installment, A Dance With Dragons, is one of the best fantasy books of the last 20 years.
It may not be the best installment in A Song of Ice and Fire, but A Dance With Dragons is nevertheless a masterclass in high fantasy writing. With deep political realism intricately woven into a narrative full of moral complexity and richly complex character work, it's packed with memorable moments and momentous twists. Martin completely revolutionized high fantasy with A Game of Thrones, and the latest installment in the series is just as groundbreaking.
9 'Jade Legacy' (2021)
The winner of the 2022 Locus and Aurora Awards, Fonda Lee's Jade Legacy is the third and final installment in The Green Bone Saga, one of the most underappreciated fantasy book series of the last 10 years. As incredible as its two predecessors were, it is one of the best high fantasy books of the last five years, a sprawling genre-blender that works equally well as a martial arts action extravaganza, a dramatic crime family saga, and an epic fantasy gem deeply inspired by East Asian culture.
Where many action-packed fantasy trilogy enders can end up feeling rushed and overly focused on action scenes, Jade Legacy patiently covers a story spanning decades, elaborating on themes of politics, greed, and the evolution of traditions over time. Thanks to its perfect pacing and Lee's potently blunt prose, the book is almost impossible to put down in spite of the fact that it's over 700 pages long.
8 'A Memory of Light' (2013)
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is generally considered one of the most foundational pillars of modern high fantasy. Originally planned as a trilogy, the saga came to span 14 volumes, allowing the high fantasy genre to evolve past its heavily Tolkien-inspired days. Sadly, Jordan passed away in 2007 while working on the 12th book in the series, which he devised as the last. He left behind notes to allow Brandon Sanderson to pen the final book, which grew into three volumes. The last of these was A Memory of Light.
With this cathartic masterpiece, Sanderson pulled off a creative feat that would have been next to impossible in the hands of any other author. Taking the foundations laid out by a fellow master fantasy writer, he uses them to deliver one of the most exciting, well-rounded, and satisfying conclusions to a book series in the history of fantasy literature. One of the best books of the 2010s, Memory of Light is both the ultimate triumph of creative collaboration in speculative fiction and the perfect way for such a legendary book series to end.
7 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' (2006)
The first book in the Gentleman Bastard series, Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora is a sort of fantasy version of Ocean's Eleven, which almost automatically makes it one of the most fun fantasy books of all time. Praised upon publication as one of the most refreshingly inventive fantasy novels fans of the genre had read in years, it has continued to age like fine wine as the years have passed. It makes it all the more stunning that it was Lynch's debut novel.
You can tell that this was Lynch's first novel, but in an overwhelmingly positive way. Charged with an incredible sense of energy, ambition, and creativity, The Lies of Locke Lamora is so incredibly charming that it's hard to put down. It's fearlessly genre-blending and crafted with some of the wittiest, most entertaining prose the genre has seen throughout the last 26 years.
6 'Mistborn: The Final Empire' (2006)
Brandon Sanderson is one of the most delightfully prolific authors currently working in the field of speculative fiction, a true must-read writer for anybody who enjoys high fantasy. Mistborn: The Final Empire was both his second novel overall and the second book set in his overarching Cosmere universe. It gave birth to Era One of the sprawling Mistborn saga, one of those book series where every novel is a masterpiece.
Many of history's best works of high fantasy literature are all about heroes trying to defeat some kind of Dark Lord. The Final Empire is built on the premise of a world where the Lord Ruler already won centuries ago and has been ruling the realm ever since. It's a simple enough hook, but Sanderson's airtight plotting, masterful worldbuilding, genre-defining magic system, and brilliant fantasy trope subversions are what make this 2000s classic such an essential read.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood
Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance.
💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power)
👒Grand Line(One Piece)
🐺The Continent(The Witcher)
🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson)
01
What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic.
02
Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own.
03
Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live.
04
How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse.
05
There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark.
06
Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does.
07
What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it.
08
A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world.
The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…
Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return.
Middle-earth
You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.
- This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat, fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends.
- You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost everything you touch is older than your entire family line.
- The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight.
- You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.
The Grand Line
You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there.
- One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together.
- You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea.
- The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land harder because of that rather than in spite of it.
- You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of it.
The Continent
You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated.
- Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept.
- You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer.
- The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people.
- You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story got told wrong.
Camp Half-Blood
You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you.
- Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners, which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse.
- You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for something nobody thought to test for.
- The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud every time a prophecy tries to get in the way.
- Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.
5 'The Blade Itself' (2006)
Joe Abercrombie's The First Law series is one of the greatest in the history of modern fantasy, composed of two trilogies, three standalone novels, and two short story collections. The first trilogy in the series, also called The First Law trilogy, is arguably the best of the bunch, and the first installment in the trilogy, The Blade Itself, is arguably Abercrombie's magnum opus.
One of the best sword-and-sorcery books of all time, The Blade Itself immediately laid out a blueprint for modern grimdark fantasy, prioritizing the psychological complexity and realism of its fascinating characters over a traditional understanding of plot. That is by no means to say that it is a poorly plotted novel, however, because its sharp sense of humor, uncompromising subversion of fantasy tropes, and delightfully entertaining prose help make Blade Itself one of the most fun fantasy books of the past two decades.
4 'Night Watch' (2002)
As fun as it always is to read a serious fantasy novel that understands all the ins and outs that make the genre one worthy of the utmost prestige and respect, comedic fantasy is just as essential to the genre. And as far as fantasy comedy authors go, it doesn't get much more notorious or universally celebrated than the great Terry Pratchett, one of modern English-language literature's most groundbreaking satirists. His Discworld series is legendary, and its 29th installment, Night Watch, is one of the very best.
One of the most perfectly written books of the 21st century, Night Watch can thankfully be read as though it were a standalone novel, making it a perfect entry point into Pratchett's bibliography for those unfamiliar. As amusing as it can be, it's also one of Discworld's darkest and most serious novels, offering a perfect balance that helps make it a rousing, deeply thought-provoking study of themes like justice, revolution, and memory.
3 'The Fifth Season' (2015)
With her Broken Earth trilogy, N. K. Jemisin made history by crafting the first book trilogy in history whose every installment won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in consecutive years. As incredible as its two sequels are, however, The Fifth Season is generally hailed as the best of the series, and for good reason. It's one of the best fantasy books published since 2000, a masterclass in science fantasy writing that all fans of the genre should read at least once in their lives.
A powerful critique of systemic oppression and a thoughtful study of the human cost of environmental catastrophes, The Fifth Season is a quintessential work of 21st-century fantasy literature that really does feel like it couldn't have been written at any other point in history. Full of boldly experimental creative decisions (such as chapters written in second person), it's one of the most stunning works of fantasy literature in history.
2 'The Name of the Wind' (2007)
Patrick Rothfuss is another writer who has kept fans waiting 15 years for the next book in his groundbreaking fantasy series. But regardless of whether that threequel ever does actually get published, one thing will forever remain true: The Name of the Wind, the first chapter in The Kingkiller Chronicle, is not only Rothfuss' undisputed magnum opus, but arguably even one of the most perfectly written fantasy book masterpieces of all time.
With beautifully poetic and melodic prose that has been praised by the likes of Lin-Manuel Miranda, as well as riveting world-building and character work that received the love of fantasy icons like George R. R. Martin and Ursula K. Le Guin, it's no surprise that The Name of the Wind is still as beloved as it is. Hypnotically paced and built with some of the most fascinating use of unreliable narration ever seen in a fantasy book, it's a masterpiece unlike anything else the 21st century has thus far produced.
1 'Words of Radiance' (2014)
If any author deserves to be mentioned in the conversation of the best fantasy books of the 21st century multiple times, it's Brandon Sanderson, whose Stormlight Archive series is perhaps the single best fantasy book series to have begun this century. So far, it's not hard at all to point to the best installment in the series: It has to be what many consider Sanderson's magnum opus, the incredible and absolutely engrossing Words of Radiance.
It's one of those fantasy books that are page-turners from start to finish, a masterful sequel that takes all the worldbuilding bricks carefully laid out by The Way of Kings and places them together in all the most fascinatingly unexpected ways. Emotionally riveting, full of jaw-dropping narrative payoffs, and continuing the exceptionally compelling worldbuilding and character work that made its predecessor so fun, it's one of the 21st-century fantasy books that absolutely everyone who enjoys speculative fiction should check out sometime.
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