Best Fantasy Series — Multi-Book Journeys Worth Committing To
The best fantasy series do something no standalone can: they build worlds you return to, develop characters across years of their lives, and deliver conclusions that pay off the investment made in book one. These ten series represent the genre's most essential multi-book commitments — ranked by first-book quality, series payoff, and how well they reward the reader who stays.
- 1
The Way of Kings
by Brandon Sanderson · The Stormlight Archive, Book 1
Ongoing — 5 of 10 books published
The best fantasy series rewards commitment, and no series rewards it more than Stormlight. A slave who cannot die, a scholar stealing forbidden knowledge, a general losing his mind to visions: three perspectives on a world in thousand-year decline. Sanderson is building the most ambitious series in epic fantasy — a ten-book saga with interconnected timelines. Dense, harrowing, and unlike anything else.
View on Amazon - 2
The Dark Lord has ruled for a thousand years. Now a crew of thieves with magical abilities plans to overthrow him through heist. Sanderson's most accessible series: tightly plotted, brilliantly structured, and with a magic system (Allomancy) so elegant it becomes the story. All three books in the original trilogy are among the most satisfying conclusions in the genre. Start here if Stormlight feels too long.
View on Amazon - 3
Three characters — torturer, barbarian, soldier — converge in a series that dismantles every heroic fantasy convention with precision and dark humor. Abercrombie's First Law trilogy remains the defining text of grimdark fantasy: brilliant plotting, unforgettable characters, and an ending that proves consequences are real. Six standalone novels in the same world let you stay in it as long as you want.
View on Amazon - 4
Darrow goes from enslaved miner to revolutionary leader across six books that grow in scope with every volume. Pierce Brown's series is the best example of a story that started big and somehow grew bigger — the fourth book, Dark Age, is a thousand-page war epic that readers call both the most brutal and most essential installment. A complete saga that earns every escalation.
View on Amazon - 5
A Game of Thrones
by George R.R. Martin · A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1
Ongoing — 5 of 7 books published
Seven noble houses compete for the Iron Throne while ancient threats stir beyond the Wall. Martin's series is the most culturally significant fantasy of the last thirty years — it remade reader expectations for what the genre could be. Five books are out and each is fully satisfying on its own terms. The unfinished nature is real, but the five books that exist reward reading.
View on Amazon - 6
Five young people from a quiet village are pulled into a quest across a sprawling world where the Dragon has been reborn and someone needs to find him first. Jordan's fourteen-book series is the landmark of epic fantasy breadth. Dense, immersive, and ultimately satisfying — the finale, completed by Brandon Sanderson from Jordan's notes, is among the genre's finest conclusions.
View on Amazon - 7
Kell is one of the last Antari — magicians who can travel between parallel Londons — and smuggles contraband between worlds until a dangerous object sends everything sideways. Schwab's trilogy is complete and builds beautifully in scope. Character-driven, plot-propulsive, and with a world-building concept so elegant you wish every fantasy series had one central idea this good.
View on Amazon - 8
The Name of the Wind
by Patrick Rothfuss · The Kingkiller Chronicle, Book 1
Ongoing — 2 of 3 books published
Kvothe tells the true story of his life over three days — from poverty and loss through the most famous magic school in fiction and out the other side into hiding. Two books of three are published; the wait for book three is the genre's most famous unsolved problem. The first two books are complete enough to stand on their own, and the prose is worth the wait.
View on Amazon - 9
Rin's journey from a peasant girl cramming for examinations to a weapon of empire to something more and less than either spans three books that grow progressively darker and more morally complex. Kuang's trilogy is complete and fully delivers on its premise — by book three, the philosophical weight of the first is cashed in with full force. A complete, devastating, essential series.
View on Amazon - 10
Six criminals assemble to pull off the most impossible heist in the world — infiltrating an impenetrable fortress to extract the world's most valuable prisoner. Bardugo's duology is two books, both excellent, completely standalone from the Shadow and Bone trilogy. The found family at its center is the genre's finest, and the heist structure means every chapter turns. One of the most satisfying complete series in fantasy.
View on Amazon