The most recommended high fantasy books

I loved the high-seas, pirate vibe of this incredible book. The heroine's story starts in a harsh and tragic setting that I couldn’t help but get sucked into. And it was impossible for me not to admire Fable’s backbone, perseverance, and determination. She was so impressive!

I was immediately sucked into this story and rooting so hard for Fable. And the romantic tension that builds between her and one of the ship captains puts a perfect cherry on top of this lovely tale. 

When I first picked up this book, I couldn’t put it down. Our story follows Cabe, the son of a Dragon Master, as he is thrust into adventure when the Brown Dragon himself comes and demands Cabe go with him. What really intrigued me about this book was how Knaak wrote his dragons. They are shape-changing beasts that rule the land under their own council led by the Gold Dragon. This was the first book I read that portrayed dragons as having a leadership similar to that of a monarchy, and once I delved into their world, I didn’t want to stop reading.

I read The Goblin Emperor based on a recommendation with the caveat “it might not be your sort of book,” and was drawn into a compelling story, in an intricate world, focused on a misfit character devoting all of his energy into actually fitting in, and rising to the challenge of a role he never expected or wanted.

As it turns out, exactly my sort of book. At every turn Katharine Addison led me up to an obvious turn of the plot, and then side-stepped, one deceptive twist after another in a tale light on action and full of life. 

Not all siblings end up friends, and the evil brother who wants to steal the throne or the catty sister who wants to steal the boy are cliché staples of the genre. That’s what made Summers at Castle Auburn so refreshing: Corie and her half-sister, Elisandra, love and are loyal to one another throughout the whole book, and their relationship sustains the characters through their adventure and to the happy ending.

I actually only ranked this book four stars out of five initially (I’m a harsh marker), but I couldn’t get it out of my head. Imagine a cross between the Narnia series and the Harry Potter series, but all the main characters are Edmund/Malfoy types. People sometimes do heroic things, but there are no heroes here.

It’s all much more muddy. This is a fantasy novel set in the real world, at least to start with, but there are also heavy elements of horror, and I think that’s why it put barbs into my brain – the things that happen to important characters are traumatic, unforgettable, and often very sudden.

A book that stays with you, whether you want it to or not.

The War God series follows the development of an unlikely orc-analog paladin, Bahzell, which would be entertainment enough: but Bahzell’s best friend, a would-be quasi-orc bard, Brandark, remains his steadfast companion throughout all his unlikely adventures. The best part of their relationship is definitely their communication: via humorous barbs and perfectly timed silences. Sheer fun!

A doomed king, the last of his kind: a final shepherd of a race fallen into such depravity and barbarity that most no longer see the Picts as human; a man driven to deliver his kin from Roman oppression, to lift his people out of squalor. I was floored by Howard’s iron-hard writing in this all-too-brief sequence of heroic stories. The razor descriptions cut to the core of a man willing to give his all in a doomed quest. I read and re-read the few tales of Bran, but I always find something new and ferocious in the brooding king’s tragedy and bitter triumph. These tales rekindled my love of sword and sorcery, and helped me hone the edge in my own stories. I recommend them to any fantasy fan!

Robin Hobb is one of my all-time favourite authors, and this year I’ve been re-reading her original series, Assassin’s Apprentice. I haven’t read the books in over fifteen years, and going back to the first book again was like coming home.

It reminded me of all the delight I felt reading it the first time; the awesome fantasy world, the fascinating and complex political landscape, and the masterful character work. Fitz (the protagonist) was as (adorably) frustrating as I remembered, but Burrich! And Chade! And Kettricken!

These characters grow on you slowly and steadily with every page you read until you feel like they’re your own family. Reading Fitz growing up amongst the court of Buckkeep was as wonderful on second reading as it was all those years ago, and I’m so glad I went back to re-read this series. Robin Hobb writes epic fantasy—my favourite genre—at its finest.

Tarisai was born with a wish in her heart, but not her wish. Her mother wants to use her to harm an old enemy, and Tarisai has no choice but to go along with it.

But as she finds her own found-family out in the world, she learns that there are some things more powerful than wishes. Her mother’s wish can only have so much power over her when she fights against her mother’s desires for her life. And Tarisai is stronger than she’s ever believed, which was an incredible twist to the plot.

I loved seeing Tarisai come into her own, while figuring out that she can control the shape of her future. 

At the beginning, readers are drawn into an exciting world where humans battle to save their desolate planet from an alien race. But in typical Brandon Sanderson fashion, good and evil are not clear-cut, and the conflict soon grows far more complex. 

As the series progresses, the main character, Spensa, discovers that the battle for her planet is not as straightforward as she had once thought, and that the aliens she had fought were neither uniform nor uniformly evil. When she infiltrates an alien homeland in Book 2, Spensa is forced to question her original assumptions about who deserves to be saved—not just humans, but maybe also some alien races and even artificially intelligent beings.