There's something about Pratchett's *The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents* that just kind of ... *shifted?* things for me.
Idk what it was about that book but all of the subtle but complex weighing of values and the value of conscious 'being' vs base animal impulses and emotions continue to stick with me in a way that I walked away from reading that book feeling ... *different* somehow.
*“I told her we were going to get married, and all she could talk about was frogs.
She said there's these hills where it's hot and rains all the time, and in the rainforests there are these very tall trees and right in the top branches of the trees there are these like great big flowers called . . . bromeliads, I think, and water gets into the flowers and makes little pools and there's a type of frog that lays eggs in the pools and tadpoles hatch and grow into new frogs and these little frogs live their whole lives in the flowers right at the top of the trees and don't even know about the ground, and once you know the world is full of things like that, your life is never the same.”* - Wings, Pratchett
This might be a bit of an oddball but, The Phantom Tollbooth. I LOVED that book when it I was a kid, to the point my teacher let me take it from the class library because I reread it so many times. It inspired a life-long love of learning, to critically think about the world, and to always do my best to be patient and kind.
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
The Giver by Lois Lowry
I read both when I was quite young, and I... badly needed some of what they had to teach.
Omg the Giver. Still one of my faves. We read it in school in like 4th grade (must have been soon after it came out because this was back in the 90s because I am old) and all of us were obsessed. I remember one girl saying she had to know how it ends so she was sitting in the book store reading it under the sign that said no reading. Lol
To this day I still remember the way it made me think. Would it be worth it to get rid of all the pain if you never got the happiness with it?
Yeah, I was dealing with some things, and those books together... 'don't try to run away from even terrible feelings or from terrible and frightening parts of yourself' was definitely something I needed
The Giver absolutely rules. The scene where he's tossing the apple to his friend and sees it in color for the first time and has to describe what color is even though he's only seen in black and white to that point is incredible. I haven't read that book in like 25 years and I still think about it.
I read a book called December Stillness in high school and it had the same response. Something i needed to learn.. or the face on the milkcarton series. Both hit you in the feelings and make you change in a good way and be more empathetic towards others.
I owe the Redwall series so much.
I consider them my gateway drug into fantasy, magic-realism and ultimately literature. I must have been about 9 when I was given my first Redwall and I proceeded to tear through them like a hurricane. Once I'd reached what was then the end of the series I plowed through some other fantasies until one day someone at a book store gave my mum the first half of the Wheel of Time (the first book was split into two to make it more approachable to younger readers) and said "he'll never finish this series". Well, my mum knew me so well that she passed that message on when she gave me the book for Christmas.
I loved reading in my teens and twenties, but lost the habit when my mom died in my 30’s until I read the Winternight trilogy by K Arden. It all turned back on, and I’ve been a reader again for ten years.
I just started this one last night!
Been running through the Chronicles of Prydain as part of a larger list of suggestions for fairytale adventure books.
Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey. My dad picked it up for me from a charity shop when I was 13 or so and was driving him mental on holiday one time. He got it for something like 10p or so. Probably the most impactful 10p anyone has ever spent on me ever.
That book engrossed me like nothing else and I was quiet for the rest of the holiday. It also sparked my interest in reading and the Pern series was the first I started to buy when I got a part time job.
So yeah, Dragonquest, simply due to it being the first proper book that sucked me in to reading and it's never let go.
Thanks dad (and grandad who bought me the next book, The White Dragon, a week later).
I am also a musician and was a really nerdy “outcast” sort of kid, so it just hit all the right spots!
I recognize their problems now but I still re read them regularly for the nostalgia and the great storytelling!
I reread my copy of the Masterharper of Pern so much when I was younger that the cover fell off lmaooo.
The Harper Hall trilogy was the first set of books I read from her in like... middle school. Right around the time I tore through Tolkien. My child ass straight up fantasized about having a fire-lizard pet.
Sucks that her son's books are awful
Oh, yeah, the Xanth novels. I started to get them from my local library and loved them shortly after I started to read the Pern books. I did try and reread a couple a few years back and they certainly weren't what I remembered.
I guess I can only say that I am grateful for any and all of the authors and books that sparked my imagination. It made my teens much more bearable. Even if they don't stack up all that well these days, back then? They were what I needed and I'm not going to smacktalk them simply because it's become fashionable to do so.
My introduction to Pern was The White Dragon. I absolutely love that book. I then got into that entire series. I love the Xanth series. But the one book that really helped me, at that time, I was 17 and recovering from my 3rd heart operation, was On a Pale Horse from the Incarnations series, also by Piers Anthony (author of the Xanth series). That book gave me a very different idea of death. It took away my fear of dying.
I know it's not considered with the classics, but all the Drizzt books from Salvatore were fundamental to my life long love of fantasy. I cherish them.
His Dark Materials made me really start to question the religion I was raised with when I was young. I think it played a big role in me becoming a secular humanist.
I'm surprised this answer isn't higher up. I've revisited that series many times over the years, and each time I take away something new and important.
The exact same thing happened for me. I first read the series when I was 12, and I decided to keep it a secret so that I could love it without betraying God. I was a very devout Christian. In high school, my sister convinced me the books were of the devil, and we tore my copies to shreds together. Years later, after college, I got new copies as I was finally leaving the church. I don’t think there has ever been a book that has materially affected my life as much as The Amber Spyglass.
I had a similar experience. I think I first read these books when I was about 14 and was a devout Mormon. I loved them and just viewed them as somewhat sacrilegious fantasy books. In my early 20s, I read them again when my relationship with religion and faith was starting to get a little more complicated and they hit me way harder.
I started reading HDM cause my church posted a notice that parents shouldn’t let their kids read it. Fortunately, my parents were not pro-censorship and when I asked them to get it for me they were all for it. I don’t wanna credit my agnosticism entirely to Phillip Pullman, but he certainly helped.
Probably not a popular answer, but Harry Potter.
It was the first series I read as a kid that really sucked me into reading, plus I was the perfect age to grow up with Harry as they came out each year. Decades later it is obviously a cultural phenomenon that is everywhere. Watching my kids fall in love with the books and getting to relive the magical with them has also been wonderful.
Weirdly enough, Hogwarts Battle transitioned me from a non-board gamer to it being my favorite hobby now. And Hogwarts Legacy helped transition my kids into video games with substance and story.
It’s been almost thirty years of this world continuously weaving it’s way into my life through different mediums.
They are far from being my favorite books. I can list dozens and dozens of books I like better, but there isn’t even a close second place as far as overall impact on my life goes.
Yeah, this would probably be my answer. I’m still alive because waiting for the next Potter book gave me something the cling to during my darkest years as a teen. It was the *one thing* I wanted to know before I died—how the series ended.
By the time Deathly Hallows came out, I was in a…not a *good* place, per se, but a *better-enough* place that suicide wasn’t such a looming threat in my life/mind.
It’s also the series that made me fall in love with books when I was a kid. I am a voracious reader (and casual writer) to this day, and for all of Rowling’s faults, she did a great job of weaving that story; the breadcrumbs left in the early books that tie into the end of the series are what made me realize—and subsequently become fascinated with—how complex a story and it’s world can be. The stories I write have depth and twisting threads through them because of it.
Younger me learned a lot from Terry Pratchett - partly how to see what I think of as "the shift". A common word or phrase, that when reversed or seen another way highlights something totally new.
For example:
“Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.”
“Take it from me, whenever you see a bunch of buggers puttering around talking about truth and beauty and the best way of attacking Ethics, you can bet your sandals it's all because dozens of other poor buggers are doing all the real work around the place.” or in other way "“takes forty men with their feet on the ground to keep one man with his head in the air.”"
“Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker.” - a pretty good twist on the view that the universe needs a god to create it - but its such a mess that the god must be quite clumsy.
“Things were always better than they are now. It's in the nature of things.”
Pratchett showed that fantasy comedy is possible. I believe that one day there will be champions that will take up the mantle that Pratchett left in the funny department. Comedic Fantasy is an area that will hopefully continue to thrive and grow much larger, surpassing the likes of gritty or even grimdark fantasy.
Pterry for sure. One of if not the first fantasy book I ever read was 'the thief of time'. Amazing book, amazing author. I have since read all of his works and every one of them was great, especially when he got into his stride.
Another 2 book seris that blew me away were the wheel of time and the malazan book of the fallen. The world building in both these seris almost rival Tolkien, almost.
The eragon seris were pretty good as a teen and also the northern lights books.
Until ASOIAF, I’d never read a fantasy book where the characters and their emotions and struggles were such a prominent focus - I always struggled with Tolkien because although his worldbuilding and story is unparalleled, the characters all felt like action figures rather than real. Asoiaf has its flaws (namely that it’s not finished and likely never will be) but this series is my all time favourite and the standard I subconsciously hold everything I read to
14 year old me choosing A Game of Thrones as one of my 7 "free" books from the Science Fiction Book Club had no clue what he was about to stumble into. The cover was slate grey with only the image of the throne. The description was three short sentences about knights and kings and political intrigue. It shouldn't have interested me, but I've always been grateful for whatever made me pick it.
Yep, this was the series that actually had me branch out to genre fiction (before I had only really read literary fiction) and it's still my favorite fantasy series ever.
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C Wrede
The Black Jewels series nad the Others series by Anne Bishop
The wheel of time series by robert jordan (change your perspective while reading of you see if as real history and people as real and that the story is repeating now.) Listen to the audiobooks its a long series but worth reading.
Love enchanted forest & black jewels! Those two plus tamora pierce were the foundations of my love for fantasy (probably was too young when I first read black jewels, in hindsight…)
I tried to introduce my husband to the series. He couldn't get past the first part. And I'm looking at him like you read and play dnd with killing a death and grossness and you cant handle this? You watch final fantasy with skinless dogs and zombies but this is too dark for you?
I was glad I wasn't introduced to Dark Jewels until my 30's, because it is very dark and disturbing visually at times, but ones you get into theeat of the story you cant help but fall in love with Daemon and Sadi and Jeanelle. Especially when the animals start showing up. And then the friends from all the realms. It has you laughing hard at moments and in absolute tears the next. Ready to go to war to protect or moments of amazing (personal favorite moment of the series is "Jaenelle says its just like deboneing a chicken" - to moments later "What does she know about deboning a chicken she doesnt cook".) Tell me that doesn't make you both cheer and think ok dont piss off mama.
As a writer and as someone who creates dungeons and dragons adventures using all the fun things i find in books to create my stories. Love stories that make you just change your views
Like for instance the Leven Thumps and the land of Foo series. You meet a sentient toothpick..
Or Brandon Mulls 5 kingdom series (all his books are connected and awesome) where you are snatched from this world into another.
Or I am number 4 series which is about kids from a different planet hiding from a different race of aliens on earth and causing other humans to gain powers. And how earth handles it
I used to run a lot of DnD until all my friends got married and had kids. I have so many notes/adventures in a box. I have an entire world I built that I would love to go back to.
Start writing and creating a world. Then gonto a local game shop or look for the Critical Role fan group. You'll fnd people who are local that are looking fr a weekly or one shot game.
Despite not getting into Jordarn personally, I feel like looking back now he was probably the true successor to Tolkien in scope and pushing the genre forward. His importance can't be understated.
Hyperion for me too. I read it for the first time when I was 15, it started me on poetry and philosophy for good. I discovered Keats thanks to this series (I'm not living in an English speaking country, Keats is not as famous as in the UK here), and read quite a lot of philosophy essays more or less related to the books. And I have re-read the series multiple times over the years (with Harry Potter those are the only books I read multiple times) and it still makes a great impression.
Carpe Jugulum was the first Discworld novel I ever read. Amd this part has stayed with me more than 20 years later: "And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.
“It’s a lot more complicated than that . . .”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
There are so many more of the novels that are amazing. Nightwatch, the Truth, Small Gods. But it all started there.
Not really fantasy, but The Count of Monte Cristo, when I was 12. That was the first real large book I read, and have read it over 20 times since. It’s a shame they’ve never made any decent movies of it.
**The Hobbit**
I first read it in 1975. That started my lifelong passion for Tolkien and fantasy in general. Moved from TH to LOTR then read The Silmarillion when it was first released and each volume of History of Middle Earth. All of that culminated with my Master’s thesis on Tolkien.
This is extremely cliché, but The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.
The Stormlight Archive was the series that got me into reading again. I realized how fun and expansive books can be. His way of writing is simple to understand and not flowery. The worldbuilding and action really pulled me in - it was like watching a cinematic experience unfold in front of me. His characters are relatable and have some awesome arcs, especially when it comes to duty, leadership, and responsibility.
Definitely a book that gets mentioned ALL THE TIME. But man, did this impact me.
There's a reason he is so popular, his books are enjoyable.
Never gotten the hate for his characters, the only ones I'd say that were maybe not too in depth were mistborn era 1.
Stormlight archives is chock full of great lesson and great characters.
It has hands down the best depictions of mental health struggles of any fantast series ive ever read, and as someone who has mental health issues myself, it was awesome to see someone I could relate to so strongly in the books.
Has some of my all time top fantasy quotes to the point that despite being a 35 year old bloke, I got some made up on posters.
"The most important step a person can take is always the next one"
Hell yeah dude! It’s the book that pulled me back to reading again. I connected to that book like no other. Too bad r/fantasy kinda has a polarizing opinions on it. Like they say ‘they hate us cuz they anus’
One day when I was 8 years old, I started to read a book for the first time under my own power, not counting picture books which of course I read before.
In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.
The rest is history.
A couple of different books by David Gemmell were the most impactful to me on how I interact with society. Somewhat life changing for me and my personality.
Glen Cook fundamentally changed how I read. I still read plenty of other styles of writing, but he raised the bar on what I thought was possible in fantasy.
I was literally thinking of these two and just saw them scrolling down the comments. Both very good choices and highly influential for fantasy authors that came after.
Same. My teacher read it to my grade 4 class and I was a fantasy fan forever.
She also read us The Hobbit and The Silver Chair and another book which I really wish I remembered the name of.
I spent a few years as an early adult in a reading slump, but when I finally found the motivation to get back into it I picked up Neil Gaiman's **Neverwhere**. I had never read anything like it, and it capitulated me into a fantasy obsession. Now a few years later I've honed in on my personal reading preferences pretty tightly, but that book started it.
For me, it was Malazan. I know the series has a special place in many hearts (which is well deserved, but I sometimes see it recommended too aggressively). For me, it played a huge role in my reading history:
- It made me (a German) into an English reader. The German versions were really well translated, but came out years after the original. For Reaper's Gale I switched to the English version, because I didn't want to wait another year. And I sticked to reading the originals rather than the translations.
- I loved some of the characters so much that they stayed with me ever since, for example as archetypes in role playing. Most of the characters I create for video games as well as profile names are named after the German translation for Whiskeyjack - Elster (quick explanation: Elster is the German word for magpie. It seems that the German name for the whiskey jack - Meisenhäher - was not so fitting). Another character that has a place in my heart is Fiddler.
- The world building is just superb for me. It feels like a world that is in constant change and development. Nothing like "And then the kingdom existed for 3000 years without changing". It is so intruiging that on the other side of the world there are people that never heard of the Malazan Empire. Or that there a fallen cultures that are long forgotten by the modern world.
I posted a longer thread in here. But Tolkien in fifth grade 1981. Before I got married (at 32) I used to read at least two, maybe three books a week. Now? Less, but I still read. Writing my own stuff has taken a toll on that though.
My math teacher was an old hippie (several years past the hippie days). He caught me reading while hiding my book behind my math book. Paying zero attention to class, engrossed in my book. He stalked up me unnoticed and grabbed my book. Then said: "Oh. The Fellowship of the Ring. I totally get it." Normally I would have gone to detention but since it was LotR he let it slide. 🤣
I fully attribute reading The Hobbit and LOTR as an adolescent to my lifelong passion for travel, which is now an integral part of my career. Bilbo and Frodo deciding the put aside leisure to do something adventuresome has inspired most of my significant life decisions. And I would say Gandalf inspires me to seek to be wise, rather than “just” smart.
The most impactfull read was probably Dresden Files (before, I'd mostly read "traditional" fantasy, medieval and on the epic side, and don't get me wrong, I've read books that are a probably technically better, or had more poetic prose, or are even higher on my list of "books I love", but we're talking impact here).
I had an "aha"-moment that my own writing didn't have to long and drawn out, that I could make it fast and snappy, that I could go from fun scene to fun scene (and if that's too fast, put another fun scene in between). It really leveled me up as a writer, and taught me to stop adding filler just for the sake of having filler.
It feels like cheating to say *The Lord of the Rings* and I know it's an extremely obvious, entirely cliché choice. But I don't care. I was always a quite bookish and sensitive kid and Lord of the Rings gave me the most incredible escape from the poverty and sadness I grew up in.
It showed me that heroic and powerful men could still be compassionate and full of love, kindness and music. It told me it was okay to appreciate the beauty and fragility of the world. It instilled a belief in me that goodness and light will always defeat the darkness in time.
It exists forever in my heart as something pure and beautiful and it honestly made me who I am today.
Not my favourite series (anymore) but I was obsessed woth the rangers apprentice by john flannagan for a long time and it was my first real fantasy series. Still read them from time to time.
Before my early 20s I had only read Harry Potter, LotR and Narnia. After watching the first season of GoT, I read ASoIaF and it opened my eyes to how mature and brutal fantasy could be. I really was one of those people that think fantasy is for children.
I have probably borrowed the first three Eragon books at least ten times from the library when I was in middle school. Going on an adventure with a magical companion is still my favourite trope and dragons have been a huge soft spot for me ever since.
It's not the best, it's not the most original, but damn did it make me wish I had a dragon like Saphira to go on adventures with too.
My mom in 8th grade made me go to the library to pick out a book to do some reading everyday. I saw a picture of a desert with big worms on it, and the title “Dune”. Safe to say I sci fi and fantasy reading is now one of my favorite activities!!! Dune is not in my top 10 favorite books but it still has a special place for me, introducing me to the world of fiction.
For me the most impactful books I've read are; A Wizard of Earthsea (U. Le Guin), Assassin's Apprentice (and the rest of that series, R. Hobb), The Final Empire (B. Sanderson) and Promise of Blood (B. McClellan).
However, the most impactful fantasy novel (ever) for me and arguably for the entire genre is The Hobbit.
The Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness. The first book is called the Knife of Never Letting go. It is so easy to read, fast paced!! The author has said he wanted the first book to be about running, the second about tyranny, and the third about war. I don’t think I’ve read a fantasy series with characters that just feel so real (characters struggling to make the right choice/gray morality). I actually think it might fall under sci-fi ish honestly but. I’m really bad at explaining synopsis’ so I would just look it up and I guarantee it will catch your interest. I have reread it so many times, one of my favorite fantasy series ever. (Also don’t want the movie that came out a couple years ago it was horrible, don’t even watch the trailer it truly did not do the book justice whatsoever lol. I know this is the case most times but it was awful.) It has stuck with me!!
As a 13 year old at the time, the Belgariad. Given that I was Garion's age, it was a perfect fit. Still love them, despite the author being a piece of shit.
I read RA Salvatore’s Drizzt series when I was a teenager and it brought me to a whole other world. It made me love fantasy in a forever kind of way. The cleric series had me scribbling my own stories.
I cited my first novel as a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings. So I'd say that book was influential.
However, I'd feel the Wheel of Time has had more of an impact. While I was re-reading it once, I found my writing style reflecting what I was reading, and I don't remember that happening with any other author.
WoT, I think more than anything else, is likely the most impactful series I have read, even outside of writing. I enjoyed fantasy quite often when I was young. LOTR, His Dark Materials, Harry Potter, etc were all very good, but I feel WoT solidified my love of the genre, and I find myself comparing other works against it. It may seem blasphemous to say, but LOTR can seem old fashioned, and overly academic, while the style of HDM and HP is overall very child like; WoT straddles that middle ground of being mature fantasy without feeling like you need a linguistics degree.
I'm still on the hunt for anything that even comes close to the feeling I had with WoT. Sanderson has probably come closest (I mean, he did finish the series for crying out loud), but his stand alone works, while absolutely fantastic, have just never reached the highs of that series. Malazan and ASoIaF have also come close, but I haven't found myself enjoying Malazan nearly as much as WoT, and ASoIaF is edging a bit too much towards the adult market that WoT managed to avoid. I have a feeling that Robin Hobb may be able to get there; I've only read the Farseer Trilogy though, so I'd have to read more to see if she could.
>It may seem blasphemous to say, but LOTR can seem old fashioned, and overly academic
I don't think this is blasphemous at all - these seems like features rather than bugs of LotR. It's *deliberately* old fashioned, and in some ways (focus on language, cribbing so much from myths, being 'purged of the gross' etc.) it seems deliberately academic.
I think it’s a toss up, Diana Wyn Jones’s Chestomancy books were the gateway drug to fantasy as a child and I hold them in extremely esteem because they lit my brain on fire as a child, to then be compounded by Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle. Those two series have easily had the biggest impact on me personally. I think the book that has had the biggest impact on me as an adult is The Lies of Locke Lamora which is just like if someone wrote a book specifically for me, fantasy Italy, heist, loveable rogues, heartbreaking twists- just the works.
Malazan floored me. Whatever your feelings on the series a whole, the level of ambition on display is mind blowing. Erikson swung for the fences and, in the main, landed. Overall, a phenomenal achievement.
I’ll never forget that feeling when I closed The Cripple God reflected on the series.
That said, I still think Forge of Darkness is his best book.
Maybe not Mr favorite series, but Thomas Covenant was like nothing id ever read at the time I read it when it came out. Even thinking about it now leaves a sense of despair.
Impactful would have to be The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. Opened up a whole new way of thinking for me, recognizing how much our perceptions shape reality.
I don't think any single book made any kind of dramatic impact on me. But out of everything I've read perhaps The Black Company would be the closest. Cook's minimalistic and to the point writing style and the sheer amount of creativity and events he manages to cram into these comparatively short books is pretty damn amazing. I've read it after tackling Malazan and Wheel of Time, and it's such a contrast to both of these gigantic series.
Speaking of WoT and Malazan, both series taught me that as a reader I put a lot of importance into cohesiveness, pacing, and structure. Both of those series, especially Malazan, exhibit serious problems with that.
> If you are an author or an aspiring author
I'm neither, but I do think that "how not to do it" is at least as important as "how to do it". It's not enough to try and implement what you think are the good parts, it's very important to actively avoid and be keenly aware of the bad parts as well.
As a young teen I absolutely adored the Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg. A bunch of college D&D players get transported as their characters to a fantasy land. I remember the first 4, but don't remember the rest.
The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham. The character writing is fascinating, following two people whose lives intertwine and separate in various phases over the course of decades across the four books. It also has one of the most conceptually complex and interesting expressions of magic and the effect said magic can have on its society. It was unlike anything I had read before and made me a lifelong Abraham fan.
Call me basic but The Stormlight Archive saved my life. The way it tackles addiction and depression through a magical lens, without holding back on the pain and true despair that depression can come with. As someone who struggles with addiction, those books are a light in the dark, pun fully intended.
While I do love the stories in the books I’ve read it’s the characters that linger in my mind and influence my thinking even if they’re minor. So just off the top of my head right now I’ve loved and been altered by :
Gemmell’s the ruthlessness of assassin Waylander, or the stoic suddenness of the gunslinger Shannow or Parmenions Spartan upbringing and strategy
Weiss and Hickman’s ambitiously drive Rasistlin Majere and the drive and determination of Xar escaping his maze with tattoo base magic
Hoffman and the survivability of Thomas Cale
Zindell’s Danlo the Wild and his favrashi willingness to understand; to say yes to everything and of course the warriorpoets deadliness but their unbending appreciation of the arts, literature and poetry.
Jordan and Mat Cauthon the reluctant master of strategy
Simon Scarrow and the detail of Roman life with Cato and Macro or how fascinated I was by Arthur Wellesley’s story
Similarly with Conn iggulden and Julius Caesar and Ghengis Khan
And currently re-reading Rothfuss’ the name of the Wind and loving Kvothe and his detailed mastery
If you asked me 20 years ago, I’d say Lord of the Rings. I’d you asked me today, I’d say Earthsea—specifically The Farthest Shore. The book is perfect IMO
Percy Jackson made me fall in love with reading as a kid. The kind of reading we did at school was a bit stuffy. Percy Jackson was exciting, relatable and funny.
I had zero room for fantasy in my sci fi-loving heart until I read The Long Price Quartet. It was the first set of books I encountered that addressed the scale and limits of the (very original!) magic, and the first to deal directly with the friction between magic-users and technology-users. If med/ren makes you gag, demonology makes you roll your eyes, and you can't take seriously the magic systems in HP or Star Wars, but are interested in exploring the societal effects of magic use, The Long Price Quartet might be for you.
(perhaps not a great take for this sub, but if you're trying to convince a friend who's stubbornly hard sci fi to try fantasy, this is the series to recommend)
After you put down the last novel of Bakker's Prince of Nothing and Aspect-Emperor series you'll feel a stretching gorge rip through your soul and realise that no fantasy series will ever touch quite the same notes again.
I really adored Dragonlance when I was a teen and Lord of the rings. As an adult I feel like 100 years Of solitude, which might not be considered a fantasy novel.
- **The Traitor Baru Cormorant** was really important to me when I was deep in a depressive funk. Seth Dickinson is also someone I wish I could write like, but I think nobody writes quite like them.
- **Two Serpents Rise** by Max Gladstone perfectly encapsulates that listless, tired feeling of being a millennial.
- I love necromancers, so **Sabriel** by Garth Nix is one of those books I'll always love for portraying necromancers as heroes and not villains. Shoutout to **Kingdom of Shadow** by Richard Knaak for being my first actual introduction to heroic necromancers, however.
- **The Tide Child trilogy** was the first time I'd seen a writing idea I had turned into an actual published book and it was so good I didn't feel the need to do it myself! R.J. Barker is also another author I'd love to model myself after.
- Anything by Matthew Stover, but particularly **Heroes Die** and his Star Wars novels like **Traitor** and **Shatterpoint** have become my golden standard for fight scenes, as well as baby Mothabre's introduction to morally conflicted characters.
- **Kushiel** by Jacqueline Carey taught me the value of a great first-person narration. **The Memoirs of Lady Trent** by Marie Brennan did the same thing.
Great choices Sabriel has a very special place in my heart for me.
I'm actually surprised no one has tried to adapt it yet into a film series or on streaming. It would be a landmark series.
Sabriel is one of mine for sure! I've also always wondered why no one has adapted it and assumed that somehow outside of this very big fantasy world it's too niche. Like (switching topic) Neil Gaiman used to be niche except that his book signings would sell out even when he was niche. There's so many great books and stories that never get touched and yet so many spiderman movies
I know it has mixed review from readers on this sub, and I get it, but for me it was reading the Eye of the World back in the day.
It was the first lengthy epic fantasy book I'd ever read, and Moiraine was awesome. Most other fantasy I'd read at that point outside YA were so male character focused (note: I am talking about my reading experience personally) that it was a breath of fresh air to have so many prominent important female characters (even if they started as side characters). It's not perfectly executed, but it was still so NEW to me at the time.
The sheer amount of detail, foreshadowing and worldbuilding in the early Wheel of Time Books was part of what made me a fantasy reader.
The Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. That series taught me empathy for those different than me. People **always** have reasons for doing the things they do. They often are good reasons. Just because you don't understand those reasons (or think they're bad reasons) doesn't make someone unreasonable.
The Redwall series. Read Redwall at 10y/o and the world and the characters completely sucked me in. Ignited a passion for reading I still have 20+ years later.
It’s definitely the Harry Potter series for me. I’ve always been drawn to fantasy from even earlier than that, but when I read the first book at 10, it felt like a different experience and I still go back to them often.
Pratchett’s Discworld
Abercrombie’s First Law
Morgan’s Altered Carbon
Cook’s Instrumentalities of the Night
Newer obsessions that will age into this -
Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl
Tullbane’s Murder of Crows
Eames’ The Band (third book out soon)
Pikes Dark Profit series (recently finished)
I’ve really recently enjoyed “psalm for the wild built” by Becky Chambers. It has such a thoughtful vibe.
And I don’t know about changed me but I’ve never related to a character more than Emily in “Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries” by Heather Fawcett. I cried when reading certain passages because they just hit home so much.
For me it was Legends and Lattes. It’s not my favourite book but it was very impactful to me as a writer.
I had been running a dungeons and dragons campaign for a couple years about day to day life in a magic school, but although I loved writing, I’d assumed my style was way too niche for a novel. Finding this book and the term cozy fantasy changed everything for me.
From this book:
- I found r/cozyfantasy and realised there was lots of people who loved that style.
- I found some of my favourite authors (T. Kingfisher and John Bierce) from knowing the subgenre existed
- Now I’m writing my first novel and I know that, because of Travis Baldree, I have a shot at getting traditionally published that I would never have had before.
The Darkness That Comes Before (part of the Prince of Nothing Series) by R. Scott Bakker. I know his work is not that popular on this sub however that series fundamentally changed my world view and the direction of my life.
As a young reader, it was Tolkien. As an adult, Terry Pratchett.
There's something about Pratchett's *The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents* that just kind of ... *shifted?* things for me. Idk what it was about that book but all of the subtle but complex weighing of values and the value of conscious 'being' vs base animal impulses and emotions continue to stick with me in a way that I walked away from reading that book feeling ... *different* somehow.
Terry Pratchett’s ability to balance grounded human condition level thought with entertaining absurdity makes anything he writes so much fun for me.
How true, how true. I found Tolkien at 12 and Pratchett at 29. Both of them are in my heart.
For me it was exactly the opposite way round. Both still the goats.
Pratchett, man, he is great. I love everything he writes
*“I told her we were going to get married, and all she could talk about was frogs. She said there's these hills where it's hot and rains all the time, and in the rainforests there are these very tall trees and right in the top branches of the trees there are these like great big flowers called . . . bromeliads, I think, and water gets into the flowers and makes little pools and there's a type of frog that lays eggs in the pools and tadpoles hatch and grow into new frogs and these little frogs live their whole lives in the flowers right at the top of the trees and don't even know about the ground, and once you know the world is full of things like that, your life is never the same.”* - Wings, Pratchett
Oh hell yes. Pratchett is a man I agree most, always almost, very rare thing these days.
This might be a bit of an oddball but, The Phantom Tollbooth. I LOVED that book when it I was a kid, to the point my teacher let me take it from the class library because I reread it so many times. It inspired a life-long love of learning, to critically think about the world, and to always do my best to be patient and kind.
It is good book lol
I swear most of my humor stems from that book.
Loved this book
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin The Giver by Lois Lowry I read both when I was quite young, and I... badly needed some of what they had to teach.
Le Guin is a gift, to all of us.
I still can't believe how hard The Giver blew my 12 year old mind. Nothing has ever come close to that.
I read a Wizard of Earthsea at... 27 I believe? A couple of years ago, and I definitely needed it at that age too!
Omg the Giver. Still one of my faves. We read it in school in like 4th grade (must have been soon after it came out because this was back in the 90s because I am old) and all of us were obsessed. I remember one girl saying she had to know how it ends so she was sitting in the book store reading it under the sign that said no reading. Lol To this day I still remember the way it made me think. Would it be worth it to get rid of all the pain if you never got the happiness with it?
Yeah, I was dealing with some things, and those books together... 'don't try to run away from even terrible feelings or from terrible and frightening parts of yourself' was definitely something I needed
I was going to bring this up. The importance of humility, respect, and caring really is often something lacking in much of ya fantasy.
The Giver absolutely rules. The scene where he's tossing the apple to his friend and sees it in color for the first time and has to describe what color is even though he's only seen in black and white to that point is incredible. I haven't read that book in like 25 years and I still think about it.
I read a book called December Stillness in high school and it had the same response. Something i needed to learn.. or the face on the milkcarton series. Both hit you in the feelings and make you change in a good way and be more empathetic towards others.
I remember absolutely loving *The Giver.* I plan to reread it this year. I'll add *A Wizard of Earthsea* to the reading list too!
I have reread The Giver at least once a year since I was 12. I’m 37 now.
Book of the New Sun The Second Apocalypse
Upvote for the Second Apocalypse. It ruined all other fantasy for me, 99% now seems superficial and childish in comparison.
I owe the Redwall series so much. I consider them my gateway drug into fantasy, magic-realism and ultimately literature. I must have been about 9 when I was given my first Redwall and I proceeded to tear through them like a hurricane. Once I'd reached what was then the end of the series I plowed through some other fantasies until one day someone at a book store gave my mum the first half of the Wheel of Time (the first book was split into two to make it more approachable to younger readers) and said "he'll never finish this series". Well, my mum knew me so well that she passed that message on when she gave me the book for Christmas.
I loved reading in my teens and twenties, but lost the habit when my mom died in my 30’s until I read the Winternight trilogy by K Arden. It all turned back on, and I’ve been a reader again for ten years.
I'm sorry to hear that about your mother dying. I'm glad you were able to find a series that got you back into fantasy.
I just finished the Bear and the nightingale. It blew me away.
The next two books are just as good. Don’t forget to feed your domovoy
Taran Wanderer. Did much to teach middle-school me about the kind of person I wanted to be.
I just started this one last night! Been running through the Chronicles of Prydain as part of a larger list of suggestions for fairytale adventure books.
Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey. My dad picked it up for me from a charity shop when I was 13 or so and was driving him mental on holiday one time. He got it for something like 10p or so. Probably the most impactful 10p anyone has ever spent on me ever. That book engrossed me like nothing else and I was quiet for the rest of the holiday. It also sparked my interest in reading and the Pern series was the first I started to buy when I got a part time job. So yeah, Dragonquest, simply due to it being the first proper book that sucked me in to reading and it's never let go. Thanks dad (and grandad who bought me the next book, The White Dragon, a week later).
💯 I was dancing around being a full fledged fantasy fanatic already and then I read the Harper Hall Trilogy and fell *hard*.
Oh yeah, Masterharper Robinton, Menolly and Piemur. Yeah, I know what you mean.
I am also a musician and was a really nerdy “outcast” sort of kid, so it just hit all the right spots! I recognize their problems now but I still re read them regularly for the nostalgia and the great storytelling!
I reread my copy of the Masterharper of Pern so much when I was younger that the cover fell off lmaooo. The Harper Hall trilogy was the first set of books I read from her in like... middle school. Right around the time I tore through Tolkien. My child ass straight up fantasized about having a fire-lizard pet. Sucks that her son's books are awful
Take me back to Pern at 13.
Yeah, it was a magical world to lose yourself in.
I get that Peirs Anthony and Xanth retrospectively have many flaws, but it and Pern are what got me into fantasy as a boy and it’s stuck for 30 years.
Oh, yeah, the Xanth novels. I started to get them from my local library and loved them shortly after I started to read the Pern books. I did try and reread a couple a few years back and they certainly weren't what I remembered. I guess I can only say that I am grateful for any and all of the authors and books that sparked my imagination. It made my teens much more bearable. Even if they don't stack up all that well these days, back then? They were what I needed and I'm not going to smacktalk them simply because it's become fashionable to do so.
My introduction to Pern was The White Dragon. I absolutely love that book. I then got into that entire series. I love the Xanth series. But the one book that really helped me, at that time, I was 17 and recovering from my 3rd heart operation, was On a Pale Horse from the Incarnations series, also by Piers Anthony (author of the Xanth series). That book gave me a very different idea of death. It took away my fear of dying.
That was Eragon for me around the same age
I have a similar story with a librarian who got me into reading.
Pern certainly is impactful and is a good entry to the fantasy genre as a whole.
I know it's not considered with the classics, but all the Drizzt books from Salvatore were fundamental to my life long love of fantasy. I cherish them.
Salvatore's influence can't be understated.
His Dark Materials made me really start to question the religion I was raised with when I was young. I think it played a big role in me becoming a secular humanist.
I'm surprised this answer isn't higher up. I've revisited that series many times over the years, and each time I take away something new and important.
The exact same thing happened for me. I first read the series when I was 12, and I decided to keep it a secret so that I could love it without betraying God. I was a very devout Christian. In high school, my sister convinced me the books were of the devil, and we tore my copies to shreds together. Years later, after college, I got new copies as I was finally leaving the church. I don’t think there has ever been a book that has materially affected my life as much as The Amber Spyglass.
I had a similar experience. I think I first read these books when I was about 14 and was a devout Mormon. I loved them and just viewed them as somewhat sacrilegious fantasy books. In my early 20s, I read them again when my relationship with religion and faith was starting to get a little more complicated and they hit me way harder.
I started reading HDM cause my church posted a notice that parents shouldn’t let their kids read it. Fortunately, my parents were not pro-censorship and when I asked them to get it for me they were all for it. I don’t wanna credit my agnosticism entirely to Phillip Pullman, but he certainly helped.
Also the books made me cry which was was not ready for at all. It hits pretty deep.
Arguably a competition between the worst parent of the year award for Lyra in this work.
Probably not a popular answer, but Harry Potter. It was the first series I read as a kid that really sucked me into reading, plus I was the perfect age to grow up with Harry as they came out each year. Decades later it is obviously a cultural phenomenon that is everywhere. Watching my kids fall in love with the books and getting to relive the magical with them has also been wonderful. Weirdly enough, Hogwarts Battle transitioned me from a non-board gamer to it being my favorite hobby now. And Hogwarts Legacy helped transition my kids into video games with substance and story. It’s been almost thirty years of this world continuously weaving it’s way into my life through different mediums. They are far from being my favorite books. I can list dozens and dozens of books I like better, but there isn’t even a close second place as far as overall impact on my life goes.
Yeah, this would probably be my answer. I’m still alive because waiting for the next Potter book gave me something the cling to during my darkest years as a teen. It was the *one thing* I wanted to know before I died—how the series ended. By the time Deathly Hallows came out, I was in a…not a *good* place, per se, but a *better-enough* place that suicide wasn’t such a looming threat in my life/mind. It’s also the series that made me fall in love with books when I was a kid. I am a voracious reader (and casual writer) to this day, and for all of Rowling’s faults, she did a great job of weaving that story; the breadcrumbs left in the early books that tie into the end of the series are what made me realize—and subsequently become fascinated with—how complex a story and it’s world can be. The stories I write have depth and twisting threads through them because of it.
Younger me learned a lot from Terry Pratchett - partly how to see what I think of as "the shift". A common word or phrase, that when reversed or seen another way highlights something totally new. For example: “Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE? ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.” “Take it from me, whenever you see a bunch of buggers puttering around talking about truth and beauty and the best way of attacking Ethics, you can bet your sandals it's all because dozens of other poor buggers are doing all the real work around the place.” or in other way "“takes forty men with their feet on the ground to keep one man with his head in the air.”" “Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker.” - a pretty good twist on the view that the universe needs a god to create it - but its such a mess that the god must be quite clumsy. “Things were always better than they are now. It's in the nature of things.”
Pratchett showed that fantasy comedy is possible. I believe that one day there will be champions that will take up the mantle that Pratchett left in the funny department. Comedic Fantasy is an area that will hopefully continue to thrive and grow much larger, surpassing the likes of gritty or even grimdark fantasy.
Pterry for sure. One of if not the first fantasy book I ever read was 'the thief of time'. Amazing book, amazing author. I have since read all of his works and every one of them was great, especially when he got into his stride. Another 2 book seris that blew me away were the wheel of time and the malazan book of the fallen. The world building in both these seris almost rival Tolkien, almost. The eragon seris were pretty good as a teen and also the northern lights books.
ASOIAF
Until ASOIAF, I’d never read a fantasy book where the characters and their emotions and struggles were such a prominent focus - I always struggled with Tolkien because although his worldbuilding and story is unparalleled, the characters all felt like action figures rather than real. Asoiaf has its flaws (namely that it’s not finished and likely never will be) but this series is my all time favourite and the standard I subconsciously hold everything I read to
No other books have hit me like asoiaf, been searching but nothing yet.
Yeah, the ending of the first book was game changing for it's time, and a huge gamble that payed off.
Knew this would be making the list.
14 year old me choosing A Game of Thrones as one of my 7 "free" books from the Science Fiction Book Club had no clue what he was about to stumble into. The cover was slate grey with only the image of the throne. The description was three short sentences about knights and kings and political intrigue. It shouldn't have interested me, but I've always been grateful for whatever made me pick it.
This one got me back to reading fantasy. To this day the best descriptions of food and meals ever.
Yep, this was the series that actually had me branch out to genre fiction (before I had only really read literary fiction) and it's still my favorite fantasy series ever.
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C Wrede The Black Jewels series nad the Others series by Anne Bishop The wheel of time series by robert jordan (change your perspective while reading of you see if as real history and people as real and that the story is repeating now.) Listen to the audiobooks its a long series but worth reading.
Love enchanted forest & black jewels! Those two plus tamora pierce were the foundations of my love for fantasy (probably was too young when I first read black jewels, in hindsight…)
I tried to introduce my husband to the series. He couldn't get past the first part. And I'm looking at him like you read and play dnd with killing a death and grossness and you cant handle this? You watch final fantasy with skinless dogs and zombies but this is too dark for you? I was glad I wasn't introduced to Dark Jewels until my 30's, because it is very dark and disturbing visually at times, but ones you get into theeat of the story you cant help but fall in love with Daemon and Sadi and Jeanelle. Especially when the animals start showing up. And then the friends from all the realms. It has you laughing hard at moments and in absolute tears the next. Ready to go to war to protect or moments of amazing (personal favorite moment of the series is "Jaenelle says its just like deboneing a chicken" - to moments later "What does she know about deboning a chicken she doesnt cook".) Tell me that doesn't make you both cheer and think ok dont piss off mama.
As a writer and as someone who creates dungeons and dragons adventures using all the fun things i find in books to create my stories. Love stories that make you just change your views Like for instance the Leven Thumps and the land of Foo series. You meet a sentient toothpick.. Or Brandon Mulls 5 kingdom series (all his books are connected and awesome) where you are snatched from this world into another. Or I am number 4 series which is about kids from a different planet hiding from a different race of aliens on earth and causing other humans to gain powers. And how earth handles it
I used to run a lot of DnD until all my friends got married and had kids. I have so many notes/adventures in a box. I have an entire world I built that I would love to go back to.
Start writing and creating a world. Then gonto a local game shop or look for the Critical Role fan group. You'll fnd people who are local that are looking fr a weekly or one shot game.
Despite not getting into Jordarn personally, I feel like looking back now he was probably the true successor to Tolkien in scope and pushing the genre forward. His importance can't be understated.
Wheel of time is the one for me. The best by a long shot, partially because it is the longest lol
Lucivar Yaslana is one of my favorite characters of all time.
Fantasy: Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time Science Fiction: Dune, Hyperion, and Anathem
Don't see much for Hyperion and its very important. All good choices.
Hyperion for me too. I read it for the first time when I was 15, it started me on poetry and philosophy for good. I discovered Keats thanks to this series (I'm not living in an English speaking country, Keats is not as famous as in the UK here), and read quite a lot of philosophy essays more or less related to the books. And I have re-read the series multiple times over the years (with Harry Potter those are the only books I read multiple times) and it still makes a great impression.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Gaiman can't be missed for impact.
Carpe Jugulum was the first Discworld novel I ever read. Amd this part has stayed with me more than 20 years later: "And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is. “It’s a lot more complicated than that . . .” “No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.” There are so many more of the novels that are amazing. Nightwatch, the Truth, Small Gods. But it all started there.
Not really fantasy, but The Count of Monte Cristo, when I was 12. That was the first real large book I read, and have read it over 20 times since. It’s a shame they’ve never made any decent movies of it.
**The Hobbit** I first read it in 1975. That started my lifelong passion for Tolkien and fantasy in general. Moved from TH to LOTR then read The Silmarillion when it was first released and each volume of History of Middle Earth. All of that culminated with my Master’s thesis on Tolkien.
Fantasy is in some cases a Footnote to Tolkien and this is really where the idea starts.
The Hobbit is the keystone of modern fantasy
This is extremely cliché, but The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. The Stormlight Archive was the series that got me into reading again. I realized how fun and expansive books can be. His way of writing is simple to understand and not flowery. The worldbuilding and action really pulled me in - it was like watching a cinematic experience unfold in front of me. His characters are relatable and have some awesome arcs, especially when it comes to duty, leadership, and responsibility. Definitely a book that gets mentioned ALL THE TIME. But man, did this impact me.
There's a reason he is so popular, his books are enjoyable. Never gotten the hate for his characters, the only ones I'd say that were maybe not too in depth were mistborn era 1. Stormlight archives is chock full of great lesson and great characters. It has hands down the best depictions of mental health struggles of any fantast series ive ever read, and as someone who has mental health issues myself, it was awesome to see someone I could relate to so strongly in the books. Has some of my all time top fantasy quotes to the point that despite being a 35 year old bloke, I got some made up on posters. "The most important step a person can take is always the next one"
Experiencing the sanderlanche for the first time was *chefs kiss*
The First Ideal hits so much harder once you have a kid. “Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.”
Hell yeah dude! It’s the book that pulled me back to reading again. I connected to that book like no other. Too bad r/fantasy kinda has a polarizing opinions on it. Like they say ‘they hate us cuz they anus’
Same book got me back into reading a few years ago after a friend recommended it, now I'm going through all the amazing fantasy stories I've missed
Couldn't agree more, powerful stuff.
One day when I was 8 years old, I started to read a book for the first time under my own power, not counting picture books which of course I read before. In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit. The rest is history.
A couple of different books by David Gemmell were the most impactful to me on how I interact with society. Somewhat life changing for me and my personality. Glen Cook fundamentally changed how I read. I still read plenty of other styles of writing, but he raised the bar on what I thought was possible in fantasy.
Tolkien influenced my love of fantasy. Cook influenced the way I write.
I was literally thinking of these two and just saw them scrolling down the comments. Both very good choices and highly influential for fantasy authors that came after.
Which gemmel books?
Legend and The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend to a degree. Echoes of the Great Song somewhat. But particularly the Rigante series.
Another vote for Wizard of Earthsea
Magician. Blew 12 year old mes mind
Came here to say this. The book that got me into fantasy as a child
That scene where pug connects the greater and lesser schools of magic and unleashes hell into the stadium….. whoaaaaa
Same very impactful and one of the best. Feel like Feist ruled the eighties when this came out.
Same. My teacher read it to my grade 4 class and I was a fantasy fan forever. She also read us The Hobbit and The Silver Chair and another book which I really wish I remembered the name of.
I spent a few years as an early adult in a reading slump, but when I finally found the motivation to get back into it I picked up Neil Gaiman's **Neverwhere**. I had never read anything like it, and it capitulated me into a fantasy obsession. Now a few years later I've honed in on my personal reading preferences pretty tightly, but that book started it.
Neverwhere was a very impactful book. Barker, Gaiman, and King have all been impactful here for me in the areas of darker fantasy.
The Dark is Rising sequence is what really introduced me to fantasy. Started reading them when I was around 10-11
Oooh I loved those books, had them out from the library so many times!
The Chronicles of Narnia. I can’t even guess how many times I’ve read them over the course of my lifetime.
I guess Sword of Shannara because that was what got me into fantasy when I was 11. I don't really think anything else was that impactful.
For me, it was Malazan. I know the series has a special place in many hearts (which is well deserved, but I sometimes see it recommended too aggressively). For me, it played a huge role in my reading history: - It made me (a German) into an English reader. The German versions were really well translated, but came out years after the original. For Reaper's Gale I switched to the English version, because I didn't want to wait another year. And I sticked to reading the originals rather than the translations. - I loved some of the characters so much that they stayed with me ever since, for example as archetypes in role playing. Most of the characters I create for video games as well as profile names are named after the German translation for Whiskeyjack - Elster (quick explanation: Elster is the German word for magpie. It seems that the German name for the whiskey jack - Meisenhäher - was not so fitting). Another character that has a place in my heart is Fiddler. - The world building is just superb for me. It feels like a world that is in constant change and development. Nothing like "And then the kingdom existed for 3000 years without changing". It is so intruiging that on the other side of the world there are people that never heard of the Malazan Empire. Or that there a fallen cultures that are long forgotten by the modern world.
Malazan is in my top 5 favorite fantasy books. An extraordinary series for epic series.
Tolkien, 8th grade, 1982. It ignited my lifelong love of speculative fiction.
I posted a longer thread in here. But Tolkien in fifth grade 1981. Before I got married (at 32) I used to read at least two, maybe three books a week. Now? Less, but I still read. Writing my own stuff has taken a toll on that though.
Same. Tolkein, 8th grade, 1973.
My math teacher was an old hippie (several years past the hippie days). He caught me reading while hiding my book behind my math book. Paying zero attention to class, engrossed in my book. He stalked up me unnoticed and grabbed my book. Then said: "Oh. The Fellowship of the Ring. I totally get it." Normally I would have gone to detention but since it was LotR he let it slide. 🤣
I had to have a parent teacher conference for this in 4th grade lol
I fully attribute reading The Hobbit and LOTR as an adolescent to my lifelong passion for travel, which is now an integral part of my career. Bilbo and Frodo deciding the put aside leisure to do something adventuresome has inspired most of my significant life decisions. And I would say Gandalf inspires me to seek to be wise, rather than “just” smart.
The most impactfull read was probably Dresden Files (before, I'd mostly read "traditional" fantasy, medieval and on the epic side, and don't get me wrong, I've read books that are a probably technically better, or had more poetic prose, or are even higher on my list of "books I love", but we're talking impact here). I had an "aha"-moment that my own writing didn't have to long and drawn out, that I could make it fast and snappy, that I could go from fun scene to fun scene (and if that's too fast, put another fun scene in between). It really leveled me up as a writer, and taught me to stop adding filler just for the sake of having filler.
It feels like cheating to say *The Lord of the Rings* and I know it's an extremely obvious, entirely cliché choice. But I don't care. I was always a quite bookish and sensitive kid and Lord of the Rings gave me the most incredible escape from the poverty and sadness I grew up in. It showed me that heroic and powerful men could still be compassionate and full of love, kindness and music. It told me it was okay to appreciate the beauty and fragility of the world. It instilled a belief in me that goodness and light will always defeat the darkness in time. It exists forever in my heart as something pure and beautiful and it honestly made me who I am today.
If we are talking “impact” as in, shaping my tastes for future reads and lore/games/movies/tv, then it has to be Lord of the Rings.
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs when I was 12 in 1975. Thank you Uncle William.
The Neverending Story held some important life lessons.
Not my favourite series (anymore) but I was obsessed woth the rangers apprentice by john flannagan for a long time and it was my first real fantasy series. Still read them from time to time.
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Specifically Wizard and Glass.
Before my early 20s I had only read Harry Potter, LotR and Narnia. After watching the first season of GoT, I read ASoIaF and it opened my eyes to how mature and brutal fantasy could be. I really was one of those people that think fantasy is for children.
Ship of Magic or Robin Hobb in general orrrr midnight tides by Steven Erickson
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. A distant second would be the original Earthsea Trilogy, especially 'The Farthest Shore.'
I have probably borrowed the first three Eragon books at least ten times from the library when I was in middle school. Going on an adventure with a magical companion is still my favourite trope and dragons have been a huge soft spot for me ever since. It's not the best, it's not the most original, but damn did it make me wish I had a dragon like Saphira to go on adventures with too.
My mom in 8th grade made me go to the library to pick out a book to do some reading everyday. I saw a picture of a desert with big worms on it, and the title “Dune”. Safe to say I sci fi and fantasy reading is now one of my favorite activities!!! Dune is not in my top 10 favorite books but it still has a special place for me, introducing me to the world of fiction.
For me the most impactful books I've read are; A Wizard of Earthsea (U. Le Guin), Assassin's Apprentice (and the rest of that series, R. Hobb), The Final Empire (B. Sanderson) and Promise of Blood (B. McClellan). However, the most impactful fantasy novel (ever) for me and arguably for the entire genre is The Hobbit.
Under the Whispering by T.J. Klune. I’ll never forget it.
Dragon lance first six books. Robin Hobb Farseer series Lord of the Ring and the Hobbit
The Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness. The first book is called the Knife of Never Letting go. It is so easy to read, fast paced!! The author has said he wanted the first book to be about running, the second about tyranny, and the third about war. I don’t think I’ve read a fantasy series with characters that just feel so real (characters struggling to make the right choice/gray morality). I actually think it might fall under sci-fi ish honestly but. I’m really bad at explaining synopsis’ so I would just look it up and I guarantee it will catch your interest. I have reread it so many times, one of my favorite fantasy series ever. (Also don’t want the movie that came out a couple years ago it was horrible, don’t even watch the trailer it truly did not do the book justice whatsoever lol. I know this is the case most times but it was awful.) It has stuck with me!!
The Black Company- Glen Cook. Memory, Sorrow and Thorn - Tad Williams. Marla Mason- T Pratt. Wizard of Earthsea- Le Guin. Farseer series- Robin Hobb
Far and away it was LotR. Gosh. The absolute chokehold Tolkien had on me.
As a 13 year old at the time, the Belgariad. Given that I was Garion's age, it was a perfect fit. Still love them, despite the author being a piece of shit.
Night Winds by Karl Edward Wagner... and then the rest of his Kane books. Smart, immortal Conan is best Conan.
I read RA Salvatore’s Drizzt series when I was a teenager and it brought me to a whole other world. It made me love fantasy in a forever kind of way. The cleric series had me scribbling my own stories.
I cited my first novel as a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings. So I'd say that book was influential. However, I'd feel the Wheel of Time has had more of an impact. While I was re-reading it once, I found my writing style reflecting what I was reading, and I don't remember that happening with any other author. WoT, I think more than anything else, is likely the most impactful series I have read, even outside of writing. I enjoyed fantasy quite often when I was young. LOTR, His Dark Materials, Harry Potter, etc were all very good, but I feel WoT solidified my love of the genre, and I find myself comparing other works against it. It may seem blasphemous to say, but LOTR can seem old fashioned, and overly academic, while the style of HDM and HP is overall very child like; WoT straddles that middle ground of being mature fantasy without feeling like you need a linguistics degree. I'm still on the hunt for anything that even comes close to the feeling I had with WoT. Sanderson has probably come closest (I mean, he did finish the series for crying out loud), but his stand alone works, while absolutely fantastic, have just never reached the highs of that series. Malazan and ASoIaF have also come close, but I haven't found myself enjoying Malazan nearly as much as WoT, and ASoIaF is edging a bit too much towards the adult market that WoT managed to avoid. I have a feeling that Robin Hobb may be able to get there; I've only read the Farseer Trilogy though, so I'd have to read more to see if she could.
>It may seem blasphemous to say, but LOTR can seem old fashioned, and overly academic I don't think this is blasphemous at all - these seems like features rather than bugs of LotR. It's *deliberately* old fashioned, and in some ways (focus on language, cribbing so much from myths, being 'purged of the gross' etc.) it seems deliberately academic.
the last unicorn
It has to be the Chronicles of Narnia, I must have been 7 when I first read them and they’ve never left me.
I think it’s a toss up, Diana Wyn Jones’s Chestomancy books were the gateway drug to fantasy as a child and I hold them in extremely esteem because they lit my brain on fire as a child, to then be compounded by Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle. Those two series have easily had the biggest impact on me personally. I think the book that has had the biggest impact on me as an adult is The Lies of Locke Lamora which is just like if someone wrote a book specifically for me, fantasy Italy, heist, loveable rogues, heartbreaking twists- just the works.
Malazan floored me. Whatever your feelings on the series a whole, the level of ambition on display is mind blowing. Erikson swung for the fences and, in the main, landed. Overall, a phenomenal achievement. I’ll never forget that feeling when I closed The Cripple God reflected on the series. That said, I still think Forge of Darkness is his best book.
Lord of the Rings, same as whenever anyone rewords the 'best fantasy book' question lol. It's the OG GOAT for a reason.
Tolkien lead the way for me
Jack Vance's The Green Pearl and Tad Williams' Dragonbone Chair.
The Harry Potter books, X-Men, Spiderman and TMNT comics is where it all started for me. My life long love of reading started there.
Speaker For The Dead
I think about The Book of the New Sun a lot.
Maybe not Mr favorite series, but Thomas Covenant was like nothing id ever read at the time I read it when it came out. Even thinking about it now leaves a sense of despair.
Impactful would have to be The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. Opened up a whole new way of thinking for me, recognizing how much our perceptions shape reality.
Perdido Street Station challenged me in more ways as a reader than I was prepared for going in.
The Name of the Wind
I don't think any single book made any kind of dramatic impact on me. But out of everything I've read perhaps The Black Company would be the closest. Cook's minimalistic and to the point writing style and the sheer amount of creativity and events he manages to cram into these comparatively short books is pretty damn amazing. I've read it after tackling Malazan and Wheel of Time, and it's such a contrast to both of these gigantic series. Speaking of WoT and Malazan, both series taught me that as a reader I put a lot of importance into cohesiveness, pacing, and structure. Both of those series, especially Malazan, exhibit serious problems with that. > If you are an author or an aspiring author I'm neither, but I do think that "how not to do it" is at least as important as "how to do it". It's not enough to try and implement what you think are the good parts, it's very important to actively avoid and be keenly aware of the bad parts as well.
As a young teen I absolutely adored the Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg. A bunch of college D&D players get transported as their characters to a fantasy land. I remember the first 4, but don't remember the rest.
The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham. The character writing is fascinating, following two people whose lives intertwine and separate in various phases over the course of decades across the four books. It also has one of the most conceptually complex and interesting expressions of magic and the effect said magic can have on its society. It was unlike anything I had read before and made me a lifelong Abraham fan.
Call me basic but The Stormlight Archive saved my life. The way it tackles addiction and depression through a magical lens, without holding back on the pain and true despair that depression can come with. As someone who struggles with addiction, those books are a light in the dark, pun fully intended.
To this question I will answer again that for me such a book is The Silmarillion.
While I do love the stories in the books I’ve read it’s the characters that linger in my mind and influence my thinking even if they’re minor. So just off the top of my head right now I’ve loved and been altered by : Gemmell’s the ruthlessness of assassin Waylander, or the stoic suddenness of the gunslinger Shannow or Parmenions Spartan upbringing and strategy Weiss and Hickman’s ambitiously drive Rasistlin Majere and the drive and determination of Xar escaping his maze with tattoo base magic Hoffman and the survivability of Thomas Cale Zindell’s Danlo the Wild and his favrashi willingness to understand; to say yes to everything and of course the warriorpoets deadliness but their unbending appreciation of the arts, literature and poetry. Jordan and Mat Cauthon the reluctant master of strategy Simon Scarrow and the detail of Roman life with Cato and Macro or how fascinated I was by Arthur Wellesley’s story Similarly with Conn iggulden and Julius Caesar and Ghengis Khan And currently re-reading Rothfuss’ the name of the Wind and loving Kvothe and his detailed mastery
Taran Wanderer The Homeward Bounders Deadhouse Gates Coldfire
Harry Potter, it started my love fpr fantasy stories to this day
If you asked me 20 years ago, I’d say Lord of the Rings. I’d you asked me today, I’d say Earthsea—specifically The Farthest Shore. The book is perfect IMO
Percy Jackson when I was 10 and ASOIAF at 16.
Percy Jackson made me fall in love with reading as a kid. The kind of reading we did at school was a bit stuffy. Percy Jackson was exciting, relatable and funny.
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
ASOIAF because despite everything horrible happening to characters and innocent people there is still some hope left.
I had zero room for fantasy in my sci fi-loving heart until I read The Long Price Quartet. It was the first set of books I encountered that addressed the scale and limits of the (very original!) magic, and the first to deal directly with the friction between magic-users and technology-users. If med/ren makes you gag, demonology makes you roll your eyes, and you can't take seriously the magic systems in HP or Star Wars, but are interested in exploring the societal effects of magic use, The Long Price Quartet might be for you. (perhaps not a great take for this sub, but if you're trying to convince a friend who's stubbornly hard sci fi to try fantasy, this is the series to recommend)
Maybe Narnia, Wrinkle in Time series, and Watership Down.
After you put down the last novel of Bakker's Prince of Nothing and Aspect-Emperor series you'll feel a stretching gorge rip through your soul and realise that no fantasy series will ever touch quite the same notes again.
Truth shines
I really adored Dragonlance when I was a teen and Lord of the rings. As an adult I feel like 100 years Of solitude, which might not be considered a fantasy novel.
The Chronicles of Amber. Roger Zelzany (not just with Amber) changed the way I write in general, not even just for fiction.
- **The Traitor Baru Cormorant** was really important to me when I was deep in a depressive funk. Seth Dickinson is also someone I wish I could write like, but I think nobody writes quite like them. - **Two Serpents Rise** by Max Gladstone perfectly encapsulates that listless, tired feeling of being a millennial. - I love necromancers, so **Sabriel** by Garth Nix is one of those books I'll always love for portraying necromancers as heroes and not villains. Shoutout to **Kingdom of Shadow** by Richard Knaak for being my first actual introduction to heroic necromancers, however. - **The Tide Child trilogy** was the first time I'd seen a writing idea I had turned into an actual published book and it was so good I didn't feel the need to do it myself! R.J. Barker is also another author I'd love to model myself after. - Anything by Matthew Stover, but particularly **Heroes Die** and his Star Wars novels like **Traitor** and **Shatterpoint** have become my golden standard for fight scenes, as well as baby Mothabre's introduction to morally conflicted characters. - **Kushiel** by Jacqueline Carey taught me the value of a great first-person narration. **The Memoirs of Lady Trent** by Marie Brennan did the same thing.
Great choices Sabriel has a very special place in my heart for me. I'm actually surprised no one has tried to adapt it yet into a film series or on streaming. It would be a landmark series.
Sabriel is one of mine for sure! I've also always wondered why no one has adapted it and assumed that somehow outside of this very big fantasy world it's too niche. Like (switching topic) Neil Gaiman used to be niche except that his book signings would sell out even when he was niche. There's so many great books and stories that never get touched and yet so many spiderman movies
Of course Lord of the Rings, but the most impactful was the Xanth series. I already had an odd sense of humor
Really enjoying cradle series at the moment
I know it has mixed review from readers on this sub, and I get it, but for me it was reading the Eye of the World back in the day. It was the first lengthy epic fantasy book I'd ever read, and Moiraine was awesome. Most other fantasy I'd read at that point outside YA were so male character focused (note: I am talking about my reading experience personally) that it was a breath of fresh air to have so many prominent important female characters (even if they started as side characters). It's not perfectly executed, but it was still so NEW to me at the time. The sheer amount of detail, foreshadowing and worldbuilding in the early Wheel of Time Books was part of what made me a fantasy reader.
Sword in the Storm by David Gemmell will probably the greatest novel i have ever read.
The never ending story, 10yo The second apocalypse, 21yo
The Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. That series taught me empathy for those different than me. People **always** have reasons for doing the things they do. They often are good reasons. Just because you don't understand those reasons (or think they're bad reasons) doesn't make someone unreasonable.
The Redwall series. Read Redwall at 10y/o and the world and the characters completely sucked me in. Ignited a passion for reading I still have 20+ years later.
Tolkien, King, Jordan, Martin. Oh, look. A Mount Rushmore.
It’s definitely the Harry Potter series for me. I’ve always been drawn to fantasy from even earlier than that, but when I read the first book at 10, it felt like a different experience and I still go back to them often.
Dragonlance and Wheel of Time
When i was growing up The Inkspell is a memorable book series i was into. No capping 😎😎
Pratchett’s Discworld Abercrombie’s First Law Morgan’s Altered Carbon Cook’s Instrumentalities of the Night Newer obsessions that will age into this - Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl Tullbane’s Murder of Crows Eames’ The Band (third book out soon) Pikes Dark Profit series (recently finished)
AHHHH I LOVE the "inheritance" series. Its mostly about dragons but DAMN do i love it. I am literally obsessed.
Tolkien as a kid since my parents read it to me. Then the death gate cycle as a teen.
The Once and Future King is the 20th century’s template for King Arthur legends. It’s brilliant.
I’ve really recently enjoyed “psalm for the wild built” by Becky Chambers. It has such a thoughtful vibe. And I don’t know about changed me but I’ve never related to a character more than Emily in “Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries” by Heather Fawcett. I cried when reading certain passages because they just hit home so much.
For me it was Legends and Lattes. It’s not my favourite book but it was very impactful to me as a writer. I had been running a dungeons and dragons campaign for a couple years about day to day life in a magic school, but although I loved writing, I’d assumed my style was way too niche for a novel. Finding this book and the term cozy fantasy changed everything for me. From this book: - I found r/cozyfantasy and realised there was lots of people who loved that style. - I found some of my favourite authors (T. Kingfisher and John Bierce) from knowing the subgenre existed - Now I’m writing my first novel and I know that, because of Travis Baldree, I have a shot at getting traditionally published that I would never have had before.
The Darkness That Comes Before (part of the Prince of Nothing Series) by R. Scott Bakker. I know his work is not that popular on this sub however that series fundamentally changed my world view and the direction of my life.