Recommended Fantasy Books

02 Oct 2024 14:37

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These range from merely good reads to really outstanding books; but rather than trying to rate each one, or (what would be more to the point) explain my ratings, I've merely listed them without any particular indication of rank. Horror novels are included here for want of anyplace better to put them. Titles are added as they occur to me.

Links on titles are generally to my review or briefer comments, if I have any. Links to websites by or about authors may well be old and/or dead.

See also:
• Fantasy (to read)
• Science Fiction Recommendations

• Ben Aaronovitch
  1. Midnight Riot / Rivers of London
  2. Moon over Soho
  3. Whispers under Ground
  4. Broken Homes
  5. Foxglove Summer
  6. The Hanging Tree
  7. Lies Sleeping
• Joe Abercrombie
  • The First Law
    1. The Blade Itself
    2. Before They Are Hanged
    3. Last Argument of Kings
  • The Shattered Sea
    1. Half a King
    2. Half the World
    3. Half a War
• Richard Adams, Watership Down
• Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor
• Saladin Ahmed, Throne of the Crescent Moon
• Joan Aiken, The Green Flash
• Kelley Armstrong
  • "Cainsville"
    1. Omens
    2. Visions
    3. Deceptions
  • Age of Legends
    1. Sea of Shadows
    2. Empire of Night
    3. Forest of Ruin
• Kage Baker
  • "Anvil of the World" series:
    1. The Anvil of the World
    2. The House of the Stag
    3. The Bird of the River
  • The Hotel Under the Sand
• Mishell Baker, Borderline
• Leigh Bardugo
  1. Ninth House
  2. Hell Bent
• Clive Barker
  • The Great and Secret Show
  • Imajica
  • In the Flesh
  • The Inhuman Condition
  • Weaveworld
• Jeffrey E. Barlough, The House in the High Wood: A Story of Old Talbotshire
• John Barnes, One for the Morning Glory
• Peter Beagle
  • I See by My Outfit [Not fantasy, and I have no idea what the title means, but lovely]
  • The Last Unicorn
• Elizabeth Bear
  • Bone and Jewel Creatures
  • New Amsterdam
  • The Eternal Sky
    1. Range of Ghosts
    2. Shattered Pillars
    3. Steles of the Sky
  • The Lotus Kingdoms
    1. The Stone in the Skull
• John Bellairs, The Face in the Frost
• Robert Jackson Bennett
  • American Elsewhere
  • The Divine Cities
    1. City of Stairs
    2. City of Blades
    3. City of Miracles
  • Mr. Shivers
• Robyn Bennis
  • Airship series
    1. The Guns Above
    2. By Fire Above
  • The Devil's Guide to Managing Difficulty People
• Lauren Beukes
  • Broken Monsters
  • The Shining Girls
• Laura Bickle
  • Anya Kalinczyk series
    1. Embers
    2. Sparks
  • Dark Alchemy
• K. J. Bishop, The Etched City
• Algernon Blackwood, In the Realm of Terror
• M. F. Bloxam, The Night Battles
• Lila Bowen, Wake of Vultures
• Ray Bradbury
  • The Halloween Tree
  • Something Wicked This Way Comes
  • The Stories of Ray Bradbury [= collected edition of his short fiction]
• Ernest Bramah
• Marie Brennan
  • A Star Shall Fall
  • The "Memoirs of Lady Trent":
    1. A Natural History of Dragons
    2. Tropic of Serpents
    3. Voyage of the Basilisk
    4. In the Labyrinth of Drakes
    5. Within the Sanctuary of Wings
    6. Turning Darkness into Light (strictly speaking, a sequel to the series...)
  • Varekai
    1. Cold-Forged Flame
    2. Lightning in the Blood
  • The Waking of Angantyr
• Patricia Briggs
  • Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood
  • Raven's Shadow and Raven's Strike
  • "Mercy Thompson" series
    1. Moon-Called
    2. Blood Bound
    3. Iron Kissed
    4. Bone Crossed
    5. Silver Borne
    6. River Marked [series fatigue set in beyond this point for me]
  • Cry Wolf
  • Steal the Dragon and When Demons Walk
• Kristan Britain, Green Rider series
  1. Green Rider
  2. First Rider's Call
  3. The High King's Tomb
  4. Blackveil
• Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
• Steven Brust
  • The Vlad Taltos books [Enjoyable so far --- there're a good many more in the series, which hasn't ended, and will probably amount to seventeen books in all. Brust may be the last writer of real talent to be a follower of Trotsky.]
    • Jhereg
    • Yendi
    • Teckla
  • To Reign in Hell [Making sense of Milton; see under Demonology]
  • The Khaavren books [Faithful pastiches of Dumas, consistently fit into a world Brust had already made up for the Vlad Taltos books --- and more fun than I remember Dumas being.]
    • The Phoenix Guards
    • Five Hundred Years After
• Steven Brust and Megan Lindholm, The Gypsy
• Lois McMaster Bujold
  • The Curse of Chalion
  • The Paladin of Souls
  • The Spirit Ring
  • The Hallowed Hunt
  • The Sharing Knife:
    1. Beguilement
    2. Legacy
    3. Passage
    4. Horizon
• Emma Bull, War for the Oaks
• Jack Campbell
  1. The Dragons of Dorcastle
  2. The Hidden Masters of Marandur
  3. The Assassins of Altis
  4. The Pirates of Pacta Servanda
• Trudi Canavan, The Magicians' Guild
• S. A. Chakraborty
  1. The City of Brass
  2. The Kingdom of Copper
• Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow
• Suzy McKee Charnas, The Vampire Tapestry
• C. J. Cherryh
  • The Dreaming Tree [=The Dreamstone, plus The Tree of Swords and Jewels, plus Cherryh's corrections and ending]
  • Fortress in the Eye of Time [I think the story ends best here, with the first book; certainly the sequels go downhill, and the last one I read, Fortress of Dragons, had me wondering whether my copy was defectively printed and missing about, oh, two hundred pages. Sadly, no.]
  • The Gate of Ivrel
  • The Paladin
• Susanna Clarke
  • Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
  • Piranesi
• Jo Clayton, Skeen's Leap
• B. W. Clough, The Dragon of Mishbil
• Deborah Coates
  1. Wide Open
  2. Deep Down
• Harry Connolly, The Great Way
  1. The Way into Chaos
  2. The Way into Magic
  3. The Way into Darkness
• Glen Cook, Chronicles of the Black Company
  1. The Black Company
  2. Shadows Linger
  3. The White Rose
• Seamus Cooper, The Mall of Cthulhu
• Jennifer Crusie, Maybe This Time
• Elaine Cunningham, Changeling Detective series
  1. Shadows in the Darkness
  2. Shadows in the Starlight
• Brian Daley, Doomfollowers of Coramonde
• Kara Dalkey
  • The Curse of Sagamore
  • Blood of the Goddess trilogy:
    1. Goa
    2. Bijapur
• Luca D'Andrea, Beneath the Mountain
• Cecilia Dart-Thornton, The Ill-Made Mute
• Indra Das, The Devourers
• Avram Davidson [General Review: Avram Davidson's Afterlife]
  • Clash of Star-Kings
  • Vergil Magus
    • The Phoenix and the Mirror
    • Vergil in Averno
  • Peregrine: Primus and Secundus
  • The Enquiries of Dr. Estzerhazy
  • Adventures in Unhistory [Essays on legendary subjects]
  • The Avram Davidson Treasury [The best of his numerous short-story collections]
  • Limekiller
• Avram Davidson and Grania Davis, The Boss in the Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil
• Pamela Dean, Tam Lin
• Aliette De Bodard, Servant of the Underworld
• L. Sprague de Camp [I went through a lot of de Camp's prolific output with pleasure as a teenager. At some point I'll probably try to figure out which ones I still think are good...]
  • An Elephant for Aristotle [Strictly speaking, historical fiction, but it has the same feel as his fantasies]
• Sebastien de Castell, Traitor's Blade
• Seth Dickinson, The Traitor Baru Cormorant
• Stephen R. Donaldson [I read the first six of his Thomas Covenant books, and cannot know imagine why, except for adolescent masochism; these are utterly different, and, to my mind, vastly better]
  • The Mirror of Her Dreams
  • A Man Rides Through
• Jean d'Ormesson, The Glory of the Empire: A Novel, a History
• Amanda Downum
  • Dreams of Shreds and Tatters
  • Necromancer Chronicles:
    1. The Drowning City
    2. The Bone Palace
    3. The Kingdoms of Dust
    4. The Poison Court
• Debra Doyle and James D. MacDonald
  • Literature of the Fantastic [Electronic texts of classic fantastic stories]
  • Knight's Wyrd
  • Land of Mist and Snow
• Lord Dunsany
  • The King of Elfland's Daughter
  • The Pegana books:
    • The Book of Wonder
    • The Sword of Welleran
  • The Shadow Valley books:
    • Don Rodriguez
    • The Charwoman's Shadow
  • Plays of Gods and Men
  • The Food of Death: Fifty-One Tales
• Rosemary Edghill (a.k.a. eluki bes shahar)
  • The Warslayer
  • The Empty Crown / Twelve Treasures
    1. The Sword of Maidens' Tears
    2. The Cup of Morning Shadows
    3. The Cloak of Night and Daggers
• George Alec Effinger, Maureen Birnbaum: Barbarian Swordsperson
• Phyllis Eisenstein, Sorcerer's Son
• Harlan Ellison, see under science fiction
• Ruthana Emrys, "Innsmouth Legacy" series
  0. "The Litany of Earth"
  1. Deep Roots
  2. Winter Tide
• Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, Welcome to Night Vale
• Charles Finney, The Circus of Dr. Lao
• John M. Ford
  • Casting Fortune
  • The Dragon Waiting [Almost an alternate history of Renaissance Europe, except that magic works.]
  • The Last Hot Time
• Diana Pharaoh Francis
  1. The Cipher
  2. The Black Ship
• Esther Friesner, Yesterday We Saw Mermaids
• Jeannine Hall Gailey
  • Becoming the Villainess
  • She Returns to the Floating World
  • Unexplained Fevers
• Neil Gaiman
  • American Gods
  • The Sandman
• Randall Garrett
  • Murder and Magic
  • Too Many Magicians
  • Lord Darcy Investigates
• Mary Gentle
  • Rats and Gargoyles
  • The Book of Ash [I've only seen the first half of this]
    1. A Secret History: The Book of Ash, #1
    2. Carthage Ascendant: The Book of Ash, #2
• Felix Gilman
  • The Half-Made World series:
    1. The Half-Made World [The best fantasy (or "weird") western ever]
    2. The Rise of Ransom City
  • Thunderer
  • The Revolutions [Review by Henry Farrell]
• Max Gladstone, Craft Sequence
  1. Three Parts Dead
  2. Two Serpents Rise
  3. Full Fathom Five
• Max Gladstone et al., Bookburners
• Isabel Glass
  1. Daughter of Exile
  2. The Divided Crown
• Carol Goodman, The Ghost Orchid
• Darryl Gregory, We Are All Completely Fine
• Auston Habershaw, Saga of the Redeemed
  1. The Oldest Trick [= The Iron Ring + Iron and Blood]
  2. No Good Deed
  3. Dead But Once
  4. The Far Far Better Thing
• Barbara Hambly
  • Darkmage
  • Darwath trilogy
    1. The Time of the Dark
    2. The Walls of Air
    3. The Armies of Daylight
• Elizabeth Hand
  1. Waking the Moon
  2. Black Light
  • Hokuloa Road
  • Wylding Hall
• Charlaine Harris, Dead Until Dark [series fatigue set in rapidly after that]
• Scott Hawkins, The Library at Mount Char
• Joe Hill, NOS4A2
• Susan Hill, The Woman in Black
• P. C. Hodgell
  1. God Stalk
  2. Dark of the Moon
  3. Seeker's Mask
  4. To Ride a Rathorn
• Barry Hughart, Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox:
  1. Bridge of Birds
  2. The Story of the Stone
  3. Eight Skilled Gentlemen
• Matthew Hughes, >A God in Chains
• Kameron Hurley, The Mirror Empire
• Shirley Jackson
  • The Bird's Nest
  • Hangsaman
  • The Haunting of Hill House
  • The Lottery, and Other Stories
  • The Road through the Wall
  • The Sundial
  • We Have Always Lived in the Castle
• N. K. Jemisin
  1. The Fifth Season
  2. The Obelisk Gate
• Catherine Jinks, The Reformed Vampire Support Group
• Kij Johnson, The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe
• Diana Wynne Jones
  • Dark Lord of Derkholm
  • Deep Secret
  • Hexwood
  • The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
• Howard Andrew Jones
  1. Desert of Souls
  2. The Bones of the Old Ones
• J. V. Jones
  • The Barbed Coil
  • A Sword of Shadows
    1. A Cavern of Black Ice
    2. A Fortress of Grey Ice
• Guy Gavriel Kay, The Lions of Al-Rassan
• Brian Keene and Nick Mamatas, The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Nightmare
• Greg Keyes, The Briar King
• Ausma Zehanat Khan, The Khorasan Archives
  1. The Bloodprint
  2. The Black Khan
• Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • Threshold: A Novel of Deep Time
  • Daughter of Hounds
  • The Red Tree
  • The Drowning Girl
  • Blood Oranges [as "Kathleen Tierney"]
• Stephen King [What can I say? When he's good, he is good; but his novels, increasingly, need ruthless editing, which they do not, sadly, receive. The short stories remain excellent.]
  • Cycle of the Werewolf
  • The Dark Half
  • The Dark Tower:
    1. The Gunslinger
    2. The Drawing of the Three
    3. The Wastelands
    4. Wizard and Glass
    5. Wolves of the Calla
    6. Song of Susannah
    7. The Dark Tower ["There I will sing all their names..."]
  • Desperation
  • Everything's Eventual
  • Eyes of the Dragon
  • Four Past Midnight
  • Misery
  • Nightshift
  • Salem's Lot
  • The Shining
  • The Stand
  • Bill Hodges trilogy:
    1. Mr. Mercedes
    2. Finders Keepers
    3. End of Watch
  • Danse Macabre [Reflections on the horror genre]
• Stephen King and Peter Straub
  1. The Talisman
  2. Black House
• T. Kingfisher
  • The Twisted Ones
  • What Moves the Dead
• Rosemary Kirstein
  1. Steerswoman's Road [=Steerswoman + The Outskirter's Secret]
  2. The Lost Steersman
  3. The Language of Power
• Mindy L. Klasky, The Glasswrights' Apprentice
• Kathe Koja, Skin
• Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint
• Ellen Kushner et al., Tremontaine
• Mur Lafferty
  1. The Shambling Guide to New York City
  2. Ghost Train to New Orleans
• Jay Lake, Green trilogy
  1. Green
  2. Endurance
  3. Kalimpura
• Sarah Langan
  • The Keeper
  • The Missing, a.k.a. The Virus
• A. R. Larkwood, The Unspoken Name
• Victor LaValle
  • The Ballad of Black Tom
  • The Devil in Silver
  • The Changeling
• Sheridan LeFanu, Carmilla [After whom I once named a computer]
• Ursula K. Le Guin
  1. A Wizard of Earthsea
  2. The Tombs of Atuan
  3. The Farthest Shore
  4. Tehanu [This book caps the series, but it was written much later, and is very different from the others; I'm not sure how I feel about it.]
• Fritz Leiber
  • Conjure Wife
  • Our Lady of Darkness
• Ira Levin
  • Rosemary's Baby
  • The Stepford Wives
• Megan Lindholm
  • The Wizard of the Pigeons
  • Luck of the Wheels
• Jane Lindskold, The Buried Pyramid
• Ken Liu, The Grace of Kings
• Jeff Long, The Descent [A case could be made for this being science fiction, but anything with possession and Satan in it is fantasy in my book. I hesitate to recommend it, because it's got plot- and world-building- holes big enough to drive tanks through, but in the end I couldn't put it down, or put it out of my mind once I was done.]
• Sarah Lotz, The Three
• H. P. Lovecraft
  • At the Mountains of Madness [Arguably, however, this is pure science fiction]
  • The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
  • There are now many short story collections. One of the nicest is the one from the Library of America (edited by the great Peter Straub), which includes At the Mountains of Madness, but I have a soft-spot for the old one edited by August Derleth, rejoicing in the title Blood-curdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, which I re-read so much as a boy that it literally disintegrated...
• Richard A. Lupoff, Sword of the Demon
• Scott Lynch
  1. The Lies of Locke Lamora
  2. Red Seas Under Red Skies
  3. The Republic of Thieves
• Elizabeth A. Lynn, Dragon's Winter
• R. A. MacAvoy
  • Black Dragon series
    1. Tea with the Black Dragon
    2. Twisting the Rope
  • The Lens of the World:
    1. The Lens of the World
    2. King of the Dead
    3. Belly of the Wolf
• Arthur Machen, The House of Souls
• Juliet Marillier, Blackthorn and Grim series
  1. Dreamer's Pool
  2. Tower of Thorns
• George R. R. Martin [This is the kind of multi-volume, multi-threaded fantasy epic which is supposed to be absolute dreck, at least by the end of the second lap-breaking book. Sadly, it is excellent fun. He just needs to write more! --- 2023: I am just going to leave that remark from 1999 or 2000 alone...]
  1. A Game of Thrones
  2. A Clash of Kings
  3. A Storm of Swords
  4. A Feast for Crows
• A. Lee Martinez, Gil's All Fright Diner
• Misty Massey, Mad Kestrel
• Seanan McGuire
  • InCryptid series:
    1. Discount Armageddon
    2. Midnight Blue-Light Special
    3. Half-Off Ragnarok
    4. Pocket Apocalypse
  • Indexing and Reflections
• Patricia A. McKillip
  • Alphabet of Thorn
  • The Bards of Bone Plain
  • The Bell at Sealey Head
  • The Book of Atrix Wolfe
  • The Changeling Sea
  • The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
  • In the Forest of Serre
  • Od Magic
  • Ombria in Shadow
  • Riddle-Master [Originally published as a trilogy]
  • Solstice Wood
  • Song for the Basilisk
  • The Sorceress and the Cygnet and The Cygnet and the Firebird
  • The Tower at Stony Wood
  • Winter Rose
• Robin McKinley
  • The Blue Sword
  • The Hero and the Crown
  • Sunshine
• Brian McNaughton, Throne of Bones [Imagine an even more twisted and pervy version of Clark Ashton Smith]
• Richelle Mead, Succubus Blues
• A. Merritt [Classics at the roots of the genre, but also lots of purple prose, and ethnic-stereotype-as-characterization]
  • The Moon Pool
  • Dwellers in the Mirage
  • The Face in the Abyss
  • The Metal Monster
  • Seven Footprints to Satan
  • Burn, Witch, Burn!
  • The Fox Woman and Other Stories
• Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire: An Illustrated Novel
• Michael Moorcock [The ones I still remember from reading a lot of Moorcock as a teenager]
  • Dancers at the End of Time
  • Gloriana
  • The Swords Trilogy = The King of Swords, The Queen of Swords, The Knight of Swords = the first 3 Corum novels [I remember disliking the second trilogy]
  • Elric
    1. Elric of Melniboné
    2. Sailor on the Seas of Fate
    3. Weird of the White Wolf
    4. The Vanishing Tower
• Christopher Moore [No relation of my friend and sometime co-author, Cristopher Moore.]
  • Bloodsucking Fiends: a Love Story
  • Coyote Blue
  • Fool
  • Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
  • Island of the Sequined Love-Nun
  • The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
  • Practical Demon-Keeping
  • The Serpent of Venice
  • The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
• C. L. Moore
  • Best of
  • Black God's Kiss = Jirel of Joiry
• Moira J. Moore
  • Heroes at Risk
  • Heroes Return
• Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
• James Morrow
  • Bible Stories for Adults
  • Only Begotten Daughter [A smart Jewish girl from New Jersey, of course]
  • Towing Jehovah [When God dies, what happens to His Corpse?]
• Justine Musk, Blood Angel
• John Myers Myers, Silverlock
• Rachel Neumeier, Death's Lady series [The first three books form a tightly-linked and complete-in-themselves trilogy]
  1. The Year's Midnight
  2. Of Absence, Darkness
  3. As Shadow, A Light
  4. Shines Now, and Heretofore
• Katherine Neville, The Eight
• Garth Nix, Sabriel
• Andre Norton, Witch World series
  1. Witch World
  2. Web of the Witch World
  3. Year of the Unicorn
• Naomi Novik
  1. His Majesty's Dragon
  2. Throne of Jade
  3. Black Powder War
  4. Empire of Ivory
  5. Victory of Eagles
• Jason "David Wong" Pargin
  • John Dies at the End
  • This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It
  • What the Hell Did I Just Read?
• Paul Park, A Princess of Roumania
• Victor Pelevin, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf
• Anne M. Pillsworth
  1. Summoned
  2. Fathomless
• Tim Powers, Declare
• Terry Pratchett
  • Discworld novels [merely alphabetical order]
    • The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
    • Carpe Jugulum
    • Feet of Clay
    • Guards! Guards!
    • Going Postal
    • A Hat Full of Sky
    • Hogfather [A delight "on many levels, not least of which is a deep reminder of the old blood-on-snow huge sweating bristly virile boar nightmare ice age aspects of Christmas" --- Bill Tozier]
    • Interesting Times
    • Jingo
    • Making Money
    • Maskerade [Not for opera-lovers]
    • Monstrous Regiment
    • Mort
    • Men at Arms
    • Night Watch
    • Reaper Man
    • Small Gods
    • Soul Music
    • The Truth
    • Witches Abroad
    • Wyrd Sisters
    • Pyramids
    • Thief of Time
    • Thud!
    • The Wee Free Men
  • Nation
  • and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
• Fletcher Pratt
  • The Blue Star
  • The Well of the Unicorn
• Cherie Priest
  • The Family Plot
  • Four and Twenty Blackbirds
  • Maplecroft
• Christopher Priest, The Prestige
• Philip Pullman
  1. The Golden Compass = The Northern Lights
  2. The Subtle Knife
• Amy Raby
  1. Assassin's Gambit
  2. Spy's Honor
  3. Prince's Fire
• Cat Rambo and Jeff VanderMeer, The Surgeon's Tale: And Other Stories
• Kat Richardson
  1. Greywalker
  2. Poltergeist
  3. Underground
  4. Vanished
  5. Labyrinth
• Phil Rickman
  • Curfew = Crybbe [Part rural comedy, part New Age satire, entirely a well-written, scary horror novel]
  • December [Way too much about John Lennon, but still good]
  • The Man in the Moss
  • Merrily Watkins series [Mysteries about a contemporary Church of England exorcist]
    1. The Wine of Angels
    2. Midwinter of the Spirit
    3. A Crown of Lights
    4. The Cure of Souls
    5. The Lamp of the Wicked
    6. The Prayer of the Night Shepherd
    7. The Smile of a Ghost
    8. The Remains of an Altar
    9. The Fabric of Sin
    10. To Dream of the Dead
• Jennifer Roberson, "Tiger and Del" series
  1. Sword-Dancer
• Margaret Rogerson, Sorcery of Thorns
• Diana Rowland
  • Kara Gillian series [Enjoyable hybrids of police procedurals and contemporary fantasy, with local color for southern Louisiana]
    1. Mark of the Demon
    2. Blood of the Demon
    3. Secrets of the Demon
    4. Sins of the Demon
  • "White Trash Zombie" series
    1. My Life as a White Trash Zombie
    2. Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues
    3. White Trash Zombie Apocalypse
• Nilanjana Roy, The Wildings
• Matt Ruff, Lovecraft Country
• Jennifer Safrey, Tooth and Nail
• Michelle Sagara
  1. Cast in Shadow
  2. Cast in Courtlight
  3. Cast in Secret
  4. Cast in Fury
  5. Cast in Silence
  6. Cast in Chaos
  7. Cast in Ruin
  8. Cast in Moonlight
  9. Cast in Peril
• Lilth Saintcrow
  • Steelflower series
    1. Steelflower
    2. Steelflower at Sea
    3. Steelflower in Snow
  • 1. The Hedgewitch Queen
    2. The Bandit King
  • Moon's Knight
• Brandon Sanderson, The Final Empire [first book of a trilogy which I haven't finished]
• Charles Saunders, Imaro
• Graydon Saunders, the "Commonweal" series
  1. The March North
  2. A Succession of Bad Days
• V. E. Schwab
  1. A Darker Shade of Magic
  2. A Gathering of Shadows
• Will Shetterly
  • Cats Have No Lord
  • Elsewhere
  • Witchblood
• Trey Shiels [pseud. of Linda Nagata]
  1. The Dread Hammer
  2. Hepen the Watcher
• Susan Shwartz, Shards of Empire
• Dan Simmons
  • Carrion Comfort
  • Children of the Night [Really SF, but it's about vampires, and told like a horror novel]
  • Fires of Eden [Comic horror novel]
  • Song of Kali [Scary as hell, but also borderline racist]
  • The Terror
• Clark Ashton Smith, Complete Online Works
  • Zothique [One of the roots of the dying earth sub-genre]
• Lindsay Smith, Max Gladstone et al., The Witch Who Came in from the Cold
• Lucy A. Snyder
  • Installing Linux on a Dead Badger, and Other Oddities
  • Spellbent
  • Shotgun Sorceress
  • Switchblade Goddess
• Midori Snyder, Soulstring
• Alexandra Sokoloff, The Harrowing
• Wen Spencer, Tinker
• Nancy Springer, Apocalypse
• Brian Stableford, The Last Days of the Edge of the World [" 'Vanity,' said the mirror in tones of mild reproof, 'is not nice.' "]
• C. E. Stalbaum, The Last Goddess
• Christopher Stasheff, Her Majesty's Wizard
• Bruce Sterling
  • Crystal Express [Most of the stories in here are science fiction, but some are fantasy, and excellent]
  • Love Is Strange: A Paranormal Romance
• Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
• Caroline Stevermer
  • A College of Magics
  • When the King Comes Home
• Bram Stoker, Dracula
• Peter Straub
  • Floating Dragon
  • Ghost Story
  • The Hellfire Club [Arguably, no supernatural elements at all]
  • Houses without Doors
  • In the Night Room
  • lost boy lost girl
  • Magic Terror: 7 Tales
  • Mr. X
  • Shadowland
• Charles Stross [Lovecraftian spy fiction]
  • The "Laundry" series
    1. The Atrocity Archives [The second half is free online now, actually.]
    2. The Jennifer Morgue
    3. The Fuller Memorandum
    4. The Apocalypse Codex
    5. The Rhesus Chart
  • A Colder War [Deeply horrifying]
• James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks
• J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings [Does it need to be said?]
• Ian Tregillis, The Mechanical
• Paul Tremblay, A Head Full of Ghosts
• Henry Turtledove, Between the Rivers
• Catherynne Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden
• Jack Vance [Deserves his own page]
• Carrie Vaughn
  • "Kitty Norville" series
    1. Kitty and the Midnight Hour
    2. Kitty Goes to Washington
    3. Kitty Takes a Holiday
    4. Kitty and the Silver Bullet
    5. Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand
    6. Kitty Raises Hell
    7. Kitty's House of Horrors
    8. Kitty Goes to War
    9. Kitty's Big Trouble
  • "After the Golden Age" series
    1. After the Golden Age
    2. Dreams of the Golden Age
• Paula Volsky [Volsky might --- a bit unfairly --- be called a poor person's Jack Vance. Vance writes this sort of thing better, and has for about as long as Volsky's been alive, but she's still quite good, and, besides, what is one to do in the intervals between acquiring new books by Vance?]
  • The Curse of the Witch-Queen
  • The Gates of Twilight
  • The Grand Ellipse
  • Illusion
  • The Luck of Relian Kru
  • The White Tribunal
  • The Wolf of Winter
  • A trilogy (with no title that I know of) set in Lanthi Ume (roughly, Venice with the government of Naples, plus magicians):
    1. The Sorceror's Lady
    2. The Sorceror's Heir
    3. The Sorceror's Curse
  • The Veiled Isles, as "Paula Brandon"
    1. The Traitor's Daughter
    2. The Ruined City
    3. The Wanderers
• Jo Walton, The Just City
• Lawrence Watt-Evans
  • The Lords of Dûs
    1. The Lure of the Basilisk
    2. The Seven Altars of Dûsarra
    3. The Sword of Bheleu
    4. The Book of Silence
  • The Misenchanted Sword
  • Touched by the Gods
• Patrick Weekes
  1. The Palace Job
  2. The Prophecy Con
• Martha Wells
  • City of Bones
  • The Wheel of the Infinite [Appreciation by James Nicoll]
  • A series of loosely connected novels in a common universe:
    • The Element of Fire
    • The Death of the Necromancer
    • The Wizard Hunters
    • The Ships of Air
    • The Gate of Gods
  • The "Raksura" stories:
    1. The Cloud Roads
    2. The Serpent Sea
    3. The Siren Depths
  • The "Rising World" series:
    1. Witch King
• Elizabeth Willey
  • A Sorceror and a Gentleman
  • The Price of Blood and Honor
  • A Well-Favored Man
• Jen Williams
  The "Copper Cat" trilogy:
  1. The Copper Promise
  2. The Iron Ghost
  3. The Silver Tide
  The "Winnowing Flame" trilogy:
  1. The Ninth Rain
• Liz Williams, Snake Agent
• Tad Williams
  • Tailchaser's Song
  • Memory, Sorrow, Thorn:
    1. The Dragonbone Chair
    2. The Stone of Farewell
    3. To Green Angel Tower
• Walter Jon Williams
  • "Metropolitan" series [Not what is usually meant by "urban fantasy," but rather much better: this has brains; my review of the first two]
    1. Metropolitan [Appreciation by James Nicoll]
    2. City on Fire
  • "Quillifer"
    1. Quillifer
    2. Quillifer the Knight
    3. Lord Quillifer
• Jack Williamson, Darker Than You Think
• Chris Willrich, The Scroll of Years
• Gene Wolfe
  • Castleview
  • The Devil in a Forest
  • Free Live Free
  • There Are Doors
• Gene Wolfe and Neil Gaiman, A Walking Tour of the Shambles (volume 16 of Little Walks for Sightseers)
• N. Lee Wood, Bloodrights
• Sherri Cook Woosley, Walking Through Fire
• Patricia Wrede [Wrede's books are all more or less pitched at younger readers (except The Seven Towers). Lucky kids.]
  • The Book of Enchantments
  • The Seven Towers
  • Duology in a Regency England with period squalor, and scholarly magic:
    1. Mairelon the Magician
    2. Magician's Ward
  • Lyra books [Now back in print in an omnibus, Shadows over Lyra, except for Raven]:
    • Shadow Magic
    • Daughter of Witches
    • The Harp of Imach Thyssel
    • The Raven Ring
  • The Dark Lord's Daughter
• Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
  1. Sorcery and Cecelia; or, the Enchanted Chocolate Pot
  2. The Grand Tour: or the Purloined Coronation Regalia
  3. The Mislaid Magician: or Ten Years After
• Roger Zelazny
  • The first Amber series (of five books) is the only one worth bothering with, and even then the first two books are by far the best:
    • Nine Princes in Amber
    • The Guns of Avalon
  • A Night in Lonesome October
  • The Unicorn Variations
• Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold, Lord Demon