Top Ten Favorite Fantasy Novels

Fantasy worlds are my favorite places to live. As I was growing up, my heavily wooded backyard was Lashai, and I spent hours and hours there, different trees representing different places in my world. It was a heart crushing day for me when I walked out my back door and could no longer see my world there. Granted, I was at least sixteen years old before this unhappy moment.

When real life failed to yield fantastic results, I drowned my sorrows in books. My list may seem someone juvenile, but Children’s and Young Adult literature have always been favorites of mine. This warm feeling toward the genre grew increasingly the longer I taught English to Junior High and High School. It is a love I can’t escape, and I can’t say I’m sorry about that. These are not in any order because I can’t do that. I can’t rank things I love. Blame it on having five children. I love them all for different reasons, and there are no favorites.

  1. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis–I know you don’t need an explanation for this choice, so I won’t give any.
  2. The Black Cauldron, by Lloyd Alexander-not to boast or anything, but I have a hand-typed letter from the man himself. I wrote him to tell him how much I enjoyed his work. He wrote back because that’s what writers do.
  3. The High King, by Lloyd Alexander-another excellent addition to the Chronicles of Prydain.
  4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling–Her masterpiece. I couldn’t believe they ruined the end of the movie, by deviating from her best work. Why would they do that? How dare they?
  5. All the other Harry Potter books, by J. K. Rowling–I am entirely under their spell.
  6. City of Bones–City of Glass, by Cassandra Clare–I liked the original trilogy. I thought, in later books, she should have limited the amount of times she described Jace’s golden body. But a talented writer and storyteller, for sure.
  7. The Queen of the Tearling Trilogy, by Erika Johanson–a brilliantly woven tale, and one of the few adult fantasies to make its way into my hands.
  8. The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien–If you’ve only seen the movies, forget them forever and read the book. They were okay, and by that, I mean that Martin Freeman is convincing as Bilbo. But the book was much more brilliant.
  9. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, by J. R. R. Tolkien–living proof that, when you’re trying to discover if you have a good story or not, always hand it to a child to read. No one can find flaws, or fall in love like children.
  10. The Namarielle, by me – I cannot lie. I love my world and my characters because they are practically a part of me. I am deeply engulfed in Lashai at the moment, and only tore myself away long enough to write this list.

Alright, so your turn! Any favorites? Any holes in my list? I am always looking for new fantasy worlds to live in, so by all means, share yours and why.