My Top 10 Fantasy Series (As Of 2022)

well it's been two years i guess let's go ahead and do this again [Music] [Music] hey what's up bookworms and fantasy lovers mike back again to talk some favorite fantasy series of all time this is a video i kind of did on the fly two years ago this month and uh it's something that people always commonly ask me hey you ever going to update that the reason i did this because i said i don't feel like maybe maybe enough hasn't changed incident i was like you guys want me to like do it and like two things change everything else stays the same well i actually kind of looked at it and i said okay i feel like there's been enough changes there i can do this in good condition i think every two years because i'm reading a lot of new series some of them are great some series are kind of dropping off for different reasons not necessarily because they're bad or being replaced with anything just maybe you know as i've grown as a reader i guess you'd say yes even two years i think you can grow as a reader and uh some things have changed so i think now is a good time as i need to update this list let's just jump right into it's gonna be 10 favorite fantasy series of all time as of april 2022 but uh i do of course have a couple of honorable mentions first there'll be some things to have some people flipping some tables right away but as always guys i don't remember these are just my opinion uh obviously if i haven't read that series it's probably not gonna be on this list i mean that doesn't really make a lot of sense because the most common comment on the last video was where's this series this one this one this one's well if you haven't read it obviously it can't be my favorite but uh yeah i encourage you to tell me what your favorites are instead of telling my my mind suck but you know this is internet these things happen so honorable mentions uh first of all i gotta go with uh raira just the universe is a whole by michael j sullivan it's a series i really love writing revelations haven't gotten to chronicles yet i'm about halfway through legends of the first empire i kind of luke warm on that one whereas i love writer revelations so i think that's enough for it to keep it out of the top ten but it's definitely something i feel like is going to keep growing i think that that universe that he's building is just massive and it's just going to keep getting better and better and uh just so just some writing choices that he's made in the prequel series i'm kind of like uh on whereas writer revelations i think maybe i just missed royce and hadrian a lot but maybe one of the best duos ever in fantasy and those are tough shoes to fill you know when you're going you know thousands of years in the past so i think that might be a reason why but uh it's still it's one of those i could see being on this list you know who knows by 2025 or something like that who knows we shall see another one i got to kind of talk about this would be the first mover from the last list that fell out of the top 10 is on the honorable mentions here this is the chronicles of narnia by c.s lewis now this isn't because i felt like uh it just doesn't really deserve anymore i kind of started looking at being like how much of this can you really base just off nostalgia mike i mean there's some things you got to look at be like you love this because you read it when you were a kid and i did i read narnia when i was a kid it's always going to be beloved to me but it's like it's one of those things when you get a little older can you really look at it the same way you did as a kid now when i read uh narnia now i go back and i think it's charming as can be but it's nowhere near what i would call my top 10 at this point so it's so serious it's always going to be dear to me i think it's a very very monumentally important series especially for young readers to get into but i really don't think i can call it a top 10 for me at this point in life anymore but uh yeah it spent a long time on this list up here so no regrets there it's a it's a series i think it's just fantastic and if you've got a young reader please let them cut their teeth on that in the hobbit because i think that's to be the best place for them to start and then probably the one i said i'll probably have people flipping tables honorable mentioning uh malazon now the reason that this is on an honorable mention and not in the top ten is i think it will be in the top ten one day i need to complete it first i've got three books left uh i have enjoyed five of the seven that i've read immensely and immensely enjoyed them the other two was kind of hit or miss you can watch all those reviews on the channel if you wanna know what i mean but uh it's one of those things where i can't in good conscience put it on this top 10 here when i haven't finished it because these last three books could be completely unsatisfying to me and then i'm going to be like ah well no that's not really a top 10 fan series so i think it's definitely off of its ambition alone of what mr erickson has done i think it definitely should go there in the top 10 but again i i think that was just kind of like a to be determined there i'm going to give it an incomplete because i have yet to finish it but i still hope to sometime this year okay guys let's move into the list proper here this is number 10 and this is going to seem kind of recent but i really couldn't find a reason to keep it off of here and this is memory sorrow and thorn by tad williams this is a series that i have put off reading for 20 plus years uh much to the best of my brothers urging uh you know i i just kept putting it off kept finding a reason to not do it and i'm glad that i finally did it because i thought it was absolutely wonderful it was a very very slow journey there is a very slow burn to the series but it's one i think has a very satisfying conclusion so uh it's one of those things where do i think it should have been shorter not necessarily that's just chad williams writing style i think so if you don't need you know the action non-stop action every page and you'd like to just do some character studying and some world building i think it'll be a series that you like quite a bit i think fans of robin hobb will really really love this series because when i was reading i got a lot of far survived out of the beginning of it so uh just your typical traditional fantasy it's one i think it's very important because it felt like the bridge between like 80s traditional fantasy and to kind of what we got to with like a song of ice and fire i felt like that bridge between it where you know our characters weren't necessarily safe he was killing off important characters there was a lot of grim stuff being happening uh being involved with our characters a lot of bad things happening to them so i think it's very important for that reason alone and it definitely deserves a place here in my top ten and i think that i will definitely be reading more tab williams in the future i know i'll be reading more osinr but i'm also going to uh take a break from that and i'm going to read other land next but yes chad williams uh three for three for me at this point and uh you know i mean i guess if you want to call book three through one book i mean it's just it's just monstrous but a great series but as long as you understand it is a little slower paced but it has a great payoff and one of the most satisfying conclusions to a fancy series i've read in a long long time number nine now this might be the point where if i look at the analytics of this video after i post it where everybody clicks off because this is the biggest mover from my 2020 list and it's going to surprise some people here and this is the cosmere by brandon sanderson yes this dropped like five spots from before and i think the reason why guys because i still think any of these series in the top 10 are an all-timer for me i've read a ton of fantasy series so i don't think anything should be ashamed for being in this list but with me at the time i hadn't read everything by brandon sanderson since then i've read elantras i've read mistborn era 2. uh i've read war breaker i've read just everything in the cosmere outside of just stormlight cardigan i've only read mistborn arrow one and stormlight archive the last time i did this so that's why i kind of moved down because miss born error two didn't really work for me elantris big miss for me so it was one of those things where i still think he's an absolutely incredible writer and uh the series does deserve his spot here in the top 10. but i it's one of those it's like it kind of went down a little bit for me because i especially i didn't even really care for the the fourth stormlight book that even brought that down a little bit and that's one of my favorite fantasies here is going right now with stormlight archive so it was just one of those things i think i've kind of looked at and just said maybe it's not quite as infallible as i thought it was you know so uh but again guys you got to understand that this in my top ten this is this is quite quite big uh just so i'll be in this here and i definitely think it's within this and it's storm life 5 could come out and you know what when i do this series again uh it'll be back up in the top five i'm sure so it's just one of those things where i i read everything by him and felt like okay i feel like i'm almost you know batting like about 600 with him which is still great but uh yeah yeah i think miss porn error 2 and elantra's really really brought the average down for me but again like i said in the top ten i i don't feel really bad about it but i know a lot of uh sanderson knights or whatever whatever they're called sandersonian sandersonians maybe uh i i feel like they're gonna be very very upset about that but again uh like i said i don't consider anything on this there's anything short of incredible and that's why at number eight guys i have the dresden files i'm completely current on this now i had it kind of like uh i think i had it like in the bottom half of my top ten might have been in the same spot i don't know i should have watched anything before i did this but i hadn't finished it yet and obviously i guess i can't finish it because he's not mr butcher's not done with it yet but i am current with the series and it's a series that people will tell you when you first start oh it just gets better and better and you think that's just a line right well it turns out it's true somehow he has found a way to make his series just get better and better as it goes along it's really amazing because you know usually they start to degrade a little bit they start to feel a little formulaic and there are some that will kind of fall into that hey i know what's going to happen next with these but i still think that each one has its own identity and it makes it more than just your monster of the week because he does have continuing storylines to just keep going and you realize that you've been through almost 20 years of this character's life at this point and you're still anxious to find out what happens next that's amazing that's amazing that mr butcher's been able to do this so harry dresden uh definitely an all-time character my only fan urban fantasy series i've ever read if you don't count hellblazer or uh or you know a lot of people don't count comics you know so i don't really ever want to say that or buff in the vampire slayer books i don't know what classifies as you know urban fantasy has such a so there's a lot of people will be like yeah that is and then the next person will be like no that is not urban fantasy i don't know but that's the only one i have on the list i think that is without a doubt called urban fantasy and it deserves its place here in the top ten i think if you haven't read it yet you're really really missing out you should definitely check it out because it does just get better and better and guys you can read through those so quick i caught up before peace talks in like eight months time while i was reading wheel of time at the same time so there we go guys how about number seven a new entrant on this list from the last time i did this this is going to be the banished lands by john goin this is a faithful in the fallen this is a blood and bone seven books and i think all seven of them are damn near flawless this guy kind of came out of nowhere for me it was one of those things where sometimes you just get this idea that say there's this band that is really popular and you never really listen to it but you just know that they're gonna click for you that's kind of how it wasn't me and john gwen i had never read a word but for some reason i just had this gut feeling he was gonna be an author i love so i bought all seven of these books before i read a single one and i was right because it's a series that i just i flew through and i could not get enough of and while i'm at the point now where i'm like hey i'm too old to reread a lot of these fan series i know i'll reread faithful in the fall in one day because i really do love that series now i like faithful fallen a bit more than a blood and bone because it is i love that crew a little more but the blood and bone was phenomenal it really really was so i think that this is an author that everyone is kind of learning about in the fantasy community uh the the um bloodstorm saga right now is really getting a lot of new eyes on his content but yeah faith on the fallen is just that's right up there just like as soon as i i was reading it i just knew i was reading like an instant classic for me this was something i was going to revisit a lot and i definitely think it's been two years now since i read it i definitely think that uh i yeah i'm really missing corbin in the gang i got to get back to it someday so i think if there's any series out there that is prime to be turned into a series on hbo or netflix or something like that this is it i think this would be phenomenal television so uh yeah pick up these if you haven't yet guys this is when i only the arrow is pointing up i can see this one being higher on the list as time goes by because i'm only liking it more and more now the rest of them here i feel like you may have heard them before they might be in a little bit of an order different order so some have stayed in the same place some have moved a little bit here so i don't want to go give away the tension or anything let's move on to number six uh number six for me is going to be the wheel of time now i can't remember that's the same place or not but i remember people were upset where i had it last time with me i said that legacy takes time i had just finished with a time like literally a week before i made that list last time i feel like the arrow is definitely still pointing up uh when the show came out and recounting the books i really did remember just how much i really did love my journey on the wheel of time i sure warts and all i do really love it i could see why people read this series again and again and again and if i had read it when i was younger sure i'd be more willing to commit to reading it again like i said this age i feel like i'll never be able to read everything i want before i uh you know move on to the grey havens but uh right now i'm like yeah i don't got time for another 14 book series uh so i don't know if i'd ever reread it but i could definitely see why people want to because even at the very beginning robert jordan is really planting those seeds for everything that's going to happen in that series and i think on a reread it would just be absolutely amazing because looking back at eye of the world there is stuff that he foreshadows in that first book that come around to play at the end of the series just absolutely amazing amazing plotting by this guy and uh yeah he's a beautiful beautiful writer so is the series a little longer the two sometimes it can feel that way but i think it's one of those words the journey is definitely worth it anytime you got a 14 book series you're gonna have some that might not be as good as others but i definitely don't think that takes away from it but i also think that's the reason why i can't put it in my top five yet but that's again like i said another one where i feel like the legend of it only grows as time goes by so i can see that definitely moving up sometime in the future now number five this is probably my least favorite at least a popular pick on this list but i will never discount what harry potter has meant uh to to my life to sharing it with my kids now is really just something that uh just goes to show that this is a story that is just knows nothing about it's not bound to any one generation any gender any religious ideals anything it is for everyone it doesn't matter about what age you are it doesn't matter about what kind of books you like harry potter was for everyone and it still feels that way because my kids seamlessly just instantly just hooked on this and reading it to my kids again just made me remember how much i loved this and the reason that i i said last time and i got to kind of echo it again here is i don't think that we will ever see a movement like we saw for harry potter ever again i don't think we'll ever see people standing in line at bookstores at midnight at walmart at midnight just waiting for a book release like we did with deathly hallows we will never see that again and i i feel very comfortable saying i know a lot of people when i say that people are like oh i bet you when the doors of stone or when's the winter comes out i don't think so you will never see that because it didn't cross into the mainstream like harry potter did so i don't think you'll ever see the mania like you see for harry potter still to this day so uh yeah it's something that i'm going to always love i'm always going to appreciate what it meant how it got people that weren't interested in reading at all into reading that is the most important thing to me it's always about i don't care what you're reading as long as you're reading and harry potter got a bunch of people who weren't reading anymore or at all to pick up a book and read that's why it'll always be special to me and of course the story ain't half bad either it's a story that i sure you can look at it you know as a smug big time fantasy snob and be like yeah i can pick holes all through this thing but you know what it's still fun it's still charming and you still love all those characters and i think that that is a testament to its greatness so i will always champion that series just like i will number four guys it actually moved up a spot from last time and this is stephen king's the dark tower i am doing my dark tower reread right now and i am loving every minute of it this is a series that i think is just so amazing because there's not another one like it at all i can't thank everything sure he's got like hat tips of those like tolkien and things like that things that you know obviously inspired him but never once are you reading laura i'm sorry are you reading dark tower and be like hey this reminds me of this one series there is nothing else like it it is such a unique trip and what he did being able to tie his entire universe of books together and making the dark tower its connective tissue it's just nothing short of just stunning what he was able to do with this series yeah i have my problems with the latter half of the series and i'm going to be interested to see how i feel about it when i revisit those now at this age so that's why i don't think it would ever be my favorite of all time but it's up there it's in the conversation it is hanging out on that same path of the beam as these other ones on this list so dark tower is a story that will always stay with me you know i read it for the first time when i was 19 which i don't think was a coincidence by the way and it was just something that has always just stayed right here i've always had it close to the heart because i just related to those characters so much i loved that group i loved that journey and i think when you go about a story as is just about the journey i think this is right there with lord of the rings and just like you feel like you went to hell and back with those characters and there's no one better at character than stephen king and it goes to show with roland and company so i we are working through that i'm going to be finishing my re-read of that here in the next few months and i'm very excited to continue to talk about that along the way because it's a story that i think is only going to get better with time so number three guys and even though it is incomplete that does not matter this is still one of the greatest fantasy series of all time this is george rr martin's a song of ice and fire now i'm not gonna lie i'm kind of excited for this universe again because house of the dragons coming out on hbo and i remember when i read fire and blood the book that that series is loosely based off of when i read it when it came out i was jaded i was mad still that there weren't winds of winter wasn't out and i i think that ruined my enjoyment of it so i'm going to reread it before that series starts i think i'm going to have a great time with it this time because i remember being it was good i was just i was just mad it wasn't the book that i wanted from george but this series as a whole guys is just a phenomenal read and the thing is like the first three books i would put on par with any other fantasy series out there and i think that the stuff that george does on the side his history books his encyclopedias things like that just building the history of this world is right there with tolkien it right there for middle earth with just building up the history and the lore of this universe it's just so deep and so compelling and it's just like every single little tidbit that you get about this world outside of the main five books is wow i'd like to see a whole story about that because it's just so compelling and with the main story obviously i think at this point you probably know because i don't think there's very many people who didn't at least watch the show right but with the the books is i i think that what george was able to do was he was able to make every moment feel like the stakes were just humongous it could be something as simple as a dinner party and attention would be ramped to 11 because you'd feel like at the end of this dinner things could be changed so much that the entire land is gonna look different and he was able to do that with every damn page everything was always such high stakes and you're just holding your breath the whole time you're reading it these are long books you can't hold your breath that long it's not good for you but uh yeah the attention is just incredible in those books the twists the turns the characters uh you know i always tell people when they were first getting into the books you know don't get attached to anybody uh yeah i i think he really set the bar for that for now now you get these series where everybody thinks they've got to kill like 500 characters and they say hey it's because george martin but it isn't just because of that guys i think he always made those matter because he's so good at character work he made you care about those characters before he took him away from you and that's why those deaths were lasting and meaningful but yeah yeah sure i could see here to tell you i i wish it was complete too who doesn't you know and i think it would be in contention for number one if the story was complete because it's just that good and it's one of those i say look the story isn't complete but in spite of that it's still a top three fantasy series all time for me so that tells you how special that story really really was and i don't think that that story would have connect when it was very faithfully adapted those first five or six seasons that's why it connected with so many people who weren't even into fantasy because the story is incredible and it's because that source material is absolutely incredible so that's another one like i said with like with harry potter i will fight to the death that people want to act like it's not important anymore because he hasn't finished it i disagree this is an absolutely important series and it's the reason that a lot of writers that we have now got interested in writing fantasy books so i think that we should all bend the knee to mr george on that and put some respect on his name even if we're frustrated with him about when's a winner i definitely think he deserves our respect for sure number two guys not a change here the first law by joe abercrombie and this is one that uh just keeps building because uh since i made that last video he's completed another trilogy in that series with the the age of madness but it all starts with me with that first series in that to me when i read this this felt like this felt like a song of ice and fire but without the dragons and without the prophecy kind of stuff it was just very much straightforward in your face it felt as cruel and punishing as westeros did the politics were just as good just as backstabbing and he created some of the most memorable characters of all time and logan giselle and of course galacta probably my most intriguing fantasy character of all time i i can't think of any other series where he can write such despicable characters and you find yourself rooting for them like you want them to win so i i think it's the first series that i read where i was like wow i am rooting for the bad guys to win because it really feels like that sometimes and you start looking at you're like well you know there are no good guys no bad guys you know that that was something new to me at the time it's really what they did song of ice and fire did that pretty well making everything morally gray and this really just perfected that and that's why it clicks so well with me and it has just like an all-timer of an ending at the the first trilogy is just a complete just yeah big time and it's something that uh even when i revisited it a couple years back when i first started this channel it was something i found that it was just as wonderful it was the first time that i read it and uh you know this universe just continues to grow now he's going to go do this other series i think it's called devils but uh you know he's going to come back to this if you read the age of madness and you see how it ended there's no way he's ending it there there's no way he's going to come back to this universe and i will be there waiting because it is just greatness and i can't get enough on it but i mean if you guys are fans of the channel you've been here for a while you know that this series is obviously very very important to me it's a big reason why i started this channel because when i started the channel it was an accident i was doing this real time stuff and i said hey is this just because willow time or this is something i could do and then i started talking about first law and got so many new people to read it and talk to you about it and i felt like okay well now people know how important this series is to me because that was the first one outside of wheel of time that i covered on the channel and um i would love to do more first law content on the channel so uh since we didn't get any new books by him uh in that universe for a while i think i might actually go back and revisit those who knows we will see what happens and guys i think by now you've done the math you know what's number one yes the top three did not change in this number one this is the habit this is the lord of the rings this is middle earth guys and i don't think that this can ever change for me i had someone ask me to live stream do you think anything ever has a chance of knocking tolkien out of your top spot on this list i i don't see how not this point in life because while you might go back and look at and say hey well you said with chronicle scenario was a nostalgia thing here's the difference though this doesn't just feel like something i liked when i was young you know this feels still feels amazing still feels epic still feels grand i go back and read it now and i'm still floored by how incredible it is even at this age and even if this you know just this much well worn around other fantasy series now i still find something special about this series and i mean this is before you're even talking about how influential it was how much it meant to everyone else around all those fancy authors that we love today they cut their teeth on the hobbit and the lord of the rings you know but i mean you talk about world building and you're talking about that outside of just those main four books what he was able to do to completely create a universe was just unheard of at the time and obviously a lot of that work got completed posthumously but you know unlike uh brian herbert uh christopher tolkien actually cared about his dad's material so it that's why i think that it actually has just persevered over time and of course when the movies came out it brought up a whole new generation of fans for the story but for me guys it'll always be like just the very essence of the journey you know it's eternal for that reason the journey this is it this is the journey to end all journeys it's a tale of friendship tale of self-discovery and these are themes that i will just always be connected to it'll always be special to me sure the hobbit there might be a little bit of a nostalgia there since that was my first fantasy book but guys i i read i've read lord of the rings seven times now and i love it more and more every single time so i definitely don't think it's an age thing besides dune that is the series that i have read the most times in my life and i could read it tomorrow and be happy because it's still just that good i mean there's parts where i can just put the book down and i can probably recite that paragraph for you doesn't matter it's just that good it doesn't matter that i know what's coming because i've heard some people say i want to reread you know all the stakes are gone doesn't matter with this story because it's just that magical it's a magical journey and uh you know what sometimes we need a little magic that's why we love fantasy right guys but guys that was my updated list for my top 10 uh fantasy series of all time now i've had people ask me hey i want you to do one for sci-fi i don't think i've run a sci-fi series to do that you know i haven't read nearly as much science fiction as i have fantastic so i'm trying to kind of amp up some science fiction because i think right now i maybe could do 10 series science science fiction series that i've read you know so that's why i did another one for fantasy but again this was something that people kept asking me for they kept asking me to update this so i hope you're not too upset or disappointed with it but uh you know again i would appreciate if you just drop in the comments and let me know what you guys ten favorite fantasy series are because i would love to talk to you about them and hey you want to go ahead and recommend some to me that i don't have on this list i might not have read them let me know down below guys and i will talk to you there [Music]

Channel: Mike's Book Reviews

Views: 67,019

Keywords: Review, Reaction, Reading, Books, recap, top 10, rankings, lord of the rings, tolkien, cosmere, stormlight archive, mistborn, brandon sanderson, dark tower, stephen king, first law, joe abercrombie, wheel of time, robert jordan, dresden files, jim butcher, harry potter, jk rowling, a song of ice and fire, george rr martin, game of thrones, chronicles of narnia, cs lewis, riyria, john gwynne, faithful and the fallen, tad williams, memory sorrow thron, malazan, steven erikson, rank

Id: kWkWlFNREdg

Length: 27min 6sec (1626 seconds)

Published: Wed May 11 2022