Fantasy

I have always been an avid fantasy reader. I started as a young kid in the late 1980s and ended up reading most of what I believe are the most important works within the genre. As a strong believers that you need to know the past to appreciate the right things in the present, I have developed a canon of the important works of fantasy that everybody should read to be well-versed in it.

In a separate page I keep my Malazan notes, which include the perhaps definitive chronology of the series.

Also worth noting a project of a friend blogger that keeps the count of the wordcount of popular fantasy series here.

Chronology of fantasy of importance

  • 1858: George McDonald’s Phantastes is published. Often considered the first fantasy book for adults.
  • 1865: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is first published.
  • 1922: E.R. Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros is published.
  • 1924: Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter is published.
  • 1929-1930: Kull appears on Weird Tales. His character would end up inspiring the more famous Conan. Further stories would be published posthumously in the late 1960s-1970s.
  • 1932-: Conan the Barbarian appears on Weird Tales in 1932. Main stories would be published throughout the 1930s, with a few posthumously being released during the 1950s and 1960s.
  • 1937: The Hobbit is first published.
  • 1939: the first short story featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, by Fritz Leiber, is published. Many would follow and, later, full books, till the last one in 1988.
  • 1946-1959: Mervyn Peake’s Ghormenghast series is published.
  • 1950: Jack Vance’s the Dying Earth is published.
  • 1954: Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword is published. It is considered by some the forerunner of the grimdark subgenre.
  • 1954-1955: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is published.
  • 1961-: Moorcock’s stories about Elric of Melniboné were published starting from 1961. The first novella is from 1971.
  • 1963: the first volume of the Dune’s series is published. The rest would be in 1969, 1976, 1981, 1984 and 1985. While not technically fantasy, the opera had a great influence on this genre as well, not only sci-fi.
  • 1968-2001: the first volume of the Earthsea’s series, A Wizard of Earthsea, is published in 1968; the proper trilogy ended in 1972, with two additions in 1990 and 2001.
  • 1970-1978: the first 5 books of the Chronicles of Amber are published. Further 5 would see the light between 1985 and 1991.
  • 1971: John Gardner’s Grendel (a retelling of the Beowulf from the point of view of the monster) is published.
  • 1973-1985: stories and novels of Kane by Karl Edward Wagner are published across these years.
  • 1974: Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson publish the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. While technically not a novel, the game’s influence on the fantasy genre cannot be overstated, spawning countless books from gaming sessions using one of the various editions of D&D rules.
  • 1976-1979: the 3 volumes of the Riddle-Master trilogy of Patricia McKillip are published.
  • 1977: The Silmarillion is posthumously published.
  • 1977-1979: the first trilogy of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever is published.
  • 1984-2000: the first novel of the Black Company series is published in 1984. The first trilogy ends in 1985, the second duology in 1990 and finally the last tetralogy in 2000.
  • 1984: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first book of the Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, is published. It was for many years the biggest-selling epic fantasy series, heavily influenced by D&D and Tolkien’s works.
  • 1986: the first story of The Witcher series is published in polish. The short stories would be collected and published between 1992 and 1993, still in polish, while the main series would be published between 1994 and 2013.
  • 1999: Gardens of the Moon, first book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, is published. It had already been completed around 1991-1992 though. The complete decalogy would be all published by 2011. The co-author of the world, Ian Esslemont, had already drafted his first two novels, Night of Knives and Return of the Crimson Guard, a few years earlier than Erikson.
  • 2000: China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station is published.
  • 2004-2006: The first trilogy (The Prince of Nothing) of Scott Bakker’s Second Apocalypse series is published.
  • 2009-2017: The second trilogy (The Aspect-Emperor) of Scott Bakker’s Second Apocalypse series is published.

Warhammer 40k Reading list

Not a fan (yet?) of Warhammer 40k but it has always been suggested to me as something I would love. Eventually I will start reading it. This possible reading list I found on Youtube that is supposedly a gentle introduction to the world and lore, without delving into large books earlier.

  1. Heroes of the Space Marines (short stories collection)
  2. Crusade (short stories collection)
  3. There Is Only War (short stories collection)
  4. Novella Series (1 and 2, another short stories collection)
  5. Valdor: Birth of the Imperium
  6. Dark Adeptus
  7. Path of the Warrior
  8. Eisenhorn (trilogy)
  9. The Macharian Crusade (trilogy)
  10. Night Lords (trilogy)
  11. Ravenor series
  12. Ciaphas Cain series