I love me some Epic Fantasy. Like seriously. It was my first real love (of the books I myself have read). I think a few things that make Epic Fantasy really work for me are: the coming of age story with the cool mentor guy, and the hard-sodded life of a backward bumpkin molded into brilliance by using magical powers that no one expected but that rock the world. I love when the magical system is just so amazingly cool you want to grovel at the feet of those who thought it up. I love the setting; the traveling, the taverns, the fighting. I love the clothes (breeches is one of the best words of all time). I love the adventure. I love it when authors take me some place unexpected in a world I never could have imagined myself and I love it when the odds are so steep, the world hangs in the balance. (this must be why I love superheroes so much, hummm I’ve never connected the two).
Anyhow here is a roundup that pays tribute to some of the VERY BEST Epic fantasy that I/you have/will ever read. And for those of you who are checking these stories out now, I am so jealous that you get to experience them for the first time.
THE WHEEL OF TIME by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
THE BELGARION by David Eddings
KINGKILLER CHRONICLES by Patrick Rothfuss
THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE by Brandon Sanderson
LEGENDS OF MUIRWOOD by Jeff Wheeler
THE INHERITANCE CYCLE by Christopher Paolini
(there are about six other really good ones that didn’t make this list. I’ll do another round up of my runners up sometime. For now this is the very best of the best, at least of those I have read.)
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