There are few things quite so melancholy as turning the final page of a beloved book, and those who have wandered the forests of Middle-earth know this sorrow intimately. Yet take heart, dear reader, for though Tolkien’s world may have reached its ending, the realm of fantasy stretches on like a map with edges yet uncharted.
What follows are twelve remarkable tales for those whose hearts were captured by hobbits and elves, by dark lords and brave fellowships. Each possesses that special quality—call it wonder, call it magic—that first drew you through the round green door of Bag End.
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
In the scattered islands of Earthsea, there lived a boy called Ged, and like all boys who would become legends, he had not the faintest idea of what awaited him. Le Guin’s archipelago is a place where true names hold power over all things, where wizards sail between islands on boats that know no fear of storms.
The tale follows young Ged from a village witch’s apprentice to a student at the great wizard school on Roke—a school, one might note, that existed long before certain British institutions became famous for similar instruction. Here is a story about the shadow that lives within us all, told with prose as clean and deep as the sea itself.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
They called him Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, Kvothe Kingkiller—though when we meet him, he is merely an innkeeper with secrets deeper than any wine cellar. Rothfuss crafts a tale within a tale, as our hero recounts his extraordinary life to a chronicler over three days.
From his childhood among traveling performers to his desperate years as a street urchin, from his audacious entrance into a legendary university to his obsession with the mysterious Chandrian who destroyed his family—this is storytelling at its most intoxicating. The prose has been compared to Le Guin herself, which is rather like comparing a new star to the constellations.
The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams
Here is a truth about kitchen boys: they rarely stay in kitchens. Simon, who scrubs pots in the great castle of the Hayholt, dreams of adventures while the world outside prepares to crumble. When an ancient evil called the Storm King stirs from centuries of slumber, Simon’s small life becomes entangled with the fate of kingdoms.
This first volume of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn stands as a bridge between Tolkien’s legendarium and modern fantasy. George R.R. Martin himself has named it among his greatest influences, and one can see why—Williams builds a world with the patience of a master architect, stone by stone, until you suddenly realize you have been living within its walls.
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
Imagine, if you will, a wheel that turns through ages, weaving the threads of human lives into a pattern no mortal can fully comprehend. Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time begins in the Two Rivers, a peaceful place that puts one in mind of the Shire—if the Shire were about to be visited by considerably more trouble.
Three young friends—Rand, Mat, and Perrin—discover that one among them may be the Dragon Reborn, prophesied either to save the world or destroy it utterly. Across fourteen volumes (completed after Jordan’s death by Brandon Sanderson), over two thousand named characters walk through a saga that has captured ninety million readers. That, one must admit, is rather a lot of imaginary friends.
The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
When this book appeared in 1977, it became the first fantasy novel to grace the New York Times bestseller list—proving, as Tolkien’s success had suggested, that readers hungered for epic adventure. Brooks created the Four Lands, a world that rose from the ashes of our own civilization, where magic has returned and an ancient evil threatens once more.
Shea Ohmsford, half-human and half-elven, discovers he is the last of a bloodline capable of wielding the legendary Sword of Shannara against the Warlock Lord. The echoes of Tolkien ring clearly here, yet Brooks has built his own vast mythology across more than forty books—a legacy now continuing under new stewardship.
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
In a world alongside our own, every human soul walks beside them in animal form—a daemon, visible and dear. Young Lyra Belacqua clutches her golden compass, an alethiometer that speaks only truth, and sets forth on adventures that will carry her between worlds and into questions about the very nature of existence.
Pullman’s trilogy came third in the BBC’s Big Read poll, surpassed only by The Lord of the Rings and Pride and Prejudice—rather distinguished company for any tale. Here are armored bears and witches, fallen angels and soul-eating spectres, woven into a coming-of-age story that has sold twenty-two million copies in fifty countries.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
It seems fitting to include the work of Tolkien’s dear friend and fellow Inkling, though their approaches to fantasy differed considerably. Four children—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy—step through an old wardrobe into Narnia, a land held in perpetual winter by a terrible White Witch.
There they meet Aslan, the great golden lion whose name makes the heart beat faster and the world seem larger. Lewis wrote seven Narnian chronicles, each a doorway into wonder, and together they have sold over one hundred million copies. Not bad for adventures that began with a faun carrying an umbrella through the snow.
Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
Garion is a simple farm boy raised by his Aunt Pol, the cook—though as you have perhaps noticed, simple farm boys in fantasy rarely remain so for long. When an ancient orb is stolen, Garion discovers that his aunt is a several-thousand-year-old sorceress, that he is heir to a throne, and that he must face a mad god to save all of creation.
The Belgariad spans five books with titles drawn from chess—Pawn, Queen, Magician, Castle, and Endgame—for this is indeed a cosmic game of strategy. Publishers Weekly once called it “one of the founding megasagas in modern English-language fantasy,” and The Guardian credited Eddings with creating the very craze for doorstop-sized fantasy volumes.
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
On Roshar, mighty storms sweep across a land of stone, and in their wake comes stormlight—magical energy captured in gemstones that powers both commerce and wonder. Brandon Sanderson constructs his Stormlight Archive with an engineer’s precision and a poet’s imagination, building magic systems that actually make sense.
Here are Kaladin, a slave with the soul of a warrior; Shallan, a scholar hiding dangerous secrets; and Dalinar, a warlord haunted by visions of an ancient past. At over a thousand pages, The Way of Kings demands commitment—but over ten million readers have found the investment worthwhile. The series has won the David Gemmell Legend Award, and with ten planned volumes, the architecture continues to rise.
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
From Poland comes Geralt of Rivia, a witcher—a monster hunter enhanced by alchemy and training to be something more than human, yet regarded by most as something less. Sapkowski draws upon Slavic mythology to populate his world with creatures unfamiliar to Western fantasy: strzygas and kikimoras, beings from Polish folklore given new and terrifying life.
What distinguishes these tales is their moral complexity. There is no simple darkness here, no uncomplicated light—only endless shades of gray in a world where fairy tales have grown teeth. With thirty million copies sold and translations into forty languages, Forbes has named The Witcher among the thirty greatest book series of all time.
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
Castle Gormenghast is a character unto itself—vast, crumbling, ancient beyond memory, its inhabitants bound by rituals whose meanings have long been forgotten. Into this decaying magnificence is born Titus, the seventy-seventh Earl, whose destiny will be shaped by the ambitious kitchen boy Steerpike.
Peake writes with a painter’s eye (for he was indeed an artist as well), creating scenes of gothic grandeur and grotesque beauty. Harold Bloom called this the greatest fantasy sequence of the twentieth century, and The Daily Telegraph named Steerpike among literature’s greatest villains. This is fantasy for readers who appreciate prose as a fine art.
Malice by John Gwynne
In the Banished Lands, ancient prophecies speak of two champions—the Bright Star and the Black Sun—who will wage a final war between light and darkness. Young Corban dreams of becoming a warrior, not knowing that the stones themselves have begun to weep blood, that giants stir in their ruins, and that he will stand at the center of the coming storm.
Gwynne writes in the tradition of epic fantasy at its most muscular, winning the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Debut. Comparisons to George R.R. Martin abound, for this is a series where beloved characters may fall and the God-War spares no one. The Faithful and the Fallen quartet offers all the sweep and tragedy that epic fantasy promises.
Finding Your Next Adventure
And there you have it—twelve doorways into wonder, each opening onto worlds as rich and strange as Middle-earth itself. Some are gentle journeys suitable for younger readers; others contain darkness that would trouble even a Ringwraith. All share that essential quality that made Tolkien’s work immortal: the conviction that there are stories worth telling, adventures worth having, and worlds worth believing in.
For those who have worn out their copies of The Lord of the Rings, who know every turn of the path from the Shire to Mount Doom, these books offer new roads to walk. As a certain wizard once said, “Not all those who wander are lost”—and the same might be said for readers in search of their next great fantasy.
