The 2015 Top r/Fantasy Novels of All Time Poll Results!

[u/potterhead42]

This list includes all those entries that got at least three votes. The links take you to the Goodreads page for the series/book.

Unfinished series are marked with an asterisk. Note that the concept of finished is rather fuzzy.

Change means how much the rank has shifted from last year. Positive means it has improved, negative means it has become lower. N means that this is a new entry, and x means I haven't calculated - because with series having <5 votes, it becomes essentially meaningless.

You can see the full list on this google spreadsheet. And here's the voting thread.

No.	Name	Author	Votes	Change*
1	A Song of Ice And Fire*	George R.R. Martin	136	0
2	The Kingkiller Chronicle*	Patrick Rothfuss	134	1
3	The Stormlight Archive*	Brandon Sanderson	101	3
4	The Lord of The Rings	J.R.R. Tolkien	90	-2
5	Gentleman Bastard*	Scott Lynch	81	2
6	The Wheel of Time	Robert Jordan	76	-1
7	The Malazan Book of The Fallen	Steven Erikson	73	-3
8	Discworld*	Terry Pratchett	54	0
9	The First Law	Joe Abercrombie	53	2
10	Harry Potter	J.K. Rowling	51	0
11	The Broken Empire	Mark Lawrence	50	3
12	The Dresden Files*	Jim Butcher	41	-3
13	Farseer Trilogy	Robin Hobb	41	2
14	The Riyria Revelations	Michael J. Sullivan	40	10
15	Mistborn	Brandon Sanderson	32	-3
16	Raven's Shadow*	Anthony Ryan	22	15
17	Earthsea Cycle	Ursula K. Le Guin	21	2
18	The Second Apocalypse*	R. Scott Bakker	19	7
19	The Lions of Al-Rassan	Guy Gavriel Kay	17	24
20	The Sandman	Neil Gaiman	14	21
21	Demon Cycle*	Peter V. Brett	14	12
22	Powder Mage	Brian McClellan	12	38
23	The Chronicles of Narnia	C.S. Lewis	12	-2
24	Tigana	Guy Gavriel Kay	12	3
25	The Dark Tower	Stephen King	12	-12
26	Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell	Susanna Clarke	12	4
27	Lightbringer*	Brent Weeks	11	8
28	The Chronicles of The Black Company	Glen Cook	11	-11
29	The Silmarillion	J.R.R. Tolkien	11	13
30	The Magicians	Lev Grossman	11	14
31	His Dark Materials	Philip Pullman	11	-13
32	Worm	wildbow	11	N
33	Night Angel	Brent Weeks	10	26
34	The Hobbit	J.R.R. Tolkien	10	18
35	Tawny Man	Robin Hobb	10	12
36	The Book of The New Sun	Gene Wolfe	8	-8
37	Hyperion Cantos	Dan Simmons	7	N
38	The Drenai Saga	David Gemmell	7	-16
39	The Riyria Chronicles*	Michael J. Sullivan	7	N
40	Good Omens	Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett	7	31
41	The Empire Trilogy	Raymond E. Feist/Janny Wurts	7	29
42	The Chronicles of Amber	Roger Zelazny	7	-13
43	The Witcher*	Andrzej Sapkowski	6	5
44	New Crobuzon	China Miéville	6	19
45	Kushiel's Legacy	Jacqueline Carey	6	27
46	The Heroes	Joe Abercrombie	6	7
47	The Legend of Drizzt	R.A. Salvatore	6	N
48	Liveship Traders	Robin Hobb	6	-8
49	The Once and Future King	T.H. White	6	26
50	Long Price Quartet	Daniel Abraham	5	23
51	Abhorsen	Garth Nix	5	4
52	The Iron Druid Chronicles*	Kevin Hearne	5	N
53	Gormenghast	Mervyn Peake	5	36
54	American Gods	Neil Gaiman	5	-34
55	Low Town	Daniel Polansky	4	x
56	The Belgariad	David Eddings	4	x
57	Dune Chronicles	Frank Herbert	4	x
58	Under Heaven	Guy Gavriel Kay	4	x
59	River of Stars	Guy Gavriel Kay	4	x
60	The Fionavar Tapestry	Guy Gavriel Kay	4	x
61	Neverwhere	Neil Gaiman	4	x
62	Stardust	Neil Gaiman	4	x
63	The Riftwar Saga	Raymond E. Feist	4	x
64	Watership Down	Richard Adams	4	x
65	The Stand	Stephen King	4	x
66	Vlad Taltos*	Steven Brust	4	x
67	The Princess Bride	William Goldman	4	x
68	Dragonriders of Pern	Anne McCaffrey	3	x
69	Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne*	Brian Staveley	3	x
70	The Coldfire Trilogy	C.S. Friedman	3	x
71	The Orphan's Tales	Catherynne M. Valente	3	x
72	The Dagger and the Coin*	Daniel Abraham	3	x
73	The Shadow Campaigns*	Django Wexler	3	x
74	Dread Empire	Glen Cook	3	x
75	The Sarantine Mosaic	Guy Gavriel Kay	3	x
76	Kate Daniels*	Ilona Andrews	3	x
77	Ambergris	Jeff VanderMeer	3	x
78	Best Served Cold	Joe Abercrombie	3	x
79	Deverry	Katharine Kerr	3	x
80	The Chronicles of Prydain	Lloyd Alexander	3	x
81	The Acts of Caine	Matthew Woodring Stover	3	x
82	Inheritance	N.K. Jemisin	3	x
83	Riddle-Master	Patricia A. McKillip	3	x
84	The Last Unicorn	Peter S. Beagle	3	x
85	Conan the Barbarian	Robert E. Howard	3	x

[u/potterhead42]

Some observations:

• A chart of vote vs. rank, and a pie chart of the top ten. Notice that it is less steep compared to last year - no. 1 and 2 are neck and neck, I had to double check their votes. ASOIAF is no longer in a clear lead. Is this because of people gettting frustrated at the lack of progress? Maybe. KKC is definitely poised to gain the top spot next year.

• A word cloud of the titles, and of the authors. Why? I dunno, just always wanted to make a word cloud.

• Number of entries - 249, number of votes - 1741, time spent counting and listing - 8 hours.

• Predictably, Sanderson's Stormlight Archive has become much more popular now - Words of Radiance was released after last year's list. My guess is that the series will continue to climb.

• Perhaps the most dramatic rise has been of u/MichaelJSullivan's Riyria Revelations (and Chronicles also made the list), Anthony Ryan's Raven's Shadow, the Lions of Al-Rassan (Kay seems to have done better overall too), and Powder Mage trilogy.

• Mistborn has gone down. I don't know what is wrong with you people. /s

• For a time while making the list it seemed Harry Potter would lose it's spot in the top ten, and I was like "Oh no oh no no nononoooo", but all's well that ends well.

• I remember u/BrianMcClellan saying it would be interesting to see how the list would change over time. Well, there you have it. There are no huge upheavals - nerds still like LoTR. But there have been changes. Also, congrats for Powder Mage having one of the best positive change.

• I've tried to be as accurate as possible, but if anyone finds any errors, please point them out to me. I would've liked to create a Goodreads list too, but I'm totally exhausted right now, so that'll have to wait. Thank you all for participating, and to the mods for cooperating.

[u/Chris_225]

If I had known the Hyperion Cantos counted as fantasy it would have topped my list. Hyperion all the way down at 37 just seems like a crime against humanity. Ok, grumbling done. Thanks for doing this list.

[u/potterhead42 → u/Chris_225]

Well the later books are almost all out SF, but Hyperion itself felt pretty much fantasy when I read it.

[u/The_Mad_Duke]

Thanks u/potterhead! Great to have another list this year, hope this will become a yearly tradition now, it will be fun to track changes over time.

American Gods has fallen a lot. Guess many Gaiman fans have voted for The Sandman instead this year (which is much higher on the list this time).

[u/potterhead42 → u/The_Mad_Duke]

That's exactly why I posted this. There was this discussion a while back about how the list won't change much year to year, and so this year the mods went with favorite authors, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I certainly intend for this to be a yearly thing.

[u/Suppafly]

Is worm really that good?

[u/potterhead42 → u/Suppafly]

Hey, I just counted the votes, you gotta ask those who voted for it. That said, I've run across worm recommendations a lot of times, and methinks it really must have something going for it to be so popular even though it's a webserial, not even a proper ebook out yet.

[u/[deleted]]

I am very surprised that the Lions of Al-Rassan beat out Tigana. I mean, I love The Lions... but Tigana has way more critical acclaim. Glad to see Kate Daniels on there representing for the urban fantasy -- even if I like The Hollows more. I'm also surprised American Gods is so low for all the praise it seems to get.

[u/potterhead42 → u/[deleted]]

critical acclaim

But the thing is, this is a list decided by popular vote. It's a measure of popularity, but not quality - even though in my experience there is a correlation between the two

[u/MarkLawrence]

We really do need a brave soul to run a 'favourite female fantasy author' poll.

[u/potterhead42 → u/MarkLawrence]

Couldn't we just use the normal authors list for that?

[u/lrich1024]

Dude. You are amazing. Thanks for putting all this data together. I think there were some pretty interesting shifts. I noticed Melanie Rawn's Exiles fell off the list. And I think I counted a total of 13 entries by women authors out of 85. Huh. I wonder what it was last time? Interesting data! Again, thanks!

[u/potterhead42 → u/lrich1024]

Last year's top 85 had 14 + 1 co authored books by female writers, and three of those entries were Robin Hobb.

[u/JayRedEye]

Thanks for all the hard work. It is interesting to see the subtle shifts in tastes and trends.

As always, we are very much biased towards The New Hotness. I would like to see a list of older works, say pre-1985 or so. But how many lists do we really need?

[u/potterhead42 → u/JayRedEye]

You can never have too may knives lists.

[u/Monsterpocalypse]

Thank you for all the work you put in! Would it be possible to do a favorites list of favorite non-fantasy books?

[u/potterhead42 → u/Monsterpocalypse]

But... this is a fantasy sub. I am confused.

[u/here_for_the_lols]

I havent read enough so didnt feel i could vote. I am starting near the top though thats promising!

[u/The_Real_JS]

Well done! This must have taken some time. Thank you!

[u/potterhead42 → u/The_Real_JS]

Oh yes, eight hours, but who's counting ;)

You're welcome!

[u/phrakture]

Anhony Ryan

typo.

[u/Emospence]

The * for incomplete series is great.

[u/MarkLawrence]

One vote off the top 10! :o

Given that 10th place goes to the biggest selling fantasy book of all time (or 2nd biggest), I think we can say that there's a strong demographic factor here, and also that I (like Messrs Sullivan and McClellan) benefited from being on 'home-turf'.

That said, it's a huge honour and I'm extremely grateful for all the votes - means a lot.

[u/REkTeR]

Interesting to see the Hyperion Cantos make the list - I know that a lot of the time Scifi and Fantasy are seen as just two sides of the same coin, but you really have to be very, very liberal to apply the Fantasy tag to Hyperion.

I'm also super excited to see Worm on the list - no joke, it may be my absolute favorite out of everything I've read for the last 2 years.

[u/bahamut19]

It's certainly a very nice list, but I'm a bit uncomfortable that the 3 best of all time are unfinished works. It will be interesting to see if they stay there when they're finished.

Edit: Having said that if you take out the unfinished ones from the top 10, you end up with LoTR, WoT, Malazan, Discworld, First Law, and Harry Potter. They're certainly be the first 6 that come to my mind if asked to write a list of the best finished fantasy works of all time.