When you've been reading for centuries you tend to develop opinions on the best of the best books you've read. So here's my top 50 of the best of fantasy. ●Main Channel● / dwyrin
Thanks for the reviews! I’m off to read Battlemage now. Have you read Jack Vance’s “Dying Earth” stories? They inspired so many other writers and are really great fantasy. Cugel is one the best anti hero’s in fantasy. And, as a bonus, the author did not drag the writing out in a series of progressively worse over long series of novels.
Good video thank you for all the recommendations. I want to try Dragon of Autumn Twilight and the mistborn series. I don't generally read fantasy books but I have also never really given it a try. Also maybe golden compass I always hear so much about this one and truth be told I am a bit of a child when it comes to books so maybe this will appeal to me more.
Dragonlance chronicles is the best ever.... highly recommended. And it leads into the land of Krynn that you can enjoy for 30 more novels. Say hi to Tasslehoff when you get there.
Thank you for adding a bunch of books to my miles long TBR list :D I would recommend Joe Abercrombie First law serie if you haven't read it. It's awesome.
Been watching you play Go for years and I liked hearing your perspectives on books. I love WoT so much but I don't actually disagree with your C tier. Gardens of the Moon however is the best series ever written! Ok, but that's mostly just me. It's a unique series. Thanks for the recommendation of some books I hadn't heard of!
It's hard reviewing GOTM as a single entry considering the series spans 10 books but as a standalone I would probably agree. Fortunately books 2-8 are exceptional.
lol I love your flagrant disrespect of the Internet. We can classify that as punching up, on a jerk who had it coming. I was disappointed to not hear what you thought of The Witcher, as in my quite limited experience it stands out (at least the first couple books). I have now added Lies of Locke Lamora to my queue, and I may return here for more later. Thank you for the great vid!
I considered the witcher but oddly enough it wasnt on any of the toplists that i saw and already put in a few of my lesser known picks. Since witcher is very well known, left it off.
Yeah it was great, but the series is now dead to me. Hes just trying to milk what he created for all its worth and the last book in the first series is terrible terrible garbage. very sad.
Have you read SCI-FI? And/or maybe some "modern era fantasy" like the Dresden Files or the Pendergast series? How about combinations of the two, like Starship Mage?
@@dwyrinReads and I forgot to say: good vid! I have read a few of the books you rated, and I generally agreed with your ratings. I might even try out a few that I’ve not yet read
There is no book or book series ever that you could skip hundreds or even thousands of pages and still understand the plot, politics, and character development
Well you are clearly a lot more experienced than me but I loved the Stormlight archive book 3 and the side arc you said it was not needed it’s the story of one of the most important character in the series, I actually loved the book because of the side arc ( dalanar origin story)
I Was interested in your opinion but had to stop watching after you put Wheel of Time so low. Skip books?? It was a long series, I will give you that, but excellent and I would never skip any of the books they were all great!!!! Just my opinion.
Hi, I understand you liked it, but honestly this serie could be written in 6 books instead of 14, for ithe exact same story, it only would have been better not loosing this much time writing
Songs of chaos is epic easily “A tier”. I do agree that the second book was more of a set up for things to come. But defiant was worth the pay off. Next, to me Inheritance cycle is the best fantasy of all time. Don’t agree with Dark Elf being s-class to me that is barely a B deftly a top C. Game of thrones is definitely a C. Hobbit is a A-class. As lord of the rings as a whole is S-class. But fellowship was the only one that was C to me. There are 5 books there that I didn’t read. But everything else looks right.
Didn't know you were a fantasy nerd like me. Color of magic isn't for me either. Agree on Way of Kings. Robin Hobb is always S tier for me personally though
The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin is a series I don't see recommended very often that you might enjoy. Jemisin is a great author, the book has strong female characters, and it is quite unlike most other fantasy novels.
Hi, big thank you, I really think this is the best documented non spoiler tier list on the web today. For sure , you're missing big names like Abercrombie or Gwynne. But listening to why Eragon, Harry Potter and Wheel of times are where there are on this list is spot on. Even Lightbringer I can understand you point of view. I also like that you class them in a tier instead of classing them by rank, because the next one on the lost goes at the end of a tier, except a few. But seeing where you class Red Sister, and Name of the Wind, I see that you really read them, and that we have the same taste. Also, for the 25% on your list that I did not read so far, this will be good for my tbr. And I could suggest that you put some David Gemmel on your tbr, pretty sure you will like all his characters (Druss, Waylander and Skilgannon). Yep .. very nice way to spend a hour listening to this fantasy tier list. Keep up the good work, you got a new subscriber. Cheers
@@dwyrinReads whats wrong with wise mans fear? sure, some plot didn't make it. how does that make it a worse book? its still amazing, and one could argue its better than the first book
Second comment, not gonna say that you're wrong in your opinions, but a lot of the time something you'd criticize one series for is the exact thing you'd praise in another series. Made your reviews seem rather disingenuous. And I definitely feel like you should have at least done a summary review or something for all the series you talked about because some of them you seemed to know or remember very little of. Made the vid very frustrating to watch
Overall not the worst list I’ve seen but it’s pretty bad. For the most part you are ranking the longer series lower just because you don’t have the attention span to fallow the storyline. Even so I know tier lists are subjective.
I would say you can't give game of thrones higher than wheel of time if you have similar complaints and it's an unfinished series which I would say drops it even lower
Hi, me I understand, personnaly I could remove minimum 6 books of reading in WOT (300 pages in each book) so much things are not important and drag the story, and then it would probably deserve the #1 stop
Well at least you put that Goodking crap at the bottom. Got that right at least; other than that I don't see much that matches up to how I would rank things or how I ever see them ranked on Reddit either. Don't know why you named Reddit as a source because this is nowhere close.
terry goodkind on the list? Alloy of law S tier? The Malazan Book of the Fallen written by our one true God Steven Erikson, B TIER!?!?! Gave me a good chuckle🙂Thanks
Hi, I agree with you for Allow, but a D is fine for Terry or even not in the list, but since it's popular, good the see it in last place lol, As for Malazan, I don't disagree with his position after listening his explanation
I’m not sure how you give Game of Thrones a pass for not being finished while crushing Wheel of Time several tiers for having a few books you would skip
Name of the wind in B is crazy. No book on this list is written as well as that book and I have read them all. The rhyme schemes the pacing the characters I think you need to re-read that book today.
A character dies so you can just skip anything written about that character. whew. What a rough way to judge a story. Im all for unique takes and different perspectives but these dripping in ego takes using pretty suspect logic are hard to watch.
A character dying is ok, but do you need to read about that character to follow whats going on in the following books? Did the character dying meaningfully impact the surviving characters into understanding their motivations? If not....
Like your videos but you’re dead wrong about Eragon, you didn’t consider the genius of the entirety of the series, the majestic storytelling, life in the characters, my opinion but that hurt
I did my own tier list and Eragon is in the last position, so I understand him. The first book is really good, in the second Paolini is not developing enough the characters and story is not moving fast enough, I DNF book 3 four times before pushing myself to read it all, boring, and book 4 is just too long for nothing, but good idea about the eggs.
You should put TRIGGER WARNING on this video, lol. Okay, I’ve stopped hyperventilating. Suffice it to say, I have to respectfully (though vehemently) disagree with almost every remark you made regarding the books on this list I’ve read. ASOIAF is S, period full stop, the entire series, it’s an objective fact known to all humanity, and even God agrees. But you knew that was coming. No books in WOT may be skipped. No sections may be skipped, no newbies may be advised to skip. Simply put, WOT is not for the weak. That’s why it is S, start to finish. Mistborn Era 2 better than Era 1? Elantris better than Mistorn? Broken Empire better than ASOIAF? I respect your opinions, even though I just had to do another breathing exercise to calm down. Wise Man's Fear is not just Kvothe doing nothing in the forest ... did we read the same book? I did not love or hate Assassin’s Apprentice, but I love both of the follow up books in Farseer and Liveship Traders even more than Farseer. I DNF’ed Gentlemen Bastards, but admittedly I just don’t like “heist” tropes. At this point, if there is anything that might save us from being mortal enemies for all eternity, I actually agree with you that Oathbringer is weak. Still, it may not be skipped, nothing in it may be skipped. Nothing in any book may be skipped. Of any genre. DNF it, or burn it … but no skipping! Anyway, thanks for the vid!😊
@@civoreb Lol, okay … that’s your friend’s opinion. If you were to finish reading the entire series it’s possible you’d be able to form your own informed opinion about it.
What do you mean? I listed what it doesnt have, but i immediately mentioned how it doesnt try to be those things. Many books TRY to be those things and fail at them. A book that just tries to succeed at what it is is definitely worthy of an S ranking.
@@dwyrinReads thats like saying that a dish does not have good presentation, does not have good seasoning, was not prepared properly, but the chef wasn't trying to do any of those things so it's S tier.
@@dwyrinReads It is generally classified as sci fi but I would consider it fantasy (though still wouldn't qualify for your list since it isn't set in a sword and sorcery setting).
Him repeatedly saying “skip pages” is making me so upset like I don’t understand how someone could even considering skipping pages and thinking they are still getting the same experience
I dont skip anything on first read through, but, after reading through something, you know which sections had no impact on the story and COULD be skipped.
At least you got Sword of Truth right. Other than that this list is one of the worst rankings I've seen on CZcams. KC, SA, ASOIAF, Mal & WoT are all S tier masterpieces but you don't even have them in A.
But that's simply how averages work, no? If you have one book thats S tier, nice. If you have a series where 1/2 are S and 1/2 are lower, the series as a whole isn't S. Is it unfair to compare the two? Perhaps. But if you didn't you would need 2 completely different ranking systems for these.
shadow and bone is pretty shit but BRUHH READ SIX OF CROWS. don't let this trilogy get you off of all other book in the Grishaverse and since I've found that we have pretty similar taste, YOU'LL LOVE IT
Update - Choice of magic is no longer S. Due to the terribly written book 5 its now a B or C.
Haven't read them but this is still really funny to me. Fantasy as a genre seems to be one giant cautionary tale to quit while your ahead.
This video was awesome! Thanks for the Battle Mage recommendation 🤙🏻
Thanks for the reviews! I’m off to read Battlemage now.
Have you read Jack Vance’s “Dying Earth” stories? They inspired so many other writers and are really great fantasy. Cugel is one the best anti hero’s in fantasy. And, as a bonus, the author did not drag the writing out in a series of progressively worse over long series of novels.
Good video thank you for all the recommendations. I want to try Dragon of Autumn Twilight and the mistborn series. I don't generally read fantasy books but I have also never really given it a try. Also maybe golden compass I always hear so much about this one and truth be told I am a bit of a child when it comes to books so maybe this will appeal to me more.
Dragonlance chronicles is the best ever.... highly recommended. And it leads into the land of Krynn that you can enjoy for 30 more novels. Say hi to Tasslehoff when you get there.
Thank you for adding a bunch of books to my miles long TBR list :D
I would recommend Joe Abercrombie First law serie if you haven't read it. It's awesome.
*sees alloy of law in S*
*sees mistborn in B*
*sees WoT in C*
*clicks off the vid*
Yeah I’m flabbergasted as well
Been watching you play Go for years and I liked hearing your perspectives on books. I love WoT so much but I don't actually disagree with your C tier. Gardens of the Moon however is the best series ever written! Ok, but that's mostly just me. It's a unique series. Thanks for the recommendation of some books I hadn't heard of!
Alloy of law in S is one of the biggest jump scares I have experienced
It's hard reviewing GOTM as a single entry considering the series spans 10 books but as a standalone I would probably agree. Fortunately books 2-8 are exceptional.
lol I love your flagrant disrespect of the Internet. We can classify that as punching up, on a jerk who had it coming.
I was disappointed to not hear what you thought of The Witcher, as in my quite limited experience it stands out (at least the first couple books). I have now added Lies of Locke Lamora to my queue, and I may return here for more later. Thank you for the great vid!
I considered the witcher but oddly enough it wasnt on any of the toplists that i saw and already put in a few of my lesser known picks. Since witcher is very well known, left it off.
I was intrigued by your rating of battle mage so I got it from Amazon good quality book love the cover can't wait to read it
Great video! Also, you're the only person I've watched that has mentioned Choice of Magic. I thought it was amazing.
Yeah it was great, but the series is now dead to me. Hes just trying to milk what he created for all its worth and the last book in the first series is terrible terrible garbage. very sad.
Have you read SCI-FI? And/or maybe some "modern era fantasy" like the Dresden Files or the Pendergast series? How about combinations of the two, like Starship Mage?
Yes to Dresden and Starship Mage. Not sure about pendergast
@@dwyrinReads and I forgot to say: good vid! I have read a few of the books you rated, and I generally agreed with your ratings. I might even try out a few that I’ve not yet read
There is no book or book series ever that you could skip hundreds or even thousands of pages and still understand the plot, politics, and character development
Idk if this guy read half of the books he ranked. Otherwise his commentary on them would make some sense...
Tigana Finally! I LOVE this book and never see it on any best-of lists.
he's just like me for REAL.... assassin's apprentice (RotE) deserves an S on trilogies 1 and 3, A on all the other trilogies
Well you are clearly a lot more experienced than me but I loved the Stormlight archive book 3 and the side arc you said it was not needed it’s the story of one of the most important character in the series, I actually loved the book because of the side arc ( dalanar origin story)
I Was interested in your opinion but had to stop watching after you put Wheel of Time so low. Skip books?? It was a long series, I will give you that, but excellent and I would never skip any of the books they were all great!!!! Just my opinion.
Hi, I understand you liked it, but honestly this serie could be written in 6 books instead of 14, for ithe exact same story, it only would have been better not loosing this much time writing
Songs of chaos is epic easily “A tier”. I do agree that the second book was more of a set up for things to come. But defiant was worth the pay off. Next, to me Inheritance cycle is the best fantasy of all time. Don’t agree with Dark Elf being s-class to me that is barely a B deftly a top C. Game of thrones is definitely a C. Hobbit is a A-class. As lord of the rings as a whole is S-class. But fellowship was the only one that was C to me. There are 5 books there that I didn’t read. But everything else looks right.
Should do more book stuff
The Acts of Caine by Matthew Woodring Stover. You'll like it.
The Memory, Sorrow & Thorn series is awesome. I will admit To Green Angel Tower ate my life!!!!!!!
Didn't know you were a fantasy nerd like me. Color of magic isn't for me either. Agree on Way of Kings. Robin Hobb is always S tier for me personally though
The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin is a series I don't see recommended very often that you might enjoy. Jemisin is a great author, the book has strong female characters, and it is quite unlike most other fantasy novels.
I was missing Trudy Canavan on this list. No love for the black magician trilogy?
Hi, big thank you, I really think this is the best documented non spoiler tier list on the web today. For sure , you're missing big names like Abercrombie or Gwynne. But listening to why Eragon, Harry Potter and Wheel of times are where there are on this list is spot on. Even Lightbringer I can understand you point of view. I also like that you class them in a tier instead of classing them by rank, because the next one on the lost goes at the end of a tier, except a few. But seeing where you class Red Sister, and Name of the Wind, I see that you really read them, and that we have the same taste. Also, for the 25% on your list that I did not read so far, this will be good for my tbr. And I could suggest that you put some David Gemmel on your tbr, pretty sure you will like all his characters (Druss, Waylander and Skilgannon). Yep .. very nice way to spend a hour listening to this fantasy tier list. Keep up the good work, you got a new subscriber. Cheers
no David Gemmell Books? that's kinda SAD
OH! the drenai saga. You're right that does belong on here. Wow, i haven't read that series in 10 years. Forgot all about it....
The name of the wind is criminally underrated here...
Name of the wind is great, but wise man's fear...not so much. And that brings it down a bit.
@@dwyrinReads whats wrong with wise mans fear? sure, some plot didn't make it. how does that make it a worse book? its still amazing, and one could argue its better than the first book
Second comment, not gonna say that you're wrong in your opinions, but a lot of the time something you'd criticize one series for is the exact thing you'd praise in another series. Made your reviews seem rather disingenuous.
And I definitely feel like you should have at least done a summary review or something for all the series you talked about because some of them you seemed to know or remember very little of. Made the vid very frustrating to watch
read suneater if you need good sci fi
Highly disagree that mistborn era2 above Era 1. Great analysis of WoT
For the first time, someone gave Wheel of Time series a proper ranking. Thank you!
Overall not the worst list I’ve seen but it’s pretty bad. For the most part you are ranking the longer series lower just because you don’t have the attention span to fallow the storyline. Even so I know tier lists are subjective.
I would say you can't give game of thrones higher than wheel of time if you have similar complaints and it's an unfinished series which I would say drops it even lower
Hi, me I understand, personnaly I could remove minimum 6 books of reading in WOT (300 pages in each book) so much things are not important and drag the story, and then it would probably deserve the #1 stop
Well at least you put that Goodking crap at the bottom. Got that right at least; other than that I don't see much that matches up to how I would rank things or how I ever see them ranked on Reddit either. Don't know why you named Reddit as a source because this is nowhere close.
terry goodkind on the list? Alloy of law S tier? The Malazan Book of the Fallen written by our one true God Steven Erikson, B TIER!?!?!
Gave me a good chuckle🙂Thanks
Hi, I agree with you for Allow, but a D is fine for Terry or even not in the list, but since it's popular, good the see it in last place lol, As for Malazan, I don't disagree with his position after listening his explanation
Hi, great vid. Are you maybe on a Goodreads, would like to follow you. Thanks
I’m not sure how you give Game of Thrones a pass for not being finished while crushing Wheel of Time several tiers for having a few books you would skip
It’s a 8 book series stretched to 12(14)
@@civorebyou didn’t read all of it, stop commenting boy 😭😭
Name of the wind in B is crazy. No book on this list is written as well as that book and I have read them all. The rhyme schemes the pacing the characters I think you need to re-read that book today.
And to be honest book 2 is just as good if not better
I would highly disagree ssioaf it’s one of the most reread able books ever!
hmm i don't see prince of nothing on here
Really enjoyed this except for all the repeating sentence.
A character dies so you can just skip anything written about that character. whew. What a rough way to judge a story. Im all for unique takes and different perspectives but these dripping in ego takes using pretty suspect logic are hard to watch.
A character dying is ok, but do you need to read about that character to follow whats going on in the following books? Did the character dying meaningfully impact the surviving characters into understanding their motivations? If not....
Like your videos but you’re dead wrong about Eragon, you didn’t consider the genius of the entirety of the series, the majestic storytelling, life in the characters, my opinion but that hurt
I did my own tier list and Eragon is in the last position, so I understand him. The first book is really good, in the second Paolini is not developing enough the characters and story is not moving fast enough, I DNF book 3 four times before pushing myself to read it all, boring, and book 4 is just too long for nothing, but good idea about the eggs.
Eragon…the Star Wars plot but fantasy. Genius!!!
Cant trust anyone that puts wheel of time in a C tier. I get its subjective but cmon.
You should put TRIGGER WARNING on this video, lol. Okay, I’ve stopped hyperventilating. Suffice it to say, I have to respectfully (though vehemently) disagree with almost every remark you made regarding the books on this list I’ve read. ASOIAF is S, period full stop, the entire series, it’s an objective fact known to all humanity, and even God agrees. But you knew that was coming. No books in WOT may be skipped. No sections may be skipped, no newbies may be advised to skip. Simply put, WOT is not for the weak. That’s why it is S, start to finish. Mistborn Era 2 better than Era 1? Elantris better than Mistorn? Broken Empire better than ASOIAF? I respect your opinions, even though I just had to do another breathing exercise to calm down. Wise Man's Fear is not just Kvothe doing nothing in the forest ... did we read the same book? I did not love or hate Assassin’s Apprentice, but I love both of the follow up books in Farseer and Liveship Traders even more than Farseer. I DNF’ed Gentlemen Bastards, but admittedly I just don’t like “heist” tropes. At this point, if there is anything that might save us from being mortal enemies for all eternity, I actually agree with you that Oathbringer is weak. Still, it may not be skipped, nothing in it may be skipped. Nothing in any book may be skipped. Of any genre. DNF it, or burn it … but no skipping!
Anyway, thanks for the vid!😊
I skipped WoT books 8-10, spoke with ny friend who read them all and he said I missed nothing important. 🤷🏻♂️
@@civoreb Lol, okay … that’s your friend’s opinion. If you were to finish reading the entire series it’s possible you’d be able to form your own informed opinion about it.
@@civorebread them 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
5:20 *puts the book in S*
*lists all the reasons why isnt an S tier quality book*
Lmao ok bro
What do you mean? I listed what it doesnt have, but i immediately mentioned how it doesnt try to be those things. Many books TRY to be those things and fail at them. A book that just tries to succeed at what it is is definitely worthy of an S ranking.
@@dwyrinReads thats like saying that a dish does not have good presentation, does not have good seasoning, was not prepared properly, but the chef wasn't trying to do any of those things so it's S tier.
Dune? Not fantasy?
I thought that was classified more as sci fi
@@dwyrinReads It is generally classified as sci fi but I would consider it fantasy (though still wouldn't qualify for your list since it isn't set in a sword and sorcery setting).
If you are skipping pages reading WoT, why do you bother reading books at all? Just saying...
Him repeatedly saying “skip pages” is making me so upset like I don’t understand how someone could even considering skipping pages and thinking they are still getting the same experience
I dont skip anything on first read through, but, after reading through something, you know which sections had no impact on the story and COULD be skipped.
Way of kings in B tier ? Just nope
You are really going to want to avoid my worst fantasy tier list
@@dwyrinReads I don’t see way of kings on that list. Only oathbringer 😉
At least you got Sword of Truth right. Other than that this list is one of the worst rankings I've seen on CZcams. KC, SA, ASOIAF, Mal & WoT are all S tier masterpieces but you don't even have them in A.
But that's simply how averages work, no? If you have one book thats S tier, nice. If you have a series where 1/2 are S and 1/2 are lower, the series as a whole isn't S. Is it unfair to compare the two? Perhaps. But if you didn't you would need 2 completely different ranking systems for these.
shadow and bone is pretty shit but BRUHH READ SIX OF CROWS. don't let this trilogy get you off of all other book in the Grishaverse and since I've found that we have pretty similar taste, YOU'LL LOVE IT