15 Best Fantasy Books Like Elden Ring You Need to Read
Let’s face it, everybody loves Elden Ring, its fantasy world-building as well as the characters. But what if you want more, where to go from there? Well, the books of course, and we have you ready with this article on the best fantasy books like Elden Ring you just have to read.
Just to let you know, most of the fantasy books on this list that are similar to Elden Ring are series. We won’t be writing it for every title, but just so you know that there are multiple books under almost every title in the list.
Between Two Fires
Between Two Fires is a 2012 period-piece horror novel by Christopher Buehlman. Set during the Black Plague, it follows a disgraced knight and a mysterious young girl who travel across France as Lucifer and other fallen angels start another war with Heaven.
The Dark Tower
The Dark Tower is a series of eight novels and one short story written by American author Stephen King. Incorporating themes from multiple genres, including dark fantasy, science fantasy, horror, and Western, it describes a “gunslinger” and his quest toward a tower, the nature of which is both physical and metaphorical.
The series, and its use of the Dark Tower, expands upon Stephen King’s multiverse and in doing so, links together many of his other novels.
Berserk (manga)
Berserk is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kentaro Miura. Set in a medieval Europe-inspired dark fantasy world, the story centers on the characters of Guts, a lone swordsman, and Griffith, the leader of a mercenary band called the “Band of the Hawk”. Miura premiered a prototype of Berserk in 1988. The series began the following year in Hakusensha’s now-defunct magazine Monthly Animal House, which was replaced in 1992 by the semimonthly magazine Young Animal, where Berserk has continued its publication.
Following Miura’s death in May 2021, the final chapter that he wrote and illustrated was published posthumously in September of the same year; the series resumed in June 2022, under the supervision of Miura’s fellow manga artist and childhood friend Kouji Mori [ja] and Miura’s group of assistants and apprentices from Studio Gaga.
A Song of Ice and Fire
A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels by the American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. He began the first volume of the series, A Game of Thrones, in 1991, and it was published in 1996. Martin, who initially envisioned the series as a trilogy, has published five out of a planned seven volumes. The fifth and most recent volume of the series, A Dance with Dragons, was published in 2011, six years after the publication of the preceding book, A Feast for Crows. He is currently writing the sixth novel, The Winds of Winter. A seventh novel, A Dream of Spring, is planned.
A Song of Ice and Fire takes place on the fictional continents Westeros and Essos. The point of view of each chapter in the story is a limited perspective of a range of characters growing from nine in the first novel, to 31 characters by the fifth novel.
Three main stories interweave: a dynastic war among several families for control of Westeros, the rising threat of the supernatural Others in northernmost Westeros, and the ambition of the deposed king’s exiled daughter to assume the Iron Throne.
Malazan Book Of The Fallen
Malazan Book of the Fallen is a series of epic fantasy novels written by the Canadian author Steven Erikson. The series, published by Bantam Books in the U.K. and Tor Books in the U.S., consists of ten volumes, beginning with Gardens of the Moon (1999) and concluding with The Crippled God (2011). Erikson’s series is extremely complex with a wide scope, and presents the narratives of a large cast of characters spanning thousands of years across multiple continents.
His plotting presents a complicated series of events in the world in which the Malazan Empire is located. Each of the first five novels is relatively self-contained, in that each resolves its respective primary conflict; but many underlying characters and events are interwoven throughout the works of the series, binding it together. The Malazan world was co-created by Steven Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont in the early 1980s as a backdrop to their GURPS roleplaying campaign.
In 2005, Esslemont began publishing his own series of six novels set in the same world, beginning with Night of Knives. Although Esslemont’s books are published under a different series title – Novels of the Malazan Empire – Esslemont and Erikson collaborated on the storyline for the entire sixteen-book project and Esslemont’s novels are considered to be as canonical and integral to the series’ mythos as Erikson’s own.
Dying Earth
Dying Earth is a fantasy series by the American author Jack Vance, comprising four books originally published from 1950 to 1984. Some have been called picaresque. They vary from short story collections to fix-up (novel created from older short stories), perhaps all the way to novel.
The first book in the series, The Dying Earth, was ranked number 16 of 33 “All Time Best Fantasy Novels” by Locus in 1987, based on a poll of subscribers, although it was marketed as a collection and the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) calls it a “loosely connected series of stories”.
The stories of the Dying Earth series are set in the distant future, at a point when the sun is almost exhausted and magic has asserted itself as a dominant force. The Moon has disappeared and the Sun is in danger of burning out at any time, often flickering as if about to go out, before shining again. The various civilizations of Earth have collapsed for the most part into decadence or religious fanaticism and its inhabitants are overcome with a fatalistic outlook. The Earth is mostly barren and cold, and has become infested with various predatory monsters (possibly created by a magician in a former age).
Raven’s Mark
The Raven’s Mark Trilogy by Ed McDonald is a wonderful Grimdark-ish fantasy series that, avoids many common pitfalls of the grimdark subgenre. The books are rather short compared to the absolute door-stoppers that seem to dominate the genre currently. The characters feel real and human without relying on the more “gritty” elements of the genre.
Hope, sanity, humanity: the Misery takes them all.
A war centuries in the making lies in stalemate across the Misery, a vast wasteland blasted into being when the Nameless tore open the sky.
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien’s 1937 children’s book The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.
The title refers to the story’s main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron, who in an earlier age created the One Ring to rule the other Rings of Power given to Men, Dwarves, and Elves, in his campaign to conquer all of Middle-earth. From homely beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land reminiscent of the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the quest to destroy the One Ring mainly through the eyes of the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin.
The Kingkiller Chronicle
The Kingkiller Chronicle is a fantasy trilogy by the American writer Patrick Rothfuss. The first two books, The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear, were released in 2007 and 2011. The books released in the series have sold over 10 million copies.
The series centers on a man named Kvothe, an infamous adventurer and musician telling his life story to a scribe. The book is told in a “story-within-a-story” format: a frame narrative relates to the present day in which Kvothe runs an inn under an assumed name and is told in the omniscient third person. The main plot, making up the majority of the books and concerning the actual details of Kvothe’s life, is told in the first person. The series also contains metafictional stories within stories from varying perspectives that tie to the main plot in various ways.
The Vagrant
The Vagrant is a fantasy book series by Peter Newman and follows multiple narratives set in a newly war-torn land.
The Vagrant is his name. He has no other. Friendless and alone he walks across a desolate, war-torn landscape, carrying nothing but a kit-bag, a legendary sword, and a baby. His purpose is to reach the Shining City, the last bastion of the human race, and deliver the sword, the only weapon that may make a difference in the ongoing war. But the Shining City is far away and the world is a very dangerous place.
Iconoclasts
The Iconoclasts book series by Mike Shel includes books Aching God, Sin Eater, and Idols Fall.
The days of adventure are passed for Auric Manteo. Retired to the countryside and isolated with his scars and riches, he no longer delves into forbidden ruins seeking dark wisdom and treasure. But just as old nightmares begin plaguing his sleep, he receives an urgent summons back to that old life.
The First Law
The First Law is a fantasy series written by British author Joe Abercrombie. The First Law is the title of the original trilogy in the series, but is also used to refer to the series as a whole. The full series consists of a trilogy, three stand-alone novels, a number of short stories, and a second trilogy, titled The Age of Madness, of which the third book was published in September 2021.
The First Law series is set in an epic fantasy world at war, reminiscent of medieval-era Europe and the greater Mediterranean world. Long ago, the world was inhabited by both Demons and Humans. Then, hundreds, or thousands, of years ago, in the Old Time, a legendary half-Demon, half-Human with great magical powers, named Euz, banished the Demons from the world. Magic still exists, which relies on connections to the Other Side, where the Demons live. However, Euz left behind the First Law: “It is forbidden to touch the Other Side direct.”
The Fionavar Tapestry
The Fionavar Tapestry is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay, published between 1984 and 1986. The novels are partly set in our own contemporary world, but mostly in the fictional world of Fionavar.
It is the story of five University of Toronto senior law and medical students, who are drawn into the ‘first world of the Tapestry’ by the mage Loren Silvercloak. Once there, each discovers his or her own role and destiny in the framework of an epic conflict.
The Stormlight Archive
The Stormlight Archive is a series of epic fantasy novels written by American author Brandon Sanderson, planned to consist of ten novels. As of 2022, the series comprises four published novels and two novellas.
The first novel, The Way of Kings, was published on August 31, 2010. The second novel, Words of Radiance, was published in 2014 and debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller List. A fifth novel is expected to be released in fall 2024, while writing for the latter half of the series will begin after Sanderson finishes writing the upcoming Era Three Mistborn trilogy.
It tells the story of Roshar, a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain. It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. As brutal wars rage over the control of these magical weapons, an ancient text called The Way of Kings tells of ancient times, the Knights Radiant, and perhaps the true cause of the war. The Knights Radiant must stand again.
The Prince of Nothing
The Prince of Nothing is a series of three fantasy novels by Canadian author R. Scott Bakker, first published in 2004, part of a wider series known as “The Second Apocalypse”. This trilogy details the emergence of Anasûrimbor Kellhus, a brilliant monastic warrior, as he takes control of a holy war and the hearts and minds of its leaders.
Kellhus exhibits incredible powers of prediction and persuasion, which are derived from a deep knowledge of rationality, cognitive biases, and causality, as discovered by the Dûnyain, a secret monastic sect. As Kellhus goes from military leader to divine prophet, Drusas Achamian, the sorcerer who mentored Kellhus, comes to realize that his student may well be the harbinger of the Second Apocalypse.
