The 10 best fantasy books with magic to spellbind and charm you
WIZARDS ONLY, FOOLS!
Finally, an article where my favorite Adventure Time quote applies. While pretty much all fantasy series have some degree of magic, these books are the cream of the cauldron. In order to come up with this series, I meditated under waterfall – imagining an all out wizard battle between every fantastical sorcerer present on the printed pages. These books represent the survivors of the carnage, the ultimate wizards, the final thaumaturges, the 10 best fantasy books with magic of all time.
10. Jade City by Fonda Lee
An urban fantasy series inspired by East Asian metropolises, Fonda Lee’s Jade City is the story of rival crime families attempting to control the bustling jade market. Jade is the lifeblood of the island of Kekon, it’s more than just a pretty green rock, it’s the source of magic itself! Jade has been used for centuries by a group of magic warriors known as the Green Bones, who have genetically adapted to use the stone to augment their abilities without any undesirable side effects (of which there are many). After a rising crime family upends the jade trade, Kekon is flooded with jade users who take the hard stuff in pursuit of power and control, and the stewards of said stone have to put the kibosh on people trying to bump the rocks like it’s Brat Summer.
9. Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
Inspired by the magic of West Africa, Akata Witch is the story of Nigerian-American Sunny Nwazue, who is shunned by her peers because of her albinism. After discovering that she has magical abilities, Sunny learns that she is one of the Leopard People, a covert group of magicians who are part of a community parallel to the mundane world. Sunny finds acceptance after forming a coven with three other budding magic users, and the quartet set off on a quest to rid their community of a serial killer named Black Hat Otoko, who uses a screwed up secret ingredient for his magical rituals: children.
8. Babel, or The Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang
R.F. Kuang’s Babel, or The Necessity of Violence is a historical fantasy tale set within the British Empire. It’s about a young orphan from Canton (now modern day Guangzhou in China) who is adopted by an English scholar from the Babel institute – an elite language arts academy. After grueling academic instruction throughout his childhood, the orphan (who has taken the English name Robin Swift) is an expert in multiple classical languages. After being accepted into Babel, Robin learns to his horror that the academics there are using translation as a form of language based magic to imbue silver bars with arcane power, which are then consumed to fuel the Empire’s colonial expansion. It’s a complex novel about how academia enables entrenched power structures, and how knowledge can be manipulated to serve nefarious ends.
7. The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
Steven Erikson’s The Malazan Book of the Fallen is about as much a beginner fantasy story as Dark Souls is a game for casual gamers. Which is to say, it isn’t. Set in a world much like the famously brutal dungeon crawler, Malazan tells a continent spanning story of kingdoms, warriors, and the enigmatic gods they serve. The magic of Malazan is equally complex, and stems from “holds” and “warrens” – pocket dimensions that are attuned to a specific element (fire, death, healing etc.) that mages and sorcerers can access in order to draw power into the natural world. These pocket dimensions are enormously powerful, allowing for their summoners to ascend to godlike levels of power – if they aren’t ripped apart by the potent raw magic first.
6. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
It’s Dune with Death Magic! Hooray! Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth is a necromantic space opera set in a star system ruled by Nine Houses – each of whom study their own particular brand of death magic. The Nine Houses pledge their service to the Emperor, and train their finest warriors to compete in an all out death battle for a chance to join the imperial royal guard. The young warrior Gideon is a reluctant tribute of the Ninth House, who accompanies said House’s scion Harrowhark to a spooky mansion where the pair will attempt to earn the Emperor’s favor – by manipulating bones, animating skeletons, and raising the dead. The whole necromancer nine yards.
5. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
A magical realist tale of love, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus is about a titular traveling big top that only appears at night in random locations across Europe. Fantastical wonders await inside the circus, particularly the wonders created by the two magicians raised since birth to duel each other for supremacy. While the two illusionists begin the tale as rivals, the pair slowly begin to fall for one another while they are forced to out-do the other’s magic act for the crowd’s entertainment. It’s a magician enemies to lovers tale set in a sexy night carnival, I don’t know how else to convince you to read this series other than kidnapping you and taking you to a night circus show myself.
4. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Susanna Clarke’s Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a bit like the Night Circus, albeit far more tragic. The tale concerns court magician Mr. Norrell, who preaches an academic approach to the magical arts based around caution and control. Norrell’s experiments are upended with the arrival of the talented Johnathan Strange, a young mage who believes that magic is at its most powerful when allowed to run wild. While the pair begin as friends, their conflicting points of view on magic slowly sours their relationship, devolving into a bitter rivalry egged on by an ancient fae spirit from England’s archaic magical past.
3. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Despite being initially marketed towards children, Urusla K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea is perhaps the most mature system of magic on this list. In the world spanning archipelago for which the series is named, a wizard’s ultimate achievement is not ultimate magical power, but the ability to exist in perfect harmony with the natural world. The story begins with Ged, a young boy from an island of goatherds who sets off on a quest to become the greatest wizard in the world. He learns his wizardly lessons the hard way, and in subsequent books develops a reverence for magic the borders on the spiritual. Ged is dedicated to upholding the magical balance of the natural world, and uses his powers to ensure equilibrium – even if it means engaging in a wizard battle against those who would try to tip the scales.
2. The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss
While the Earthsea shows us the wizards we SHOULD be, The Kingkiller Chronicles shows us the wizards we WANT to be. The wizard is Kvothe, who was trained as a musician from a young age, and augmented his budding DnD bard abilities by learning the “true names” of things. After calling the name of the wind in order to blow down a rival, Kvothe embarks on a realm-trotting quest where he slays dragons, hooks up with hot fae beings, and possibly kills a king as the title suggests. When we find him in the first book, he’s laying low pretending to be an inn keeper after a brush with the law – but something tells me his cover won’t last for long.
1. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
Brandon Sanderson is renowned for his delightfully unusual systems of magic, which involve everything from making oaths with fae spirits to learning geographically based grammar to rewriting the history of objects with a spell. In Sanderson’s Mistborn series, magic is tied to metal. By chowing down on the Periodic Table, mages called “mistborn” are able to draw magical abilities from the metals they ingest. This will certainly help the young street thief Vin pull off a heist against the villainous Lord Ruler with the help of a high fantasy Ocean’s Eleven crew. It’s a magical crime caper about people who swallow gold in order to see the future, and use their abilities to rob from the rich. It’s a public service, really.
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