6 Fantasy Books That Rival The Lord of the Rings

Image via HarperCollins Published Aug 29, 2026, 6:51 PM EDT Sign in to your Collider account Tolkien gets treated like the ceiling of the genre a lot of the time, the one book everyone else is quietly trying to live up to whether they admit it or not. That's fair in some ways. He really did build the whole modern shape of fantasy almost single-handedly, farm boys and wizards and long walks included. It's just not the whole story, and it's definitely not the finish line. The six series below all reach that same size and ambition, and a few of them arguably go further, deeper world-building, harder emotional stakes, magic systems with real rules and real costs attached instead of just a wizard waving a staff around. Some of these directly shaped the fantasy writers who came after Tolkien, including a few names you'd probably recognize from your own bookshelf. 6 'Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn' Image via DAW Books George R.R. Martin has said flat out that this series is what pushed him to write his own, and once you read it, that connection makes total sense. Tad Williams takes the exact setup Tolkien made famous, a regular kid pulled into a huge war against an ancient evil, and slows everything down to focus on how scared and unprepared that kid actually feels the whole way through. The final book in the trilogy got so long that publishers had to split it into two separate paperbacks just to fit it on a shelf. Simon starts out as a kitchen boy nobody notices, and by the end, he's tangled up in political schemes between human kingdoms that feel just as messy and real as anything in modern fantasy. This series basically laid the groundwork for the darker, more grounded fantasy that came after it. 5 'The Earthsea Cycle' Image via Ursula K. Le Guin / Atheneum Books / Harcourt Ursula K. Le Guin wrote the first three Earthsea books with wizards who are almost entirely men, and then she came back decades later and wrote more books that directly questioned why that was in the first place. Tehanu, published years after the original trilogy, turns the whole series around to focus on the women Earthsea's magic system had quietly pushed to the side the whole time. That's a rare thing for any fantasy series to do, let alone one this old. Most writers just keep telling the same kind of story once they've found an audience for it. Le Guin used her own world to argue with her younger self in public, on the page, and the later books are just as sharp and thoughtful as the ones that made her famous in the first place. 4 ‘The Book of the New Sun' Image via Simon & Schuster Gene Wolfe wrote the whole thing as if it were a real document translated from a language that won't exist for thousands of years, and he even includes fake glossaries in the back like a scholar prepared them for a serious academic edition. Severian, the narrator, starts out as a disgraced torturer and slowly turns out to matter a lot more to the universe than either he or the reader realizes at first. This book asks a lot of its readers. The vocabulary is genuinely archaic, real old English words instead of invented fantasy terms, and the plot only really makes sense once you've read the whole thing at least twice. Writers like Neil Gaiman have called it one of the best things the genre has ever produced, and it earns that praise the hard way, through actual difficulty, not spectacle. 3 'His Dark Materials' Image via Philip Pullman / Scholastic Corporation Philip Pullman has said openly that he wanted to write something like Paradise Lost for teenagers, and Milton's fingerprints are all over this trilogy once you know to look for them. Every person in Lyra's world walks around with a daemon, a physical version of their own soul shaped like an animal, and an object called the alethiometer that can answer any question if you know how to read it correctly and patiently enough. The story builds toward a genuine argument against organized religion controlling people's lives, which was a bold thing to put inside a children's fantasy series aimed at kids and their parents both. The ending doesn't give Lyra and Will the reunion most stories would owe them, no rescue, no loophole, and that choice is exactly why people are still talking about this trilogy decades later. 2 'The Wheel of Time' Image via Tor Books Robert Jordan built a magic system where the power itself is split by gender, and the male half is slowly poisoned, meaning every man who uses it eventually goes insane no matter how careful he is. That single rule shapes almost the entire plot of this fourteen-book series, since half the world's most powerful people are quietly running out the clock on their own sanity the whole time. Jordan died of a rare blood disease before finishing the series, and Brandon Sanderson completed the final three books using his extensive notes, with Jordan's wife and longtime editor guiding the whole process from start to finish. Rand al'Thor spends the whole series slowly realizing he might be the one person meant to save the world, and the sheer scale of this thing basically set the template for every doorstop fantasy series that came after it. 1 'Realm of the Elderlings' Image via Del Rey Books Robin Hobb, a pen name for the writer Margaret Ogden, spent over twenty years building this world across sixteen books split into several different trilogies, all following a royal bastard named FitzChivalry trained from childhood to be an assassin for the crown. Other fantasy writers, George R.R. Martin included, regularly pointing to Hobb as one of the best prose stylists the genre has ever had, quietly, without much of the mainstream fame some of her peers picked up along the way. This book literally earns a top spot for how deeply Hobb gets inside Fitz's head, page after page, book after book. His mistakes cost him people he loves, over and over, and the series never lets him off easy for any of it, not once, not even at the very end. Few fantasy protagonists have ever felt this fully human, flaws and all, across this many pages. Collider Exclusive · Middle-earth Quiz Which Lord of the RingsCharacter Are You? One Quiz · Ten Questions · Your Fate Revealed The road goes ever on. From the green hills of the Shire to the fires of Mount Doom, every soul in Middle-earth carries a destiny. Ten questions stand between you and the truth of who you are. Answer honestly — the One Ring has a way of revealing what we most want to hide. 💍Frodo 🌿Samwise 👑Aragorn 🔥Gandalf 🏹Legolas ⚒️Gimli 👁️Sauron 🪨Gollum BEGIN YOUR QUEST → 01 You are handed a responsibility that could destroy you. What do you do? The weight of the world falls on unlikely shoulders. AAccept it. Someone has to, and running changes nothing. BStay by the side of whoever carries it. They shouldn't go alone. CStep forward and lead. This is exactly what I was made for. DIt's mine now. I won't let anyone else have it. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Your closest companion is heading into terrible danger. You: True loyalty is revealed not in comfort, but in crisis. AFollow them without hesitation. I'd rather die beside them than live without them. BRally others and forge a plan to help — strength in numbers. COffer wisdom and guidance. My counsel may save them where swords cannot. DLet them go. Only the strong survive, and sentiment is a weakness. NEXT QUESTION → 03 Enormous power is within your reach. Your instinct is: Power corrupts — but only those who reach for it. ADestroy it. Nothing good comes from power this absolute. BUse it to protect those I love — just this once. CWield it wisely. I have the will and the knowledge to do good with it. DSeize it. I have waited long enough. It belongs to me. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What does "home" mean to you? Where we long to return reveals who we truly are. AA simple, peaceful place — green hills, good food, no adventure required. BWherever the people I love are. Home is a feeling, not a place. CA kingdom I must earn before I can truly claim it as mine. DI lost it long ago. That loss is what drives everything I do. NEXT QUESTION → 05 When a battle is upon you, your approach is: War reveals what we are made of — whether we like it or not. ASurvive by any means. I'm not a fighter — but I'll do what I must. BFight for the person beside me, not for glory or honour. CLead the charge. Nothing inspires an army like a king at the front. DStrike from range, fast and precise — never let them get close. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Someone comes to you for advice in their darkest hour. You: Wisdom is not knowing all the answers — it's knowing which questions to ask. AListen, then offer honest encouragement. Sometimes people just need belief. BGive them practical help — words are fine, but action is better. CSpeak carefully. I have seen much, and I know what counsel can cost. DTell them what they want to hear. Trust is a tool like any other. NEXT QUESTION → 07 How do you see yourself, honestly? Self-knowledge is the most dangerous kind. ASmall and ordinary — but perhaps that's exactly why I was chosen. BDefined entirely by who I serve and love. I am nothing without them. CForged by hardship into something the world has not yet fully seen. DDiminished from what I once was — and consumed by the need to reclaim it. NEXT QUESTION → 08 Which of these best describes your relationship with the natural world? Middle-earth speaks to those who know how to listen. AI find peace in it — forests, rivers, open skies. Nature restores me. BI prefer the earth underfoot — stone, mines, solid and real things. CI have watched the world change for longer than most can comprehend. DNature offers hiding places, cold water, raw fish. That's enough for me. NEXT QUESTION → 09 You encounter a wretched, pitiable creature who has done terrible things. You: How we treat the fallen reveals the height of our character. AShow mercy. Even the most broken souls deserve a chance at redemption. BPity them — but never trust them. They made their choices. CSee them as a tool. Their knowledge or skills may still serve a purpose. DDestroy them before they can cause more harm. Mercy is a luxury we cannot afford. NEXT QUESTION → 10 When the quest is over and the songs are sung, what do you hope they say about you? In the end, we are all just stories. AThat an ordinary person did an extraordinary thing — and came home. BThat I never abandoned the person who needed me most. CThat I was worthy of the crown — and everything it demanded. DNothing. I don't need songs. I needed it, and now it's gone. REVEAL MY FATE → The Fellowship Has Spoken Your Place in Middle-earthThe scores below reveal your true character. Your highest number is your match. Even a tie tells a story — the Fellowship was never made of simple people. 💍 Frodo 🌿 Samwise 👑 Aragorn 🔥 Gandalf 🏹 Legolas ⚒️ Gimli 👁️ Sauron 🪨 Gollum You carry something heavy — and you carry it alone, even when you don't have to. You were not born for greatness, and that is precisely why greatness chose you. Your courage is not the roaring, sword-swinging kind; it is quiet, stubborn, and terrifying in its refusal to quit. The Ring weighs on you more than anyone can see, and still you walk toward the fire. That is not weakness. That is the rarest kind of strength there is. You are, without question, the best of them. Not the most powerful, not the most celebrated — but the most essential. Your loyalty is not a trait; it is a force of nature. You would carry the person you love up the slopes of Mount Doom if it came to that, and we both know you'd do it without being asked. The world needs more people like you, and the world is lucky it has even one. You were born to lead, and you have spent years running from it. The crown is yours by right, but you know better than anyone that right means nothing without the will and the worthiness to back it up. You are tempered by loss, shaped by long roads, and defined by a code of honour you hold to even when no one is watching. When you finally step forward, the world shifts. Because it was always waiting for you. You have seen more than you let on, and you say less than you know — which is exactly as it should be. You are a catalyst: you do not fight the battles yourself, you ignite the people who can. Your wisdom comes not from books but from an age of watching what happens when it is ignored. You arrive precisely when you mean to, and your presence alone changes what is possible. A wizard is never late. Graceful, perceptive, and almost preternaturally calm under pressure — you see things others miss and act before others react. You do not need to make a scene to be remarkable; your presence speaks for itself. You are loyal to those you choose to stand beside, and that choice is not made lightly. You have lived long enough to know that the most beautiful things in this world are also the most fragile, and that is why you fight to protect them. You are loud, proud, and absolutely formidable — and beneath all of that is one of the most fiercely loyal hearts in Middle-earth. You don't do anything by half measures. Your friendships are forged like iron, your grudges run as deep as mines, and your courage in battle is the kind that makes legends. You came into this fellowship suspicious of everyone and ended it willing to die for an elf. That is not a small thing. That is everything. You think in centuries and act in absolutes. Order, dominion, control — not because you are cruel by nature, but because you have decided that the world left to itself always falls apart, and you are the only one with the vision and the will to hold it together. You were not always this. Something was lost, or taken, or betrayed, and the version of you that stands now is the answer to that wound. The tragedy is that you're not entirely wrong — just entirely too far gone to course-correct. You are a study in contradiction — pitiable and dangerous, cunning and broken, capable of both cruelty and something that once resembled love. You are defined by loss: of innocence, of self, of the one thing that gave your existence meaning. Two voices war inside you constantly, and the tragedy is that the better one sometimes wins, just not often enough, and never at the right moment. You are a warning, yes — but also a mirror. We are all a little Gollum, given the right ring and enough time. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ