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Chonky Fantasy Series to Get You Through the Rest of Whatever Year It Is

Back in 2020, we put together an article to highlight some fantasy series of REALLY BIG BOOKS that we could all get lost in until upon reaching the end, finally, we would emerge into a brighter post-2020 future.

For literally absolutely no reason at all, we’ve decided to bring this list back with some additional entries!


opens in a new windowPoster Placeholder of - 83 opens in a new windowA Chorus of Dragons series by Jenn Lyons

The Discord of Gods marks the epic conclusion to Jenn Lyons’s A Chorus of Dragons series, closing out the saga that began with The Ruin of Kings, for fans of Brandon Sanderson and Patrick Rothfuss.

Rampant demons, political intrigue, ancient rituals, living avatars of stars, long-lost royals, and the unstable future of an empire combine to create an epic fantasy series you’ll never forget.

Image Place holder  of - 31 opens in a new windowWake the Dragons series by Kevin J. Anderson

Kevin J. Anderson is a master of the epic. In addition to co-authoring Dune’s Caladan Trilogy, he also wrote a saga of expansive and critically-lauded chonky fantasy: Wake the Dragons.

Two continents at war: the Three Kingdoms and Ishara have been in conflict for a thousand years. But when an outside threat arises—the reawakening of a powerful ancient race that wants to remake the world—the two warring nations must somehow set aside generations of hatred to form an alliance against a far more deadly enemy.

opens in a new windowPlace holder  of - 55 opens in a new windowThe Caladan Trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson and Frank Herbert

Hey remember in that last entry when I mentioned that Kevin J. Anderson co-authored the Caladan Trilogy, a series of novels that flesh out Frank Herbert’s massively popular Dune universe? Yeah. That’s the next series you should check out!

Any Dune fan will devour this tale of a legend coming into his own.

Dune: The Heir of Caladan is on sale 10.18.22!

opens in a new windowPlaceholder of  -53 opens in a new windowMistborn: Wax and Wayne series by Brandon Sanderson

#1 New York Times bestseller Brandon Sanderson returns to Scadrial, world of the Mistborn, as its second era, which began with The Alloy of Law, comes to a world-breaking conclusion in this fall’s forthcoming The Lost Metal.

Wanna know what happens to the fantasy world when the hero of prophecy has failed? Ever wonder if eating cool rocks could give you special powers? At the intersection of these two time-honored philosophical quandaries lays the Wax and Wayne Series.

The Lost Metal is on sale 11.15.22!

Image Placeholder of - 57 opens in a new windowThe Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson

The Stormlight Archive is the latest epic fantasy from the imaginative mind of Brandon Sanderson: welcome to the remarkable world of Roshar, a world both alien and magical, where gigantic hurricane-like storms scour the surface every few days and life has adapted accordingly. Roshar is shared by humans and the enigmatic, humanoid Parshendi, with whom they are at war.

book-wheeloftime opens in a new windowThe Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time is a story that takes place both in our past and our future. In his fantasy world, the Dark One, the embodiment of pure evil, is breaking free from his prison. The overall plot is about a man who learns that he is the reincarnation of the world’s messiah and is once again destined to save the world from the Dark One — but possibly destroy it in the process. This saga is not only his story, but the story of an entire world’s struggle to deal with war and change, destruction and hope.

book-kushiel opens in a new windowKushiel’s Legacy by Jacqueline Carey

In this epic fantasy series, step into the land of Terre d’Ange, a place of unsurpassed beauty and grace. The inhabiting race rose from the seed of angels and men, and they live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt. Phèdre nó Delaunay was sold into indentured servitude as a child. Her bond was purchased by a nobleman, the first to recognize that she is one pricked by Kushiel’s Dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one. He trained Phèdre in the courtly arts and the talents of the bedchamber–and, above all, the ability to observe, remember, and analyze.

opens in a new windowThe Ascendent series by K Arsenault Rivera

K Arsenault Rivera’s epic fantasy Ascendant trilogy is the story of an infamous Qorin warrior, Barsalayaa Shefali, a spoiled divine warrior empress, O Shizuka, and a power that can reach through time and space to save a land from a truly insidious evil. “Rich, expansive, and grounded in human truth…simply exquisite.”—New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab (on The Tiger’s Daughter)

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Throwback Thursdays: The Way of Kings: An Introduction

Welcome to Throwback Thursdays on the Tor/Forge blog! Every other week, we’re delving into our newsletter archives and sharing some of our favorite posts.

Words of Radiance came out earlier this week! Brandon Sanderson celebrated his new book by writing about his personal history with epic fantasy in the Tor/Forge Newsletter. To continue our immersion in the world of the The Stormlight Archives, we thought we’d revisit this September 2010 article, in which Sanderson introduced his new series. We hope you enjoy this blast from the past, and be sure to check back every other Thursday for more!

The Way of Kings by Brandon SandersonBy Brandon Sanderson

I’ve been asked to introduce The Way Of Kings to you. And I have no idea how to start.

This is an odd position for me. Before, I’ve found it easy to explain my novels. Each one was built around one or two central premises. The gang of thieves who want to rob an immortal emperor. A man cast down by a terrible, magical disease and forced to rebuild a society among those similarly afflicted. A boy who finds that librarians secretly rule the world.

Kings has stymied me each time I’ve tried to describe it. I often end up talking about its creation. (How I started work on it over fifteen years ago. How I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words worth of worldbuilding for it. How much the project has come to mean to me over the decades.) But such things describe the book but don’t actually tell you anything. And so this time, I’m going to try to talk about what The Way Of Kings is.

It’s a book about characters I love. I’ve begun to build a reputation as the “magic system” guy. The author who creates interesting types of magic for every book he writes. On one hand, this delights me, as I do put a lot of effort into the magic in my books. But a great book for me isn’t about a magic, it’s about the people that the magic affects.

The book started its life many years ago being about a young man who made a good decision. I wrote the entire book that way before realizing I’d done it wrong. So I started over from scratch and had him take the other fork, the more difficult fork. The fork that cast him into some of the worst imaginable circumstances, ground him against the stones of a world where there is no soil or sand on the ground.

My goal: to prove to myself, and to him, that the ‘good’ decision was not actually the best one. The Way Of Kings is his story, though he shares the space with several others. They’ll get their own books later in the series.

I want to tell you more, but I don’t have the space here. I want to talk about the art in the book (it’s ambitious, unlike anything I’ve seen tried in an epic fantasy novel before.) I want to talk about the scope of the series, the distinctive world which is so much larger and more real than anything I’ve worked on before. I want to explain the book.

But, for now, I think it’s best to just show you instead.

Enjoy.

The Way of Kings (978-0-7653-2808-3) by Brandon Sanderson was released August 31 from Tor.

This article is originally from the September 2010 Tor/Forge newsletter. Sign up for the Tor/Forge newsletter now, and get similar content in your inbox twice a month!

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Announcing the Words of Radiance Tour!

Words of Radiance by Brandon SandersonBrandon Sanderson is once again returning to his New York Times bestselling series The Stormlight Archive, which began in 2010 with The Way of Kings.

Words of Radiance is scheduled to be published on March 4, 2014, and Brandon is touring all over the country to promote the highly anticipated next installment of this epic fantasy series!

Tuesday, March 4, 2014 / Provo, UT (midnight signing)
12am
BYU Bookstore
Wilkinson Student Center (WSC)
Brigham Young University
University Hill, Provo, Utah 84602

Tuesday, March 4, 2014 / San Diego, CA
7pm
Mysterious Galaxy
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., #302
San Diego, CA 92111

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 / Huntington Beach, CA
7pm
Barnes & Noble #2743
7881 Edinger Avenue
Huntington Beach, CA 92647

Thursday, March 6, 2014 / San Francisco, CA
12:30pm
Copperfield’s Books – San Raphael
850 4th St‎
San Rafael, CA 94901

6pm
Borderlands Books
866 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

Friday, March 7, 2014 / Portland, OR
7pm
Powell’s City of Books
3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd.
Beaverton, OR 97005

Saturday, March 8, 2014 / Seattle, WA
12:00pm
University Bookstore
4326 University Way, NE
Seattle, WA 98105

Tuesday, March 11, 2014 / Houston, TX
6:30pm
Murder by the Book
2342 Bissonnet Street
Houston, TX 77005

Wednesday, March 12, 2014 / Salt Lake City
6:30pm
The Literacy Promise (educator conference – speaker)

Thursday, March 13, 2014 / Omaha, NE
7:00pm
Barnes & Noble #2662
3333 Oakview Drive
Omaha, NE 68144

Friday, March 14, 2014 / Phoenix, AZ
7pm
The Poisoned Pen
4014 N Goldwater Blvd #101
Scottsdale, AZ 85251

Saturday March 15, 2014 / Tucson, AZ
Tucson Book Festival

  • 10-11am – Building a Mythology (Panel Discussion), Integrated Learning Center – Room 150. (Brandon Sanderson, Dennis McKiernan, Yvonne Navarro, Sam Sykes; Moderator: Maryelizabeth Hart)
  • 11-11:30am – Signing at the Integrated Learning Center, Sales & Signing Area #4
  • 2:30-3:30pm – A Knight, a Zombie and a Klingon Walk into a bar: Writing genre comedy (Panel Discusson). Integrated Learning Center – Room 150. (MaryJanice Davidson, Gini Koch, Isaac Marion, Brandon Sanderson; Moderator: John Muñoz)
  • 3:30-4pm – Signing at the Integrated Learning Center – Sales & Signing Area #4

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 / Lexington, KY
7pm
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
161 Lexington Green Cir B1
Lexington, KY 40503

Wednesday, March 19, 2014 / Dayton, OH
7pm
Books & Company
At The Greene
4453 Walnut Street
Dayton, OH 45440

Thursday, March 20, 2014 / Washington, DC
7pm
Barnes & Noble #2238
7851 L Tyson’s Corner Center
McLean, VA 22102

Friday, March 21, 2014 / Philadelphia, PA
7pm
Towne Book Center & Café
220 Plaza Drive, Suite B-3
Collegeville, PA 19426

Saturday, March 22, 2014 / Chicago, IL / Milwaukee, WI
2pm
Barnes & Noble #2622
55 Old Orchard Center
Skokie, IL 60077

7pm
Boswell Book Company
2559 N Downer Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53211

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