Here’s my list of favorite books and authors of all time. If an author has written more than one of my favorite books of all time, I’m combining all their works into one notation. This list will contain both novellas and short stories in addition to novels because short work frequently punches above it’s weight and I want to feature them.
This list is entirely subjective, and I am more than willing to admit that some of the books on here are qualitatively worse than others not on the list. I am using Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time books as a standard for my judging: I like reading WoT, so everything I like more than that goes on this list. I’m keeping this list mainly Fantasy genre lit for the sake of comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges.
- Patricia McKillip- Riddle-Master, Cygnet, and her standalones
- Angelica Gorodescher- Kalpa Imperial, Trafalgar
- Madeline Miller- Circe
- Robin McKinley- Sunshine, The Blue Sword
- Lois McMaster Bujold- Vorkosigan and the World of the Five Gods
- Barry Hughart- The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox
- Scott Hawkins- The Library at Mount Char
- Max Gladstone- Craft Sequence, This is How You Lose the Time War
- Garth Nix- Old Kingdom Series
- Guy Gavriel Kay- Tigana, Lions of Al-Rassan
- Terry Pratchett- Discworld, Good Omens
- N. K. Jemisen- Moonblood, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
- Tolkien
- Frank Herbert- Dune
- Ben Aaronovitch- Peter Grant series/Rivers of London
- Brandon Sanderson- Cosmere (No Wheel of Time)
- J. K. Rowling- Harry Potter (also Cormoran Strike, but that’s Mystery)
- Jane Fonda- Jade City
- Susanna Clarke- Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell
- George Saunders- Lincoln in the Bardo
- Amberlough
- Jim Butcher- Dresden Files, Codex Alera
- Mark Lawrence- The Book of the Ancestor
- Samantha Shannon- The Priory of the Orange Tree
- Annihilation
- Jacqueline Carey- Kushiel’s Legacy, Miranda and Caliban
- Robert Jackson Bennett- The Cities of XYZ
- Elizabeth Bear- Eternal Sky Trilogy
- G. Willow Wilson- Alif the Unseen
- Aliette de Bodard- Obsidian and Blood trilogy, Dominion of the Fallen
- Bradley Beaulieu- Song of the Shattered Sands, Lays of Anyuskaya Trilogy
- Brian McClellan- Powder Mage, Gods of Blood and Powder, War Cry
- Naomi Novik- Uprooted, Temeraire
- Diana Wynne Jones- The Magids, Derkholm
- Seth Dickenson- The Traitor Baru Cormorant
- Nicky Drayden- Prey of Gods
- Mary Robinette Kowal- Ghost Talkers, Glamourist Histories
- Drew Hayes- The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant, Undeath and Taxes
- Sam Sykes- Seven Blades in Black
- Ken Liu- The Paper Menagerie and the Dandelion Dynasty
- Senlin Ascends
- Lies of Locke Lamora
- Tamora Pierce- Circle of Magic, Tortall
- Jhereg
- Gail Carriger- Soulless
- Ursula K. LeGuin- Earthsea
- James Islington- The Shadow of What Was Lost
- Myke Cole
- Kathren Arden- The Bear and the Nightingale
- S. A. Chakraborty- The City of Brass
- Django Wexler- Shadow Campaigns
- Mythago Wood
- Nnedi Okorafor
- George. R. R. Martin- A Game of Thrones
- William Shakespeare
- Robert Jordan- Wheel of Time
