Essential Fantasy Novels?

[Arcbound Phyrexian]

What are the essential fantasy novels? I don't mean the "best" novels, or the "classics", but the ones everybody knows (or should ). The ones everything else gets compared to? What are the Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and The Matrixes of the novel world?

I think The Lord of the Rings, again, is definitely one. Everybody knows it, even if they've, for some God unknown reason, not read it, and it's one of the "standards" we've based an entire genre on.

What else should be on the list?

 

[myrddin173]

I feel as though this is a little to close to the Fantasy Must Read List.

 

[mythique890]

I never saw the Fantasy Must Read List, so I'll respond to this thread.

I think the Narnia books are pretty essential, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe at the very least. And I'd add The Hobbit in with LOTR, perhaps especially because we tend to read it as children (can't wait until my kids are old enough to read it out loud to them!!).

I think one could argue for the inclusion of Harry Potter on this list. I don't know for sure that it belongs, but it certainly had a huge effect on an entire generation of readers. HP kind of made reading cool again, and it definitely did amazing things for YA fantasy as a genre.

As for modern high fantasy, I think people should at least be aware of The Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice and Fire... and from how much I've seen it mentioned, The Kingkiller Chronicle (have yet to read The Name of the Wind, but I got the audiobook from the library and it's next on my list). I also think Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson is important to know about. Not quite as epic, but I think as an author, he's having revitalizing effect on the high fantasy genre. I'm eager to read his big series, The Way of Kings when I have a little more time.

Though it's Sci Fi, I think Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is a pretty important read.

Anyway, this is all IMO, and I mostly read in the YA section, so I'm sure there are people out there with much better ideas.

 

[myrddin173]

The Fantasy Must Read List is a sticky.

I'm going to lock this thread so we can keep this topic to one thread.