Here is the list where I found the longest series for anyone interested! I think most series are on this list but it might not be 100% accurate since I haven't gone through and verified every single number: www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fzybw5ojrdyma1.png%3Fwidth%3D2186%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26v%3Denabled%26s%3D959896c304bdcaef2aa0c8877146ac3a42900e76
@spudthepug I think some of the hate comes from the politics, but a lot comes from how much of a juvenile power fantasy it is. It always kind of struck me as being written by a horny 14 year old DMing a campaign with his favorite character as a DMPC. Scenes of the mc punching through a guys guts and ripping his spine out the front, the lead trying to lure in someone to mind control by spreading herself open, the entire second book centers around magical dominatrixes... Content wise the whole thing comes off like an over the top comedy/erotica like Everyone Loves Large Chests, except it is painfully obvious that it isn't satire. I finished the original series out of sheer momentum, but with all the good stuff available now I'd never even think of recommending it.
Those oldies are the besties. Shannara, Magician, Belgariad (all the versions whether Garion or Sparhawk), Thomas Covenant, Gemmel. So many great series and authors.
I have a real hard time calling King's books a series. He wrote a bunch of stand alone books and then decided after the fact they were all in a shared universe.
They’re not. The Gunslinger is a series, the rest (minus the Bill Hodges trilogy) are stand alones. I also don’t think his more recent books are in that universe.
In Tommyknockers, Nancy sees Pennywise looking from the drain in Derry, the books are all set in Castle Rock. There are references to other events from other King books in many of these, as local memories or things that happened in the area. Cujo is reference in, I think it was, The Dark Half, as a rabid dog. There is a reference also to the high school disturbance from Carrie in another of the Castle Rock novels. There is a universe, sure, but how connecte4d are the stories, only vaguely. The Walking Dude is Flagg from Tears of a Dragon.
Start with Riftwar first, it gives you a better understanding of what is going on in Daughter of the Empire. There are also some cameos that will make more sense from reading Riftwar first.
@@Johan_g I would think this was kind of a given. I read them as they were released, and then whenever I re-read them, I read Magician then the Empire, then Siverthorn, Sethanon.
Considering you did the list based on universes I think both Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms are kind of missing from the list… just Legend of Drizzt is listed with more than 3mio words on the Reddit list
The Wandering Inn has become one of my favourite series up there with the Cosmere but for different reasons. I think its length lends it a lot of benefits, things don't ever feel rushed and I think that can lead to some really solid payoffs, and the length also means that you get a very good balance of extremely tense moments paired with moments that are muchcmore relaxing and more slice of life which is something I love. This series truly does include nearly every subgenre in fantasy and ao it has something for everyone. The main character Erin may not be for everyone, she is a very upbeat character, but there are so many great characters in this series that I think anyone can find someone to love. I listen to the audiobooks between other series I read and that has let me catch up on the officially published works while still reading other series.
I said the same thing. And I think it's actually at 190 books now, but I stopped reading after the second generation. Nope, haven't even read Raistlin chronicles yet.
Was literally looking for this. Honestly (though a few books out of the hundred plus were weird) the most epic fantasy series I've ever read. Currently very underrated for some reason.
I guess it's not on here for the simple reason that there are so many different authors that wrote for this universe. It gained massive popularity with DnD so many just hopped on. I think if it would have been just Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman it would count and be inhumanly impressive. Even if they would have had co-writers like feist it would be ok. But that's just not the case
Thank you for these suggestions! Plenty there to keep us busy :-) I'm reading the Raymond E Feist series at the moment, and I would recommend starting with "Magician", which is the first book of the first trilogy. I can see that you could also start with Daughter of the Empire, which is set in the world on the other side of the rift to the first trilogy, but I think it helps to know the history of the conflict before you see it from the other side. "Magician" is 99p for the Kindle version in the UK at the moment, too!
I agree starting with Magician. And do note that some editions split the book into two parts because it was a chunker when it first came out. I do love that first book but I do agree that the Empire trilogy is fantastic and has a different tone than Magician.
Yes, start with Magician:Apprentice and Magician:Master. Then you read the whole Empire trilogy before you continue with Silverthorn and the rest och the Midkemia books. That way you keep the Tsuruani mystical in the beginning. Riftwar should in my mind include the Empire trilogy as well in the word count considering the connection they've got. One thing that is epic is to first read of a certain event with Pug's view and then later on relive the same event through the eyes of Mara and the uther horror she experienced during the event in question...
I don't know if you'll see this, but let me explain the wandering inn. The wandering inn is actually 12 million words now! Which is insane! And its currently split between 10 Volumes on the web serial. Not books the books are coming out after the web serial, and they come out as audiobooks, or eBooks. So there are 12 books, but they only come up to volume 5, or 6? There's about 3 audiobooks every year because it's already written. When the series is finished it will be over 40. She writes about 20,000 words a week on average, so have fun catching up hahaha
@@arthurmoreira49it really is good. Trust me, I can’t read a series I hate just for the bragging rights. It’s won best web serial of the year three times on the fantasy subreddit. I’m around 10 million words in. Though I think a good edit would cut out maybe half a million words, she makes almost every scene with important character development or builds things that either move the plot forward or sets up something that matters a few million words later.
Fun fact, 11.3million words is on average 5081 words written a day(rounded down!) Which is insane since it’s one person. I’m on book 5 of the Wandering Inn currently, and the quality has only gotten better, which is even MORE mind boggling. There have been story beats I haven’t been particularly happy with recently but that’s more to me thinking “SERIOUSLY! Give this character a break!” But overall it has been an absolute pleasure!
Curious to know where Terry Brooks' Shannara falls in terms of length if Terry Goodkind managed to get more words into Sword of Truth than Brooks did Shannara, as well as Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
@@ReeveProductions yeah, I wasn't concerned with Discworld. Shannara has more books of similar thickness to the Sword of Truth, plus a lot of supplementary material like novellas and a comic book, and somehow doesn't make the list? Doesn't seem possible.
Did you exclude all liscensed media? I expected the Legend of Drizzt to appear somewhere on this list. It is currently 39 books long and counting, all by the same author. I know that the books aren't massive tomes, like Stormlight, but I figured that total book count would easily make up for the difference.
It's strange not to see Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms in the reddit list! Btw I'm curious about The Wandering Inn... it can't be a physical publication, right? 😱
Honestly Dragonlance was one of the first to come to mind for me. I remember reading so many of then when I was younger. If I recall correctly, someone told me there are over 200 books in the series.
I just did a dirty count and with the lowest estimate and only counting Weiss and Hickman we're at 2305955 and that's missing 3 books that I don't have page counts for and that's with 250 words per page as listed on wiki.
Was scrolling down to look for this before I posted since this was my exact thought, by the description he gave in the video during the Stephen king section stand-alones in the same universe. Dragonlance is a giant pile of trilogies in the same universe
For what it's worth, The Saga of Recluse does have modern entries. The most recent book came out January 2024 and there's another one scheduled for release in November. In addition, if all your numbers are from last year, you're probably not counting that January release.
Yea true but with 60 odd books, not counting the short stories I'd say it's a big enough series to keep anyone busy for awhile. For me personally I love the short fast paced style of Moorcock's writing... He packs a lot of story and wonder in his tight prose that lets the reader use there imagination more instead of having every detail wrote out for them.
@@Arsenal.N.I7242 Totally agree. He’s my favorite fantasy writer. Corum, Elric, Erekose and the rest of the gang are some really fascinating characters that have some of the most wicked designs and creative story arcs in fantasy history.
@@nightmarishcompositions4536 Thankssss guys for the recomendation! I'm learning English and I've never read fantasy in English, so I was looking for fast-paced or easy fantasy to start. I add Moorcock's Multiverse, also I want to read "Deltora Quest" by Rodda Emily (middle grade) and "The Chronicles of Amber" by Roger Zelazny, those two series have really short books (less than 180-200 pages each book)
The Malazan books remain my favorite story(ies) of all time. I've done 4 readthroughs to date, taking a break to read other things in between, and each time I go back to Malazan I appreciate it more.
I found the Malazan books really impressive (the main sequence, so far have only read a couple of the others). But I would have to say that particularly in the later books, they could have used some editing. There were some ridiculously long stretches of nothing much happening except soldiers bitching about everything, which is realistic but I could have used to read about a third as much of it. Aside from that, though, there was some amazing storytelling, powerful emotion, massive depth, philosophical impact, cool plot bits . . . I'd say it's the most important fantasy series of the 21st century so far. Not of all time, that's LoTR obviously.
@@purplelibraryguy8729 Fair points all around. I find that my tolerance for the Malazan bloat has actually increased greatly over time with each reread, especially compared against a LOT of the other stuff I've read in between.
The Malazan stuff is insane. It covers something like 250,000 years of its world history in some manner in the main series. It could have stood a little tighter editing in the later volumes of the main series, but most of that sitting around complaining type stuff actually serves a purpose in the grander narrative or at least from a character development perspective. What I remember most strongly, though, is that the first volume felt like an entire series all on its own, to the point that when I reread it years later when I went on to read the whole main series, I was surprised to discover that what I remembered was only the first book.
So weird to hear someone say that fantasy books written in the 80s and 90s are "classics". LOL. I've read at least some books in all of those series except Malazan and the Wandering Inn.
Malazan and The Wandering Inn are both wonderful but in very different ways. Malazan is *dense* with characters and lore and it felt very sink or swim to me. There's no slow introduction as there is in most other series. But the worldbuilding is far and away the best I've ever read, the characters are complex and memorable from the start. It's very much a story of friendships and companionship and survival. It goes very dark at times. TWI is a slow lead-in sort of story. It starts very small and local and then starts expanding and keeps expanding into the wider world. The characters are simple at first, but I'd compare it more to how when you meet someone new, you get that first simple impression and as you get to know them better, you find they have layers and secrets and quirks. You don't always like each of those things, but it makes them feel like real people to me, and real people can be smart and stupid, wonderful and annoying, compassionate and judgmental all at the same time.
Tolkien only became really big in the 60:s I think and only in the 70:s "fantasy" appeared as a genre. It was more or less in the 80:s that the fantasy formula of trilogies or longer series with an overarching big conflict (generally between good and evil in some form) became established with authors who at the same time made it their own rather than straight-out imitating Tolkien.
@@jonweman6128 Being along for the ride was great. Authors like Brooks, Feist and Gemmel releasing new works, looking forward to new authors. A great time to be a reader.
I was very happy to hear you mention Xanth. My birth father loved that series as a child and he gave the whole series to me the first time I went to visit his family. I have read some of them and they can be a real trip. I went into the first one thinking it would be a cute kids story kind of like Redwall. It threw in some.elements that I wouldn’t give young kid. Still really funny and I would recommend. The map of the world is literally Florida. Hmmm….maybe this isn’t really a fantasy series after all. 🤔 🐊
The wandering inn felt intimidating but its surprisingly easy and fast to read. My wife has already read 9 of them in just a couple of months and only reads casually. The world building is very slow, so you dont feel overwhelmed by a ton of descriptions or info dumps. Its a serial so she barely edits, she just writes and give sort of a cursory edit. Apparently the community provides edits. The author has talk about her process a lot, its pretty fascinating.
The Xanth series is actually a fantastical alternate reality of the state of Florida (not joking.) And the concepts of the the world revolve around puns and plays on words. A "Night Mare" is a literal horse. "Isle of View" = "I Love You". "Centaur Isle/Center Aisle" etc. It's a playful, tongue-in-cheek series. Not sure if I'd compare it too closely to Discworld, because it's a lot more of a surface-level kind of humor. But it's still funny and epic in it's own way. A lot of the series is broken up into sets of trilogies. Hope that helps. (UPDATE: Since posting this comment, I've looked into Xanth again and realized that is has a lot of problems I didn't understand before. I'm gonna have to withdraw my recommendation for it. It, uh, doesn't old up well.)
I used to love these books but I tried them recently along with his Incarnations of Immortality but I just can't get past the ah, shall we say, "male gaze" issue he has. I was a early-mid teen when I first read them but as an adult I just can't do it. Not to mention that having had kids makes this even harder to read.
@@BariiAlyn God yeah I tried to reread it as an adult -- used to LOVE them, so much -- and his treatment of female characters is... uncomfortable. I had quit previously because I got up to the book with the goblin protagonist and found it exceedingly repetitive and the way the narrative framed the protagonist's personality really displeased me. It's tied up with spoilers so I don't want to be more specific. It's a shame because there's still so many fun ideas and puns in the stories. I don't even mind the weird implications of the Love Springs (never think too hard about the love springs) But I just can't go back any more.
The first 9 are good, although they get weaker as they go on (with some exceptions, e.g. Night Mare); but after that they just get very samey with a lot of dodginess in reference to the young teen female characters. I think I got to book 18 before I just had enough and got rid of them to make space for better books.
Would be interesting to see a list of this sort done for Science Fiction as well- I've read some longish SF series but I wonder whether they'll even feature on such a list
For the Riftworld series, you should read Magician first (both Apprentice and Master). Then you should read Daughter and Servant of the Empire, then finish the Riftwar books, and then Mistress of the Empire.
I grew up reading the Xanth series. Good stuff, especially in the beginning. The first 10 or so are the best part. I would agree with another commenter below, the later books fall off as it becomes "forced" to be punny, where the entire series is rooted in puns and humor. It came much easier in the early books. But conceptually, its still a fun series.
I was rather surprised that the Star Wars EU from Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978) through April, 25, 2014 was not counted here, unless it is considered more science fiction. This seemed like a good place for it.
Some favourites on that list, especially Valdemar. Valdemar isn't the only series by that author, either, so if you haven't read any Mercedes Lackey yet, give it a go. Surprised not to see Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern novels on there, as there are certainly a lot of those.
I think mercedes lackey is some of the best books out there and would recommend it to any fantasy reader so many excellent story's but the one that had me tearing up was Brightly Burning.
@@katrinaedgar816 Brightly Burning.... I read that like 20 years ago. That one hits hard. One of the books, can't remember what one. Has an ending where you learn how committed a small group of souls are to the kingdom. It makes you sit there just thinking about all the books before it. I wish I could remember what book it was though.
I love Valdemar series and have all of them, just finished the latest one! McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern is considered Science Fiction since the Dragons were (originally) lab-created, and the later books showing it to be a planet colonization .
@@Archadieshave you got any more details on the one you’re trying to remember ? I’ve got all of them. I might be able to help figure out which one it is.
Okay ENOUGH. The true longest piece of literature and a stand alone on top of that - no other shared universe and stuff involved - is the novel Bringing a Farm to Live in Another World. This novel has a whooping 14,000 chapters! With each chapter having around 1,500 words so you multiply that 14,000 multiplied by 1,500 then you get a Whooping 21 MILLION word count AND this novel is still ongoing, it could potentially reach 20,000 chapters. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK
If you would have grown up in the 1980s in the U.S., you would have seen how Anthony and Lackey dominated the fantasy shelves of mall bookstores. There are still lots of copies circulating in used bookstores.
The only books of Anthony's I have enjoyed are the Incarnations of Immortality. Xanth had too many descriptions of girls panties and though I usually have a strong constitution I got a seriously Icky feeling from them and then there is Tyrant which was somehow worse. (*spoiler alert* the main character who is around 15 years old gets graped by his 12 year old sister whilst he is delirious.) After that I just couldn't look at his work the same way or ever revisit it.
On the one hand, Anthony's books have some excellent characters and amazing worlds with an ability to theme otherwise surface-level books very well. His series feature Multiverse travel between parallel worlds by a plane running across them where you walk world to world in about 10 yards, an exploration of cold war politics by personifying planets, a hero so chosen because of his unspectacular person, and a schmuck barely getting by because he's too nice to take proper advantage of people for profit. On the other hand, reading his books may frequently leave you feeling like you're reading an old man's wet dreams. Exciting as a teen, but more sleazy as an adult
I've read 80-90% of The Sword of Truth series and enjoyed it. I read it before I was really exposed to more of the fantasy world and now that I'm more familiar with so much more Sci-fi/Fantasy... I still think it holds up.
I will admit i have only listened to the audio books, but the Wandering Inn is an amazing vast world that is constantly growing and filling in more and more of the world as it goes. It has an amazing fleshing out of the goblin race to a point you totally care about them in a way i haven't seen done anywhere else. There are multiple races, cities, continents and different systems of government that even when appalling you can understand why they exist in the place they do exist. Historical reasons for all kinds of things are hinted at building a great world. Let alone the magic systems, that are used really well as plot movers. There is so much left to discover in the world and love that it exists. If you don't think you can read it it is definitely worth a listen. Especially as each book is around 40 hours so well worth a credit on audible, and great performance as well.
As someone who has read all 13+ million words of The Wandering Inn I forget how short the largest epic fantasies are. It will take around 9-10 years for audiobooks to catch up to where the story is currently at, given its current pace. If they up the pace to 4 audiobooks a year then it ‘ll be more like 5-6 years. I’d say the series feels about 2/3rds of the way done. I think it’ll be about 20 million words when it’s finished, of course I could be hard wrong and it’ll go on on for 30 million words, or it may never finish lol just a new generation will be written about. But it doesn’t bother me, since it’s an amazing story that I love to see keep going.
Just for people who are wondering, a book classifies as a "novel" if it has 40,000 words or more. books consisting of 100,000+ words are considered "long"
I think their should be a distinction between a series that is on continuous story, like WOT and a series that is several distinct but interconnected stories, like 1st Law or Realm of the Elderlings
@@masoodvoon8999 that’s fair and maybe I should have used a better example. The thing with 1st law is that you can pick up and read The Heroes or Best Served Cold without having first read the original trilogy. Sure you might not get some of the Easter eggs, but you’ll still know what’s going on. With WOT, you can’t just read Path of Daggers without reading the previous books because it’s all one continuous story.
Probably Counts as sci-fi , they arrive in spaceship and the dragons are genetically modified (so are the dolphins), I was expecting the dragonlannce books at approaching 200 novels
The Dragonlance saga (based off of the D&D module and later campaign setting) has 205 books in its series; don't know if it counts though, as it's done by different authors.
I cut my teeth on Pierce Anthony's Xanth series when I was a child. The creativity kept my young mind enthralled and was what had me reading throughout my childhood. If you have kids, I would definetely see if they are interested.
I've read all of the Wandering Inn series so far, and I can confirm it's a single, extremely prolific author. The first book was... not great. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't in my top 100 books of all time, but it was interesting enough for me to try the second book, and the third... and by the time I was reading the fourth I realized I was hooked. It's not the most well written series of all time, but it does have the time to do all the world-building and in-depth character stories that you could ever want... and when this series hints at a checkov's gun... you may have to wait a couple MILLION words for the payday... but after all that buildup, those paydays are always really good. Took me nearly 6 months to read! Now I check every week for updates... it's one I'm absolutely going to continue reading. I've read a large number of the series you featured here... I love longer stories, but the Wandering Inn is certainly worth your time if you want to get seriously invested in an absolutely massive story.
I have been reading the Wandering Inn as my "supplemental" read for almost 3 years now and am still nowhere near catching up. It's what I read at night in conjunction to my "primary" book. It is easily one of my all time favorite series and one I recommend constantly to my friends. I know its daunting but everyone should give it a try if they are looking for a series that tackles every subgenre possible in a fantasy world
It honestly sounds impossible for something with twice the output of Stephen King's entire career released in about a tenth of the time to be anywhere near good. I'd be happy if it were good, as I really like long series (pretty much the only reason I picked up WoT in the first place)
@@JRCSalterIt's written so fast because it's an internet series. The author publishes chapters as they're written. And I don't think there's any editing.
@@itrololo194 I suppose that makes sense. Editing is often a necessity to make a story even remotely good though. I know Dean Wesley Smith, a successful author, is dead set against editing as a requirement, and I've read some of his stuff. It's readable, but far from brilliant. I myself have published stuff that isn't heavily edited, and I don't believe it's all that great. I'm wondering whether this is just a really well written series of blogs, and as such is liked for that achievement, rather than being judged on being a book. I'll have to check it out myself to see.
@@JRCSalter It’s long and people say oh keep with it for a few books(3,000,000+ words) and you start to really get into it but honestly if you need that long to hook people I feel like it might be Stockholm Syndrome setting in.
@@nibblitman I picked up the audiobook with a free trial, and listened to it while doing housework, as I didn't think I'd be able to actually read something like that with all the other books I'm reading. I am about 3 quarters the way through the first volume, and I must say I am loving it.
hm. I'm surprised the Drizzt series and Dragon Lance series didn't make the cut. Lackey, though, i knew had quite a lot, but I didn't know it was quite that many
dragonlance probably because it was weiss and hickman's books weren't too long and the rest of the books were other authors. Salvatore's #13. If you look at the graphic his books are like 25-20% of some the other authors' books in length.
I was waiting for Xanth! Yup I've read around thirty ish of them. Quite a saga. You can read the first 6 ish and get an idea of it. The series is broken into sequels, trilogies, standalone stories. Sometimes it focuses on a character for a few books, then moves on and uses that character as a supporting character in subsequent books. You gotta appreciate puns. Lots of puns in the fantasy naming conventions of piers Anthony.
Pirate is actually just a super advanced version of chatgpt. Also, Dragonlance has nearly 200 books (More of a universe than a single series). I would say the crown still goes to Kaoru Kurimoto's Guin Saga, at 147 volumes and 26 side novels.
In regards to the wandering inn, the author writes 2 chapters a week and posts them to a website where you can read for free. They are broken up into 9 volumes. Only recently has a publisher been breaking up the volumes into books with 11 books out so far. Those 11 books only cover the first 6 volumes so there are still many more books that will come out.
So, after watching this video I decided to read The Wandering Inn. As the author states in the epilogue, there are some typos, grammatical errors, etc. throughout the book, but I couldn't put it down. Read book one in 4 days. Starting book 2 now. Have to say, I'm kind of into it. At some point you might need to give it a try.
Oh, if you like the realm of the elderlings you will definitely love the realm of valdemar. While you can start anywhere I recommend starting at the first published, and then going in roughly release order. Release order isn’t necessary, but at the very least read each trilogy release order, and be aware of which trilogies are expansions of previous trilogies. I’m honestly surprised how many of these giant universes I’ve at least dabbled in, I think I’ve read at least one book in a third of the ones you mentioned.
I've been going through Saga of Recluce and other Modesitt works like The Imager Portfolio and his most recent series The Grand Illusion and he has become one of my favorite authors but he's definitely not for everyone. Even though Recluce is a fairly standard medieval fantasy it's got a very interesting structure where each book is set during a different period of the world, for example one book might be set in an early medieval period and the other is set in an industrial revolution period and you get to see how the world changes and develops/regresses with each book and the magic system is fairly interesting as well with a great focus being put on the effect the use of magic has on the world. He generally focuses on the day to day activites of a character and slowly building up the story over constantly moving the plot forward thus people could find his stuff slow or boring, especially in Imager and The Grand Illusion where there is a great focus on the economics and the politics of the world and Modesitt goes into great detail when those two areas are in question.
I do like his books, particularly the Imager books, specifically because you get to see someone think through how to make something work and the day-to-day progression of that effort. I mentally use the phrase "procedural fantasy" for this type of work (I know, it only makes sense to me). But a lot of people won't enjoy that kind of novel.
@@michaelldennis Yes, and another thing I really like about his works is that his main characters are all very skilled. The don't just know combat/magic skills but they all know some sort of a craft. In Recluce one is a carpenter, another a blacksmith and in Imager Rhenn is a potraiturist. The rest of the characters tend to be just as skilled, competent and intelligent including the antagonists.
So far the only Modesitt works I've read is the Corean Chronicles, which I loved. I purchased the ebook bundle they had on humble a while ago and will work through Recluse eventaully.
I love fantasy novels that are on a really epic scale. I’ve read The Wheel of Time, The realm of the elderlings, and The stormlight archive multiple times, and now I’m looking for something new. After reading your comment, I’m really looking forward to trying out Saga of Recluce. I love the idea of a series that goes through different time periods so you can see how things develop. I really hope I will enjoy them as much as you do.
I've read many of the Xanth books. They are actually a lot of fun. In some ways they are classic fantasy. In other ways, a bit less so. They have a few more adult elements. But I read them in junior high and wasn't concerned. If I'm not mistaken, he is STILL writing them.
OMG, I have read the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey and she has created such a full and diverse world with her Valdemar novels. It's so immersive and completely enthralling, that I have trouble putting her books down to sleep much less doing anything else. I highly recommend any and all of her books, especially the Valdemar novels.
I think Joe Dever's Lone Wolf gamebook series have also insane amount of word count (2.5M fosho, dunno if more) and it ended at like 31 books, with now all of them getting an extended editions that add previously cut content making them even larger
What should be on this lis list is “Wild Cards” by George RR Martin. There are about 18 books and one of my favorite fantasy series. An alien race with a biology similar to humans, releases a virus on the earth that kills over 90% of the population. Those that survive are classifies as Aces or Jokers. The Aces have favorable powers, each unique. The jokers have unfavorable mutations. This series is definitely for adults and very entertaining
The Xanth series is a lot of fun. It contains a lot of dad humor. The author still refers to it as a "trilogy". The first eight are excellent, but they kind of go downhill from there. Also, I was stunned not to see the Dragonlance series. There has to be at least 40 books by now.
I love seeing older fantasy books mentioned! I've read many many Xanth books, they are middle grade to YA, but some other works by that author are decidedly NOT. I've read every single book in the Valdamar series including the book that came out last year! I'm so glad she is still writing books that instantly transport me back to my collage days. The Valdamar books are YA, as are most of her many other series she has also written. I finished the last Robin Hobb book in December, and have one Dresden Files book to be up to date. I think I've read all of Sir Terry Pratchett's works. I don't really read Steven King anymore, but I've read at least half his work.... An amazing author with 20 books in one universe in two connected series is Patricia Briggs, I recommend her Mercy Thompson/Alpha and Omega series. Which author should I take a deep dive into next?
The Xanth books are great. Piers Anthony was definitely an author worth reading. Some of his work is top notch, all of it is entertaining and amusing. A Spell for Chameleon, Source of Magic and Castle Roogna are still some of my favourite books to reread.
The first 6 books of the Realm of the Elderlings are free on Audible (you might need a subscription, but it doesn't cost credits) and I started with the 4th book, Ship of Magic, and am addicted to it. Robin Hobbs can write some awesome characters!
People get pissed over Sword of Truth because Goodkind acted like he was an ORIGINATOR and it was unique. There were clear, obvious and intentional DIRECT steals from WOT, LOTR and others.
Thank you so much for introducing me to The Wandering Inn series. The first 2 were on a buy one get one free on Audible so I spent a credit. I’m only on chapter 2 but am loving it. I’m not too sure that this would be a series for you, though as it is a humorous litrpg/iseki series. The narrator so far has been brilliant and I don’t think I will have a problem listening to her for the next 43 hours, that’s just the first book. 😂 For anyone who reads digitally, on Kindle at least, the books are only a few £’s each in the UK, so I suppose they won’t be too expensive in other countries. 🎉 Alternatively, it is legally free online 😂
Wooh! Malazan mentioned! If you have any interest in large scale battles, warfare, or fantasy tactics, Erikson is that guy. Edit: Come on, King doesn’t count. What even is that. Come on. Dark Tower is a series, but the “Stephen King Universe” isn’t a thing. Mentioning Maine and retconning characters doesn’t count as a greater narrative. If that’s the case, then how many words are written in the entire Forgotten Realms universe?
Sanderson should probably counted as the entire Cosmere. I think this should be a 'by one author list' which would shorten Malazan, Riftwar, and WOT at least. If you include multiple authors then the Forgotten Realms amd Dragonlance come into play. Conan may even make the list. Probably some others as well.
I highly recommend going through wandering inn author's interview with matt fantasy book reviews before judging it. You will get the vibes of the series from the interview A common pitch for recommending wandering inn is it being called malazan lite.
If we're looking at the numbers for books written in a universe, I wonder where Warhammer 40K books would rank? It’s all the one universe and has many writers contributing to it that have rules they have to follow to ensure continuity. (Yes, I know it's scifi, this has just made me wonder) A quick google seems to indicate that there are over 300 books at a minimum. If we apply an average of 40,000 words per book (standard novel length) to the number of books indicated to be in the universe according to FictionDB, 338, we get 13,52,0000 (thirteen million five hundred twenty thousand). That’s a lot of words…
I've fallen off a couple of these, but I'm 100% on the Recluse books and I've read them since it started. Great to see Feist and Lackey getting a shout out from the past. I was huge on Piers Anthony but things definitely went off the rails a couple decades ago.
But it’s counted as Science Fiction since the dragons were engineeered ( deliberately created in a lab, originally). It’s not Fantasy and he’s listing fantasy series. I love them!
Why wasn’t Warhammer 40k included? I think Horus Heresy has like 50 books and Siege of Terra as well. And that’s only what happens before actually getting to 40k
@@joncarroll2040 I did a rough count and just the Weiss and Hickman books are 2mil+ words at the lowest count so they would for sure be up there but I'm guessing the compilers forgot they exist.
The only one new to me is the series by Michelle West, which I'll now have to look up. I suspect I've read a lot more older/classic fantasy than most people on BookTube though
The Xanth series by Piers Anthony is comparable to the Terry Pratchett Disc World Series. A lot of silly humor and all the stories are set in the same world but with different characters. I remember reading these books as a kid and I still reference some of the books and characters 😊
Don't be initimated by wandering inn, it seems daunting if you see its length, but once you start reading it you will not stop. I caught up to wandering inn 2 years ago and have re tead it once more and am caughtup to series , and I find it much more bingeable than cosmere. As I have only read stormlightarchive , it is below wandering imo.
Feist, Modesitt, and Anthony are some of my favorite authors and I highly recommend reading their works. All things equal, it is best to read them in chronological order.
About King's universe, yes and no. Yes, they're all connected but there are different dimensions and parallel universes. For example: in some universes, IT is dead and in others, alive
Valdemar is excellent. You can probably start with any of the series, though I'd start with Arrows of the Queen, which is the first published book. And you can't count Goodkind, since he doesn't write fantasy: "First of all, I don't write fantasy. I write stories that have important human themes. They have elements of romance, history, adventure, mystery and philosophy. Most fantasy is one-dimensional. It's either about magic or a world-building. I don't do either." - Terry Goodkind Finally, King is a fantasy writer like Clancy was a fantasy writer. (All of Clancy's books escept for Red Storm Rising are set in the same alternate history, which is certainly a subgenre of fantasy.)
It is an easy read. Online chapters are in effect mini stories, so if you do take a break and then go back to it, you will be fine. The author cites on her website it is at 12.4 million words now. She is a machine of a writer. And yes - it is an incredible story. Fun, entertaining, thought provoking and has hidden depth. I am loving it
The Recluce books are interesting. They tend to be almost standalone--characters in one are more likely to have heard of the characters in another as historical "greats" than to actually know them personally. And they have as far as I can tell two major themes: 1. Deep philosophical questions of the values and uses of order, disorder and different sorts of compromise between the two, along with musings on craftsmanship. 2. The idea that any political problem can probably be solved by assassinating someone. No, really. On that first thing, I think Modesitt's thinking on the subject developed and shifted over time; where the first book treats order vs chaos as an almost good vs evil deal, pretty one dimensional, over time there's a fair amount of nuance introduced. I haven't read all of 'em, but now and then I'll pick another up if I'm pretty sure it's not one of the ones I already have . . . they do get a bit same-ey after a while.
i actually got audible just too listen too the wandering in, and i do not regret it at all! it is fantastic! also quite supprised discworld didnt made the list.
Sword of Truth is controversial mostly due to the author being very disrespectful towards the Fantasy Genre itself, if I’m not mistaken. Like Rowling, Goodkind regards himself as something better than Fantasy, and is very condescending. He also made some iffy remarks about Robert Jordans health etc. So many fantasy fans don’t include him as a legit fantasy writer, because he doesn’t consider himself as one and sees himself as better than it.
Here is the list where I found the longest series for anyone interested! I think most series are on this list but it might not be 100% accurate since I haven't gone through and verified every single number:
www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fzybw5ojrdyma1.png%3Fwidth%3D2186%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26v%3Denabled%26s%3D959896c304bdcaef2aa0c8877146ac3a42900e76
Loved wizards first rule need to get back in the series people hate Goodkind because Zed the wizard has fantastic wisdom to live by.
@@turbokid8719it’s Goodkind’s love of Ayn Rand’s philosophy that they really hate.
@@spudthepug yeah people tend to hate intelligence… she seems to be right up there with JK Rowling people just hate them 🤷
No Perry Rhodan though.
@spudthepug I think some of the hate comes from the politics, but a lot comes from how much of a juvenile power fantasy it is. It always kind of struck me as being written by a horny 14 year old DMing a campaign with his favorite character as a DMPC. Scenes of the mc punching through a guys guts and ripping his spine out the front, the lead trying to lure in someone to mind control by spreading herself open, the entire second book centers around magical dominatrixes... Content wise the whole thing comes off like an over the top comedy/erotica like Everyone Loves Large Chests, except it is painfully obvious that it isn't satire. I finished the original series out of sheer momentum, but with all the good stuff available now I'd never even think of recommending it.
Glad to see a booktuber talking about pre-90s fantasy. Don’t see enough love for some of these oldies.
Those oldies are the besties. Shannara, Magician, Belgariad (all the versions whether Garion or Sparhawk), Thomas Covenant, Gemmel. So many great series and authors.
I have a real hard time calling King's books a series. He wrote a bunch of stand alone books and then decided after the fact they were all in a shared universe.
They’re not. The Gunslinger is a series, the rest (minus the Bill Hodges trilogy) are stand alones.
I also don’t think his more recent books are in that universe.
In Tommyknockers, Nancy sees Pennywise looking from the drain in Derry, the books are all set in Castle Rock. There are references to other events from other King books in many of these, as local memories or things that happened in the area. Cujo is reference in, I think it was, The Dark Half, as a rabid dog. There is a reference also to the high school disturbance from Carrie in another of the Castle Rock novels. There is a universe, sure, but how connecte4d are the stories, only vaguely.
The Walking Dude is Flagg from Tears of a Dragon.
Start with Riftwar first, it gives you a better understanding of what is going on in Daughter of the Empire. There are also some cameos that will make more sense from reading Riftwar first.
Or at the very least Magician. But he's correct in what he said about The Empire Trilogy being the cream of the Riftwar series.
Agree with this, read Magician first but Empire is an amazing trilogy.
I would say Magician first, then Empire, followed by the rest.
@@Johan_g I would think this was kind of a given. I read them as they were released, and then whenever I re-read them, I read Magician then the Empire, then Siverthorn, Sethanon.
I hink I've read them all. But the only ones I come back to are the Daughter of the Empire trilogy.
Considering you did the list based on universes I think both Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms are kind of missing from the list… just Legend of Drizzt is listed with more than 3mio words on the Reddit list
The Wandering Inn has become one of my favourite series up there with the Cosmere but for different reasons. I think its length lends it a lot of benefits, things don't ever feel rushed and I think that can lead to some really solid payoffs, and the length also means that you get a very good balance of extremely tense moments paired with moments that are muchcmore relaxing and more slice of life which is something I love. This series truly does include nearly every subgenre in fantasy and ao it has something for everyone. The main character Erin may not be for everyone, she is a very upbeat character, but there are so many great characters in this series that I think anyone can find someone to love. I listen to the audiobooks between other series I read and that has let me catch up on the officially published works while still reading other series.
So, Dragonlance has like over 100 books... no mention here?
I said the same thing. And I think it's actually at 190 books now, but I stopped reading after the second generation. Nope, haven't even read Raistlin chronicles yet.
Agreed, if Steven King made it then Dragonlance should.
Xanth is a big one too.
Was literally looking for this. Honestly (though a few books out of the hundred plus were weird) the most epic fantasy series I've ever read. Currently very underrated for some reason.
I guess it's not on here for the simple reason that there are so many different authors that wrote for this universe. It gained massive popularity with DnD so many just hopped on.
I think if it would have been just Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman it would count and be inhumanly impressive. Even if they would have had co-writers like feist it would be ok.
But that's just not the case
Thank you for these suggestions! Plenty there to keep us busy :-) I'm reading the Raymond E Feist series at the moment, and I would recommend starting with "Magician", which is the first book of the first trilogy. I can see that you could also start with Daughter of the Empire, which is set in the world on the other side of the rift to the first trilogy, but I think it helps to know the history of the conflict before you see it from the other side. "Magician" is 99p for the Kindle version in the UK at the moment, too!
Yes, start with Magician for sure!
I agree starting with Magician. And do note that some editions split the book into two parts because it was a chunker when it first came out. I do love that first book but I do agree that the Empire trilogy is fantastic and has a different tone than Magician.
Yes, start with Magician:Apprentice and Magician:Master. Then you read the whole Empire trilogy before you continue with Silverthorn and the rest och the Midkemia books. That way you keep the Tsuruani mystical in the beginning. Riftwar should in my mind include the Empire trilogy as well in the word count considering the connection they've got.
One thing that is epic is to first read of a certain event with Pug's view and then later on relive the same event through the eyes of Mara and the uther horror she experienced during the event in question...
@@michaelldennis I have the original Trade Paperback and the Extended Edition signed by Feist. They aren't THAT big.
I don't know if you'll see this, but let me explain the wandering inn. The wandering inn is actually 12 million words now! Which is insane! And its currently split between 10 Volumes on the web serial. Not books the books are coming out after the web serial, and they come out as audiobooks, or eBooks. So there are 12 books, but they only come up to volume 5, or 6? There's about 3 audiobooks every year because it's already written. When the series is finished it will be over 40. She writes about 20,000 words a week on average, so have fun catching up hahaha
is it even good? sounds to me like something people would read just to be able to say: "i did it"
@@arthurmoreira49 I quit after the first book. There were a lot of words but they really were not saying a lot was the issue I had with it.
Sometimes number of words does not equate to the best series. Shanara definitely is a great read. As are the Deryni books and the Pern books.
@@arthurmoreira49it really is good. Trust me, I can’t read a series I hate just for the bragging rights. It’s won best web serial of the year three times on the fantasy subreddit. I’m around 10 million words in. Though I think a good edit would cut out maybe half a million words, she makes almost every scene with important character development or builds things that either move the plot forward or sets up something that matters a few million words later.
Fun fact, 11.3million words is on average 5081 words written a day(rounded down!) Which is insane since it’s one person. I’m on book 5 of the Wandering Inn currently, and the quality has only gotten better, which is even MORE mind boggling. There have been story beats I haven’t been particularly happy with recently but that’s more to me thinking “SERIOUSLY! Give this character a break!” But overall it has been an absolute pleasure!
Curious to know where Terry Brooks' Shannara falls in terms of length if Terry Goodkind managed to get more words into Sword of Truth than Brooks did Shannara, as well as Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
Same. I kept thinking it would pop up on this video
At 0:58 he tells you discworld is in stop #19.
@@ReeveProductions yeah, I wasn't concerned with Discworld. Shannara has more books of similar thickness to the Sword of Truth, plus a lot of supplementary material like novellas and a comic book, and somehow doesn't make the list? Doesn't seem possible.
@@danielgrey7109 He missed Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of PERN also. And thats 24 books.
If you look at the list pinned in the comments, it comes in at #11.
Did you exclude all liscensed media? I expected the Legend of Drizzt to appear somewhere on this list. It is currently 39 books long and counting, all by the same author.
I know that the books aren't massive tomes, like Stormlight, but I figured that total book count would easily make up for the difference.
The Drizzt Novels are at over 4,000,000 words.
@@krishogan3503 Sounds about right. Salvatore just reliably pumps out trilogies for decades and shows no signs of stopping.
@@CatOnFire most of it is good though
@@krishogan3503 Agreed!
And that's not even counting all the interconnected Forgotten Realms* books.
*or whatever they're calling themselves now.
It's strange not to see Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms in the reddit list! Btw I'm curious about The Wandering Inn... it can't be a physical publication, right? 😱
Honestly Dragonlance was one of the first to come to mind for me. I remember reading so many of then when I was younger. If I recall correctly, someone told me there are over 200 books in the series.
I was waiting for Dragonlance as I understand it's closer to 300 books now.
I just did a dirty count and with the lowest estimate and only counting Weiss and Hickman we're at 2305955 and that's missing 3 books that I don't have page counts for and that's with 250 words per page as listed on wiki.
Was scrolling down to look for this before I posted since this was my exact thought, by the description he gave in the video during the Stephen king section stand-alones in the same universe. Dragonlance is a giant pile of trilogies in the same universe
Where does the The Dragonriders of Pern series fit in? With 26 primary books and a total of 52 total works I could not find a word count on it.
I was waiting for this series to pop up
42 books in Terry Brooks Shannara series. Should definitely be on here.
If you look at the list pinned in the comments, it comes in at #11.
For what it's worth, The Saga of Recluse does have modern entries. The most recent book came out January 2024 and there's another one scheduled for release in November. In addition, if all your numbers are from last year, you're probably not counting that January release.
Don't forget Michael Moorcock's Multiverse series ( The Eternal Champion ). Loads of books and characters and worlds to explore.
Yup. They’re all extremely short and fast paced though. You could read 12 Eternal Champion books faster than a Game of Thrones book.
Yea true but with 60 odd books, not counting the short stories I'd say it's a big enough series to keep anyone busy for awhile. For me personally I love the short fast paced style of Moorcock's writing... He packs a lot of story and wonder in his tight prose that lets the reader use there imagination more instead of having every detail wrote out for them.
@@Arsenal.N.I7242 Totally agree. He’s my favorite fantasy writer. Corum, Elric, Erekose and the rest of the gang are some really fascinating characters that have some of the most wicked designs and creative story arcs in fantasy history.
@@nightmarishcompositions4536 checking out your content on your channel man great stuff 👍🏻 🙂 I've subscribed.
@@nightmarishcompositions4536 Thankssss guys for the recomendation! I'm learning English and I've never read fantasy in English, so I was looking for fast-paced or easy fantasy to start. I add Moorcock's Multiverse, also I want to read "Deltora Quest" by Rodda Emily (middle grade) and "The Chronicles of Amber" by Roger Zelazny, those two series have really short books (less than 180-200 pages each book)
The Malazan books remain my favorite story(ies) of all time. I've done 4 readthroughs to date, taking a break to read other things in between, and each time I go back to Malazan I appreciate it more.
I found the Malazan books really impressive (the main sequence, so far have only read a couple of the others). But I would have to say that particularly in the later books, they could have used some editing. There were some ridiculously long stretches of nothing much happening except soldiers bitching about everything, which is realistic but I could have used to read about a third as much of it. Aside from that, though, there was some amazing storytelling, powerful emotion, massive depth, philosophical impact, cool plot bits . . . I'd say it's the most important fantasy series of the 21st century so far. Not of all time, that's LoTR obviously.
@@purplelibraryguy8729 Fair points all around. I find that my tolerance for the Malazan bloat has actually increased greatly over time with each reread, especially compared against a LOT of the other stuff I've read in between.
The Malazan stuff is insane. It covers something like 250,000 years of its world history in some manner in the main series. It could have stood a little tighter editing in the later volumes of the main series, but most of that sitting around complaining type stuff actually serves a purpose in the grander narrative or at least from a character development perspective. What I remember most strongly, though, is that the first volume felt like an entire series all on its own, to the point that when I reread it years later when I went on to read the whole main series, I was surprised to discover that what I remembered was only the first book.
It is a very damn good series.
So weird to hear someone say that fantasy books written in the 80s and 90s are "classics". LOL. I've read at least some books in all of those series except Malazan and the Wandering Inn.
Haha fair point!
Fall out boy is now on the classic rock satiation.
Malazan and The Wandering Inn are both wonderful but in very different ways.
Malazan is *dense* with characters and lore and it felt very sink or swim to me. There's no slow introduction as there is in most other series. But the worldbuilding is far and away the best I've ever read, the characters are complex and memorable from the start. It's very much a story of friendships and companionship and survival. It goes very dark at times.
TWI is a slow lead-in sort of story. It starts very small and local and then starts expanding and keeps expanding into the wider world. The characters are simple at first, but I'd compare it more to how when you meet someone new, you get that first simple impression and as you get to know them better, you find they have layers and secrets and quirks. You don't always like each of those things, but it makes them feel like real people to me, and real people can be smart and stupid, wonderful and annoying, compassionate and judgmental all at the same time.
Tolkien only became really big in the 60:s I think and only in the 70:s "fantasy" appeared as a genre. It was more or less in the 80:s that the fantasy formula of trilogies or longer series with an overarching big conflict (generally between good and evil in some form) became established with authors who at the same time made it their own rather than straight-out imitating Tolkien.
@@jonweman6128 Being along for the ride was great. Authors like Brooks, Feist and Gemmel releasing new works, looking forward to new authors. A great time to be a reader.
Katherine Kerr Deverry cycle got me back into reading. good 15 books
I am surprised Dragonlance isn't on this list somewhere with 38 books in the series. One of my favorites.
There are 190+ Dragonlance books.
I was very happy to hear you mention Xanth. My birth father loved that series as a child and he gave the whole series to me the first time I went to visit his family. I have read some of them and they can be a real trip. I went into the first one thinking it would be a cute kids story kind of like Redwall. It threw in some.elements that I wouldn’t give young kid. Still really funny and I would recommend. The map of the world is literally Florida. Hmmm….maybe this isn’t really a fantasy series after all. 🤔 🐊
Krynn world with the dragonlance books?
There's at least forty Dragonlance books. Definitely don't know how this didn't make the list.
The wandering inn felt intimidating but its surprisingly easy and fast to read. My wife has already read 9 of them in just a couple of months and only reads casually. The world building is very slow, so you dont feel overwhelmed by a ton of descriptions or info dumps. Its a serial so she barely edits, she just writes and give sort of a cursory edit. Apparently the community provides edits. The author has talk about her process a lot, its pretty fascinating.
The Xanth series is actually a fantastical alternate reality of the state of Florida (not joking.) And the concepts of the the world revolve around puns and plays on words. A "Night Mare" is a literal horse. "Isle of View" = "I Love You". "Centaur Isle/Center Aisle" etc. It's a playful, tongue-in-cheek series. Not sure if I'd compare it too closely to Discworld, because it's a lot more of a surface-level kind of humor. But it's still funny and epic in it's own way. A lot of the series is broken up into sets of trilogies. Hope that helps. (UPDATE: Since posting this comment, I've looked into Xanth again and realized that is has a lot of problems I didn't understand before. I'm gonna have to withdraw my recommendation for it. It, uh, doesn't old up well.)
I used to love these books but I tried them recently along with his Incarnations of Immortality but I just can't get past the ah, shall we say, "male gaze" issue he has. I was a early-mid teen when I first read them but as an adult I just can't do it. Not to mention that having had kids makes this even harder to read.
@@BariiAlyn
God yeah I tried to reread it as an adult -- used to LOVE them, so much -- and his treatment of female characters is... uncomfortable.
I had quit previously because I got up to the book with the goblin protagonist and found it exceedingly repetitive and the way the narrative framed the protagonist's personality really displeased me.
It's tied up with spoilers so I don't want to be more specific.
It's a shame because there's still so many fun ideas and puns in the stories.
I don't even mind the weird implications of the Love Springs (never think too hard about the love springs)
But I just can't go back any more.
The first 9 are good, although they get weaker as they go on (with some exceptions, e.g. Night Mare); but after that they just get very samey with a lot of dodginess in reference to the young teen female characters. I think I got to book 18 before I just had enough and got rid of them to make space for better books.
@@BariiAlyn *Sigh* Yeah... can't argue that it didn't age well.
@@Cathowl Yeah, it really doesn't hold up well. Kind of a bummer in retrospect.
Would be interesting to see a list of this sort done for Science Fiction as well- I've read some longish SF series but I wonder whether they'll even feature on such a list
For the Riftworld series, you should read Magician first (both Apprentice and Master). Then you should read Daughter and Servant of the Empire, then finish the Riftwar books, and then Mistress of the Empire.
I loved every character from the first two trilogies.
I grew up reading the Xanth series. Good stuff, especially in the beginning. The first 10 or so are the best part. I would agree with another commenter below, the later books fall off as it becomes "forced" to be punny, where the entire series is rooted in puns and humor. It came much easier in the early books. But conceptually, its still a fun series.
First one that came to mind (before seeing the video) was Terry Pratchet's disk world series... based on numbers of books.
I was rather surprised that the Star Wars EU from Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978) through April, 25, 2014 was not counted here, unless it is considered more science fiction. This seemed like a good place for it.
Some favourites on that list, especially Valdemar. Valdemar isn't the only series by that author, either, so if you haven't read any Mercedes Lackey yet, give it a go. Surprised not to see Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern novels on there, as there are certainly a lot of those.
I think mercedes lackey is some of the best books out there and would recommend it to any fantasy reader so many excellent story's but the one that had me tearing up was Brightly Burning.
Love this series! And it's still going, 2 books in the last year.
@@katrinaedgar816 Brightly Burning.... I read that like 20 years ago. That one hits hard. One of the books, can't remember what one. Has an ending where you learn how committed a small group of souls are to the kingdom. It makes you sit there just thinking about all the books before it. I wish I could remember what book it was though.
I love Valdemar series and have all of them, just finished the latest one!
McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern is considered Science Fiction since the Dragons were (originally) lab-created, and the later books showing it to be a planet colonization .
@@Archadieshave you got any more details on the one you’re trying to remember ? I’ve got all of them. I might be able to help figure out which one it is.
Okay ENOUGH. The true longest piece of literature and a stand alone on top of that - no other shared universe and stuff involved - is the novel Bringing a Farm to Live in Another World.
This novel has a whooping 14,000 chapters! With each chapter having around 1,500 words so you multiply that 14,000 multiplied by 1,500 then you get a Whooping 21 MILLION word count AND this novel is still ongoing, it could potentially reach 20,000 chapters.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK
If you would have grown up in the 1980s in the U.S., you would have seen how Anthony and Lackey dominated the fantasy shelves of mall bookstores. There are still lots of copies circulating in used bookstores.
These would be my go to books from the library when I ran out of things to read. New ones always seem to pop up.
And McCaffrey
The only books of Anthony's I have enjoyed are the Incarnations of Immortality. Xanth had too many descriptions of girls panties and though I usually have a strong constitution I got a seriously Icky feeling from them and then there is Tyrant which was somehow worse. (*spoiler alert* the main character who is around 15 years old gets graped by his 12 year old sister whilst he is delirious.) After that I just couldn't look at his work the same way or ever revisit it.
@@nicholastaylor9687 agreed. I read Anthony’s book as a teen. Tried a reread and stopped. Prefer the nostalgia in memory.
On the one hand, Anthony's books have some excellent characters and amazing worlds with an ability to theme otherwise surface-level books very well. His series feature Multiverse travel between parallel worlds by a plane running across them where you walk world to world in about 10 yards, an exploration of cold war politics by personifying planets, a hero so chosen because of his unspectacular person, and a schmuck barely getting by because he's too nice to take proper advantage of people for profit. On the other hand, reading his books may frequently leave you feeling like you're reading an old man's wet dreams. Exciting as a teen, but more sleazy as an adult
Thanks to you now I added more books in my TBR list
I've read 80-90% of The Sword of Truth series and enjoyed it. I read it before I was really exposed to more of the fantasy world and now that I'm more familiar with so much more Sci-fi/Fantasy... I still think it holds up.
I will admit i have only listened to the audio books, but the Wandering Inn is an amazing vast world that is constantly growing and filling in more and more of the world as it goes.
It has an amazing fleshing out of the goblin race to a point you totally care about them in a way i haven't seen done anywhere else.
There are multiple races, cities, continents and different systems of government that even when appalling you can understand why they exist in the place they do exist.
Historical reasons for all kinds of things are hinted at building a great world.
Let alone the magic systems, that are used really well as plot movers.
There is so much left to discover in the world and love that it exists.
If you don't think you can read it it is definitely worth a listen. Especially as each book is around 40 hours so well worth a credit on audible, and great performance as well.
As someone who has read all 13+ million words of The Wandering Inn I forget how short the largest epic fantasies are. It will take around 9-10 years for audiobooks to catch up to where the story is currently at, given its current pace. If they up the pace to 4 audiobooks a year then it ‘ll be more like 5-6 years.
I’d say the series feels about 2/3rds of the way done. I think it’ll be about 20 million words when it’s finished, of course I could be hard wrong and it’ll go on on for 30 million words, or it may never finish lol just a new generation will be written about. But it doesn’t bother me, since it’s an amazing story that I love to see keep going.
Just for people who are wondering, a book classifies as a "novel" if it has 40,000 words or more. books consisting of 100,000+ words are considered "long"
I think their should be a distinction between a series that is on continuous story, like WOT and a series that is several distinct but interconnected stories, like 1st Law or Realm of the Elderlings
I don't know if we know for sure how 1st law ends yet because I feel like there will be another series to tie in the end of the last to the beginning.
@@masoodvoon8999 that’s fair and maybe I should have used a better example. The thing with 1st law is that you can pick up and read The Heroes or Best Served Cold without having first read the original trilogy. Sure you might not get some of the Easter eggs, but you’ll still know what’s going on. With WOT, you can’t just read Path of Daggers without reading the previous books because it’s all one continuous story.
Continuous story thread vs universal story thread. Like WoT vs The Cosmere.
I was wondering where the Dragonriders of Pern came in at, or possibly it's considered science fiction not fantasy.
Probably Counts as sci-fi , they arrive in spaceship and the dragons are genetically modified (so are the dolphins),
I was expecting the dragonlannce books at approaching 200 novels
The Dragonlance saga (based off of the D&D module and later campaign setting) has 205 books in its series; don't know if it counts though, as it's done by different authors.
Wow 😯 liked ur video 🎥 didn’t know some of these books on ur list !! Thank you!! 😊
Thank you, Safina!
I cut my teeth on Pierce Anthony's Xanth series when I was a child. The creativity kept my young mind enthralled and was what had me reading throughout my childhood. If you have kids, I would definetely see if they are interested.
What about Dragonlance? Over 190 books! Lots of authors, but the same world. No idea how many words though....
I've read all of the Wandering Inn series so far, and I can confirm it's a single, extremely prolific author. The first book was... not great. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't in my top 100 books of all time, but it was interesting enough for me to try the second book, and the third... and by the time I was reading the fourth I realized I was hooked. It's not the most well written series of all time, but it does have the time to do all the world-building and in-depth character stories that you could ever want... and when this series hints at a checkov's gun... you may have to wait a couple MILLION words for the payday... but after all that buildup, those paydays are always really good. Took me nearly 6 months to read! Now I check every week for updates... it's one I'm absolutely going to continue reading. I've read a large number of the series you featured here... I love longer stories, but the Wandering Inn is certainly worth your time if you want to get seriously invested in an absolutely massive story.
I have been reading the Wandering Inn as my "supplemental" read for almost 3 years now and am still nowhere near catching up. It's what I read at night in conjunction to my "primary" book. It is easily one of my all time favorite series and one I recommend constantly to my friends. I know its daunting but everyone should give it a try if they are looking for a series that tackles every subgenre possible in a fantasy world
It honestly sounds impossible for something with twice the output of Stephen King's entire career released in about a tenth of the time to be anywhere near good. I'd be happy if it were good, as I really like long series (pretty much the only reason I picked up WoT in the first place)
@@JRCSalterIt's written so fast because it's an internet series. The author publishes chapters as they're written. And I don't think there's any editing.
@@itrololo194 I suppose that makes sense. Editing is often a necessity to make a story even remotely good though. I know Dean Wesley Smith, a successful author, is dead set against editing as a requirement, and I've read some of his stuff. It's readable, but far from brilliant. I myself have published stuff that isn't heavily edited, and I don't believe it's all that great.
I'm wondering whether this is just a really well written series of blogs, and as such is liked for that achievement, rather than being judged on being a book.
I'll have to check it out myself to see.
@@JRCSalter It’s long and people say oh keep with it for a few books(3,000,000+ words) and you start to really get into it but honestly if you need that long to hook people I feel like it might be Stockholm Syndrome setting in.
@@nibblitman I picked up the audiobook with a free trial, and listened to it while doing housework, as I didn't think I'd be able to actually read something like that with all the other books I'm reading.
I am about 3 quarters the way through the first volume, and I must say I am loving it.
Honourable mention: Reverend Insanity with 5.0 million Words, and it is not completed yet. But one of the best book series ever.
I’m only on book 2 but for the Wandering Inn, I’d recommend listening to the audiobook.
It is on my tbr but it is such a commitment!
I second that 👆
@@libraryofaviking they are a big time commitment but if you listen to them at a higher speed like 1.5x you can shave 20 hours off them.
hm. I'm surprised the Drizzt series and Dragon Lance series didn't make the cut.
Lackey, though, i knew had quite a lot, but I didn't know it was quite that many
dragonlance probably because it was weiss and hickman's books weren't too long and the rest of the books were other authors. Salvatore's #13. If you look at the graphic his books are like 25-20% of some the other authors' books in length.
ahhhh, understood@@masoodvoon8999 :)
I agree, if you include Stephen kings "series" dragonlance should be looked at, regardless of who authored it
@@masoodvoon8999 Weiss and Hickman are at 2413955 words. They should be up there.
If you look at the list pinned in the comments, Drizzt comes in at #13.
I was waiting for Xanth! Yup I've read around thirty ish of them. Quite a saga. You can read the first 6 ish and get an idea of it. The series is broken into sequels, trilogies, standalone stories. Sometimes it focuses on a character for a few books, then moves on and uses that character as a supporting character in subsequent books.
You gotta appreciate puns. Lots of puns in the fantasy naming conventions of piers Anthony.
Xanth is brilliant
You should check up on Dragon Lance books. There are so much. And apparently all connected. I have read some. But i gave up collecting haha
I was confused when you included some books but then i realized you were including books that aren't saga's.
The wandering inn is epic.
Pirate is actually just a super advanced version of chatgpt. Also, Dragonlance has nearly 200 books (More of a universe than a single series). I would say the crown still goes to Kaoru Kurimoto's Guin Saga, at 147 volumes and 26 side novels.
Finally someone talks about The Sword of Truth series! It is hands down my favorite fantasy series of all time!! I highly recommend it!
OMG I never realised it’s so long worlds wise. My favourites are : Wizard’s First Rule, Faith of the Fallen , Confessor, Warheart,
Oh interesting!
It ain’t really held in that high regard among modern fantasy fans
In regards to the wandering inn, the author writes 2 chapters a week and posts them to a website where you can read for free. They are broken up into 9 volumes. Only recently has a publisher been breaking up the volumes into books with 11 books out so far. Those 11 books only cover the first 6 volumes so there are still many more books that will come out.
That is very helpful! An insane amount of words though!
Writing volume 10 atm and well those 11 books cover under 1/3 of all the currently written stuff
So, after watching this video I decided to read The Wandering Inn. As the author states in the epilogue, there are some typos, grammatical errors, etc. throughout the book, but I couldn't put it down. Read book one in 4 days. Starting book 2 now. Have to say, I'm kind of into it. At some point you might need to give it a try.
Oh, if you like the realm of the elderlings you will definitely love the realm of valdemar. While you can start anywhere I recommend starting at the first published, and then going in roughly release order. Release order isn’t necessary, but at the very least read each trilogy release order, and be aware of which trilogies are expansions of previous trilogies.
I’m honestly surprised how many of these giant universes I’ve at least dabbled in, I think I’ve read at least one book in a third of the ones you mentioned.
The Malazan will definitely have you reflecting on your life choices.
I've been going through Saga of Recluce and other Modesitt works like The Imager Portfolio and his most recent series The Grand Illusion and he has become one of my favorite authors but he's definitely not for everyone. Even though Recluce is a fairly standard medieval fantasy it's got a very interesting structure where each book is set during a different period of the world, for example one book might be set in an early medieval period and the other is set in an industrial revolution period and you get to see how the world changes and develops/regresses with each book and the magic system is fairly interesting as well with a great focus being put on the effect the use of magic has on the world.
He generally focuses on the day to day activites of a character and slowly building up the story over constantly moving the plot forward thus people could find his stuff slow or boring, especially in Imager and The Grand Illusion where there is a great focus on the economics and the politics of the world and Modesitt goes into great detail when those two areas are in question.
I do like his books, particularly the Imager books, specifically because you get to see someone think through how to make something work and the day-to-day progression of that effort. I mentally use the phrase "procedural fantasy" for this type of work (I know, it only makes sense to me). But a lot of people won't enjoy that kind of novel.
Very insightful! Thank you!
@@michaelldennis Yes, and another thing I really like about his works is that his main characters are all very skilled. The don't just know combat/magic skills but they all know some sort of a craft. In Recluce one is a carpenter, another a blacksmith and in Imager Rhenn is a potraiturist. The rest of the characters tend to be just as skilled, competent and intelligent including the antagonists.
So far the only Modesitt works I've read is the Corean Chronicles, which I loved. I purchased the ebook bundle they had on humble a while ago and will work through Recluse eventaully.
I love fantasy novels that are on a really epic scale. I’ve read The Wheel of Time, The realm of the elderlings, and The stormlight archive multiple times, and now I’m looking for something new. After reading your comment, I’m really looking forward to trying out Saga of Recluce. I love the idea of a series that goes through different time periods so you can see how things develop. I really hope I will enjoy them as much as you do.
Spell for Chameleon is one of the funniest books I have ever read. And Saga of Recluse is an incredible series, and my favorite author of all time.
Spell for Chameleon was a fun book!
I've read many of the Xanth books. They are actually a lot of fun. In some ways they are classic fantasy. In other ways, a bit less so. They have a few more adult elements. But I read them in junior high and wasn't concerned. If I'm not mistaken, he is STILL writing them.
OMG, I have read the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey and she has created such a full and diverse world with her Valdemar novels. It's so immersive and completely enthralling, that I have trouble putting her books down to sleep much less doing anything else. I highly recommend any and all of her books, especially the Valdemar novels.
After reading the dark tower series, I went through a phase of re-reading Stephen King novels to spot the DT references I missed the first time.
I think Joe Dever's Lone Wolf gamebook series have also insane amount of word count (2.5M fosho, dunno if more) and it ended at like 31 books, with now all of them getting an extended editions that add previously cut content making them even larger
What should be on this lis list is “Wild Cards” by George RR Martin. There are about 18 books and one of my favorite fantasy series. An alien race with a biology similar to humans, releases a virus on the earth that kills over 90% of the population. Those that survive are classifies as Aces or Jokers. The Aces have favorable powers, each unique. The jokers have unfavorable mutations. This series is definitely for adults and very entertaining
The Xanth series is a lot of fun. It contains a lot of dad humor. The author still refers to it as a "trilogy". The first eight are excellent, but they kind of go downhill from there. Also, I was stunned not to see the Dragonlance series. There has to be at least 40 books by now.
I love seeing older fantasy books mentioned! I've read many many Xanth books, they are middle grade to YA, but some other works by that author are decidedly NOT. I've read every single book in the Valdamar series including the book that came out last year! I'm so glad she is still writing books that instantly transport me back to my collage days. The Valdamar books are YA, as are most of her many other series she has also written. I finished the last Robin Hobb book in December, and have one Dresden Files book to be up to date. I think I've read all of Sir Terry Pratchett's works. I don't really read Steven King anymore, but I've read at least half his work....
An amazing author with 20 books in one universe in two connected series is Patricia Briggs, I recommend her Mercy Thompson/Alpha and Omega series. Which author should I take a deep dive into next?
The Xanth books are great. Piers Anthony was definitely an author worth reading. Some of his work is top notch, all of it is entertaining and amusing. A Spell for Chameleon, Source of Magic and Castle Roogna are still some of my favourite books to reread.
I can't see how Wandering Inn qualifies when for all I can see, none of these "books" have ever been released in print format.
And it’s mostly just line after line of rambling without a plot or purpose.
The first 6 books of the Realm of the Elderlings are free on Audible (you might need a subscription, but it doesn't cost credits) and I started with the 4th book, Ship of Magic, and am addicted to it. Robin Hobbs can write some awesome characters!
People get pissed over Sword of Truth because Goodkind acted like he was an ORIGINATOR and it was unique. There were clear, obvious and intentional DIRECT steals from WOT, LOTR and others.
Thank you so much for introducing me to The Wandering Inn series. The first 2 were on a buy one get one free on Audible so I spent a credit. I’m only on chapter 2 but am loving it. I’m not too sure that this would be a series for you, though as it is a humorous litrpg/iseki series. The narrator so far has been brilliant and I don’t think I will have a problem listening to her for the next 43 hours, that’s just the first book. 😂 For anyone who reads digitally, on Kindle at least, the books are only a few £’s each in the UK, so I suppose they won’t be too expensive in other countries. 🎉 Alternatively, it is legally free online 😂
What about the Legend of Drizzt? 39 books so far.
Nevermind, I just looked at that list. Looks like it’s based on word count, not number of books. Almost cracks the top 10 at number 13
the list has it as #13
Yes, D&D books would totally top the list.
@@adamnesico Star Trek books. I dont even have them all and i own 364 of theit physical books. All series counfounded tho.
@@io.nebulae Srar Trek fantasy?
I know it has gods, but don’t sound as fantasy.
If it is about "universes" that are huge, I'm surprised the Dragonlance universe wasn't included.
The discworld books are amazing
Wooh! Malazan mentioned! If you have any interest in large scale battles, warfare, or fantasy tactics, Erikson is that guy.
Edit: Come on, King doesn’t count. What even is that. Come on. Dark Tower is a series, but the “Stephen King Universe” isn’t a thing. Mentioning Maine and retconning characters doesn’t count as a greater narrative. If that’s the case, then how many words are written in the entire Forgotten Realms universe?
Sanderson should probably counted as the entire Cosmere. I think this should be a 'by one author list' which would shorten Malazan, Riftwar, and WOT at least. If you include multiple authors then the Forgotten Realms amd Dragonlance come into play. Conan may even make the list. Probably some others as well.
I highly recommend going through wandering inn author's interview with matt fantasy book reviews before judging it. You will get the vibes of the series from the interview
A common pitch for recommending wandering inn is it being called malazan lite.
The wandering inn being the longest and that just started 6-7 years ago.. this is insane. No words.
If we're looking at the numbers for books written in a universe, I wonder where Warhammer 40K books would rank? It’s all the one universe and has many writers contributing to it that have rules they have to follow to ensure continuity. (Yes, I know it's scifi, this has just made me wonder)
A quick google seems to indicate that there are over 300 books at a minimum. If we apply an average of 40,000 words per book (standard novel length) to the number of books indicated to be in the universe according to FictionDB, 338, we get 13,52,0000 (thirteen million five hundred twenty thousand).
That’s a lot of words…
If we're doing universes then forgotten realms definitely belongs on this list.
Definitely finish Malazan! Absolutely worth the effort
Would have thought the Forgotten Realms would be at the top, with 40+ books just about Drizzt, with Dragon Lance not far behind.
I've fallen off a couple of these, but I'm 100% on the Recluse books and I've read them since it started. Great to see Feist and Lackey getting a shout out from the past. I was huge on Piers Anthony but things definitely went off the rails a couple decades ago.
LITRPG coming in kicking down the door like "What!?"
Anne McCaffrey's Dragon Riders of PERN is 24 books. I am surprised the person didn't count the words in such a best selling series.
But it’s counted as Science Fiction since the dragons were engineeered ( deliberately created in a lab, originally). It’s not Fantasy and he’s listing fantasy series. I love them!
The DragonLance universe has 190 books.
Why wasn’t Warhammer 40k included? I think Horus Heresy has like 50 books and Siege of Terra as well. And that’s only what happens before actually getting to 40k
He's probably only counting series by a single author. Otherwise Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms would both be up there.
@@joncarroll2040 or even just star wars in general
Sci fi not Fantasy
@@joncarroll2040 I did a rough count and just the Weiss and Hickman books are 2mil+ words at the lowest count so they would for sure be up there but I'm guessing the compilers forgot they exist.
The only one new to me is the series by Michelle West, which I'll now have to look up. I suspect I've read a lot more older/classic fantasy than most people on BookTube though
Same. I haven't read all the books in the mentioned series, but I have read some of each series except for Michelle West's.
The Xanth series by Piers Anthony is comparable to the Terry Pratchett Disc World Series. A lot of silly humor and all the stories are set in the same world but with different characters. I remember reading these books as a kid and I still reference some of the books and characters 😊
Don't be initimated by wandering inn, it seems daunting if you see its length, but once you start reading it you will not stop. I caught up to wandering inn 2 years ago and have re tead it once more and am caughtup to series , and I find it much more bingeable than cosmere. As I have only read stormlightarchive , it is below wandering imo.
The Wandering Inn is also on Audible.
Feist, Modesitt, and Anthony are some of my favorite authors and I highly recommend reading their works. All things equal, it is best to read them in chronological order.
About King's universe, yes and no. Yes, they're all connected but there are different dimensions and parallel universes.
For example: in some universes, IT is dead and in others, alive
If you count series written by multiple authors, the winner would probably be Dragonlance with over 150 books.
Valdemar is excellent. You can probably start with any of the series, though I'd start with Arrows of the Queen, which is the first published book.
And you can't count Goodkind, since he doesn't write fantasy: "First of all, I don't write fantasy. I write stories that have important human themes. They have elements of romance, history, adventure, mystery and philosophy. Most fantasy is one-dimensional. It's either about magic or a world-building. I don't do either." - Terry Goodkind
Finally, King is a fantasy writer like Clancy was a fantasy writer. (All of Clancy's books escept for Red Storm Rising are set in the same alternate history, which is certainly a subgenre of fantasy.)
It is an easy read. Online chapters are in effect mini stories, so if you do take a break and then go back to it, you will be fine. The author cites on her website it is at 12.4 million words now. She is a machine of a writer. And yes - it is an incredible story. Fun, entertaining, thought provoking and has hidden depth. I am loving it
The Recluce books are interesting. They tend to be almost standalone--characters in one are more likely to have heard of the characters in another as historical "greats" than to actually know them personally. And they have as far as I can tell two major themes: 1. Deep philosophical questions of the values and uses of order, disorder and different sorts of compromise between the two, along with musings on craftsmanship. 2. The idea that any political problem can probably be solved by assassinating someone. No, really. On that first thing, I think Modesitt's thinking on the subject developed and shifted over time; where the first book treats order vs chaos as an almost good vs evil deal, pretty one dimensional, over time there's a fair amount of nuance introduced. I haven't read all of 'em, but now and then I'll pick another up if I'm pretty sure it's not one of the ones I already have . . . they do get a bit same-ey after a while.
The author of the recluse books, LE Modesitt Jr., is my favorite living author, and I read all his new books within a day of when they published
i actually got audible just too listen too the wandering in, and i do not regret it at all! it is fantastic! also quite supprised discworld didnt made the list.
Sword of Truth is controversial mostly due to the author being very disrespectful towards the Fantasy Genre itself, if I’m not mistaken. Like Rowling, Goodkind regards himself as something better than Fantasy, and is very condescending. He also made some iffy remarks about Robert Jordans health etc. So many fantasy fans don’t include him as a legit fantasy writer, because he doesn’t consider himself as one and sees himself as better than it.