Top 10 Heroic / Sword & Sorcery fantasy books

The events in Storm of Swords overlap the ending of the second book, A Clash of Kings. I have to admit to not enjoying Clash of Kings overly, something I discovered placed me in a minority. Looking back I feel that I was a bit lazy when reading it, characters are thrown at you at a not inconsiderable rate of knots and you can either use the handy cast of characters at the beginning of the book to refresh your memory when you get lost or you can do what I did… carry on regardless hoping that everything will become clear in time.

A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3 Part 1) (Amazon.co.uk)

Author: George R.R. Martin
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 688
Publication date: 2001-06
Publisher: Voyager

RRP: £8.99
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The third volume of his six-volume fantasy epic "A Song of Ice and Fire", "A Storm of Swords" continues Martin's vigorous account of the civil wars which follow the death of King Robert--the usurper who deposed a dynasty gone mad and dangerous--and the judicial murder by his widow and heir of Ned Stark, the man who made him king. The surviving Stark children are scattered--Robb leading a revolt in the North; Arya learning hard lessons as she treks through the war zone; Sansa an observer of court intrigue; crippled Bran heading towards a sorcerous destiny; and Jon engaged in desperate defence of the ice-wall against barbarians and worse things. Daenerys, pretender and ruler of dragons, is building an empire elsewhere. Meanwhile, characters we have thought of as villains, notably Jaime Kingslayer, are developing belated consciences. Martin keeps on upping the ante of violence and betrayal in this compelling saga of a fantasy middle ages soiled with blood and mud; his economic use of magic and his fascination with complex characters make this the sword-and-sorcery series for people with adult taste. As the series proceeds, his writing gets ever leaner and sharper, the evocation of the magical ever more sinister. --Ros Kaveney
Amazon.co.uk Review

After decades of internecine warfare, the tribes of the Tiste Edur have at last united under the Warlock King. There is peace – but it has been exacted at a terrible price: a pact made with a hidden power whose motives are at best suspect, at worst deadly.

Midnight Tides (Book 5 of The Malazan Book of the Fallen) (Amazon.co.uk)

Author: Steven Erikson
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 960
Publication date: 2005-03-01
Publisher: Bantam Books

RRP: £8.99
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Midnight Tides is the fifth book in Steven Erikson's immense fantasy sequence The Malazan Book of the Fallen, which began in 1999 with the much-praised Gardens of the Moon. In successive volumes the action moves around the world of the Malazan Empire, linked by a back-story as ancient and complex as Tolkien's. Here a prologue in "The Time of the Elder Gods" shows clashes and betrayals of gods, dragon shape shifters, demons, ice mages and more. In modern times, some very old characters survive under other names, and history has been seriously misremembered...

Now there's an impending clash between the recently-united barbaric tribes of the Tiste Edur and the adjoining Kingdom of Lether, whose capitalistic decadence would make it quite sympathetic if not for policies of ruthless expansionism and slavery.

We come to know people on both sides: the Tiste Edur are driven by fierce honour and have strange, fascinating customs (Erikson is an anthropologist). But their Warlock King has, so to speak, switched gods in midstream and allied with a distinctly dark power while seeking a potent "gift" from another unreliable deity. Ironically, despite the provocation of Letheran seal-poachers on his coast, the Warlock King wants a safe, unassailable peace. His supernatural allies have other plans, and the tribes find themselves following a fearsome but also pitiable new Emperor into war.

Oddly enough, an old, ambiguous Letheran prophecy about an emperor is about to fall due. Meanwhile this kingdom has internal enemies, including a master financier plotting ruin while living in abject poverty with his resourceful manservant: this double act provides a vein of Jeeves-and-Wooster comic relief. There are complex manoeuvres in court circles. The undead walk--but that's normal in Lether. Restless stirring is felt in the ancient Hold where dark magic has long been confined. Then comes the clash with the Tiste Edur, and sorcerers' weapons of mass destruction are unleashed on both sides.

It's a big, complex, satisfying blockbuster, crammed with horrors, humour, spectacular effects and devious twists. Loose ends will presumably be picked up in later volumes. --David Langford
Amazon.co.uk Review

The Bonehunters sees us rejoining the Malazan Fourteenth Army, under the command of Adjunct Tavore Paran. Sha’ik is supposedly dead, the army of the Whirlwind in tatters, and the last survivors making for the refuge fortress city of Y’Ghatan under the leadership of Leoman of the Flails.

The Bonehunters: 6 (Malazan Book of the Fallen) (Amazon.co.uk)

Author: Steven Erikson
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Number of pages: 709
Publication date: 2007-04-02
Publisher: Bantam Books

RRP: £8.99
Lowest new price: £4.34
Lowest used price: £3.51

Rating a book is inherently dangerous. Well beyond the normal trials of dealing with authors who believe they’re the next Tolkien but are lucky to know how to spell Tolkien, it’s the really good authors that provide the greatest problems. For example, I finished my review for the Bonehunters by Steven Erikson over a week ago. At the time it was a 10 out of 10 book. I still believe it is. However, what happens when the next book is just as good?

Reaper's Gale (Book 7 of The Malazan Book of the Fallen) (Amazon.co.uk)

Author: Steven Erikson
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Number of pages: 1280
Publication date: 2008-04-07
Publisher: Bantam Books

RRP: £8.99
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So here we are for the eighth time and it just gets better and better. I found this book to be a bit less frenetic than The Bonehunters as it seems like Mr Erikson is getting things organised for the final push. But that is by no means a reason to believe the action slows down. I guess things just seem more in control since we don’t spend any real time with the Malazan army.

Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen) (Amazon.co.uk)

Author: Steven Erikson
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Number of pages: 1280
Publication date: 2009-05-26
Publisher: Bantam Books

RRP: £6.99
Lowest new price: £5.22
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We’re back with the Malazans marching into the Wastelands to meet up with their allies the Burned Tears and the Perish to head into territory where they believe they will have the final confrontation with the crippled god. But an uneasiness seems to have taken hold of the Malazans as their leader, Adjunct Tavore has grown even more distant and unfocused while crossing the Wastelands. This is added to by the feelings of betrayal from the “sensitives” in the ranks. Definitely a different view of the Malazans to see them so unsure of themsleves.

Dust of Dreams (Book 9 of The Malazan Book of the Fallen) (Amazon.co.uk)

Author: Steven Erikson
Binding: Hardcover
Number of pages: 509
Publication date: 2009-08-17
Publisher: Bantam Press

RRP: £20.00
Lowest new price: £9.75
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Memories of Ice is the third book of the series entitled A Tale of the Malazan Book of The Fallen. It follows directly after the events of the first book, Gardens of the Moon, and runs concurrently to the events in the second book, Deadhouse Gates.

Memories of Ice (Book 3 of The Malazan Book of the Fallen) (Amazon.co.uk)

Author: Steven Erikson
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 709
Publication date: 2002-10-01
Publisher: Bantam Books

RRP: £8.99
Lowest new price: £4.42
Lowest used price: £4.29

The third tale from the Mazalan Book of the Fallen, Memories of Ice is a convoluted military fantasy even more dense than its two predecessors. A deranged and not necessarily human prophet has set a cannibal rabble to conquer a continent, and various armies and wizards are out to stop him--but their reasons for doing this are many, various and often conflicting. The previous two books Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates were full of mysteries, some of them answered here--Erikson's is a world in which gods ascend from humanity to replace gods that fall or are overthrown and in which the world and the supernatural warrants that surround it are full of relics of past gods and past cultures. Young officer Paran tries to make sense of the return of his dead beloved as one of the four souls of a magical child; his commander Whiskeyjack tries to do the right thing as both soldier and human being; the scout Toc tries to survive hideous torture and pass on information he only partly knows. Erikson creates an impressive dark world of brutality and sudden beauty in which dizzying vistas of times past suddenly open; his work repays the concentration needed to follow his complex plotting and sentences. --Roz Kaveney
Amazon.co.uk Review

Legend was David Gemmell's first novel. Published in 1984, it has become a world-wide best-seller and is the beginning of Gemmell's Drenai saga.

Legend (Amazon.co.uk)

Author: David Gemmell
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 432
Publication date: 1986-08-21
Publisher: Orbit

RRP: £7.99
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In a land where war is imminent and race relations grow ever more strained, Ciri, the prophesised child, must find her way under the protection of Geralt, the famed and feared ‘Witcher’. Holding the promise of incredible power, for good or for evil, it is up to Geralt to ensure Ciri takes the right path and remains safe from those who hunt her…

One thing that is always tinged with a measure of trepidation is the treatment of children in a fantasy world. A measure of reality must always be held in one hand while you attempt to watch over them. For as much as you would love to see them always come through unharmed, happy, and well, it is just not how it would have played back in the middle ages and before.

Nightchild (Chronicles of the Raven 3) (Amazon.co.uk)

Author: James Barclay
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 496
Publication date: 2008-11-13
Publisher: Gollancz

RRP: £7.99
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With Nightchild James Barclay brings his remarkable debut trilogy to a stunning and startling conclusion. The book picks up from the previous entry as the Raven are faced with a terrible moral dilemma: Lyanna, the daughter of Raven warrior Denser and mage Erienne, has been blessed (or cursed) with the power of The One. This power is threatening the very land of Balaia and the four magic colleagues who are desperate to control the power or stop it--even if that means killing a five year old girl. Erienne, fearful for the life of her daughter, goes into hiding and the Raven have little time to find her. When they do, they face a terrible choice that none of them want to make. Nightchild is a cracking finale to what has been a real treat for fans of action-based fantasy. Barclay's prose and characterisation has improved massively with each book and this last in the trilogy is the most satisfying yet. The characters are all like good friends and their relationships have never before been this complicated or tested so much to the limit. Barclay doesn't hold back as usual in the battle scenes which are as exciting and adrenline-pumping as always, but neither has he ever been one to take the easy route with characters and many readers will be surprised by the denouement which, while effectively tying up many loose ends, also opens up possible avenues for future books. The Raven stories have been some of the best new fantasy novels in many a year and will deservedly be cherished for future generations by many fans. They may lack the minute detail of Robert Jordan's epic Wheel of Time series or the sweeping historical feel of George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, but James Barclay has shown lovers of action fantasy everywhere just exactly how it should be done. --Jonathan Weir
Amazon.co.uk Review

Book View Cafe is a cooperative site created by a group of writers - including internationally renowned authors Katharine Kerr, Ursula Le Guin and Vonda N. McIntyre - who want to take advantage of the internet's possibilities for reaching a wider audience and to distribute their work directly to their readers. The Book View Cafe is a place where you can find free, original fiction plus the authors' best and out-of-print work for a fee. Fantasy Book Review spoke to Book View Cafe member, science fiction author and memoirist Chris Dolley in February 2010.

Lewis Carroll, the elusive author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, has been the subject of enduring fascination for the past hundred years. The destruction of many major documents about his personal life by his descendants has only magnified the mystery. Jenny Woolf's biography, published to coincide with the release of the new Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland film, lays waste to the myths and suspicions that have obscured Carroll's reputation by placing him firmly in the context of his own time.