Top Five Tuesday – Fantasy Books

A new Top Five Tuesday, the prompts are created by Bionic Book Worm. I love fantasy as a genre and here are my favourite five picks:

1. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

I don’t think anyone is surprised that this is the top of my list. I can barely go five minutes without talking about this series, it’s phenomenal. The world of Westeros and Essos that George has created is so real, it’s a cruel and brutal world with dragons, undead ice zombies and devastating wars. Wherever we go in this world the detail George describes is incredible, when we change to a different point of view you know where you are almost immediately.

2. The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

This world that Terry Pratchett created is so brilliant, it’s quirky, random, it’s a flat disc with land and sea like ours on top. The disc rests on four elephants who in turn stand on the Great A’Tuin, a giant turtle who swims through space. Every single book in the series is funny and thought provoking. Death is probably my favourite character and I think my favourite book is either Hogswatch or Soul Music.

3. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

I read the Hobbit when I was about ten. I absolutely loved it, I’ve read it again since and it doesn’t get less magical. I think it’s the adventure side of it I really enjoyed and of course it sets the scene for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

4. His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman

I’ve been re-reading this series and I hd forgotten how good it was. The original world in the first book is home of Lyra, everyone in her world has a daemon, a piece of their soul in the form of an animal, always with them but they’re able to converse and play together. Children’s daemons can change form until the grow up and stick to one thing. We then travel to different worlds, one like ours, one where shadows come and steal the grownups souls. It’s quite a dark series for children actually! In the third book there is a war approaching between God himself and Lord Asriel’s army of combined forces. It’s detailed, complex and fascinating.

5. Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb

I really enjoyed this series, it starts with a boy being abandoned by his family to the heir to the kingdom claiming he was his bastard son. Fitz grows up in the castle kept out of sight and eventually he is trained to be an assassin.

What are some of your favourite fantasy books?