2018 has come and gone and I hit my goal of reading 30 books this year.
I continued my yearly journey through Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series and now have only the final trilogy to tackle, which I’ll pick up sometime next month. After three fantastic trilogies, The Rain Wild Chronicles was a bit of a letdown. Although the plot didn’t allow for a more prominent role for the Vestrit family, it would have been nice if they had been featured front and center, given that we had already spent 2400 pages getting to know them. Neither the four books as a whole or individually merit a place in my top 3 of the year, but hopefully that won’t be the case with the Fitz and the Fool trilogy.
Without further ado, here are the top 3 fantasy books I read in 2018.
Age of War, by Michael J. Sullivan
This is the third book in Sullivan’s Legends of the First Empire series and 13th book set in his fantasy world of Elan. This book marks the halfway point through the series and ends a three-book arc that had been building since Age of Myth. There are some great moments from characters that we’ve come to know over the first three books and some epic fantasy battles. Overall, an excellent addition to Sullivan’s canon and I’m excited to see where the series is going in the back half.
An aside: most of this book takes place in the fortress of Alon Rhist, which Sullivan has recreated in Minecraft! Check out this video for a tour of the fortress.
The First 15 Lives of Harry August, by Claire North
As a big Chrono Trigger fan, I love a good time travel story and this book hits a lot of notes for me. The eponymous Harry August is an Ouroboran: when he dies, he is reborn again with all the memories of his previous lives. At the end of his 11th life, he receives a dire warning from the future that the end of the world is rapidly accelerating. Harry takes us back through his many lives from the beginning until we reach his “present” life and his quest to save the world. One of the few books I’ve read recently where I wanted to stay up late to find out what happens next.
Kings of the Wyld, by Nicholas Eames
It’s always a good sign when a fantasy book starts out with a big, beautiful map and Kings of the Wyld only gets better from there. The basic premise is a “getting the band back together” tale, but in this case, the band is not musical but mercenary.
Clay Cooper has settled into domestic life as a member of the city watch, his years of adventuring through the dangerous and massive forest known as the Heartwyld behind him. That is, until his old bandmate Gabriel shows up on his doorstep, pleading for Clay to help him get the band back together to rescue his daughter from a city far to the west surrounded by a horde of monsters.
What follows is a fun (and funny) romp through a fantasy world filled with every fantasy creature you can imagine, but one that still manages to evoke plenty of heartfelt moments.