Best Dark Fantasy

Author	Joe Abercrombie
ISBN	0575077905

The end is coming. Logen Ninefingers might only have one more fight in him but it's going to be a big one. Battle rages across the North, the King of the Northmen still stands firm, and there's only one man who can stop him. His oldest friend, and his oldest enemy. It's past time for the Bloody-Nine to come...

Author	Brent Weeks
ISBN	0316033677

From New York Times Bestselling author Brent Weeks...
For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city's most accomplished artist.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people...

Author	Brandon Sanderson
ISBN	0765326353

I long for the days before the Last Desolation.

The age before the Heralds abandoned us and the Knights Radiant turned against us. A time when there was still magic in the world and honor in the hearts of men.

The world became ours, and yet we lost it. Victory proved to be the greatest test...

Author	Anne Bishop
ISBN	0451456718

Librarian's Note: Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here.

The Dark Kingdom is preparing itself for the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy--the arrival of a new Queen, a Witch who will wield more power than even the High Lord of Hell himself. But this new ruler is young, and very susceptible...

Author	C.S. Friedman
ISBN	0756403146

Black Sun Rising; Or, How Ciani Got Her Groove Back.

two major things to note in this sometimes absorbing, sometimes ridiculous science fantasy novel: a fascinatingly developed magic system and a head-smackingly stupid quest.

regarding the stupidity, let's first clear the air...

Author

Michael Moorcock

The 2011 Re-read:
Elric of Melnibone: Elric, the sickly albino emperor of Melnibone, combats his cousin Yrkoon's machinations for his throne and winds up on a quest across dimensions for a pair of magical black swords.

In the long, long, long, long wait between volumes four and five of...

Author	R.A. Salvatore
ISBN	0786939532

Drow ranger Drizzt Do'Urden, first introduced in The Icewind Dale Trilogy, quickly became one of the fantasy genre's standout characters. But Homeland first reveals the startling tale of how this one lone drow walked out of the shadowy depths of the Underdark, leaving behind a society of evil and a...

Author	Steven Erikson
ISBN	0553813153

The Seven Cities Rebellion has been crushed. Sha'ik is dead. One last rebel force remains, holed up in the city of Y'Ghatan and under the fanatical command of Leoman of the Flails. The prospect of laying siege to this ancient fortress makes the battle-weary Malaz 14th Army uneasy. For it was here that...

Author	Steven Erikson
ISBN	0593046315

All is not well in the Letherii Empire. Rhulad Sengar, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths, spirals into madness, surrounded by sycophants and agents of his Machiavellian chancellor, while the Letherii secret police conduct a campaign of terror against its own people. The Errant, once a farseeing god,...

Author	Miles Cameron
ISBN	0575113294

Twenty eight florins a month is a huge price to pay, for a man to stand between you and the Wild.

Twenty eight florins a month is nowhere near enough when a wyvern's jaws snap shut on your helmet in the hot stink of battle, and the beast starts to rip the head from your shoulders. But if standing and...

Author	Steven Erikson
ISBN	0593046358

The Bonehunters march for Kolanse, led by Adjunct Tavore. This woman with no gifts of magic, deemed plain, unprepossessing, displaying nothing to instill loyalty or confidence, will challenge the gods - if her own mutinous troops don't kill her first.

Her enemy, the Forkrul Assail, seek...

Author	Scott Lynch
ISBN	0553804693

With what should have been the greatest heist of their career gone spectacularly sour, Locke and his trusted partner, Jean, have barely escaped with their lives. Or at least Jean has. But Locke is slowly succumbing to a deadly poison that no alchemist or physiker can cure. Yet just as the end is near, a...

Author	Michael Moorcock
ISBN	1568650418

2011 re-read:
The Vanishing Tower: Elric and Moonglum continues their quest to destroy the sorcerer Theleb K'aarna, visiting Myshella's castle, Nadsokor, the city of beggars, Tanelorn, and the Forest of Troos...

The saga of Elric continues moving toward its conclusion. Elric meets...

Author	Peter V. Brett
ISBN	0345503813

The sun is setting on humanity. The night now belongs to voracious demons that prey upon a dwindling population forced to cower behind half-forgotten symbols of power.

Legends tell of a Deliverer: a general who once bound all mankind into a single force that defeated the demons. But is the return...

Author	Brent Weeks
ISBN	0316033669

A new queen has usurped the throne and is leading Cenaria into disaster. The country has become a broken realm with a threadbare army, little food and no hope. So Kylar Stern plans to reinstate his closest friend Logan as King, but can he really get away with murder?

In the north, the Godking's...

Author

R. Scott Bakker

This was a good finale to the Prince of Nothing series. I definitely consider this to be one of the best dark fantasy series I've read over the years. Bakker's fantasy world has plenty of depth and his story is engaging and full of twists and turns. It also helps that is is packed with memorable characters...

Author

Elyse Salpeter

Adam and Alec look like identical twins, but their personalities are as different as possible. Adam is gentle and kind, whereas Alec is the essence of nightmares. Always jealous of his twin, Alec does everything he can to destroy his brother’s happiness, including kidnapping Adam’s fiancée...

Author	Mervyn Peake
ISBN	0879516283

A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and a dazzling array of bizarre creatures inhabit the magical world of the Gormenghast novels which, along with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, reign as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of it all is the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, who...

Author	Anne Bishop
ISBN	0451456726

Librarian's note: See alternate cover for this edition here.

Enough time has passed for the young girl Jaenelle, heir to the magical Darkness, for her physical wounds to heal, while amnesia keeps her frightening memories at bay. But with Saetan--a Black-Jewelled Warlord Prince and Jaenelle's...

Author	Anne Bishop
ISBN	0451456734

Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN 0451456734 here.

Jaenelle Angelline now reigns as Queen-protector of the Shadow Realm. No longer will the corrupt Blood slaughter her people and defile her lands. But where one chapter ends, a final, unseen battle remains to be written,...

Author	Anne Rice
ISBN	0345476875

This is the story of Louis, as told in his own words, of his journey through mortal and immortal life. Louis recounts how he became a vampire at the hands of the radiant and sinister Lestat and how he became indoctrinated, unwillingly, into the vampire way of life. His story ebbs and flows through the streets...

Author	Clive Barker
ISBN	0061053716

Imajica is an epic beyond compare: vast in conception, obsessively detailed in execution, and apocalyptic in its resolution. At its heart lies the sensualist and master art forger, Gentle, whose life unravels when he encounters Judith Odell, whose power to influence the destinies of men is vaster...

Author	Ray Bradbury
ISBN	0380729407

A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show...

Author	China Miéville
ISBN	0345459407

Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies the city of New Crobuzon, where the unsavory deal is stranger to no one--not even to Isaac, a gifted and eccentric scientist who has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known...

Author	Kendare Blake
ISBN	0765328658

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing...

Author	Michael R. Fletcher
ISBN	0062387030

Faith shapes the landscape, defines the laws of physics, and makes a mockery of truth. Common knowledge isn't an axiom, it's a force of nature. What the masses believe is. But insanity is a weapon, conviction a shield. Delusions give birth to foul new gods.

Violent and dark, the world is filled...

Author	Fritz Leiber
ISBN	1565048946

Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar series established the sword-swinging, maiden-rescuing, chivalrous, high adventure that has been the mainstay of the fantasy genre ever since. White Wolf presents the entire seven-novelette Lankhmar series in four volumes.The two greatest heroes ever are back, proving...

Author	Thomas Harris
ISBN	0099446782

Why?
Many years from now, historians will look back on this story and wonder why it was so important. And believe me, my friends, important it was. Today, most thrillers and police procedurals gets measured against it.
For this review, I will refer to TSOTL as the story, because I'm going to talk...