Thoughts on Time’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time

First of all, let me say that there are many folks who have already commented on this topic and some were truly excellent pieces of writing. I’ll probably cover the same topics others have, but I want to share my thoughts on this rather… interesting… list.

I initially didn’t care about what was on this list one bit. And then I started seeing commentary from all over and found myself considerably more curious. I checked it out and was rather appalled at the contents. Really? The best fantasy of all time consists of so much Young Adult genre fantasy? And so many books by the same authors? Many of whom helped pick this list? 

The Choosing of the List
Let’s start with how the list was chosen – you can find the TIME summary here. A panel of popular authors rated a list of 250 books and then TIME staff ranked their choices into this list of 100 books. That’s all well and good. Seems like it should give a pretty well rounded selection, right? WRONG. While the authors couldn’t nominate their own works, others surely nominated for them as evidenced by the list. It was packed with their work and while not entirely unjustified, it stank a bit of favoritism.

The Author Panel
A couple of the authors on the panel just didn’t jive with me. Diana Gabaldon is more of a romance writer than a fantasy writer and Cassandra Clare, while immensely popular, has a whole host of scandal behind her work and isn’t exactly in the same league as Gaiman, GRRM, or Jemisin. 

The Contents of the List
Maybe this section should have sub-sections, because this is where the true issues lie.

1. SO MUCH YA – So, so many of these books were young adult fantasy or adult fantasy that heavily leans toward being YA. Don’t get me wrong here – I love some good young adult fantasy – but some of these are quite new and/or have pretty average ratings. Lots of 3 stars from reviewers. I can also think of a number of YA books that I preferred over the ones listed, though of course that is a matter of opinion. As is the TIME list.
2. So many duplicates! – For goodness sake, all THREE of the LOTR books were listed as separate entries! TWELVE other authors had multiple entries on the list! That’s at least twelve slots that could have gone to books that also deserved to be in the top 100. This could have been vastly improved by stacking series – all LOTR as one entry, the Harry Potter books as one entry, etc.
3. Forgotten sub-genres – No grimdark? Very little urban fantasy? Where are the corny paranormal romances like Twilight? Sure, it wasn’t a good book per se, but it was tremendously impactful on the genre. The lack of Glen Cook is especially surprising as is oft considered one of the fathers/founders of the grimdark sub-genre that has been massively popular in the last few decades. And magical realism – no Seanan McGuire? None of that “new-weird” stuff that I don’t really read? No Lovecraft or Lovecraftian inspired stuff?
4. Forgotten authors – This goes hand in hand with the forgotten sub-genres in some cases. One of the biggest surprises was that Sarah J. Maas did not have a book on this list – it ain’t quality writing but she knows how to sell a book and has been influential in the YA and New Adult markets. Besides, if Cassandra Clare’s book can be on this list, SJMaas should have surely made it as well. This is just one of many examples. Also – ONLY ONE BRANDON SANDERSON BOOK??????

The Unknown Books
I was a little surprised at the number of books and authors I had never heard of! This isn’t really bad, as it gives me some more research to do but it was surprising. I read a lot of books, most of which are fantasy and I read about fantasy books quite a bit too. I lurk r/fantasy and r/books on a daily basis, keep up with trending books, new releases, etc. and to have not heard of so many of these… just, wow. I attribute it to so many of them being written well before I was even born. 

Overall, I thought this list was a bit trash. I didn’t really care prior to seeing the drama and don’t care much now either, but if you’re going to brazenly create a list called “The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time” you shouldn’t have such an obvious bias toward authors on the panel and maybe don’t forget entire subgenres of fantasy. I’ll go back to ignoring the opinions of major magazines and stick with that of my fellow reviewers. Maybe I’ll even create my own list!