The 10 Greatest Battles in Fantasy Books, Ranked
Diego Pineda has been a devout storyteller his whole life. He has self-published a fantasy novel and a book of short stories, and is actively working on publishing his second novel.
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There are plenty of excellent fantasy books that don't have any kind of focus on action, but it's no coincidence that several of the greatest works of literature the genre has ever offered contain showstopping battles. Multiple elements can make a fantasy book battle great, regardless of where in the narrative said battle is located. It can be emotionally cathartic, unforgettably brutal, or simply so vital to the narrative that it makes the book impossible to put down.
From foundational classics like The Lord of the Rings to great modern works like Oathbringer, many fantasy books out there contain some genuinely jaw-dropping action sequences. Regardless of whether they're waged with swords, bows, magic, or any other sort of weapon, they're all absolutely enthralling. As long as it's a large-scale armed conflict between two or more groups of combatants, it counts as a battle for the purposes of this list.
10 Battle of Charm - 'The Black Company' (1984)
Glen Cook's The Black Company is the first volume in the series of the same name, itself comprised of several of the best grimdark books of all time. The series follows the many exploits of the eponymous mercenary unit over the course of four decades, which includes several brutal, gritty military campaigns described with the utmost cinematic realism.
The massive climax of the first novel in the series is the Battle of Charm, where the Lady's heavily outnumbered imperial forces and the Black Company crush the massive rebel army of the Circle and shatter the rebellion. It's a sequence that perfectly displays Cook's tremendous ability to write battles where the lines between "good guys" and "bad guys" are constantly blurred, crafted with the utmost strategic realism and attention to detail.
9 Battle of Thaylen City - 'Oathbringer' (2017)
With 2010's The Way of Kings, the incredible Brandon Sanderson set a new gold standard for modern epic high fantasy, a bar that has been constantly upped by the rest of the Stormlight Archive series. Oathbringer is the third installment in the series and one of the best fantasy books of the last 20 years, following Dalinar Kholin working to unite Roshar's fractured nations as an ancient storm awakens a forgotten enemy.
The climactic Battle of Thaylen City sees Dalinar fighting a desperate campaign to protect the city's reserve of gemstones, all while rejecting the villainous Odium's attempts to break him. It's a masterclass in how to craft a character-driven final battle. It brilliantly interweaves several distinct POVs while offering plenty of cinematic action, much of it based on the series' legendary hard magic system. In short, it's the apex of the Sanderlanche.
8 Siege of Dros Delnoch - 'Legend' (1984)
There is perhaps no author more important to the modern history of heroic fantasy than David Gemmell, and there is probably no better heroic fantasy book than Legend. It introduced the world to Druss, one of the most iconic antiheroes in the history of fantasy literature, following this aging warrior as he comes out of retirement to help defend the mountain fortress of Dros Delnoch against a barbarian horde.
The climactic siege and defense of the city is the third-act battle that the entire story builds up to, and it couldn't possibly be a more fittingly exciting sequence. It's a grueling, months-long siege, crafted with a level of military and tactical realism that only adds to the battle's sky-high stakes. Gemmell makes the sequential fall of each one of the city's six walls feel like a truly cataclysmic, game-changing event, all while ensuring that the reader understands that, strong though he may be, Druss is not invincible.
7 Siege of Y'Ghatan - 'The Bonehunters' (2006)
Canadian writer Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen is among the most legendary and influential high fantasy book series in history, containing 10 books and three million words' worth of pure epic brilliance. The Bonehunters is the sixth installment in the saga, seeing the Malazan 14th Army survive a fiery battle and forge themselves into the titular "Bonehunters" as divine and mortal conflicts manifest in the land.
Whereas many of the greatest battles in the history of fantasy literature happen to be their respective novel's climax, the siege of Y'Ghatan that kicks off the core of the conflict of The Bonehunters actually takes place toward the beginning of the story. It's a suffocating chapter of pure, raw, agonizing realism and survival, bringing steam to what's easily one of the best fantasy books of the last 20 years.
6 The Fall of Gondolin - 'The Silmarillion' (1977)
J. R. R. Tolkien began developing the foundational concepts and mythology of what would eventually become Middle-earth around the mid-1910s, and though he failed to get The Silmarillion published in his lifetime, editors Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay eventually got the Professor's passion project published posthumously. One of the most daunting yet fascinating fantasy books in history, The Silmarillion is a collection of stories about the origins and early millennia of Middle-earth.
It's one of the best fantasy books of the 20th century, filled to the brim with big battles described as though they were part of ancient myths. The most legendary of all is the Fall of Gondolin, where the legendary Elven realm makes its last stand against the Dark Lord Morgoth. Told on a mythic scale and with profound tragic grandeur in Tolkien's almost Biblical prose, it's a battle so enrapturing that it led to the publication of an entire 2018 book based around it: The Fall of Gondolin, edited by Christopher Tolkien.
5 Battle of the Blackwater - 'A Clash of Kings' (1998)
Starting with A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series completely revolutionized modern high fantasy, moving the genre away from its more heavily Tolkien-inspired days and into a darker, more mature era. The book's first sequel was A Clash of Kings, one of the fantasy books with the best worldbuilding, which finds five rival Iron Throne claimants plunging the Seven Kingdoms into a brutal civil war known as the War of the Five Kings.
A Clash of Kings features multiple battles, sieges, and skirmishes, but nothing across the whole Song of Ice and Fire series really compares to the Battle of the Blackwater. Stannis Baratheon launches a land and naval assault on King's Landing to claim the Iron Throne, but the Tyrell forces manage to shatter his army and secure the crown for the cruel King Joffrey Baratheon. Told through multiple POVs and with an admirable level of attention to detail and psychological depth, it's arguably the most memorable battle of the whole book series.
4 Tarmon Gai'don - 'A Memory of Light' (2013)
It was Robert Jordan who completely redefined modern high fantasy with the iconic The Eye of the World, the first book in The Wheel of Time. Originally planned as a trilogy, the series came to span 14 volumes, three of which were published after Jordan's death and finalized by Brandon Sanderson. The final book in the series is A Memory of Light, one of those fantasy books that marked the end of an era, where the armies of the Light unite for the final apocalyptic battle against the Dark One.
The name of that battle is Tarmon Gai'don, and it happens to be one of the most unforgettable final battles in the history of fantasy literature. It's everything that the series had been building up to for 23 years, pitting the forces of the Light against the armies of the Shadow in a true last stand. It's probably the longest single-chapter battle in the history of fantasy books (at around 80,000 words, longer than many full-length novels), and it's both perfectly paced and full of satisfying payoff moments.
3 Battle of Hogwarts - 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' (2007)
J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (published in the US as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) is still far and away one of the best-selling fantasy books of all time, and all of its sequels sold like hot cakes as well. This includes the record holder of the Guinness World Records for most volumes sold within 24 hours of release: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which follows the Golden Trio's efforts to destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes so they can finally defeat him for good.
Some may go so far as to label this one of the best books of the 21st century so far, but regardless of such superlatives, the fact of the matter is that fantasy literature history will likely never see a battle more pop-culturally relevant than the Battle of Hogwarts. The final effort to defeat Voldemort's army is full of brutally emotional moments and thematically weighty decisions, bringing the series' coming-of-age elements to their boiling point.
2 Battle of the Pelennor Fields - 'The Lord of the Rings' (1954–1955)
After the success of The Hobbit, the publisher desperately wanted a sequel. It took several years, but Tolkien finally put together The Lord of the Rings, following the meek hobbit Frodo as he embarks on a journey with a Fellowship to destroy the One Ring before Sauron can claim it and rise to power again. Though the book wasn't nearly as well-received as its predecessor at the time, it's now widely remembered as the most important work of fantasy literature of the 20th century.
Indeed, it's one of those fantasy books that belong on every fan's bucket list, full of some of the most epic battles in the genre's entire history. The most noteworthy is easily the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, where the armies of Mordor breach Minas Tirith's gates after a crushing siege, only for the Rohirrim to come to Gondor's aid. Tolkien constantly shifts the dynamics of the battlefield across the sequence's distinct acts, creating a sense of excitement that simply doesn't let up.
1 Battle of the Heroes - 'The Heroes' (2011)
Joe Abercrombie's First Law is one of the most legendary fantasy book series of the 21st century, comprised of two trilogies, two short story collections, and three standalone books. The second standalone book and fifth overall novel in the series is The Heroes, where rival armies clash in a brutal war over a single, worthless hill known as the Heroes.
When the question of what the best battle in the history of fantasy literature is comes up, what makes the Battle of the Heroes such an easy answer is that the entirety of The Heroes is the climactic showdown. Indeed, Abercrombie spends those entire 500 pages recounting the three brutal days of this bloody battle full of backstabbing and death. The result is one of those fantasy experiences that are unforgettably bleak from start to finish.
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