Best Fantasy Books of 2014

These our our picks for the best fantasy books of 2014. 

2014 was a phenomenal year for fantasy and there was a stack of highly anticipated book released by some of the biggest authors in the genre, including Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, Lev Grossman, Brent Weeks and Robin Hobb.

There was also a slew of awesome debut fantasy books that are the start of some great new fantasy series and a showcase of serious new talent in the genre.

And 2014 also brought some great sequel books to us as well (if anything, I would call 2014 the year of the 'Sequel' with many of the best books in fact sequel books NOT debut fantasy.

The general trend, as has been the same the past few years, was the grimdark aesthetic. Most of the 'big' fantasy releases this year, be they categorized as grimdark or not, at least borrow or adopt some of the grimdark elements. Not all books are supremely dark like say  The Dark Defiles (Richard Morgan) or The Barrow (Mark Smylie), but most do mix in something dark.

Of course, in a genre gone mad for dark and gritty, there were a few standout exceptions like The Goblin Emperor (Katherine Addison) and Traitor's Blade (Sebastien de Castell) that were entirely more positive in nature, heralding back to some of those happier fantasy days of classic fantasy where the heroes don't all have a strong streak of evil (or selfishness) running through them. It's a refreshing change I might add, very much so.