The world of film loves mining halls of folklore and legend for stories, and one of those oft-traveled halls belongs to King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. But which Arthurian movies are the best? Which are emphatically the worst? How do we make those judgements and why? These are not the questions that plague our era, but they sure do bug us from time to time, and so we have decided to rank the lot.
You can tell an epic story at any length; sometimes a standalone fantasy can traverse just as much narrative space as an entire trilogy. But when it comes to fantasy worlds that we can explore every inch of, we are particularly fond of series with nine books or more. Yep, you heard us: we want trilogies upon trilogies (with the occasional side duology/quartet) in our favorite long-running SFF series. From alternate histories to fantasy that slowly becomes science fiction, from lady knights to more than a few telepathic dragons, from sagas that span one generation to multiple centuries, these series are so expansive and immersive that reading them feels not just like visiting a new world, but like coming home.
Sometimes in fantasy, fate is sealed by a pair of pine needles dropping on the foreheads of two newborns a month apart—one in a region where no pine trees grow. It’s a feather, snatched out of the air by a chubby little hand. A small omen that joins two players in an epic prophecy—but, even more significant than its potential to change the world is the moment in which it unites two halves, each searching for the other person who will complete them.
Imagine living your life in loneliness and then meeting your soul’s twin. Gods of light and dark, chaos and order. Threadsisters. Angels and demons. Heroes and goddesses. A princess and her shadow. Meet nine duos fated to find one another and, in many cases, to change the world.
It’s May the Fourth, and maybe you’re planning to rewatch your favorite movies, or dive into the new Bad Batch series—but there are plenty of other adventures waiting in a galaxy far far away that are just begging to join your To-Be-Read pile. Here’s a shortlist of our favorite canonical Star Wars novels, with something for every type of fan!
People love an unsolved mystery—especially one far enough in the past as to allow wild speculation. Has there been a case that’s invited more outlandish theories than Jack the Ripper’s? The combination of grotesque details, gaslit setting, creaky conspiracy theories, and the eerie suddenness of the murders onset and ending have all lead to hundreds of retellings. Some of the most interesting have been stories that careened straight into the uncanny, giving us Jacks who can travel through time, haunt bridges, and possess wax figures.
Perhaps the writers of the tales below couldn’t bring themselves to believe that such a monstrous man was entirely human? Whatever the root of the fascination, we’ve stalked the Ripper straight out of the alleys of Whitechapel and into these eight SFF tales.
Movies and TV shows aimed at children are always a delicate mix of cutesy innocence and potentially weighty subject matter—kids might get bored of endless sunshine without any conflict, but go too dark and you risk mauling delicate sensibilities, Return to Oz-style. And kid-friendly SFF can be tricky to navigate for even the most well-meaning guardian, after all what harm could be lurking in a puppet-filled fantasy adventure? Of course, there are also the traumatic moments we inflicted upon ourselves, staying up late only to peep at the screen through our fingers. Even if you had a storybook childhood, the odds are low that you escaped without being emotionally sideswiped by an intense moment or two…
We’ve polled our extended Tor.com family, and gathered up the moments that shaped us into the warped creatures we are today.
The Space Race encapsulates both the best and the worst of aspects of U.S. history. On the one hand, there is humanity’s drive to learn and explore. All space programs have no choice but to celebrate the wonders of mathematics, physics, and engineering. (To put this into ’80s film terms: no matter how jock-ish an image an astronaut wants to put forth, it’s still nerds who get us into space.) Space exploration doesn’t just raise the possibility that humanity will find new homes across the galaxy, but it also leaves technological innovation in its wake.
Some people love birds. Some people bird watch, or even have birds as pets. And we’re sure they’re lovely birds. But we really wish we had magic birds. That’s the goal, right? We maybe think about this too often. So here is our ode to fantasy birds!
Towers of Midnight cover art by Raymond Swanland
If you’ve ever felt a connection to a favorite animal friend—an adorable pet hamster, a beloved dog, or the nervous possum who lives under your porch but will sit just outside of the circle of porchlight on summer evenings while you watch fireflies and nurse a beer—you know there’s something magical about it.
Fantasy fiction often makes this magic explicit, in the form of characters who can speak more or less directly to creatures great and small—we’ve gathered up a few of our favorite animal lovers (and their familiars) below. We know we’re barely scratching the surface, so if we missed your favorite, come howl about them in the comments!
A Desolation Called Peace cover art by Jaime Jones
We often dream of traveling to other worlds, but what if space is your world? What if the ship you live on and the walls that contain you are the only society you’ve ever been exposed to? Science fiction is full of great big rockets that function like planets—transplanting the best and often the very worst of their homeworlds to the stars—and shepherd civilizations among the stars. Here are some of the most thought-provoking examples that we can’t stop wondering about.
Flyaway cover art by Kathleen Jennings
Here at Tor.com we love a good Gothic. The spooky houses that seem to have personalities of their own, the sinister men with murky pasts, the plucky heroines fighting against all the creepiness to learn the truth or find love or just get the hell off this storm-toss’t windswept cliff already. While traditional Gothic tales are often based in white, Euro-centric Romanticism, some 20th and 21st Century authors have remixed classic Gothic elements to lovingly tell stories about people of color, queer people, and women who want to write their own narratives rather than just being the madwoman in some dude’s attic.
Join us for sun-baked Australian tales, a story that swaps the moors for Mexico, and the book that as far as we’re concerned still stands as The Great American Novel, and tell us about your favorite Gothic tales in the comments!
With many parts of the U.S trudging through one of the snowiest months on record, you may find yourself settling down beneath the blankets with a mug of something hot and a good book or three. Some prefer to escape in fantasies of deserts and warmth, but we’re doubling down this season with a list of wintry reads featuring frozen tundras, majestic ice castles, and at least one magical wardrobe…
Bundle up and read on, and please let us know if we missed your favorites in the comments!
We love a good retelling—whether it’s a favorite fairy tale, ancient myth, or epic tale, it’s always great to see old things made new. Part of the reason we love these stories is because they’re so malleable; with themes that span the breadth of the human experience, tales of love, revenge, and adventure can find a home in any place and time, with characters that feel both familiar and fresh at the same time.
As we started thinking about of favorite retellings of classic stories, so many brilliant adaptations, updates, and re-workings came to mind. Here are just a few that we adore! Please feel free to add your own in the comments.
The now-classic Groundhog Day flirts with (and breaks) the rules of multiple movie genres: romantic comedy, time travel narrative, small town dramedy, spiritual redemption tale—and it’s also given birth to an entire subgenre of its own. The “Groundhog Day episode” is a mainstay of many television series, and the plot even pops up in films, novels, and short fiction. It’s a fun way to play with established characters, putting your faves through the emotional wringer while trying to solve a murder or stop a crime. And it can be an equally effective tool for riffing on entire genre tropes; mixing in high school drama, slasher horror, or other well-worn genres can lead to some fascinating mashups. And in (almost) all cases, the protagonist stuck in the time loop comes out on the other side all the better.
We’ve compiled a list of our favorite Groundhog Day riffs and the most memorable time loops in SFF. Take a break from listening to “I Got You Babe” for the nth time and check out these 14 recursive tales.
It’s safe to assume that if you’re here on this site you’re a huge fan of something. Maybe it’s Brandon Sanderson’s writing, or V.E. Schwab’s. Maybe it’s DC Comics, or Marvel’s Netflix shows. Maybe it’s all things Star Wars, or maybe it’s the sci-fi genre as a whole. Fandoms can be enriching, they can be found families, they can be outlets of boundless creativity.
And one of of our very favorite things in modern pop culture is that after many years of fans being derided for being too nerdy or even creepy, many films and TV shows have started including characters that are themselves fans, to create a meta Greek chorus.
