You may have heard that a fantasy story is only as good as its main villain, but this is not true. A fantasy story is only as good as the spells its protagonists can throw at its main villain. When it comes to wild, whacky and intricate magic systems, fantasy has some fine contenders. Magic that comes from eating metals, sorceries that stem from saying names, wizardry that wafts in from parallel dimensions, it’s all here! These are ten fantasy books with the best magic systems, to enchant the inner enchanter in you!
Mistborn
When it comes to making up captivating magic systems, Brandon Sanderson quite literally wrote the book. He’s the author of Sanderson’s Laws of Magic, which popularized the terms “hard magic” and “soft magic” in the fantasy genre. Gandalf’s nebulous wizard powers? Soft magic. The magic in a Sanderson novel? Rock hard – centered around physics, limits and rules. There’s no better example than “Allomancy,” the magic that abounds in his Mistborn saga. This magic revolves around the consumption of elemental metals – when certain metals are eaten by a person with the genetic predisposition toward Allomancy, they gain supernatural abilities for a certain amount of time. Chowing down on the Periodic Table offers a variety of perks, including magnetism, clairvoyance and time manipulation. When you and your no good gang of street thieves are set on breaking into the palace of the most powerful man in the world, you’ll need all the magical abilities you can get. Eat up.
A Wizard of Earthsea
Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea is a fantasy classic for many a reason, one of those reasons being it pioneered a style of magic based around language and names. Later referenced by Patrick Rothfuss in his Kingkiller Chronicles series, this system of sorcery grants the wielder power over the natural world by calling the “true names” of things – raising winds and calming tides with words. In the globe spanning archipelago known as Earthsea, even run-of-the-mill wizards are capable of conjuring the wind to fill boat’s sails. The most powerful wizards are able to call upon the powers of life and death itself, splitting through the tenuous border that separates this world from the one beyond. Quintessential soft magic like Lord of The Rings, Le Guin’s “naming” magic adds an element of mystery to the world – a wizard’s job is to seek the truth of reality, and to uphold it at all costs.
The Farseer Trilogy
The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb features two subtle systems of telepathic magic known as “The Skill” and “The Wit.” The Skill is a human to human brand of telepathy, where two Skilled people are able to communicate with one another mentally – even across vast distances. More powerful users are able to influence the thoughts and emotions of others, intimidating and charming friends and foes through a sort of psychic Dungeons and Dragons style charisma check. One can also use The Skill to manipulate, creating illusions and causing others to see things that aren’t there. All great *ahem* skills to have when you’re a royal assassin like FitzChivalry Farseer. There also exists a rarer style of human to animal telepathy known as The Wit, which is allows people like Fitz to commune with animals, and even enter their minds Game of Thrones warg-style. Two seemingly simple magics, but the possibilities are endless.
The Malazan Book of The Fallen
Steven Erikson’s The Malazan Book of The Fallen features a complex magic system centered around The Warrens, which are essentially pocket dimensions of elemental magic power. You know how in Dungeons and Dragons there are four elemental planes that exist outside the Material? The planes of Fire, Water, Earth and Air? The Warrens are like that, except there are wayyyyyyy more of them. Multiple planes of Fire, as well as Sky, Sea, Death, Light, Demons, the list goes on. Most wizards are born with a natural affinity towards one, and rare is the mage who can access two. The most powerful wizards of all are able to draw power from every Warren, including eldritch Warrens where forces of primordial chaos flow. Mages can even create wormhole-esque portals through these pocket dimensions, allowing them to cross vast distances in a blink. Gandalf was right, a wizard really CAN arrive precisely when he means to.
The Broken Earth Trilogy
N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy is set in a supercontinent known as The Stillness, which is periodically rocked by climate cataclysms known as “fifth seasons.” These seasons can sometimes be summoned by “orogenes,” people with the ability to conjure and manipulate geokinetic energy. It’s essentially earthbending a la Avatar the Last Airbender, but instead of throwing rocks through punches and kicks, orogenes are able to manipulate tectonic plates and seismic waves. The magic has a semi sci-fi explanation, stemming from an overdeveloped “sessapinae” – an organ at the base of the brainstem that allows the people of the Stillness to detect seismic activity through a process called “sessing.” It’s essentially a sixth sense that certain people are able to utilize with catastrophic results – causing orogenes to be met with hatred, fear and oppression across the world.
Naruto
Call me a high fantasy heretic, but I think that Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto has one of the greatest magic systems in all of fiction. In a world dominated by warring ninja clans, rival shinobi manipulate chakra – the body’s natural energy – in order to get the drop on their foes. The applications of chakra are ENDLESS, allowing ninja to walk on water, breathe fire, summon giant monsters, and change the molecular structure of their bodies. The limits of chakra are loosely defined, which allows for an incredible amount of character-building. No two ninja utilize their chakra in the same way, resulting in an infinite amount of fighting styles and special abilities. Some ninja defeat enemies by drowning them in psychokinetic sand, some hurl rain of charka-infused paper bombs, and some cause foes to short circuit by exposing them to harems of charka-clone hotties. In the shinobi world, it takes all kinds – even perverts.
His Dark Materials
Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials centers around a quasi-religious system of magic based around faith and inner knowing. By communing with the primordial quintessence of universal consciousness called “Dust,” certain people are able to suss out the fundamental truths of reality. Tweenaged Lyra Belacqua is able achieve this precognition by reading an alethiometer, a compass-like device adorned with symbols that each have their own unique meanings. Engaging with an alethiometer is like an advanced form of divination, it’s the high fantasy Catholic’s version of a Tarot reading. When you’re a little girl on a quest to find Heaven (and maybe kill God in the process) you need all the answers you can get.
The Locked Tomb Series
Half fantasy, half sci-fi, Tamsyn Muir’s The Locked Tomb series is goth lesbian necromancers in space. The story is set in a universe ruled by an undead emperor and nine planet controlling Houses, each with its own particular brand of necromancy. Necromancers can do everything- commune with spirits, create warding magic with blood, and chuck magical bones at one another. While the origin of this magic is a science experiment gone wrong, the Locked Tombs‘ necromancy delightful due to how unscientific it is. It’s pure, unadulterated goth vibes – groups of dour teens hurling the powers of death at one another. The logic doesn’t always make sense, but the mood is there. Impromptu magic surgeries, skeletal servants, ghost summonings, it’s everything a lover of the macabre desires.
Foundryside
The magic of Foundryside is essentially computer programming in the real world. This system of sorcery (called “scriving”) operates via sigils, which are written onto objects to “convince” them to act in a certain way. For instance, you could scrawl a sigil onto a rock and make it roll uphill because it now “believes” that “down” is now “up.” Scribers aren’t out here turning rocks sentient, but they essentially make objects act as if they are in separate reality where different physical laws apply. It’s easily one of the most unique magic systems ever conceived, and a rather useful one at that. When you’re a protagonist thief named Sancia Grado, how better to get into a locked door than by convincing it to open?
Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000 is set in a grimdark universe split perfectly down the middle by the forces of magic and science. Once a bastion of enlightened scientific and rational thought, The Imperium of Man is now a galaxy wide empire decaying due to the rot of primordial magic. The countless worlds of humanity are plagued by the forces of the Immaterium, a realm of astral chaos where dark gods dwell. Humans sensitive to this realm are known as “psykers,” and are capable of calling upon this unseen realm to conjure up all manner of psychokinetic abilities – as well as demonic beings at clawing to get in to the material world. While the sci-fi/magic lore of Warhammer 40,000 could fill an entire library, check out series stalwarts like Eisenhorn of The Horus Heresy to see the effects of Chaos on full display, along with the horrors that accompany them.
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