# What is the best grimdark fantasy series?

> Mercenaries who work for the villain, princes who burn their own kingdoms, and gods nobody should pray to. Some of these series are genre bedrock, others are word-of-mouth cults with devoted, slightly bruised readers.

*By YPB Team · Published October 28, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-grimdark-fantasy-series*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Malazan Book of the Fallen** — score 1000/1000
   Steven Erikson's ten-volume epic of gods, armies and atrocity across a vast, morally grey empire.
2. **The First Law** — score 647/1000
   Joe Abercrombie's trilogy of torturers, barbarians and scheming wizards that made him the face of grimdark.
3. **The Second Apocalypse** — score 624/1000
   R. Scott Bakker's philosophical and harrowing holy-war epic that begins with The Darkness That Comes Before.
4. **A Land Fit for Heroes** — score 560/1000
   Richard K. Morgan's trilogy about three weary veterans of a war against lizard-folk, beginning with The Steel Remains.
5. **The Red Queen's War** — score 560/1000
   Mark Lawrence's trilogy set in the Broken Empire world, starring a cowardly prince bound to a Viking warrior.
6. **Empires of Dust** — score 485/1000
   Anna Smith Spark's lyrical, blood-soaked trilogy that starts with The Court of Broken Knives.
7. **Godblind** — score 485/1000
   Anna Stephens' trilogy of a brutal invasion by followers of a bloodthirsty god.
8. **The Black Company** — score 397/1000
   Glen Cook's chronicles of a mercenary company fighting for an evil empire, widely seen as grimdark's forerunner.
9. **A Song of Ice and Fire** — score 397/1000
   George R. R. Martin's brutal saga of feuding houses in Westeros that brought dark fantasy to the mainstream.
10. **The Acts of Caine** — score 397/1000
   Matthew Woodring Stover's series about an actor-assassin performing real murders in a fantasy world for Earth's audiences.
11. **The Grim Company** — score 397/1000
   Luke Scull's trilogy about mercenaries in a world ruled by tyrannical mages after the gods were slain.
12. **The Broken Empire** — score 291/1000
   Mark Lawrence's trilogy following Jorg Ancrath, a murderous teenage prince clawing toward an emperor's throne.
13. **The Poppy War** — score 291/1000
   R. F. Kuang's trilogy, inspired by 20th-century Chinese history, about a war orphan who becomes a shaman of fire.
14. **The Witcher Saga** — score 291/1000
   Andrzej Sapkowski's novels about the monster hunter Geralt of Rivia in a cynical, war-torn world.
15. **The Bloodsworn Saga** — score 291/1000
   John Gwynne's Norse-inspired series of warbands, dead gods and monstrous blood-magic.
16. **The Age of Madness** — score 0/1000
   Joe Abercrombie's sequel trilogy that drags the First Law world into an industrial revolution.

Tags: fantasy, books, fiction, grimdark