# What is the best Orbit fantasy novel?

> Hugo-sweeping literary heavyweights meet cult breakouts that started out self-published, plus a few swaggering assassin sagas, all under one imprint.

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

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **The Fifth Season** — score 1000/1000
   N.K. Jemisin's 2015 opener of the Broken Earth trilogy, set on a continent wracked by apocalyptic seasons; it won the Hugo Award.
2. **The Black Prism** — score 858/1000
   Brent Weeks' 2010 Lightbringer opener, built around a colour-based magic system and a ruler hiding a secret.
3. **The Shadow of What Was Lost** — score 678/1000
   James Islington's epic fantasy debut that opens the Licanius trilogy, picked up by Orbit in 2017.
4. **The Bone Shard Daughter** — score 678/1000
   Andrea Stewart's 2020 debut about an emperor's daughter in a drifting island empire run on bone-shard magic.
5. **Devices and Desires** — score 678/1000
   K.J. Parker's 2005 opener of the Engineer trilogy, a siege story driven by a vengeful engineer.
6. **The Rage of Dragons** — score 555/1000
   Evan Winter's 2019 African-inspired revenge epic about a young warrior in an endless war.
7. **The Shadow of the Gods** — score 555/1000
   John Gwynne's 2021 Norse-inspired opener of the Bloodsworn saga.
8. **The Killing Moon** — score 555/1000
   Jemisin's 2012 Egypt-inspired fantasy about priests who harvest dreams to deliver peaceful deaths.
9. **The Stone Sky** — score 555/1000
   The 2017 finale of the Broken Earth trilogy, which made Jemisin the first author to win three straight Hugos.
10. **Senlin Ascends** — score 555/1000
   Josiah Bancroft's cult favourite about a schoolteacher searching the Tower of Babel for his lost wife.
11. **The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms** — score 0/1000
   Jemisin's 2010 debut about a young woman drawn into the politics of a city where enslaved gods walk among mortals.
12. **The Way of Shadows** — score 0/1000
   Brent Weeks' 2008 Night Angel debut about a street orphan apprenticed to a legendary assassin.
13. **The Jasmine Throne** — score 0/1000
   Tasha Suri's 2021 India-inspired epic about an imprisoned princess and a maidservant with a dangerous secret.
14. **The Raven Tower** — score 0/1000
   Ann Leckie's 2019 fantasy, a Hamlet-like story partly narrated by an ancient god in the form of a stone.
15. **Soulless** — score 0/1000
   Gail Carriger's 2009 steampunk comedy of manners about a soulless spinster among vampires and werewolves.
16. **The Magicians' Guild** — score 0/1000
   Trudi Canavan's first Black Magician novel, about a slum girl who discovers she has magical power.
17. **The Obelisk Gate** — score 0/1000
   The 2016 second Broken Earth novel, in which Essun learns the deeper secrets of orogeny; also a Hugo winner.
18. **Jade City** — score 0/1000
   Fonda Lee's 2017 World Fantasy Award winner, a gangster saga about clans who draw power from magic jade.
19. **The Justice of Kings** — score 0/1000
   Richard Swan's 2022 legal fantasy following a travelling judge of the Imperial Order.
20. **The Dragon's Path** — score 0/1000
   Daniel Abraham's 2011 opener of the Dagger and Coin series, mixing war, banking and a spider-goddess cult.

Tags: fantasy, books, orbit books, epic fantasy