"If you like Tolkien, read The Wheel of Time by Jordan. This man has claimed Tolkien's world building mantle: he's created a massive world, richly developed cultures, and well-defined magic system. When you read Jordan, you explore an ancient world full of secrets."

I think that this description of Jordan beating Tolkien at world building is completely wrong. Jordan's description of the older age before the tainting is merely a fleeting glimpse of what was. Tolkien thought through genealogies of all principle characters, and there is a story behind every song, every statue, every creature. When you read the Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales you have a sense of a world unfolding and marvel at how Tolkien chronicled an entire history. You will not find that in Martin, Jordan, or Hobb.

Many readers think that for a novel to be literary it must have "rounded" characters with a clear arc. That is cliche. Predictable, trite cliche. Great writing is not defined by such rules. Those meandering soap operas that make the top of the list are not better simply for having gritty, rounded characters and numerous plot threads inexpertly weaved into a mess of knots.

Move the Middle Earth Legendarium to the top of the list where it belongs. Don't rank so highly incomplete sagas of questionable merit.

This should be # 1. At least half of the list wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for LOTR

I have to agree with the posts that propose that fantasy as a genre would not be what it is today without the Lord of the Rings. Everybody mimics Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings series should be #1 without a doubt.

Before I give my opinion, let me begin with the assertion that the best resources an author can draw on are his or her own life experiences.

Let's proceed along that line. Tolkien grew up in Africa and then England, fought in the trenches of World War I, and then taught as a professor of Anglo-Saxon in Oxford University.

Let me start on my first point. Suffice it to say that, firstly, he had the cultural background to do a good job simply because he grew up in Britain, and much of fantasy fiction is derived from European legend. Secondly, he experienced one of the worst wars in the history of mankind and survived, so he knew his stuff when discussing war. Thirdly, he had the ability and the passion to bring all of this together, as he demonstrated at Oxford.

Compare this to the authors of fantasy fiction today. I'm sorry to say this, but in all honesty, most if not all are middle-class urban dwellers who just read fantasy fiction. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't talented people out there who can craft up creative stories from scratch. But it's undeniable that Tolkien had some of the richest resources at his disposal. Could it be possible that this is, in fact, the most important aspect when writing a novel?

Now, to my second point, which addresses how Tolkien chose to apply his own experiences towards fiction. I certainly appreciate the other books you've listed, and I also enjoyed reading quite a few of them. I did notice, though, a preference for "gritty realism" or "grey characterizations" in the majority of these series. Please pardon me if I'm mistaken, but could it be that this ranking resulted from your own personal preference of realism over romanticism, and not from the work's quality?

I'd like to raise this issue because Tolkien is, after all, a master in the Romanticist style. Take Arthurian legend as an example - everyone knows medieval Britain had horrible sanitation and a terrible judicial system. Why, then, do we still cling to our images of King Arthur, the Round Table, and shining knights saving damsels in distress?

Romanticism definitely isn't grey - it's black and white. Everyone wants something different, and some of us don't want realism in our stories. Sometimes, we want absolutes higher than those we're familiar with. Doesn't this remind us somewhat of what fantasy is all about? I leave it to all those reading this to decide whether The Lord of the Rings truly deserves a mere "10th place."

Lord of the Rings is one of the best books i ever first read. I think it is a good number 5 in the top 25 but Lord of the Rings is just the key to unlocking other kinds of books, like Magician apprentice, magician master, and its books. the one book that actually sticks out to me that is pretty much a close lord of the rings but more real life and that is the Iron Tower series. If you like Lord of the Rings, you will fall in love with Iron Tower

A half a century later, this is still the greatest fantasy ever written. Nothing compare's to Tolkien's amazing imagination. One almost gets the sense that he was writing about an actual world that exists somewhere.

Maybe it does. It may be just in our imaginations, but this is a world where we want to LIVE. As amazing as Westeros or Malazan is, I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in either of those hell-holes.

This is a book you can lose yourself in again and again, and forget yourself and everything else around you for hours. Until A Song of Ice and Fire is complete, Lord of the Rings is the undisputed king of fantasy. And even then, it will probably continue to be.

Sorry, but Name of the Wind is not in the same league, as much as people want to buy into the hype. We'll see after that story is more than 1/3 complete.

I just finished reading the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. They were amazing, well written and everything. I am so glad that I spent the time reading them. It was hard to get into the way Tolkien wrote, but once I got past it, I could not put them down.

I'm a lover of Tolkien Legendarium. My #1 choice ever is The Lord of The Rings., especially for the symbolism about death, deception, anti-heroism, and tragic.

Sorry for my poor english.

I love Tolkien's work so much! I read a lot of fantasy, but up till now I've never read something so sweeping and original. Some fantasy books are really good, but the author kind of slips by making his/her character's too Mary-Sue like.

It is my personal belief that pretty much any fiction book written in the past 3 decades (and the ones that will be written in at least the next 3 decades, if not a lot longer) is inspired to some extent by Tolkien. and i do remember, at first, how hard it could be for a year old to read such a complicated, long (and sometimes boring, sorry) trilogy, but now i understand just how revolutionary and powerful his works are. people love them deeply, as deeply as sam is loyal to frodo. i love the lord of the rings deeply. which is why i think it should be at the top of that list, not just forth.

I read the Hobbit and TLOTR trilogy very good reads. If you want to have great times get the audio books. The narrator is Robert Inglis and he is tremendous. He Sings all the songs, chants all the poetry and speaks all the languages. I have listened to the series 3 times and love it every time.

I've read over 800 works of fiction and at least 400 in the fantasy genera. I first read the books in the 5th grade, and Tolkien was again assigned to me in 7th Grade English. Maybe I was too young, but I was just bored. I've re-read the books at 24... and I still found the level detail tedious. I often thought they could be abridged to half their length with little lost in content. Please don't be upset by my comments though, I know I'm in the majority. I read for pleasure, and I never found the books pleasurable.

Strangely I grew up reading Sci-Fi Fantasy. When I was younger, I liked The Chronicles of Narnia, Robert Asprin's Myth-INC series, and Piers Anthony's Xanth series. Later, I fell into the Dragonlance series (anything by Margeret Weis and Tracy Hickman), and Tad William's Dragonbone Chair series. Katherine Kerr's Daggerspell series was good. Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is ok (though a bit preachy towards the end). Robert's Jordan's Wheel of Time series is probably one of my favorites. Harry Potter is even enjoyable. I also like anything by Steven King, Dean Koontz, John Grishim, Terry Pratchett, Robin Cook, Anne Rice, Preston/Childs, Gary Gyrax, Jon DeCamp, Allen Craig Shaw Gardner, David Eddings, Raymond E. Feist, Terry Brooks, Fred Saberhagen, Rick Cook, Christopher Shersteff, LE Modestill Jr, etc...

Anyway, I consider myself well read, but Tolkein was just never one of my favorites. There is probably something wrong with me, but I just don't get it.

what can one say about tolkien? i read lotr initially in 3rd grade and have re-read it regularly for my entire life. more that any book i've read tolkien moves you to a sense of wonder and amazement...he makes you feel like a child instead of a cynical jaded adult. he makes you wonder what magical thing is over the next hill and you are sad when the stories path doesn't take you there. many books i have read leave you wishing you could spend more time with the characters- tolkien does this and more. you want to spend more time with sam when he is mayor, with aragorn as king- but even more than that you wish there were some way to explore middle-earth further. tolkien created such a vivid world and wrote so little about it. you want to know the depths of mirkwood and the ruined town of tharbad, and to travel to places only mentioned, like the dark sad waters of the sea of rhun. you look at the map and wonder what lies beyond the borders and what are the stories of those who live there. and part of the magic is that we will never know. he created a vast space with a tremendous sense of antiquity and history and only filled in a teaspoon's worth, leaving the remainder to our imagination.

Simply stated, any other book on this list, if it were never published, would have little affect to any other title on the list.

But if The Lord of the Rings was never published, fantasy as the genre we have today would not exist. Every fantasy writer alive today owes a debt to J.R.R. Tolkien.

Everybody knows Tolkien's work. I remember my father telling me about Lord of the Ring's many years before the movies surfaced, but I was still quite young when they eventually did. In the grand scheme of things I am still considered very young. But having watched the movies and read the stories I can honestly say that the movies DID do the series justice, with the exception of a few details that were obviously left out for length issues.

In saying that, it's definately a series that a fantasy lover cannot walk by! Although I often found Tolkien's vivid descriptions overly extensive and unnecessarily drawn out, for many people that is the charm of his brilliant story writing talents.

For people just getting into the fantasy-genre of book reading, Tolkien will not disappoint!