5 Greatest Fantasy Books of the 2020s, Ranked

The episode explores how the COVID-19 pandemic and online literary communities like BookTok triggered a major renaissance for the publishing industry, particularly popularizing the fantasy genre. It highlights five standout novels from the 2020s decade, beginning with R.F. Kuang's dark academia novel Babel, which examines imperialism through a linguistic magic system. The article also features V.E. Schwab's historical fantasy The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, about an immortal woman cursed to be forgotten, and Susanna Clarke's labyrinthine mystery Piranesi, which was inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia. Additionally, it discusses Travis Baldree's cozy fantasy hit Legends & Lattes, which trades high stakes for a comfortable slice-of-life narrative about an orc opening a coffee shop. Finally, the list showcases Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl, a sci-fi and fantasy mashup that helped popularize the LitRPG sub-genre through a deadly, game-like survival challenge.

"Open a book. Discover a world."

This episode includes AI-generated content.