Help me compile a list of the longest fantasy series

What the title says, I'm interested in a list of the longest fantasy series (currently running series accepted e.g. A Song of Ice and Fire, although surely it's not one of the longest).

Defining longest, I am trying to separate the list in two sub-lists: by page / character count and by number of volumes.

Do you know that the internet will help solve your query?

Try:

http://www.bestfantasybooks.com

and many other websites. These websites will provide you the information you want.

How is the website you pointed me going to answer my question? :) It has lists for the "best" fantasy series, best fantasy books, etc. I am not trying to compile a list of good books, I am simply interested in the *longest* ones.

PS: thank you for "welcoming" me to the group on my first post with a boot in the backside :)

I don't know how they match up to others but the Riftwar cycle is pretty long and set to get longer. You have those, I see. Also, the Xanth series by Piers Anthony (http://www.librarything.com/series/Xanth).

Here's the results for the tagmash for 'Fantasy, series'. It might give you some pointers. The LT series pages are normally pretty good for fantasy ones:

http://www.librarything.com/tag/fantasy%2C+series

Hope this helps a bit.

Discworld is fantasy, and have to be regarded as a series I think. How long it actually is depends on how you chose to include (or not) some books but the main series is up to book 32 now, I think...

Regarding Discworld, the main series include the "starter" and "standard" books in this guide? http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/the-discworld-reading-order-gui...

I'm also at book 7 in The Legend of Drizzt series http://www.librarything.com/series/The+Legend+of+Drizzt , it will surely be included in the list.

@klarusu: The tagmash is a great idea, thank you! I think I will build a script to parse the entire list, access the individual book pages, and then grab the series' information.

How are you defining longest? By number of books? or by page/word count?

Obviously Ice and Fire doesn't have that many books - but each one is easily worth two or maybe even three of the Rift saga.

Does the series have to be finished? Some are plannned for a set length, others seem to be endless!

What's your minimum length for inclusion?

A couple of other titles.

Harry Dresden starting at Storm Front is 12 medium sized books and aiming for 16 I believe.

Curse of the Mistwraith is at 9 thick books and aiming for another 3 (or 5? - if Janny's around maybe she knows?)

How about non-fiction companions like CT's History of Middle earth 12 books and still going?

@reading_fox: I think the word count would be the most precise measurement, but it's a bit difficult to find out the number for each book.

The series doesn't necessarily have to be finished, I will try to update the list to keep it relevant over time. I don't think a minimum length is required, I will include the first 10-15 series, ordered by length.

Thank you for the suggestions :)

#6, Well, that makes it 46 but then the 3 Science novels are included, and they're half non fiction, half fictional framework (divided in different chapters), plus 4 YA novels, 5 short stories and 3 Illustrated stories. That leaves 31 "ordinary" novels, which is pretty much however you count ;-)

An ordinary Discworld novel is about 315 pages long. That makes those first 31 books about 9700 pages...

Welcome to the group, victorstanciu! Let me apologize on behalf of skoobdo for what I'm sure sounded like a snarky comment, but was surely not meant as such.

clamairy: thank you, no harm done :)

Here - http://www.librarything.com/topic/72920
It depends what you define as series, because this thread specifies continuous (one story, one main (set of) character(s)) but this excludes stuff like Discworld mentioned above and Riftworld Feist which is up to 27, also Valdemar, Pern, Hobb, Dragonlance (and other RPG books) Shannara, Steven Covenent, Black Jewels, Xanth, Mythadventures, Dreani, Deverry, Deryni, Elric, Noble Dead.
Also your definition of fantasy, because that last one is a vampire series in a fantasy world - does it include vampire books - because you have the ones written by Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong and more that I can't think of right now.

P.S you probably would have had more help over in the fantasy fans group like i did.

A quick one off the top of my head would be the Myth books by Robert Asprin. While the books themselves are not that big the series is currently at 19. Jody Lynn Nye is, I believe, to continue with the series.

Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series might meet your criteria. I'm soon to start reading the fifth book in the series The Gathering Storm and it has 1037 pages.

Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World series, it currently has 13 books and 14 is coming out this fall. I think the average page count per book is around 800 pages. If I remember I'll try to figure it out later.

# 8 - Reading fox - you asked - this is FYI - there are 3 more, one's written about to be turned in, last two are under contract/that's the finale for Wars of Light and Shadow. The total number of books: 11 (or 10, if you read the US hardbacks, since the second volume was not split into Ships/Warhost, the format available now)

Janny- I finished the first volume of Wars of Light and Shadow that I got from you at Dragoncon. I enjoyed it so it looks like I have some good reading ahead of me.
Thank You,

# 18 - BOSK - :)

victorstanciu: I am not giving "a boot in the backside" to you. I am far from being sarcastic to you.
Actually, I am trying my best to help you in your query. I would do the same approach to get information from the internet .

click to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fantasy_books_by_series

This website list the fantasy books by series, maybe this will help you in your compliation.

Thank you very much for all your help guys, I managed to gather a whopping 40 series for my list. I published the list here:
http://walkintomordor.com/the-40-longest-fantasy-series-and-why-we-read-them
So much to read, so little time to do it :(

victorstanciu:

Thank you for your interesting list of longest "fantasy series" novels. This list will be very beneficial for the LT's "fantasy series' die-hard readers.

Yes - another thank you. This was interesting to read.

Thank you. This is interesting. I wonder if we should ask Clam to put a link to the list in the GD's introductory paragraphs?

I'm happy you liked it :). I will leave the title as is, although there are already 44 instead of the original 40, and I think there will still be more.

great list! thanks!

Wow - great list, thanx!

I often have a craving to dive into something epic - this list should give me plenty of ideas when I'm in that mood!

The Belgariad is a 5 book series the is really the first part of the Mallorean

#28
I updated the entry to include all the 13 books. Thank you.