What are the top 10 best fantasy horror novels of all time?
Fantasy horror is one of my favorite genres to read and write in, but it’s also incredibly difficult to pin down. Horror itself usually contains some measure of the fantastical, but most people would argue that fantasy isn’t fantasy without some element of swords, sorcery, or magic. We can all agree that vampires and demons are scary, but where is the magic in those stories? Are supernatural elements enough - or do you need to have some outright Supernatural elements to tell your story, maybe without being written by Chuck?
Many authors have tried to mix the two - and the lines are so blurry it’s hard to say when a demon becomes a true source of fear, a gun becomes part of a fantasy land, or a story about Kings and Queens takes a turn for the horrific. If you’re after something to scare you or to plunge you into the depths of the darkest fantasy out there, this list of top ten fantasy horror novels will keep you at the edge of your seat.
10. The Blood of the Elves
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Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher - Blood of the Elves is a trove of blood, magic, and violent fantasy storytelling.
Andrzej Sapkowski’s titular character Geralt of Rivera takes center stage in 1994 and builds off of existing fantasy folklore with some violent twists. While not a horror novel itself, and the weakest of all of the horror-themed entries on this list, Geralt faces off with a veritable army of monsters throughout the entirety of The Witcher books and short stories (not to mention the games - and we are a gaming website!). As a dark fantasy novel, however, the Witcher brings to life all of the tropes you’d expect and builds on them in ways most people wouldn’t dare imagine.
One key aspect of blending fantasy and horror together is establishing a world where you don’t know who is going to survive - or how. With life and death stakes in place, the nightmares embedded in Geralt’s stories may not be thmonsters that rampage through it or magic wielded by the likes of the vile Rience and his allies, but instead? The true horrors are the fates of the average people that live in the Witcher’s world.
9. At the Mountains of Madness
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H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness sets the tone for a century's worth of Cthulhu mythos...
You can’t have a list of horror anything without taking into consideration the work of one of the absolute masters of the craft: H. P. Lovecraft’s tale of cosmic deities from the early 1930s. A story with tendrils that reach back into the time when the moon first formed, readers are left with incomprehensible horrors to contend with and the fear that there’s far worse lying in wait where we dare not tread. The story itself upends the mortal world and lays out entirely new groundwork for how humans were brought into existence on Earth…
…while at the same time, promising death and destruction on an untold scale if our old masters are ever revived (or awoken). Lovecraft’s work has inspired countless other stories and is the definition of the ‘cosmic horror’ genre/trope. Not only that, the idea of God-like creatures so vast and powerful that they beguile human understanding firmly puts At the Mountains of Madness into the realm of one of the greatest human fantasies of all time.
Or so we hope.
8. City Infernal (series) / City Infernal (novel)
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Edward Lee's bloody, violent treck into the cityscale of Hell begins with City Infernal
Moving on from the icy terrors of eternity, many a weary traveler may wish to head back to the city for a quieter, simpler life, but they won’t find it here. Hell is a city, don’t you know, and every now and again, Lucifer’s sorcerers can rip open the gates and pave the highway of good intentions with the blood of the damned. Book one of a multi-book series - including the likes of House Infernal, Infernal Angel, and Lucifer’s Lottery, horror master Edward Lee explores the demented depths of the afterlife with a trip into Hell itself.
City and the rest of the Infernal novels are based in a modern setting, and Hell itself has become a bloody and twisted reflection of the real world. While the typical fantasy tropes of swords and orcs and the like aren’t present, these books are all about the supernatural horrors that lurk just beyond the veil where we can’t see them… and where they lurk waiting for the day that they can play with us. What this series does have are demons straight out of your worst fever dream, and just enough sick, cruel humor to elicit a chuckle here and there… if you dare damn yourself for finding amusement in the pits of the lowest of the low.
Like its distant predecessor The Inferno, (both in time and on this list!), City Infernal gives life to all manner of demon-spawned creatures with the promise of an infinite number of monsters and damned souls more to come.
7. The Hellbound Heart
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Barker's Pinhead has such sights to show you... and maybe even some sewing tips.
Hell is to horror what taste is to food - someone is almost always invoking it to describe what they’re seeing, what they’re feeling, or wondering if they’ve gone there. From the mind of one of the all-time true masters of terror, Clive Barker goes beyond the realm of typical horror and drags us kicking and screaming into a game with one simple rule: solve the puzzle, and be prepared to experience excess like you’ve never had it before.
From a fantasy perspective, The Hellbound Heart takes us on a supernatural jaunt through a man’s desire to first experience more than the mortal realms of pleasure and sensation… and then to escape it. When his fantasies become flesh, they rip the literal skin from his bones; leaving the reader to wonder what other demons and otherworldly entries lay beyond a simple little box.
6. The Horus Heresy (Series) / Horus Rising (novel)
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The grimmest of the 'grimdark' genre begins with a Heresy...
The Horus Heresy is not ‘one’ book. Rather, it is a slew of novels and novellas based off of the insanely popular (and insanely expensive!) Warhammer: 40,000 tabletop game series from Games Workshop. While the Warhammer novels were first released all the way back in the early 1980s, the Heresy takes the violence and gore up a notch. Warhammer itself defined the ‘grimdark’ fantasy genre (and is thought to be the first media to coin the term) and it features horrors beyond imagination.
For the newcomers to the Warhammer property, it’s hard to suggest starting anywhere else but with the Heresy. The defining event of nearly every modern Warhammer game, novel, and the rest of Games Workshop’s sprawling media empire, it sets the groundwork for a universe where there is only war. War, and the demonic forces of Chaos - forces who thrive on murder and mayhem to a degree that would make even Pinhead and his ilk blush.
There are no good guys in Warhammer, and almost no happy endings. This is a series where the worst can happen, will happen, and then will somehow become even more terrible than you can imagine. And what is more horrible than the absence of hope, or more fantastical than a universe of space-elves, orcs, humans, murderous insects and chainblades, all of which wait to tear you to shreds?
5. I Am Legend
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We implore you - read the book, and skip the movie!
No swords and sorcery here - just the story of an apocalypse, and one man’s desperate attempt to survive it. I Am Legend is set in a near-modern Los Angeles where humanity has been all-but wiped out by a pandemic that turns the infected into vampires. Believing himself to be the last survivor of the human race, the lead character embarks on a desperate attempt to find a cure at any cost and in doing so, blinds himself to the damage he is inflicting on the people that he once considered his countrymen.
I Am Legend is survival horror distilled down to a simple premise: when you’re the last man alive, what lengths will you take to ensure humanity continues to exist? The twist at the end of the book was a shock to many, and forces you to think about what our actions truly do to the world at large. Even if you struggle to find horror from the 1970s terrifying compared to more modern outings, you still have one other option: the horrifyingly bad movie adaptation from the early 2000s.
4. Frankenstein
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The Mother of All Horror presents the bodies of the many men that make up the myth...
Necromancy. Mad science. A monster without a name.
Mary Shelley’s classic from the 1800s has defined the concept of literary horror for centuries. It’s impossible to say how many classic tales and modern masterpieces have been influenced by this work. When you set the bar as high as Shelley did, you can’t argue with the success it’s had - or the depths of the story it told.
On a semi-cultural significance, it never ceases to amuse us when people approach this book with the belief that the monster is, well, the monster. While the Creature does do some awful things, it never was the true evil behind the story, and watching new generations realize that fact warms our hearts every time.
3. Dracula
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A case could be made that this should be #1 on this list - but even at #3, Dracula is a fang-tastic good read.
Speaking of horror from the 1800s, Bram Stoker established another monster firmly in the minds of the world in 1897. Drawing from myths and legends that date back to around 1,000 A.D., Dracula is a horror novel that built on Shelley’s concepts while dragging one of fantasy’s all-time greatest monsters out of the shadows and into the light (as it were).
You simply can’t have a discussion about fantasy horror without acknowledging the impact that Bram Stoker has had on it. A monster that created a genre, the titular vampire has become a go-to for thousands upon thousands of works since. Put a stake in it; it’s done.
2. A Song of Ice and Fire (Series) / Game of Thrones (novel)
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A series without end... unless you count the HBO show.
The last pure fantasy on this list, George R. R. Martin’s billion-dollar masterpiece builds off of generations of fantasy creation and delivers an epic that has spawned an empire. While the story itself is not horror, there are no shortages of horrible acts or scenes that set up nightmares for the characters that survive them. A series that builds on everpresent dread and risk of life and limb on every page, you cannot argue the impact that it has had on the minds of pop culture to this day.
All of that said, elements of horror persist in the entire series. From the introduction of the frozen Night King, the shadow assassin summoned to execute (no spoilers here, sorry!) to the depths of depravity celebrated by Ramsay Bolton, you are always left wondering what comes next, and how much it’s going to hurt. As the Red Witch says: ‘The night is dark, and full of terrors.’
1. The Inferno (Part I of The Divine Comedy)
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It's a long hard road... and it's our #1 pick. Go to Hell with The Inferno.
The master; the creator. The genius that inscribed the words, ‘Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here,’ on the eternal Gates of Hell and on our hearts, Dante Alighieri’s epic poem from the early 1300s (!) didn’t just deliver a functioning (and deeply scathing) satirical narrative of the culture of the time (with many of the underworld’s residents being noteworthy poets, Popes, and other figures from Dante’s time and before), it served to actually give us, well… Hell.
No matter what you read or where you read it from, Dante’s ideas of Hell being a place of fire and torment where sinners are punished in gruesome agony on every page has influenced everything from religious belief to pop culture. Every demon listed above in this list owes some measure of credit to Dante, be it in concept, creation, or interpretation. When you discuss the root of horror in modern culture, all you need to do is look to the past - and seven circles down.
With all of that said,‘Top’ lists are always subjective and invariably leave out someone’s favorites, and this list of Top 10 Fantasy Horror Novels is no exception to that rule. Still, we hope you had fun with it and that it gives you some ideas for your future TBR pile.
Before you can pick up any of the books above, why don’t you take a few minutes and check out one of these lists from our coverage of Fallout 76 - a game of apocolyptic porportions (without magic, but with plenty of ghouls, aliens, and mutants abound)!
Born on the outskirts of the Eldritch Mountains of Appalachia, Josh seeks to bring the magic of the (very) old into the minds of those willing to learn fantasy, magic, and the joy of building worlds.
Gamer Since:
1989
Currently Playing:
Fallout 76, Cities Skylines 2
Top 3 Favorite Games:
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn, Cities: Skylines - After Dark, Total War: Rome II
