The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Author page

Alan Garner

3 universes Last reviewed 2026-09-06

Alan Garner is an English author of fantasy fiction for children and adults, born October 17, 1934, in Congleton, Cheshire, and raised in Alderley Edge, a village near Manchester whose landscape and oral folklore traditions, passed down through his family for generations, would deeply shape his fiction. He attended Manchester Grammar School on waived fees and studied Classics at Magdalen College, Oxford, entering in January 1953, but left in late 1956 without completing his degree in order to pursue novel writing. He began his debut novel in September 1956 and, after its publication, worked briefly as a freelance television reporter before becoming a full-time author, sustaining a prolific writing career from 1960 to the present. Garner's major works include The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960) and its sequel The Moon of Gomrath (1963), Elidor (1965), The Owl Service (1967), Red Shift (1973), the autobiographical Stone Book Quartet (1976–1978), and later novels Boneland (2012) and Treacle Walker (2021), the latter shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His honors include the Carnegie Medal in 1967 for The Owl Service, the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 1968, appointment as Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2001, the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2012, and multiple honorary doctorates. His fiction is distinguished by its deep grounding in English folklore and the specific landscape of his native Cheshire.

Universe(s)

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen

  • Core Canon books: 3
  • Current rank: #564 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.90
  • Award recognitions: 1 won

The Owl Service

  • Core Canon books: 1
  • Current rank: #789 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.66
  • Award recognitions: 1 won

Elidor

  • Core Canon books: 1
  • Current rank: #615 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.85
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

Books

Aggregate across all universes

These are separate, unrelated universes; the totals below are plain sums of already-published per-universe facts, never a blended or averaged score across them. See each universe's own figures above.

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