The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Author page

Jim Butcher

3 universes Last reviewed 2026-08-12

Jim Butcher was born on October 26, 1971, in Independence, Missouri, the youngest of three children, and developed an early love of fantasy and science fiction after his sisters introduced him to The Lord of the Rings and the Han Solo Adventures during a childhood illness. He wrote the manuscript that became the first Dresden Files novel as an exercise for a writing course in 1996, at age 25, and after two years of rejections found representation through contacts made at a science-fiction convention. He is best known for The Dresden Files, a contemporary fantasy series following the wizard Harry Dresden in modern Chicago that has grown to nineteen books, as well as the six-book Codex Alera series and the steampunk-inflected Cinder Spires series. He also wrote the 2006 novel Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours. Butcher received Hugo Award nominations for Skin Game (2015) and The Aeronaut's Windlass (2016), and a Locus Award nomination in 2019 for Brief Cases.

Universe(s)

The Codex Alera

  • Core Canon books: 6
  • Current rank: #40 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.30
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

The Dresden Files

  • Core Canon books: 18
  • Current rank: #69 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.26
  • Award recognitions: 1 won, 1 finalist mention, 2 nomination

The Cinder Spires

  • Core Canon books: 2
  • Current rank: #98 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.21
  • Award recognitions: 1 nomination

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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