The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Author page

L.E. Modesitt Jr.

4 universes Last reviewed 2026-08-31

L. E. Modesitt Jr. is an American fantasy and science fiction author born in 1943 in Denver, Colorado, and a graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts. Before turning to full-time writing, he held a remarkably varied career, working as a Navy pilot, real estate agent, market research analyst, Congressional legislative assistant, and Director of Legislation and Congressional Relations for the Environmental Protection Agency. He lived in Washington, D.C., for nearly two decades as a political writer before relocating to New Hampshire in 1989 and then to Cedar City, Utah, in 1993. His first short story was published in 1973, and he has since produced more than eighty novels. He is best known for The Saga of Recluce, an extensive fantasy series begun in 1991 that had grown to twenty-five novels by 2025, along with other major series including The Spellsong Cycle, The Forever Hero, The Corean Chronicles, The Imager Portfolio, and The Grand Illusion. He published a short story collection, Viewpoints Critical: Selected Stories, in 2008, and served as Writer Guest of Honor at Balticon 58 in 2024. Married three times, Modesitt has eight children; his current wife, Carol A. Modesitt, is a professional opera singer and music professor at Southern Utah University.

Universe(s)

The Saga of Recluce

  • Core Canon books: 26
  • Current rank: #307 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.05
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

The Imager Portfolio

  • Core Canon books: 12
  • Current rank: #156 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.16
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

The Corean Chronicles

  • Core Canon books: 7
  • Current rank: #296 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.06
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

The Spellsong Cycle

  • Core Canon books: 5
  • Current rank: #715 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.80
  • 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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