The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Author page

Lev Grossman

2 universes Last reviewed 2026-08-15

Lev Grossman is an American author and journalist, born June 26, 1969, in Concord, Massachusetts, the twin brother of video game designer Austin Grossman and son of poet Allen Grossman and novelist Judith Grossman. He graduated from Lexington High School in Massachusetts and earned a BA in literature from Harvard University in 1991. Grossman worked as book critic and lead technology writer for Time magazine from 2002 to 2016, covering consumer electronics, video games, and digital culture, and also contributed to The New York Times, Wired, Salon, and The Wall Street Journal before leaving Time in August 2016 to write fiction full-time. His debut novel was Warp (1997), followed by the international bestseller Codex (2004). He is best known for The Magicians trilogy — The Magicians (2009), The Magician King (2011), and The Magician's Land (2014) — a series that reimagines portal fantasy tropes through a darker, more psychologically realistic lens and was adapted into a television series. He has also written the children's books The Silver Arrow (2020) and The Golden Swift (2022), and the Arthurian novel The Bright Sword (2024). The Magicians won the 2010 Alex Award and the 2011 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Grossman, a self-identified atheist, lives in Sydney, Australia, with his wife, author Sophie Gee, and their three children.

Universe(s)

The Magicians

  • Core Canon books: 3
  • Current rank: #789 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.73
  • Award recognitions: 1 won

The Bright Sword

  • Core Canon books: 1
  • Current rank: #525 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.93
  • Award recognitions: 1 finalist mention

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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