The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Author page

Marie Brennan

3 universes Last reviewed 2026-10-04

Marie Brennan, the pen name of Bryn Neuenschwander, is an American author of fantasy and folklore-influenced fiction, born September 1, 1980. She studied at Harvard University, where she co-chaired the Harvard–Radcliffe Science Fiction Association, and later pursued graduate study in folklore and anthropology at Indiana University Bloomington before leaving in 2008 to write full-time; that academic background heavily informs the world-building in her fiction. Brennan's works include the Doppelganger duology (2006), the Onyx Court series beginning with Midnight Never Come (2008), and the five-book Memoirs of Lady Trent series (2013–2017), a Victorian-flavored fantasy adventure sequence narrated by a fictional naturalist studying dragons. She also co-wrote the collaborative M. A. Carrick fantasy trilogy (2021–2023) under a shared pseudonym, and has published numerous short stories and essays on writing craft. Her Memoirs of Lady Trent series was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2018, and she won the Hugo Award for Best Poem in 2025 for "A War of Words." Brennan maintains an active website and continues to write across fantasy, science fiction, and nonfiction examining the intersection of anthropology and speculative storytelling.

Universe(s)

Rook & Rose

  • Core Canon books: 3
  • Current rank: #157 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.16
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

The Memoirs of Lady Trent

  • Core Canon books: 5
  • Current rank: #376 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.02
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

The Onyx Court

  • Core Canon books: 4
  • Current rank: #815 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.60
  • 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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