The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Author page

Mark Lawrence

3 universes Last reviewed 2026-10-08

Mark Lawrence is an American-British novelist, born in 1966 in the United States before moving to the United Kingdom, who holds a degree in physics and a PhD in mathematics and previously worked as a research scientist in artificial intelligence, holding secret-level security clearance with both the US and UK governments; he is now a full-time novelist and primary caregiver for his disabled daughter, Celyn. He began publishing fantasy fiction in 2011 with his debut novel Prince of Thorns, and is best known for The Broken Empire trilogy (Prince of Thorns, King of Thorns, Emperor of Thorns, 2011-2013), followed by the Red Queen's War trilogy (2014-2016), the Book of the Ancestor trilogy (Red Sister, Grey Sister, Holy Sister, 2017-2019), and the Library trilogy (2023-2025). He won the David Gemmell Legend Award twice, in 2014 for Emperor of Thorns and again in 2016 for The Liar's Key, and since 2015 has run the annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, a competition promoting self-published fantasy authors. His work has been translated into 28 languages, with approximately two million books sold worldwide. He is married with four children.

Universe(s)

The Broken Empire

  • Core Canon books: 6
  • Current rank: #321 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.05
  • Award recognitions: 2 won, 8 nomination

Book of the Ancestor / Book of the Ice

  • Core Canon books: 6
  • Current rank: #104 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.21
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

The Library Trilogy

  • Core Canon books: 3
  • Current rank: #522 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.93
  • 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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