Magic of the Lost
#5333.92 in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 3 books Status Complete 2021–2025 Reading commitment Medium C. L. Clark Last reviewed 2026-08-11
Overview
A completed grimdark/postcolonial epic fantasy trilogy following Touraine, a soldier conscripted from a colonized people and raised to serve her colonizers, caught between empire and rebellion after she is sent back to the desert nation of Qazal, the land her own people were taken from as children. C. L. Clark's The Unbroken (2021), The Faithless (2023) and The Sovereign (2025) foreground the fraught relationship between Touraine and Luca, the empire's ambitious heir, whose own political ambitions repeatedly collide with Touraine's growing loyalty to the rebellion she was sent to crush. The Unbroken was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, the Lambda Literary Award and several other genre honors on release, part of a wave of politically pointed epic fantasy interrogating empire and colonialism directly rather than through medieval-European allegory alone.
Grimdark, Epic fantasy · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (3 works) counts toward ranking
Magic of the Lost C. L. Clark
| Work | Year | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | The Unbroken | 2021 | core | 3.80 (14,670 ratings) |
 | The Faithless | 2023 | core | 4.26 (4,169 ratings) |
 | The Sovereign | 2025 | core | 4.18 (1,140 ratings) |
New author record. A completed grimdark/postcolonial epic fantasy trilogy exploring colonialism, queerness, and empire through a soldier-turned-rebel protagonist. The Unbroken was a finalist for 5 major genre awards -- the 2021 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2022 British Fantasy Award's Robert Holdstock Award for Best Fantasy Novel, the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novel (Adult), the 2022 Locus Award for Best First Novel, and the 2021 Readers' Choice Award for Best Fantasy -- all losses (no wins), verified via Wikipedia's own dedicated The Unbroken article, which is careful to distinguish finalist-only results from wins.
Quick answers
- How many books are in Magic of the Lost? Magic of the Lost's Core Canon is 3 books.
- What is the reading order for Magic of the Lost? Publication order, starting with The Unbroken. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is Magic of the Lost finished? Complete (2021–2025).
- How much reading does Magic of the Lost take? Medium reading commitment (estimated from 3 Core Canon books).
- How is Magic of the Lost ranked? #533 in this site's official ranking, based on 19,979 reader ratings across 3 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #533?
Ranked #533 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.92 across 3 core books.
- A smaller readership (19,979 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Uneven reception: its books range from 3.80 to 4.26.
- Less than 0.01 behind #532, Ring Shout (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Rated · 3 books · Complete · 20k ratings · Ranks #533 overall
Good choice if you want a moderate-length grimdark fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
Publication order (3 Core Canon books)
- The Unbroken (2021)
- The Faithless (2023)
- The Sovereign (2025)
Awards (verified)
- No award win found -- The Unbroken was a finalist for 5 major genre awards (see Research notes) but lost all 5; none is registered as an AWD row since this project only registers verified results, and 'finalist' losses are carried in prose rather than as AWD rows for universes with no wins.
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Suggestions computed from what Magic of the Lost and each of these worlds have in common on record (subgenre, audience, shape, reading commitment and score), not a documented narrative connection.
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- Manifest Delusions Grimdark · Complete · Medium commitment · 4.06
Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.92 across 19,979 ratings on 3 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Run 7 (FINAL): 2 admissions -- Magic of the Lost, Legends & Lattes accepted 2026-08-11
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
- Wikipedia: C. L. Clark Tier 2
- Wikipedia: The Unbroken Tier 2
Last reviewed: 2026-08-11
Rule: Core = the 3 completed novels (2021-2025). No Expanded Canon found.