The Land of Laughs
#5953.88 adjusted 3.89 for sample size in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 1 book Status Complete 1980 Reading commitment Low Jonathan Carroll Last reviewed 2026-10-25
Overview
Jonathan Carroll's first novel, The Land of Laughs (Viking, 1980), is a dark fantasy about a schoolteacher who sets out to write the biography of a dead children's author and finds, in the small Missouri town where the writer lived, that his imagination has reached beyond the printed page.
Dark fantasy · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (1 work) counts toward ranking
The Land of Laughs Jonathan Carroll
| Work | Year | Internal chron. | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | The Land of Laughs | 1980 | 1 | core | 3.88 (6,786 ratings) |
Jonathan Carroll's standalone first novel.
Quick answers
- How many books are in The Land of Laughs? The Land of Laughs's Core Canon is 1 book.
- Is The Land of Laughs finished? Complete (1980).
- How much reading does The Land of Laughs take? Low reading commitment (estimated from 1 Core Canon book).
- How is The Land of Laughs ranked? #595 in this site's official ranking, based on 6,786 reader ratings across 1 Core Canon book. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #595?
Ranked #595 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.88 across 1 core book.
- A smaller readership (6,786 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Less than 0.01 behind #594, The Jumbies (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Rated · 1 book · Complete · 7k ratings · Ranks #595 overall
Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment dark fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
A single Core Canon work: no sequencing question to resolve.
Awards (verified)
- No awards found for this universe.
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Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.88 across 6,786 ratings on 1 Core Canon book. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Canon Extension: Navola (Bacigalupi), The Land of Laughs (Carroll), The Secret of Platform 13 (Ibbotson) accepted 2026-10-25
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
Last reviewed: 2026-10-25
Rule: Core Canon = The Land of Laughs (1980), a standalone novel.