And The Winner Is

Okay, gang, comments are officially closed for the fantasy series contest. First of all, let me just say, "Wow! You folks are good!" Even with a few titles that I pulled out because I didn't think they completely qualified as a fantasy series, there were 59 nominations. I went ahead and added one more to make it an even 60 for voting purposes.

First let's announce the winner of the contest. Then we'll get to the voting process. The winner, as randomly chosen by some random number generator I found on the internet is . . . Raych. Congratulations! E-mail me at scott at jscottsavage dot com, and I'll send you the fantasy novel of your choice.

You all have listed a ton of great fantasy series. I'm actually going to print this out and start taking it to conferences for when people ask what fantasy books are good. I'll post the full list below. I'm sure I've got some mistakes here, so feel free to point out if I've misspelled an author's name or series. Voting for the best of the best begins tomorrow.

Here's how we'll do it. I'll divide the books into four groups. Using the poll on the right we'll pick the best from each group, with one round per day. Each round will consist of 15 titles. You can pick up to five from each group. Once we have twenty titles (after four rounds), we'll narrow it down to ten (almost like March madness.) Then the final ten will duke it out head to head. Each round will last one day, beginning Saturday and ending next Friday.

One note. Rather than divide the list completely randomly, I'm going to try to make sure there are an even number of heavy hitters in each group.

This should be fun. Here's the full list:

The Chronicles of Prydain by Alexander Lloyd
Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
The Ships (Ship Who Sang) by Anne McCaffrey
Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey
Tower and Hive (The Rowan) by Anne McCaffrey
Catteni (Freedom's Landing) by Anne McCaffrey
Fablehaven by Brandon Mull
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
Redwall by Brian Jacques
Chanur by C.J. Cherryh
Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh
Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
The Southern Vampire Novels by Charlain Harris
Newford by Charles De Lint
Inheritance by Christopher Paolini
To Say Nothing of the Dog, and The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Inkheart Trilogy by Corneila Funke
Pendragon by D. J. MacHale
Belgariad and Mallorean by David Eddings
The Runelords by David Farland
Young Wizards (So You Want to be a Wizard...) by Diane Duane
Warriors by Erin Hunter
The Old Kingdom Trilogy by Garth Nix
Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling
Children of the Red King (Charlie Bone) by Jenny Nimmo
Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan
The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, and The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Time Quartet by Madeline L'Engle
The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
The Rose and the Prophet by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Temeraire by Naomi Novak
Tales of Alvin Maker by Orson Scott Card
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony
Riftwar by Raymond E Feist
Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
Conan the Barbarian by Robert E Howard
The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
Tawny Man by Robin Hobb
The Liveship Trilogy by Robin Hobb
Farseer by Robin Hobb
Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
Samaria by Sharon Shinn
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Steven R. Donaldson
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
The Lost Years of Merlin by T.A. Barron
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams
Alanna by Tamora Pierce
Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
Word and the Void by Terry Brooks
The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind
Discworld by Terry Pratchett