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Fantasy can be a really excellent genre with some extremely imaginitive authors creating beautiful and thought provoking works, althoguh it can also very easily slip into poorly written rubbish that relies on action to keep the reader gripped. Here is a selection of the best that I have come across.

1. First, foremost, and above all else is the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman. Although not really fantasy in the dragons and knights in shining armour sense, it is truly fantastic storytelling; very thought provoking and gripping too. Set across various parallel universes it tells to story of Will and Lyra, two children who are caught up in a battle that spans numerous worlds. Whether or not you are a fan of fantasy, you have to read this trilogy.

2. Lord of the Rings - a close second I must admit, with a brilliant, gripping storyline, J. R. R. Tolkien really is the father of all fantasy and creator of the universally brilliant baddie - the orc. Although Tolkien was more of a historian than a storyteller, and although this shows from time to time in his slightly dry writing style, the trilogy is a truly epic work of fiction and again is something that everyone should read at some point.

3. Domes of Fire by David Eddings - classic fantasy with brilliantly likeable characters, huge battles and everything you could possibly want from the fantasy. Nevertheless it manages to be very original at the same time, and incredibly gripping. The books tend to be huge tomes, but I found myself finishing them in a matter of days.

4. The Discworld books, by Terry Pratchett. An unusual and subtly hilarious take on the fantasy genre, the Discworld is a flat, round world that is carried through space on the backs of four giant elephants standing on the shell of a huge turtle. The Disc provides some fantastic settings for Pratchett's brilliantly imagined characters - the Watch, Death, the Witches, the Nac Mac Feegle... Spanning 36 novels as of 2008, the Discworld series is an incredibly impressive and wide-ranging section of the fantasy genre.

5. The Earthsea Quartet, by Ursula Le Guin. Similar to David Eddings in a way, very much classic wizards and dragons type fantasy, with a very likeable main character and a truly gripping storyline. The Quartet (plus a fifth book released later) tells the story of Ged, who becomes the most powerful wizard in the land of Earthsea. The stories are on the one hand very dark and bleak, set on an archipelago of windswept

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