So You Want to Read Portal Fantasy: Here’s Where to Start

Readers understand what it is like for a book to be swept away by a book, but we usually mean it metaphorically — not so in Tad Williams’ The War of the Flowers. Musician Theo Vilmos is initially skeptical when he discovers a journal written by a relative who claims to have visited the realm of Faerie, but those doubts vanish after he embarks on his own journey.

Not all doorways lead to worlds of light and splendor, and sometimes things aren’t what they seem. Overwhelmed graduate student Nora Fischer has plenty of motivation to leave her own world behind, so stumbling into a magical realm is initially a welcome development. She soon discovers that there’s a dark side to her new home, and her survival will depend on learning things they don’t teach in college.

The Magicians is one of the most daring and inventive works of literary fantasy in years. No one who has escaped into the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter should miss this breathtaking return to the landscape of the imagination.

Taken to a realm of magic and war, five men and women from our world embark on an epic journey. It begins with a chance meeting that introduces the five to a man who will change their lives: a mage who brings them to the first of all worlds, Fionavar. In this land of gods and myth, each of them is forced to discover what they are and what they are willing to do, as Fionavar stands on the brink of a terrifying war against a dark, vengeful god…

In 1945, Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743. Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.