Best Fantasy Audio

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The best narrated fantasy audiobooks

Posted 15 November 2026.

These are the best narrated fantasy audiobooks I have heard: the ones where the performance is a reason to listen, ranked by the narration and not by the story. A narrator's job is to bring life to a story, and the best of them do things with tone, inflection, pitch and range that are very hard to create when reading alone. I rate out of five stars, with a diamond kept for the very best. The ratings below are for the book as a whole; the order is by how much the narrator adds to it. Narrators and running times are Audible's, as checked for the site in October and November 2026.

Titles link to Audible. If you buy through those links, the site gets a small cut at no extra cost to you.

The best narrated fantasy audiobooks, in short

Best first. Each links to its entry further down.

Three from science fiction are at the end. The narrators themselves, with a sample of each, are on the best fantasy audiobook narrators, and the common questions are answered after the list.

The best narrated fantasy audiobooks I've heard

The Way of Kings

Brandon Sanderson. Narrated by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading. 45 hours 30 minutes. Book one of The Stormlight Archive; five books so far.

My rating: five stars, and my overall pick on the narrators page. Kramer and Reading share the book, and having two voices for the different points of view makes each one more authentic. Kramer's Rock is jolly and booming, and his bridgemen are rough and gravelly. Reading's Shallan is soft and articulate, and she can still branch out to sailors and servants. The one catch is the crossover, when a character turns up in the other narrator's chapters and sounds different. The same pair read The Wheel of Time. The site's review: The Way of Kings.

The Blade Itself

Joe Abercrombie. Narrated by Steven Pacey. 22 hours 15 minutes. Book one of The First Law trilogy.

My rating: five stars, as for every Pacey book I have rated. At times it is hard to believe it is one man creating all those voices. He has the range, and he does not go over the top, adding inflection where there should be none. His women's voices sound natural, where a lot of male narrators go high-pitched and make you cringe. He makes a good book into a great one. In the Reddit threads behind my Reddit Edition he is the narrator named most often, in 49 comments. The site's review: The Blade Itself.

The Lies of Locke Lamora

Scott Lynch. Narrated by Michael Page. 21 hours 59 minutes. Book one of the Gentleman Bastard sequence; three books so far.

My rating: four and a half stars. The site's review calls this "a performance to die for", the best heard bar maybe Steven Pacey's First Law. Locke is a con man, constantly in disguise and changing accents and names, and Page keeps every one of them consistent. Without that, this book could have been very confusing to listen to. The site's review: The Lies of Locke Lamora.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

J.K. Rowling. Narrated by Stephen Fry. 8 hours 25 minutes. Seven books.

My rating: four and a half stars for each of the seven. Fry just is Harry Potter to me. His tone is smooth and familiar, he is never too abrasive, and when the text says a character laughed, he laughs while saying the line. Jim Dale reads the other edition and is the more theatrical of the two; in the US he tends to be the favourite. The two are set side by side in Stephen Fry v Jim Dale.

Dungeon Crawler Carl

Matt Dinniman. Narrated by Jeff Hays. 13 hours 31 minutes. Eight books so far.

My rating: five stars and a diamond. This is the most fun I've had with an audiobook, full stop, and Princess Donut, a prize-winning Persian cat who can suddenly talk, steals every scene she's in. Jeff Hays is named in 29 comments in those same Reddit threads. More on the series in the best LitRPG series.

Mark of the Fool

J.M. Clarke. Narrated by Travis Baldree. 19 hours. Ten books so far.

My rating: five stars and a diamond for the first book. Travis Baldree is one of five narrators I follow. He also reads Cradle, and every Cradle book I have rated has five stars. More on the series in the best LitRPG series.

Storm Front

Jim Butcher. Narrated by James Marsters. 8 hours 1 minute. Book one of The Dresden Files; 18 books.

My rating: three stars for this first book, and the narrator is the reason it is on the list. James Marsters is something special. He has a theatre background, which gives him the stamina for unabridged novels, and his narration is clear and clean. He remembers how he voiced each character, so they sound the same from one book to the next. In this first one you can hear the odd lip tick and deep breath. My review: Storm Front.

The Name of the Wind

Patrick Rothfuss. Narrated by Nick Podehl. 27 hours 55 minutes. Book one of The Kingkiller Chronicle; two books so far.

My rating: four stars. A very clear narration, with high distinction between characters and a little dramatisation without over-the-top exaggeration: very balanced. There is also an edition read by Rupert Degas; the main difference is whether you want an American voice (Podehl) or an English one (Degas). My review: The Name of the Wind.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Susanna Clarke. Narrated by Simon Prebble.

My rating: four stars, and the narrator earned most of them. Simon Prebble was the saving grace of this audiobook, and his silver-haired gentleman was excellent. It is a very long book, and by the end the narrator was the best thing about it.

And three from science fiction

Old Man's War

John Scalzi. Narrated by William Dufris. 9 hours 55 minutes. Six books in the main series.

My rating: five stars, and five out of five for the performance in my own notes. William Dufris reads the whole run bar one book, and his dry delivery is exactly right for Scalzi. I have listened to this series multiple times and it never gets old.

Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force, Book 1)

Craig Alanson. Narrated by R.C. Bray. 16 hours 23 minutes. Sixteen books and counting.

My rating: four and a half stars. R.C. Bray as Skippy, an alien beer can with a god complex, is one of the great narrator performances, and Bray is another of the five narrators I follow. This and Old Man's War are both in the best military sci-fi audiobooks.

Iron Prince

Bryce O'Connor and Luke Chmilenko. Narrated by Luke Daniels. 33 hours 55 minutes. Book one of the Stormweaver series.

My rating: five stars and a diamond, for this and for the second book. Luke Daniels is another narrator I follow, and he is on my narrators list. The site's review of Off to Be the Wizard picks out his comedic timing and the personality he puts into every voice.

Best narrated fantasy audiobooks: the common questions

Who is the best fantasy audiobook narrator?

My overall pick is Michael Kramer and Kate Reading together, for The Stormlight Archive. Steven Pacey is the one Reddit names most. All of my favourites, with a sample of each, are on the best fantasy audiobook narrators.

Does the narrator really matter?

Yes. There are two types of narrators, those who perform and those who read, and a good performance can make a good book into a great one. More in why audiobook narrators are so important.

Are full cast audiobooks better than a single narrator?

For action-heavy stories with a lot of characters, often yes. A single narrator still wins for books that live on their prose. My full cast picks, Graphic Audio's among them, are in the best full cast fantasy audiobooks.