7 Brilliant Books That Nail Comedy in Fantasy

Nobody did or has since done comedic fantasy like Pterry (if you know, you know). Every single Discworld book is clever, witty, amusing, and entertaining, yet always accompanied by fascinating insights into human nature, modern society, customs, cultures, and religions.

I’m personally more a fan of the City Guards and Moist von Lipwig storylines, but there’s only one place to dive into the Discworld catalogue, and that’s starting right here with Rincewind’s first adventure.

You’ll find his twisted and hilarious takes on some of literatures’ most famous characters absolutely riveting, and his lampooning of real life people and circumstances hilarious.

Sebastian de Castell broke the mold with this one! This is a “buddy adventure” in the same vein as Guardians of the Galaxy, only these very much are not the good guys.

In this world where wizardry is ordinary and cruelty is everywhere, Cade Ombra and his “Malevolent Seven” have to decide if saving the world is worth it, or if they’d rather watch everything go to Hell (quite literally) because…well, it doesn’t really pay to save the world, and wizards (wonderists) don’t do anything without getting paid.

It’s a wonderfully comedic book filled with antiheroes that will make you question what it means to be “good” or “decent”—and before you know it, you might just start rooting for these “bad guys” because you can see what lies beneath the façade.  

The Garrett Files skews more toward the sarcastic than satirical, but its sharpness makes for endless fun. The detective noir story feels right at home in the dark fantasy city of Tun-Faire, where petty gods share the city with vegetarian dark-elf assassins, decaying creatures with god-level psychic powers, and comic book-style villains that end up being more pathetic and amusing than terrifying.

Every new novel is an adventure into the ridiculous and absurd, but each case is a thrill ride through some new corner of this gritty fantasy world.

Joe Abercrombie’s writing has always been filled with comedy, but he’s taken his game to a whole new level with The Devils.

Set in an alternate-history world where the Roman Empire was conquered by Hannibal—only for Hannibal to destroy Carthage in a mass demon-summoning ritual gone wrong—it explores what life in the Renaissance might look like if magic was everywhere and the greatest threat to humanity was a horde of conquering elves.

The prose is so comedic and razor-sharp, the characters droll, and the situation just keeps getting stranger and stranger—but also darker and grimmer, in true Abercrombie fashion. It strides the line between comedic fantasy and dark epic fantasy to perfection.

KJ Parker’s writing is dryly witty and so entertaining, with his The Siege series being one of his absolute best works to date.

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City introduces us to this grand, corrupt, bureaucracy-driven city coming under siege, with only a siege engineer capable of defending it. But the trilogy just keeps going to crazier and more unpredictable places in the books that follow, yet manages to pack so much heart into each of the characters you follow. It’s a spellbinding and addicting trilogy you won’t be able to put down.

There are few series that take absurd, ridiculous, and “WTF just happened?!” to the same level as the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.

A man and his girlfriend’s cat find themselves at the end of the world, where aliens transform Earth into a giant dungeon filled with all sorts of insane and horrifying monsters. With only each other to lean on, they’ve got to fight their way through the levels and survive as best they can.

You will never know what’s coming next, because the story keeps finding ways to be ridiculously unpredictable, but you are guaranteed to be entertained and likely unable to read (or listen) to anything else.

Who knew that a medieval take on modern economics could be so snort-through-your-nose funny? Orconomics follows the adventures of dwarven hero Gorm Ingerson and his party of eccentric misfits on an adventure so wild, you have to read it to believe it.

The whole trilogy has so much heart and genuine goodness, all wrapped up in a tongue-in-cheek humor that balances sarcasm and one-liners crafted to perfection. The comedy is razor-sharp and incredibly clever, playing on familiar board game, video game, and novel tropes and terms that make it a singular read. Pay close attention particularly to the first book, which has one of my all-time favorite—and funniest—monster encounters in any fantasy novel ever.