Stephen King

Stephen King is best known for horror, but his Dark Tower saga is one of fantasy's strangest and most ambitious cross-genre achievements — eight novels braiding fantasy, science fiction, horror, and Western in a story about a gunslinger seeking the tower at the center of all worlds. The Eyes of the Dragon is straightforward epic fantasy. The Talisman and Black House (with Peter Straub) sit in portal-fantasy territory. Fairy Tale, his recent novel, returns to portal fantasy. The prose is unmistakable King — voice-driven, propulsive, deeply attentive to character voice.

For adult readers; Eyes of the Dragon is accessible to younger teens. Content varies enormously by book — Dark Tower includes graphic violence and disturbing imagery, Eyes of the Dragon stays relatively restrained. The reading experience for fantasy readers exploring King is often surprising — the same instincts that drive his horror produce richly weird fantasy worlds. Pick this shelf when you want fantasy from outside the genre's usual gravity, by one of the language's most distinctive voices.

• Cross-genre ambition at maximum
• Voice-driven prose unmistakable
• Dark Tower as singular achievement
• Fantasy from outside the usual gravity