My Top 3 Trilogies (of Recent Years)

Ah, the trilogy. The seemingly arbitrary fantasy structure. Book 1: Meet the hero, start the quest. Book 2: Things get worse, and there are complications with the love interest. Book 3: The big battle, where the hero, against all odds, triumphantly conquers the evil trying to overthrow the land, gets the girl, and lives happily ever after. Sound familiar? Maybe some of you like this. Myself, though... well, I find it pretty boring. When a trilogy comes along that acknowledges these tropes and grows far beyond them, I take notice. That said, here are my three favorite from the past five years or so:

3. The First Law Trilogy. Joe Abercrombie burst out onto the fantasy scene, needing no introduction and veritably defecating upon the classic bland ideas' heads. Except Abercrombie would be a bit more blunt. Always witty, full of characters to love/hate at the same time, and defying all expectations, The First Law is a dark, gritty riot. Abercrombie has a way of getting inside the characters' heads, to the point where chapters written from a certain character's perspective will sound totally different from chapters written with another POV. He also is phenomenal with the action scenes. Leave your ideas about fantasy at the door and give this one a try.

2. The Night Angel Trilogy. Brent Weeks just had to make a ridiculous entrance. Ridiculous as in, hey, let's publish the whole trilogy over the space of three months! But it's good, really good. The Night Angel Trilogy is gritty and dark, too, full of assassins and mysterious magic, but there's a lot more heart at the center than can be found in Abercrombie's fiction. You learn to root for Kylar Stern, even as he has to do tough things and his whole perspective changes. Plus, there are a couple of neat things about the setting and the magic system, though they're kept in the background to allow the characters and story a better chance to breathe. Weeks isn't scared of taking risks or killing major characters, and the trilogy is improved by it. Seriously, there's a lot of great stuff here, and it's near impossible to put down.

1. Mistborn. Brandon Sanderson. It's only my second list, and already you come up. Sanderson has, via dark contract with a devil of some sort, gained the ability to write extremely good novels extremely quickly. Since 2005 he has authored/co-authored a solid dozen novels, some of them brick-sized. The Mistborn trilogy was Sanderson's first published attempt at a series, and its success makes me very hopeful for his much larger and more recent Stormlight Archive epic. A story about a hero of prophecy who failed, a girl who can do magic with metal, and the end of the world, Mistborn does in its first book what most authors only dream of doing in three, and with considerable style and depth, too. From there, the story gets even better, as we're in entirely new territory, and the final book, The Hero of Ages, earns its title with revelations and twists abounding. The characters are memorable, the magic system is fantastic, and the larger mythology of the world is compelling. I cannot recommend this trilogy highly enough.

And there you have it. Again. However, when Patrick Rothfuss finishes his Kingkiller Chronicle, I may have a new winner. Both The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear were amazing. As before, sound off on your favorite trilogies below.