Game of Thrones may be over, but George R.R. Martin’s source series “A Song of Ice and Fire” has yet to be completed. But while we wait for GRRM to finish the novels, which may happen just in time for a reboot of the series itself, we’re looking to some other fantastic fantasy series that could (and, in our opinion, should) be the next Game of Thrones.
So what are we looking for here? Fantasy novels that have a bit of magic and mystery to them; some have more than others but all of our suggestions have that special something that sets them apart from more realistic dramas. Game of Thrones didn’t go hard into GRRM’s mythology, after all, but all it took was a few dragons, wights, and direwolves to get people’s attention. We’re also looking for political intrigue of some sort here, whether it be between people of varying classes, the common folk against the elites, or some nefarious organization looking to exploit the defenseless. Oh, and it’s got to have life-or-death stakes, otherwise it’s just not going to cut it in this modern media landscape.
HBO is already betting that the fantasy fandom for Game of Thrones will transition over to their new series, His Dark Materials, based on Philip Pullman's popular trilogy. Hopefully this TV treatment lends some more weight to the theory that now is the time for in-depth adaptations of complicated mythologies on the small screen, where long-form seasonal storytelling and increased budgets that often rival feature film productions have an advantage over film adaptations themselves. Should His Dark Materials succeed where 2007's feature The Golden Compass failed, it'll further show that the medium is just as important as the mythology when it comes to successful storytelling. And HBO isn't alone in this thinking.
Other sprawling, big-budget but small-screen fantasy story adaptations include Amazon's The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Tower and The Wheel of Time; if even one of these works out, it'll be a win for Amazon and that lucky fandom. N.K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award-winning sci-fi fantasy novel "The Fifth Season", the first in her Broken Earth trilogy, is up for an adaptation at TNT. And, in just the latest Stephen King adaptation, Hulu is developing a pilot for The Eyes of the Dragon with Seth Grahame-Smith writing and serving showrunner duties. We'll shed a bit more light on some of these below, along with other worthy titles that we've yet to see adapted for the small screen.
Harry Potter
You know 'em, you love 'em, you want some more of 'em. J.K. Rowling's iconic story of witchcraft and wizardry is bound to be adapted for years (and decades and ... centuries?) to come, so a Harry Potter series of some fashion is pretty much a guarantee. But while Rowling currently seems content to stretch out Fantastic Beasts into any number of movie treatments, there has yet to be any official consideration of exploring timelines and characters that are a little closer to the core Harry Potter story. Sure, the movies might be getting closer to the generation of witches and wizards that included a young Tom Marvolo Riddle and then, a little later on, the Marauders themselves, but it's been almost a decade since the last Harry Potter movie. That's a lifetime in Hollywood. Expect a TV adaptation to be announced in the next few years.
Why TV? Well, as great as the movies are, there's a lot of story content that was purposefully left off the screen because there simply wasn't time or budget for it. And with Rowling going all George Lucas with her retconning and magical meddling lately, a bunch more story could be added to a redo, bringing it into the contemporary social sphere, for better or worse. But the core story would remain the same, and it's exciting to think about a new cast of characters getting to take on the much beloved roles. And because modern reboots and reunion specials have a meta way of bringing an original cast back to "mentor" the newcomers, we could conceivably see the Harry Potter cast back in parental or even professorial roles. It's just a fandom-driven wish at the moment, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good idea. All WB has to do is decide where and when they want to run it, then sit back and count their Galleons.
Broken Earth
Now this one might need a bit more explanation unless you already know and have read N.K. Jemisin's three-time Hugo Award-winning science-fiction trilogy. (She's the only author to have ever done that in the award's 66-year history, by the way.) Starting with "The Fifth Season", which is already up for adaptation at TNT like I mentioned earlier, the Broken Earth series is continued in "The Obelisk Gate" and concluded in "The Stone Sky." The story, which beautifully melds future-fantasy aesthetics with sci-fi standbys, takes place in the far future where our world's continents have merged into one supercontinent called the Stillness. But don't let the name fool you; this landmass is crazy geologically active to the point that earthquakes are a regular occurrence and bring deadly consequences on a nearly daily basis.
Standing in the way of these quakes are the Orogenes, those who can manipulate the energy around them to neutralize tremors and big shakers (or even amplify them, should the need arise). They protect pockets of civilization, either en masse through a network of nodes to guard vast cities, or as a solo Orogene protecting small villages and "comms." But despite their obvious power and usefulness, Orogenes are seen as "other" in the society they protect, often cast out (or worse) as dangerous and deadly forces that people fear because they do not understand. And that's all just scratching the surface of Jemisin's excellent world-building (and world-breaking), something that's necessary to see on the screen, big or small.
A Darker Shade of Magic
Here's another series that should be on your radar, as should just about everything ever written by author Victoria "V.E." Schwab. I've been following Schwab's career since the debut of The Near Witch way back in 2012, and she's been delivering compelling stories from a variety of genres ever since. Ridley Scott's production company Scott Free picked up the rights to her superhero/supervillain story Vicious back in 2012, followed by my strongly encouraging editorial stumping for an adaptation of her YA two-parter The Archived / Unbound, and the announcement of a possible limited series adaptation of her fantasy series A Darker Shade of Magic in 2016 by Gerard Butler.
It's this latter series that I think has the strongest shot of getting a solid adaptation in a post-Game of Thrones world. Now a three-novel story (with a comic book, to boot), the "Shades of Magic" series has just about everything you'd want from a fantasy series to pick up where GoT left off: Multiple worlds, each with varying intensities of magic that range from non-existent to "totally destroyed by it", doorways between said worlds that are accessible only to a few, and powerful magical abilities wielded by some of the most charismatic and flamboyant personalities you're ever likely to meet. Oh and also a badass, devil-may-care, thief-pirate-magician named Lila bard, whose journey readers (and hopefully viewers) will get to follow as she crosses paths with commoners, royals, and legendary magicians alike. (And it would be rather refreshing to see a strong female character gets some agency in a fantasy series, for a change.) This needs to be adapted yesterday.
The First Law
Here's a good, old-fashioned, blood-and-iron fantasy series with a little bit of magic, a healthy dose of poison and torture, and heaping helping of brutality and brawn. if that piques your interest, you should pick up Joe Abercrombie's trilogy, The First Law ASAP. Not only does it feature some of the best titles going in fantasy stories--"The Blade Itself", "Before They Are Hanged", and "The Last Argument of Kings"--it also introduces perhaps my favorite character in all of contemporary fantasy: Logen Ninefingers, a.k.a. The Bloody-Nine. (Think Conan meets Aragorn, and you're off to a good start.)
Taking place in a world at war, the main story in the trilogy focuses on the Union's ongoing conflicts at two fronts: Repelling the invasion of Northmen in Anglad and attempting to annex the city of Dagoska to the south. World war isn't anything new, but it's in seeing the story play out through Abercrombie's many, varied, and compelling characters that makes this version so enjoyable. It's got brutal berserkers from the North, flesh-eating magicians in the South, well-groomed and well-bred military officers in the Union alongside the licensed torturers and poisoners in the Inquisition, and politically savvy magi who are some of the most manipulative wizard-types you'll ever come across in the fantasy genre. It's really something special, and with three standalone books and numerous short stories filling out the world, plus another trilogy on the way, Abercrombie's world is one that should be explored on the small screen for years to come.
Eragon
If you only know of Eragon from the not-super-great 2006 feature film adaptation, you should give Christopher Paolini's fantasy epic another shot. And so should Hollywood, courtesy of a TV series adaptation of the four-book Inheritance Cycle. More focused than many of the other fantasy stories listed here, Paolini's tale follows a simple farm boy named Eragon who happens upon a dragon egg. Just as the young dragon grows from hatchling to fully-grown force of nature, so too does Eragon grow as a magic-wielder, adventurer, swordsman, and eventual leader of many races. It's a relatively straightforward fantasy tale but one that features compelling characters, super creepy antagonists, and a magically charged romance.
Oh, did I not mention the dragons and their lore? For folks who may have been disappointed in the way the dragons were ultimately handled in Game of Thrones, the Inheritance Cycle is for you. There are dragons of old, new dragons who learn of the world along with readers, dragon lore, dragon councils, dragon-speak, and all sorts of interesting powers possessed by dragons that they themselves have to discover over the course of the story. (Oh and Eragon quickly learns that it's probably wise to construct a dragon saddle, lest his legs be torn to shreds.) It's a series that takes its lore seriously and rewards readers for becoming just as invested. The four-book series even gets a companion piece in the recently released collection of short stories "The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm." The overall story skews younger than Game of Thrones, but viewers could grow up with Eragon & co., should this worthy property get another shot at being adapted.
Dragonlance
If the mention of "dragon saddles" above jogged something loose in your memory, it's probably Dragonlance, a sprawling series of fantasy novels originally birthed from the classic RPG Dungeons & Dragons. Created by Laura and Tracy Hickman with Margaret Weis, the first book "Dragons of Autumn Twilight" debuted in 1984. This not only kicked off the series' core "Chronicles" trilogy, it opened up the world to other authors who would add to it, bringing the world of Dragonlance into nearly 200 novels. In other words, there's plenty of story to mine here for years to come.
Set in the fictional world of Krynn, the major conflict of Dragonlance exists between the High God and his children--occupying good, neutral, and evil places on the moral spectrum--and the destructive force of Chaos. In the wars that inevitably occur between the land's many races, dragons are used as weapons of war, and from that come the legendary title weapon, the Dragonlances. These super-sized lances can only be crafted by using artifacts blessed by a deity and are the only weapons that allow a non-magic wielder to reliably wound and kill a dragon. They're also a big part of the lore, leading to high-flying "dogfights" between the evil chromatic and the good metallic dragons and their respective riders. The "Heroes of the Lance" are found at the center of this conflict and the great "War of the Lance", but that epic story just sets the stage for many, many more adventures to come.
Dune
Okay so Frank Herbert's acclaimed Dune series is technically more science-fiction than fantasy, but bear with me here. The sprawling series that takes place over six books from Herbert himself, continued in many more stories co-written by Kevin J. Anderson and the author's son, Brian Herbert, is tailor-made for a long-running TV series. And it has a lot in common with Game of Thrones: A complex and complicated political plot that deals with the madness and paranoia of rulers and the lengths to which they'll go to kill off any potential threats, epic histories of storied "Great Houses" and the families who populate them, and a tongue-twisting language and lexicon that will take some getting used to but ultimately is very rewarding to discuss among fellow fans once you do.
Dune really isn't all that different from Game of Thrones when it comes down to it. Throw in some sandworms in place of dragons, swap the Fremen for the Wildlings, and deliver the Kwisatz Haderach in place of Azor Ahai and you've got basically the same idea: A prince who was promised becomes the savior of an oppressed people and leader of a rebellion against an entrenched regime. The setting is different and the backdrop is much more advanced when it comes to both science and sorcery, but this vast and varied story demands more screentime than a mere movie can provide. Dune should be a TV mainstay for years and years, if we had it our way.
The Black Company
If it's fantasy you want, it's fantasy you've got with The Black Company. From author Glen Cook comes this dark fantasy story following the title team, an elite group of mercenaries, over a 40-year period in the company's 400-year history. Totaling some dozen books and numerous short stories, with one tome yet to come that concludes the story, Cook's series stands apart from other familiar fantasy tales in that it avoids just about every trope imaginable. His writing views the many conflicts the company finds themselves in--working in employ for the Lady who rules the Northern Empire, on the run from said Lady and her powerful generals, and a quest to return to their roots in the south--from a unique perspective, through that of the company's physician and historian, Croaker.
It's thanks to his records that we have a history of this era of the Black Company at all, but it's also a fantastic (and sarcastic) window onto the gritty and "realistic" world that Cook has concocted. Rarely high-flying (except when traveling by flying carpet), the main story focuses on military strategy and tactics from the point of view of the company leadership. The mercenary team has all manner of unique characters, from bickering hedge wizards, to hard-nosed veterans of many campaigns, to reclusive soldiers with an ax to grind and a mysterious young woman to protect. And they employ whatever resources are available to get the job done, often in morally gray (and blood-red) areas. It's through this down-and-dirty collection of fighters and casters that we see the conflict against greater forces and powerful magic-wielders play out, a tale of hard-won victory and bitter defeat told from the trenches.
The Black Company is truly a different beast from most other fantasy series out there, so it's not that surprising that a TV show is already in the works. Here's hoping it arrives soon, is a smash success, and further ushers in the fantastic grimdark fantasy subgenre that has yet to find its time to shine.
