3. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien 《指環王》——J.R.R托爾金

The king, you knew Tolkien would be showing up here sooner or later. The real surprise is that he's not number one, which isn't so much an indictment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy as it is praise for the top two. Gallons of ink have been spilled when it comes to Tolkien. I'm not sure any other genre of fiction owes as much to one person as fantasy owes to Tolkien. Even today in our 21st century life Tolkien touches many different avenues of entertainment, including (obviously) books, movies, role playing games, and video games. You'd think with his trilogy being such well worn territory by now that it would have lost some luster, but it's actually still a fantastically good read, and if you haven't made the effort yet because it seems old or you've seen the movies you really should. The payoff is definitely worth the time.

當然你知道的，托爾金早晚會出現在這里。真正的意外應該在于他并不是第一名（T_T）,這并不能說明《魔戒》系列不如前兩名。當提到托爾金時能寫的東西太多了。我不能確定其他題材的幻想小說是否是這樣，但魔幻題材小說絕對應該歸功于托爾金。即便是在21世紀的今天，托爾金同樣觸及到了各種娛樂形式，包括（很明顯的）書籍，電影，RPG游戲，視頻游戲等。你可能會覺得托爾金的三部曲在各個領域的泛濫會導致其失色，但它仍舊是一部魔幻佳作，如果你因為它年代久遠或者看過同名電影而沒讀過原著，那么你一定要讀讀，絕對物超所值。