Fast-Paced Fantasy Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• fast pacing
• fantasy fiction
• emphasis on character building
• emphasis on world building

Finnikin of the Rock
By Melina Marchetta
YA F MARCHETT Lumatere #1
Now on the cusp of manhood, Finnikin, who was a child when the royal family of Lumatere was brutally murdered and replaced by an imposter, reluctantly joins forces with an enigmatic young novice and fellow-exile, who claims that her dark dreams will lead them to a surviving royal child and a way to regain the throne of Lumatere.

A Wizard of Earthsea
By Ursula K Le Guin
SCI - FI LE GUIN Earthsea #1
During a spell recalling the dead, the boy Sparrowhawk, a sorcerer's apprentice, unwittingly unleashes evil on the land. He grows to manhood while attempting to subdue the evil he unleashed on the world.

Graceling
By Kristin Cashore
YA F CASHORE Gracelin #1
In a world where some people are born with extreme and often-feared skills called Graces, Katsa struggles for redemption from her own horrifying Grace, and teams up with another young fighter to save their land from a corrupt king.

Mortal Engines
By Philip Reeve
YA F REEVES Hungry C #1
In the distant future, when cities move about and consume smaller towns, a fifteen-year-old apprentice is pushed out of London by the man he most admires and must seek answers in the perilous Out-Country, aided by one girl and the memory of another. 

The New Policeman
By Kate Thompson
YA F THOMPSON New Poli #1
Irish teenager JJ Liddy discovers that time is leaking from his world into Tir na Nog, the land of the fairies, and when he attempts to stop the leak he finds out a lot about his family history, the music that he loves, and a crime his great-grandfather may or may not have committed.