Funny Fantasy Books That Will Leave You Laughing

It's hard not to have a list of funny fantasy books without at least one entry from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Guards! Guards! is a great place to start even though it's the 8th book in the series, because it kicks off the City Watch collection. That said, you really can't go wrong diving into any of the books in the series, because all of them can stand alone fairly well. 

Guards! Guards! follows Captain Sam Vimes, a member of the Night Watch in the city of Ankh-Morpork, as he prepares for insurrection. A draco nobilis, once thought extinct, now hovers over the city, and it's up to the City restore order before everything burns to a crisp.

In Piers Anthony's Six Crystal Princesses, life is good for Vinia. But her boyfriend, Ion, and his twin sister, Hilda, long for more than a pampered royal existence.

The twins tell Vinia the story of how their parents met after their mother escaped being frozen in crystal with other princesses in a dragon’s lair. She survived, but left the six other girls behind. 

And so, in search of adventure, Ion, Vinia, Hilda, and Hilda’s caprine boyfriend decide to rescue them. 

The fellowship seek the advice of the Good Magician, who assigns Vinia challenges to complete in order to free the girls. But none of them prepare her for the ultimate battle: freeing the princesses from the Dragon with the Girl Tattoo.

Everyone knows the tale of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. Or do they? 

Sure, Arthur Rex is set in medieval England. But damsels aren’t exactly in distress, and wizards, well‚ they have their own stylistic flair. 

Fans of Arthurian legend will delight in this re-imagining of romantic heroes and sinister villains.

In the magical world of Pell, a farm boy has been chosen to wake a sleeping princess from her tower. But first, he'll have to survive the attempts of the cheese-loving Dark Lord to kill him.      

Along the way, the farm boy meets a host of bizarro fantasy tropes: an assassin who may be bested by chickens, a swordswoman who's afraid of her sword, a bard with a tale and a tail, and the Dread Necromancer Steve. Don’t worry, they’ll all get their happy-ever-after. Probably.

A delightful remix of fantasy tropes, Kill the Farm Boy is wild, absurd, and absolute satiric gold.

Maybe being one of the most beautiful undead isn’t saying much, but Amanda Feral has a reputation to maintain. Unfortunately, her ad agency is losing money faster than her body is decaying, so she needs money fast. 

The answer is to go on American Minions, a new reality television show hosted by sleazy wood nymph Johnny Birch. 

When Johnny is found burnt to a crisp just days after Amanda moves into “Minions Mansion," she's determined to solve the crime and avoid becoming the next victim.

Battle of the Network Zombies is a laugh-out-loud mystery set in a vividly imagined world in which supernatural beings live side-by-side with humanity.

Charlie Asher is a normal guy. He has a normal life, a normal job, and is married to a normal wife. They’re even expecting their first normal child! So it’s very not normal when everyone starts dying all around him. 

Turns out, Charlie Asher has been chosen for a new, very-not-normal job: the Grim Reaper. 

The first in a duology, this is a dark but hilarious look at the day-to-day life of Death, full of irreverent glimpses of the underworld. 

Angel Crawford isn't doing great. She has no degree, boasts a criminal record, and lives in a swamp with her drinker dad.

But then she wakes up in the ER without a single scratch after getting in a bad car crash—which is weird. Getting a new job at a morgue is weirder. But craving brains probably tops the weird scale. 

To top it off, the morgue is filling up fast with the victims of a serial killer. And if   Angel wants to keep ahead of a murderer with a penchant for decapitation, she'll have to pull her undead life together. Fast. 

When a Japanese company reveals they can bottle blood, vampires all over the world come out of the coffin. 

Sookie Stackhouse doesn’t mind that vampires exist. After all, she’s telepathic. 

So when vampire Bill Compton walks into the small-town bar and grill where Sookie is a waitress, she’s immediately attracted to him—and shocked that she can't hear his thoughts. But when a string of murders occur in their tiny town, Sookie starts to wonder if maybe dating a vampire is a death sentence. 

The first in the Sookie Stackhouse series, Dead Until Dark introduces a world filled with vampires, werewolves, fairies, and more.

If things seem off, it's because God is in a coma. And the Vatican sold God to Baptists in Florida, who then turned him into a Celestial City USA amusement park attraction. 

Martin Candle has had enough of life’s setbacks and decides God should be tried for crimes against humanity in the Hague. But in order to find evidence, he has to enter God’s mind. And who knows what he’ll find.

While technically a sequel, Blameless in Abaddon is satisfying as a standalone story. It’s a sharp, witty adventure that entertains while also seriously examining theology.

Maximillian the Vaguely Disreputable knows an ill portent when he sees it. Like when the Great Karlini’s lab goes up in smoke. 

Now, mortals and gods prepare to battle one last time. But at the end of the war, will there be anyone left?

In this "amusing climax" to the Dance of the Gods series, readers get answers to the questions that have plagued them for volumes (Voya). 

In a book that NPR calls "a riot … just plain dangerous fun"," Coop is a master thief who's decided to go a little more legit to save the world from an ancient doomsday device. All he has to do is steal a sarcophagus containing the mummy of a powerful Egyptian wizard. 

Easy enough, right? But when things go awry, Coop's boss Woolrich decides to blame the whole thing on Coop. He's going to have to save the world a second time if he has any hope of keeping his job.

Author Jonathan Stroud and the djinni Bartimaeus who dominates the story of The Amulet of Samarkand in this book for kids Grade 5 through 9 is tough to top. If you have a kid within that age range, there's a good chance they'll love this sarcastic book full of wildly entertaining action, magic, and even footnotes.