The article recommends five fantasy books to read before their planned television adaptations, highlighting how fantasy continues to provide material for major streaming series.

– ‘Katabasis’ (2025) by R. F. Kuang follows a Cambridge postgraduate who enters Hell to retrieve her adviser’s soul; Amazon MGM Studios is developing an adaptation with Angela Kang attached.
– Stephen King’s eight-book ‘The Dark Tower’ series (1982–2012) centres on gunslinger Roland Deschain’s journey through Mid-World to find the Dark Tower, which is said to hold the multiverse together.
– The selections range from an academic satire involving dangerous magic to an expansive, multiverse-spanning quest, reflecting the variety of fantasy projects moving towards television.