Five Kingdoms Books in Order

Five Kingdoms takes the portal fantasy idea and tilts it sideways, dropping its hero into the Outskirts, a place that exists between waking and dreaming, between life and death. It is not quite another planet and not quite a dreamscape, but something stranger in between.

The series opens on Halloween in Arizona, where sixth grader Cole Randolph is just hoping for a good night out with friends and a chance to impress Jenna Hunt. A haunted house attraction turns out to be a front for slavers who are stealing kids from Earth. When Cole’s friends vanish through a manhole beneath the attraction, he chooses to follow and finds himself on a barren prairie under an unfamiliar sky, with no easy way home.

Down in the Outskirts, Cole learns that the five kingdoms, Sambria, Elloweer, Zeropolis, Necronum, and Creon, each have their own kind of shaping magic and their own rules. Sambria is a land of floating castles and living semblances carved into wood or stone. Elloweer is steeped in illusions and shifting appearances. Zeropolis looks like a futuristic city full of magtrains, robots, and crystal based technology. Necronum stands closer to the realm of the dead, with the echolands functioning as a waystation for wandering spirits. Creon, reached only in the final book, tinkers with time itself.

Cole quickly falls in with a small group that includes Mira, a girl who turns out to be one of five princesses whose powers were stripped away by their father, the High King. The stolen powers have been bound into dangerous manifestations across the kingdoms, warping creatures, machines, and even entire cities. Much of the series follows Cole and his companions as they move from one kingdom to the next, trying to free the princesses, undo the damage caused by the stolen magic, and rescue the Earth kids who were sold into bondage at the start.

Along the way, Five Kingdoms introduces a wide cast of allies and enemies: sky raiders who pillage floating castles, underground resistance groups called the Unseen, robots and supercomputers that have taken on minds of their own, ghostly echoes, death weavers, and wayminders who can bend space and time. Cole also discovers that someone very close to him from Earth has been drawn into the conflict in a different way than he expected.

The tone mixes classic quest beats with science fictional touches. There are sword fights and monster battles, but also heists, espionage in a surveillance state, and a careful look at what happens when power accumulates in the hands of a single ruler. For readers who enjoyed the adventure and creature catalog of Fablehaven but are curious about something that stretches a bit further into science fiction and big ideas, Five Kingdoms is a natural next step.