List of Magic: The Gathering novels

none

The following is a list of novels based in the setting of the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering. When Wizards of the Coast was asked how the novels and cards influence each other, Brady Dommermuth, Magic's Creative Director, responded by saying "generally the cards provide the world in which the novels are set, and the novels sometimes provide characters represented on cards. But cards also introduce their own characters that might not appear in the novels. In short, the Magic creative team and the novelists work largely in parallel and inform each other as much as possible." All of the novels take place in the multiverse (the center nexus of which is Dominaria), which consists of an infinite number of infinitely different planes. The novels from The Brothers' War through Scourge, along with The Thran and the of Magic anthologies, are set on the plane of Dominaria and are a roughly chronological timeline of that plane's history. Magic began to venture out of Dominaria and into several new planes in the later novels such as Mirrodin (formerly Argentum) in the Mirrodin Cycle, Kamigawa in the Kamigawa Cycle, and Ravnica in the Ravnica Cycle. The Magic storyline returned to Dominaria with the Time Spiral cycle, and visited Lorwyn with the storyline cycle of the same name. After this, the policy of publishing a trilogy of novels for each year's setting was discontinued; the Alara, Zendikar and Scars of Mirrodin block settings had only a single novel each. Theros was the last block to receive a companion novel, and only in e book form, with Wizards of the Coast citing various reasons including a decline in sales and an outdated model as two major contributing factors for the decision. Beginning with the Khans block in 2013, the company decided to tell the storyline through the cards and free online articles and found that more players were familiar with the block story line than were previously when only novels told the story. This approach continued through 2017. Then, Wizards of the Coast hired novelist and scriptwriter Nic Kelman as their Head of Story and Entertainment. Kelman's task was to assemble all of the lore established from previous card sets and the published novels, comics, and other materials as to create the game's "cosmology" or the story bible that established all the known planes and elements of those planes, the individual Planeswalkers and their connections to others, and other details that then could be passed not only to the teams developing new cards but also to those expanding the franchise with new novels and other content. In 2018, Brandon Sanderson published an e book, Children of the Nameless, marking the return of novels. War of the Spark: Ravnica (2019) by Greg Weisman was the first print book after an eight year break. It corresponded with the final set of a three part Ravnica storyline and Wizards of the Coast "canceled plans for the book that was intended for the game's next set, Theros: Beyond Death". Then in 2020, with the Zendikar Rising (2020) set, the Magic storyline returned via story articles on the official website.

The original ten books were deliberately not numbered as a marketing concern. The publishers thought people might shy away from a multi book series. Some stories are connected, some not. The heroes of Arena, Garth and Rakel, appear in Shattered Chains. The books Whispering Woods, Shattered Chains, and Final Sacrifice are known as the "Whispering Woods Trilogy" or "The Greensleeves Trilogy". All of the non cycle books were published by Harper Fantasy. YearTitleAuthorPagesISBN1994ArenaWilliam R. Forstchen2971995Whispering WoodsClayton Emery2941995Shattered ChainsClayton Emery2881995Final SacrificeClayton Emery3121995The Cursed LandTeri McLaren2901995The Prodigal SorcererMark C. Sumner3091996Ashes of the SunHanovi Braddock3041996Song of TimeTeri McLaren3041996And Peace Shall SleepSonia Orin Lyris3041996Dark LegacyRobert E. Vardeman368

All of the below cycled or series books have been published by Wizards of the Coast. YearTitleAuthorPagesISBN2009Alara UnbrokenDoug Beyer3202010Zendikar: In the Teeth of AkoumRobert B. Wintermute3202011Scars of Mirrodin: The Quest for KarnRobert B. Wintermute320