The best fantasy books with creature companions (that aren’t dragons)

This is the book that made me want to be an author. The worldbuilding and characters so vivid they felt like living, breathing beings whenever I opened the pages. I also blame this series for making me miss a bus, not once, not twice, but four times in one afternoon, I was that enthralled. 

I’m also a sucker for stories written in the first person. Call it vicarious living, escapism, or perhaps a bit of both, but the voice of Fitz drew me in and didn’t let me go until the final page. If you love lush worldbuilding, deep (deep) characters, politics, assassins, companion animals, beast magic, and coming of age, this is one I highly recommend.

The Cloud Roads is the first tale of the Books of the Raksura series but can be read as a standalone. It follows Moon, an orphaned young man with the ability to turn into a be-scaled and be-winged flying creature. Not knowing what he is, he has spent his life hiding his other self from his groundling community—until he meets another just like him: Stone. 

The imagination that has gone into this world, cultures, and characters second to none. Wells is a master of writing non-human points of views. Her storytelling draws readers into the alienness of her characters yet keeps them relatable as she weaves in the importance (and challenges) of family, community, and belonging.

Okay, perhaps it’s a little strange to have a human companion on this list but hear me out. The protagonist of this story, the wise-cracking Bartimaeus, is a djinn and is the servant of his human summoner Nathaniel, so technically that makes Bartimaeus and Nathaniel companions to one another.

In the story’s alternative London, magicians rule and compel djinn to grudgingly do their bidding—unless they slip up a summoning and become the breakfast of their Otherworldly servants. The banter in this book is superb, along with hysterical one-liners and amusing (often snarky) footnotes that represent Bartimaeus’s ability to think on several different planes at once. If you want a fun, easy-to-digest read with lots of laughs, this one ticks all the boxes.

If you want a feisty, rodent-come feline companion with a taste for eyeballs, then look no further than Sabastien de Castell’s Spellslinger series. Along with a neat magic system and desert worldbuilding, we have Kellen, a young and staggeringly unskilled magic user who is on the cusp of his test to become a mage. If he fails, he’ll become a slave among his clan. Unfortunately, the latter is looking pretty likely, until he meets an Argosi, a mysterious travelling nomad with a deck of cards, and everything Kellen thought he knew and valued is called into question. 

While Kellen narrates the story, his squirrel cat companion, Reichis, often steals the show. The first in this series, Spellslinger, is a quick and entertaining read for teens and adults alike.

If you love the assassin trope mixed with companion creatures, Nevernight by Jay Kristoff is a must-read. When I was first asked to describe the book, the closest comparison I could think of was Hogwarts for assassins. With blood, swearing, and sex scenes. Our protagonist is Mia, a sixteen-year-old girl who has sworn vengeance on the man who orchestrated her family’s fall from grace. She’s determined to join the Red Church, the famed assassin school. But Mia is no ordinary student, she is a darkin, able to bend the shadows to her will. And at her side is Mr. Kindly, a talking shadow cat and familiar to Mia on her bloody quest. Dark fantasy lovers, this is one you don’t want to miss.