The Farthest Shore
Ursula K. Le Guin
The third book in the Earthsea cycle makes plain what before had only been hinted at: the magic of the wizards carries a cost.
The Tombs of Atuan
Ursula K. Le Guin
The second book in Le Guin’s extraordinary Earthsea cycle continues her subversion of the usual wizardly tropes: Ged, the antihero from the first book, reappears, but he serves as an accessory to another’s story—that of a young girl named Tenar.
A Wizard of Earthsea
Ursula K. Le Guin
The first book in Le Guin’s famed Earthsea cycle introduces Ged, a young and brilliant, albeit cocky, wizard who attempts to use magic he doesn’t fully understand, with dire consequences.
Infinite Detail
Tim Maughan
Tim Maughan’s debut novel is tragic and charming and very close to home: in response to the normalization of extreme surveillance, an anonymous cyberterrorist group figures out how to take the whole internet down, sending the world into chaos.
The Raven Tower
Ann Leckie
The main character of this book is a stone. A literal stone. Well, a god in the form of a stone, but a stone nonetheless.
Akata Warrior
Nnedi Okorafor
The second book in Okorafor’s Akata series finds Sunny settled in to her new magical school, observing the changes in her body as she grows and becomes stronger.
Akata Witch
Nnedi Okorafor
This young adult series centers on Sunny Nwazue, a New York-born Nigerian and albino.
Semiosis
Sue Burke
Sue Burke’s debut novel follows a small group of human colonists who have landed on a new planet and must learn to survive.
Blackfish City
Sam J. Miller
Qaanaaq is a floating Arctic city ruled by a group of invisible shareholders in the wake of the climate wars. One day, a woman arrives riding an orca and traveling with a polar bear.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Ottessa Moshfegh
With the help of a deranged doctor and a cornucopia of drugs, the narrator of My Year of Rest and Relaxation embarks on an adventure to sleep for an entire year.
Binti
Nnedi Okorafor
The titular character in Nnedi Okorafor’s novella is the first of the Himba people to leave Earth to travel to Oomza University, the most prestigious institution of higher learning in the galaxy.
Binti: The Night Masquerade
Nnedi Okorafor
The conclusion of Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti series finds Binti trying desperately to prevent a war between the Khoush and the Meduse.
Binti: Home
Nnedi Okorafor
The second book in Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti series brings Binti back home after her dramatic transformation.
The Emissary
Yoko Tawada
Something terrible has happened in Japan, and the country has cut itself off from the world.
Melmoth
Sarah Perry
This is a horror story, and a ghost story, and an enormously compelling reflection on what it means to be complicit, to repent, to suffer punishment.
Ka
John Crowley
Ka recounts the adventures of a crow named Dar Oakley, who—nearly two thousand years ago—ventured to the underworld with a young girl and stole the gift of immortality she meant to acquire for her fellow humans.
Future Home of the Living God
Louise Erdrich
Cedar is four months pregnant when orders go out asking all pregnant women to turn themselves in amid reports that evolution is running in reverse.
Washington Black
Esi Edugyan
George Washington Black, known as “Wash,” is born enslaved on a Barbados sugar plantation where cruelty is the norm. When his master’s brother, Titch, arrives and chooses Wash to serve him, Wash is initially terrified; but the eccentric brother turns out to be a naturalist and abolitionist who takes Wash under his wing.
The Mere Wife
Maria Dahvana Headley
A masterful, modern take on Beowulf.
The Inheritance Trilogy
N. K. Jemisin
This is an epic of (literally) Greek proportions, as it concerns a group of gods and their godling children as they love and fight among themselves and their human creations.