---
title: Science fiction and fantasy recommendations
tags: []
draft: false
---

I've always read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but in the past several years I've been especially excited by a wave of authors who are expanding the genre in every direction — new voices, new settings, new forms. I think we're living in the first true golden age of science fiction and fantasy, driven in large part by a more inclusive view of who gets to write it.

This is a curated list of my favorites. It started as science fiction, but grew to include fantasy because fantasy is no longer "boring faux-Euro-medieval where princes save princesses." Nothing on this list is that!

Book links: [🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org) = Bookshop.org (US), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org) = Open Library (worldwide, with library lending).

## Essentials

These are some books I'd press into the hands of any reader, whether or not they think of themselves as a sci-fi person.

- **The Fifth Season** by N.K. Jemisin (Broken Earth trilogy) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-fifth-season-n-k-jemisin/110692), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17363125W)) — If you read one thing on this list, make it this. A towering achievement of the genre. I've told friends that if they haven't read it, we may need to revoke their sci-fi fan card.
- **The Calculating Stars** by Mary Robinette Kowal (Lady Astronaut series) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-calculating-stars-a-lady-astronaut-novel-mary-robinette-kowal/967687), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL18021949W)) — Gets my highest praise: I want to share it with my son as his introduction to sci-fi. In many senses this is what classic, so-called "golden age" scifi would have been, had it not been written mostly by creeps. Smart, fun, and so much more thoughtful about gender and race than anything I read at that age. Also: a lot of rocket euphemisms for sex. A lot.
- **Ancillary Justice** by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/ancillary-justice-ann-leckie/ceafb8aba73e8ea1), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17062644W)) — A great ripping read that is also extremely sharp on gender and class.
- **A Memory Called Empire** by Arkady Martine (Teixcalaan series) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-memory-called-empire-arkady-martine/6986710), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20157046W)) — Very Serious Hard Sci-Fi that is also smart about colonialism, gender, and much else. I also enjoyed her novella Rose/House ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/rose-house-arkady-martine/e1312c0a85a5337a), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL38652997W)).

## Cozy, light, and fun

Not everything has to be an epic. These are the books that gave me comfort and joy.

- **A Psalm for the Wild-Built** by Becky Chambers (Monk & Robot) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built-a-monk-and-robot-book-becky-chambers/daf659b1800c0c93), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL22561871W)) — The coziest possible science fiction. None cozier. Big recommend for good vibes.
- **The Spare Man** by Mary Robinette Kowal ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-spare-man-mary-robinette-kowal/18834426), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL25957813W)) — Sci-fi murder mystery on an interplanetary cruise liner. Less cozy, more noir, but very fun.
- **Space Opera** by Catherynne M. Valente ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/space-opera-catherynne-m-valente/16610451), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19741544W)) — If you're into Eurovision, this is hilarious.
- **All Systems Red** by Martha Wells (Murderbot Diaries) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/all-systems-red-the-murderbot-diaries-martha-wells/19bdc995eb35feb9), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17914663W)) — Tight, well-done balance of big ideas on gender and identity, and light fun, helped by the series-of-novellas structure.
- **Vorkosigan Saga** by Lois McMaster Bujold ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/captain-vorpatril-s-alliance-volume-16-lois-mcmaster-bujold/15285991), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16688699W)) — Loads of books, so if you like them you can get lost for a while. Very much about toxic masculinity and how it tries to warp young men.
- **A People's Future History** ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-people-s-future-of-the-united-states-speculative-fiction-from-25-extraordinary-writers-charles-yu/85a336c3c05f57ac), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20161412W)) This isn't really cozy, light, or fun, because it is about dystopia. But it is _optimistic_, because it is about recovering from dystopia. We need more hopepunk in our lives, so I do recommend this.

## Fantasy beyond medieval Europe

These books showed me that fantasy could be set anywhere, and be richer for it.

- **The City of Brass** by S.A. Chakraborty (Daevabad trilogy) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/books/the-city-of-brass/9780062678119), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19623241W)) — Islamic/Middle-Eastern-inspired high fantasy. Rich enough world-building that it could have been seven books rather than three.
- **Gods of Jade and Shadow** by Silvia Moreno-Garcia ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/gods-of-jade-and-shadow-silvia-moreno-garcia/12105572), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20074997W)) — Terrific. Mexican mythology woven into a 1920s adventure.
- **Black Sun** by Rebecca Roanhorse (Between Earth and Sky) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/black-sun-rebecca-roanhorse/14456855), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20865716W)) — Reminiscent of Tolkien or Martin in scope, but grounded in pre-Columbian Central American mythology. Incredibly rich world-building, compelling characters.
- **The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps** by Kai Ashante Wilson ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/books/the-sorcerer-of-the-wildeeps/9780765385246), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20023937W)) — Some of the richest fantasy world-building I've encountered, set in Africa. Also, his "A Taste of Honey" ([🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17373844W)) and "The Devil in America."
- **Sorcerer to the Crown** by Zen Cho ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/books/sorcerer-to-the-crown/9780425283400), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19759589W)) — A magical British Empire, but told from the point of view of the colonized.
- **A Master of Djinn** by P. Djeli Clark ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-master-of-djinn-p-djeli-clark/15126050), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL24364611W)) — Cairo steampunk-magic detective romp. Also: *Black God's Drums* ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-black-god-s-drums-p-djeli-clark/6986057), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19752124W)) — same general idea, but New Orleans.
- **The Empress of Salt and Fortune** by Nghi Vo ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-empress-of-salt-and-fortune-nghi-vo/16390013), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20660814W)) — Strikingly original novella that melted me, first of a series, all touching and quick.

## Global voices

An increasing amount of great sci-fi is coming from outside the Anglosphere.

- **Invisible Planets** ed. Ken Liu ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/invisible-planets-contemporary-chinese-science-fiction-in-translation-ken-liu/7103714), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20040160W)) — Chinese SF shorts. Consistently good, and the introductory and closing essays push back healthily on attempts to generalize about China through its sci-fi.
- **The Three-Body Problem** by Cixin Liu ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-three-body-problem-cixin-liu/265918), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17267881W)) — Deserves every bit of the very wide praise it got. I recommend reading *after* the essays in Ken Liu's short-story volume, as helpful context. (Sadly, I do not recommend the later books in the series.)
- **Rosewater** by Tade Thompson (Wormwood trilogy) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/rosewater-tade-thompson/15276706), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19763347W)) — "Alien invasion via West Africa." Very different framing of course leads to different results. One of the few works of science fiction that acknowledges the Hausa language exists, meaningful to me because my wife speaks it.
- **Convergence Problems** by Wole Talabi ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/convergence-problems-wole-talabi/63d3fb29f959ceac), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL37626726W)) — Some amazing stories, mostly set in or through Nigeria. Blew through it.
- **The Book of Lost Saints** by Daniel Jose Older ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-book-of-lost-saints-a-cuban-american-family-saga-of-love-betrayal-and-revolution-daniel-jose-older/9857174), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20612875W)) — Not actually a global voice, per se, but very much about immigration and the tug of home, in a way that spoke directly to me as a Miami Cuban kid.
- **Cortez on Jupiter** by Ernest Hogan ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/books/cortez-on-jupiter/9781502561695), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL6044854W)) — What if 1990s cyberpunk, but starring a Chicano muralist from LA? A gloriously weird book; again not a global voice per se, but very much from the outside looking in at the US.

## Big ideas

Sci-fi at its most ambitious.

- **Too Like the Lightning** by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota series) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/books/too-like-the-lightning-book-one-of-terra-ignota/9780765378019), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19800093W)) — The most mind-bending sci-fi I've read in a decade, but not for newbies. It is a firehose of complexity, but the payoff is extraordinary. Fundamentally asks: what if we thought we solved problems, but they lurked under the surface, which makes it extremely timely. I've read the series three times and it rewards every re-read.
- **Radiance** by Catherynne M. Valente ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/radiance-catherynne-m-valente/15560208), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19339805W)) — "Stick into a blender and pulse: Dick and Delany's technicolor delirium; Stanley-Robinson's narrational multi-modality; Maltese Falcon's noir; Orson Welles' everything (Citizen Kane and drunk wine ads alike); Voyage Dans Le Lune (every version you can think of, including colorized and with Air's soundtrack)."
- **Infomocracy** by Malka Older (Centenal Cycle) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/infomocracy-book-one-of-the-centenal-cycle-malka-older/7103959), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19633556W)) — Near-future political sci-fi. Its strength is a blizzard of ideas about how we might live; actual characters and plot maybe less so.
- **Everfair** by Nisi Shawl ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/everfair-nisi-shawl/7102972), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20038408W)) — Great alternate history of power and colonization.
- **The Water Knife** by Paolo Bacigalupi ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-water-knife-paolo-bacigalupi/7434664), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17849707W)) — About the very real coming of water shortage in the Southwest. Much more realistic, and therefore more depressing, than most doomer sci-fi.

## Form-benders

Books that experiment with what sci-fi and fantasy *can be*.

- **The Sign of the Dragon** by Mary Soon Lee ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-sign-of-the-dragon-mary-soon-lee/46a3a9b138b9a494), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL28730345W)) — An epic fantasy poem(!). Terrific not just for the form, but for Lee's seriousness and tenderness towards characters who aren't her protagonists.
- **Rakesfall** by Vajra Chandrasekera ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/rakesfall-vajra-chandrasekera/20464409), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL37615535W)) — Makes no concessions to normality; glistens with weird from first page to last.
- **Mexicans on the Moon** by Pedro Iniguez ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/mexicans-on-the-moon-speculative-poetry-from-a-possible-future-pedro-iniguez/21672726), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL39202077W)) — Delightful sci-fi poetry. Purchased and blew through in one evening.
- **The Carpet Makers** by Andreas Eschbach ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-carpet-makers-andreas-eschbach/e761ce6edf2636dc), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3141863W)) — An underrated classic. A funky structure that I loved and don't think I've ever seen anywhere else.
- **The Deep** by Rivers Solomon ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-deep-rivers-solomon/6706728), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20411800W)) — very hard to explain, but powerful. Inspired by a... rap album.

## Labor and Socialism
Labor is not a super-topic common in scifi, but not unheard of. (There's even [a whole spreadsheet](https://hugoclub.blogspot.com/2018/12/organized-labour-in-science-fiction.html) about it.) A couple of favs:
- **Iron Council** by China Mieville ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/iron-council-china-mi-ville/0d943d00ddbb96c8), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL14871877W)) — almost all of Mieville's work is about labor, but this is the one that centers it the most.
- **The Goblin Emperor** by Katherine Addison ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-goblin-emperor-katherine-addison/6986282), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17270804W)) — Fantasy about power and governance with a side of "I can't believe we're doing this." Under labor because it takes seriously paperwork as a form of power.
- **The Fall Revolution** by Ken Macleod ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/fractions-the-first-half-of-the-fall-revolution-ken-macleod/eb93cbf8acce4d55), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL7923835W)). Taking anarchism (and leftist factional in-fighting) as a serious thread for the future.

## Classics worth revisiting

Older books I keep coming back to, or that hold up better than most.

- **The Player of Games** by Iain M. Banks (Culture series) ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-player-of-games-iain-m-banks/108607), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL100779W)) — I keep re-reading the whole Culture series. Please, tech billionaires who name things after Culture ships: actually read these books.
- **Pattern Recognition** by William Gibson ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/pattern-recognition-william-gibson/7705965), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15014715W)) — Only barely sci-fi but brilliant.
- **Doomsday Book** by Connie Willis ([🇺🇸](https://bookshop.org/p/books/doomsday-book-connie-willis/8317356), [🌍](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL14858406W)) — Might be the most emotionally impactful sci-fi I've ever read.

## Further reading

- Nisi Shawl's [crash course in the history of Black science fiction](http://www.nisishawl.com/CCHBSF.html) — a year's worth of reading
- Samuel Delany — I find his work somewhat challenging in form, but if you're up for it his open blackness and gayness makes him a monumental figure in the history of the field. His [contemporary review of the first *Star Wars*](https://www.tumblr.com/samueldelany/82806452407/samuel-delany-reviews-the-first-star-wars-movie) is a milestone in sci-fi's awareness of diversity, calling out that Lucas could imagine interstellar travel but not black people.

*Updated February 2026: added Open Library links for international readers. See also my [San Francisco books](/pages/sfbooks/) list.*