7 Recent Sci-Fi and Fantasy Epics For Everyone

The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu
Debut novelist Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings is a sprawling fantasy novel packed full of political intrigue, gods in disguise, seven islands in disarray, death, taxes, and battlekites. A new emperor has united the seven Dara islands under one rule, but his regime has left many disenfranchised. And then! A prophecy is found in the belly of a fish. A new ruler will rise. The leaders of this revolution are two friends: the easygoing Kuni Garu and the oh-so-serious Mata Zyndu. Character driven with no “big bad” pulling the strings, The Grace of Kings is an innovative blend of Han Dynasty–era politics and epic fantasy.

The Mirror Empire: Worldbreaker Saga 1, by Kameron Hurley
Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted that “awesome” once described moon landings and cures for disease. “Today, it’s an unexpected feature in an App,” he said. In that respect, the only thing old school about Kameron Hurley’s The Mirror Empire is that it is brain-shatteringly awesome. In the brutal world of The Mirror Empire, plant life is sentient, gender roles are not binary (there are five!), and the magic systems of two parallel worlds are ruled by cosmology. As the satellite Oma rises for the first time in several hundred years, it brings with it war and destruction. The Mirror Empire is richly constructed, dense with narrative voices, and defies easy categorization.

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie
A top-notch space opera, Ancillary Justice is a tale of betrayal and vengeance that spans an entire galaxy. Breq was once an AI commanding the Justice of Toren, linking her to thousands of soldiers on a starship. But now she’s separated from her duties and trapped in a human body with a singular consciousness. In this future empire where only the female gender is used, Breq wanders the galaxy, encountering different cultures that make her question the nature of her empire’s rule. Ancillary Justice racked up all the awards after its release—deservedly so.

Throne of the Crescent Moon, by Saladin Ahmed
A fantasy swashbuckler about a big guy who really just wants a cup of tea and short guy who can handle a sword, Saladin Ahmed’s debut novel Throne of the Crescent Moon is a supernatural mystery blending the classical mythology of the Arabian Nights with the pulp flair of Fritz Leiber’s “Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser” stories. In the Crescent Moon Kingdoms, the last, great ghul hunter Doctor Adoulla Makhslood is on the cusp of retirement when an old love’s family is murdered. Joined by his holy warrior companion Raseed bas Raseed, Adoulla encounters shapeshifters, despots, thieves, and a plot to unleash a deadly civil war. An absolute delight.

Who Fears Death, by Nnedi Okorafor
Conceived in violence, the young woman Onyesonwu, whose name means “Who fears death,” is a sorcerer who must confront her dead father’s dark wizardry. A quest to save her mother’s people from genocide takes Onyesonwu through the postnuclear African desert where technology has failed and only magic remains. Okorafor’s spellbinding Who Fears Death does not shy from subjects like brutality towards women and tribal warfare, but she also makes time for some super geeky and very cool concepts about how a post-technology world functions. Lagoon, Okorafor’s latest, in which a rapper, a biologist, and a soldier make first contact with an alien ambassador, hits shelves this summer.

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
Writing under the penname Katherine Addison, Sarah Monette’s The Goblin Emperor takes the best parts of steampunk and blends them into high fantasy. When the Emperor of Elflands dies in an “accidental” airship crash, along with his three children, his estranged, half-goblin son Maia must take the throne. The socially inept Maia—hey, you’d be socially inept too, if you grew up alone in a marsh—is quickly embroiled in court politics, a conspiracy to have him deposed, marriage negotiations, and a murder mystery. As a welcome counterpoint to the grimdark trend, The Goblin Emperor is a story about a goodhearted kid on his way to becoming a decent ruler as he struggles against the institutions that hold us down.

Leviathan Wakes, by James S.A. Corey
Under the pseudonym James S.A. Corey, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck come at the space opera at a full burn in Leviathan Wakes. In this first book of The Expanse series, the governments of Earth, Mars, and the Outer Planets Alliance are teetering toward war, when the diverse crew of the Rocinante and a grizzled detective on Ceres uncover a conspiracy involving a derelict ship and a weird, alien technology that could change the balance of power—think Han Solo at the helm of Serenity in the middle of DS9’s Dominion War. Catch up on the series now; a fifth book is due this summer and a Syfy Channel series is on the way.
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