Author: Alex Acks

The empire Luca is to inherit is crumbling around her as her uncle, sitting on the throne, continues to make matters worse. Her best opportunity is a land long since conquered, where she can sway the rebels there toward peace… and use them to reclaim the magic her land has long since lost. There she meets Touraine, a soldier conscripted by the empire as a child, whose bonds of blood to her homeland should be long broken… and aren’t.

It’s 1912 in a Cairo very different from the one we know, where Djinn have come into the world and the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities regulates magic. When an entire secret brotherhood is slain, Agent Fatma is put on the case and discovers the murderer claims to be the man to whom that brotherhood was dedicated–al-Jahiz himself, the one who opened our world to magic. Whether he is real or imposter, he must be stopped, and she’s the woman to do it.

By 2095, people generally don’t die from violence–instead they get taken out by designer diseases or starve in the streets because they can no longer keep up with AI squeezing them out of the gig economy. The key to survival is a plethora of pills. Welga is an executive bodyguard in this milieu, and when her client is killed by a mysterious terrorist group called the Machinehood, she finds herself in the middle of a plot to stop all pill production.

The sequel to A Memory Called Empire sees Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass leaving the heart of the Teixcalaanli empire to go to the edge of space, where an alien species that no one knows how to communicate with has begun slaughtering Teixcalaanli colonies. Together, they must figure out how to talk to a species whose language quite literally makes them ill… and also how to talk to each other.

Plague Birds are the melding of human and artificial intelligence, marked by their bright red hair and clothes so ordinary people know to fleet them. They serve as the judges and executioners in the world that still survives after civilization has collapsed. Crista first met the Plague Birds when one killed her mother when she was a child. As an adult, she becomes this thing she hates and fears most in order to save her village. Her first mission is to chase down a group of murderers who wield what looks like magic.

This is a collection of Chinese science fiction and fantasy short stories written, edited, and translated by a female and nonbinary team. Stories range from a restaurant at the end of the universe (but not that restaurant) to the island of the gods that travels on the backs of giant fish.

Hiruko is a climate refugee and citizen of the former nation of Japan; her country has long since disappeared from the face of the earth and is remembered now only as “the land of sushi.” She’s made her new home in Denmark, but still searches for someone who can speak Japanese. As she travels across Europe on this quest for her friends, she’ll have quite a few odd and rather dystopian adventures…

The lake is an other worldly place where the boundary between air and water begin to blue; beneath its surface exists an ethereal and supernatural landscape… though Bastián Silvano and Lore Garcia are the only two who know this for certain. Then one day, that underwater world begins to drift to the surface, threatening to bring their secrets with it. Bastián and Lore can stop this from happening if they work together, but they haven’t spoken for seven years…

When she was in college, Zelda and her friends thought they had figured out how to make the world a better place–fighting monsters, ones no one else believed existed. But one of her friends fell to the darkness they were supposedly fighting, and the group split up. Zelda’s the only one who hasn’t moved on. Now her fallen friend is coming home and bringing hell with her.

In 1682, the king invites all the maidens in France to a series of of events where Prince Louis will be choosing his bride. But for Cendrillon de Louvois, now reduced to being called Cinder after her father’s death, the invitation requires subterfuge for her to escape the watch of her cruel stepmother. Then, at a ball, she meets Prince Louis and his brother Auguste… and catches the attention of both. While she wants Auguste, Louis is her best chance to escape the life she hates…

This one is witches in space! Mariam Xi was turned into a “voidwitch” by the organization MEPHISTO. She’s since escaped their clutches during a bloody coup, but they’ll do anything to get her back, including sending bounty hunters on her trail. It’s becoming increasingly hard for her to keep running, and she’s been betrayed by more than one person… she just needs to figure out who.

After the death of her adoptive mother, Hannah ends up living alone at the edge of a swamp in Louisiana. She’s settling into the new rhythm of her life–including falling in love with a boat captain–when her birth mother comes back into her life, a witch who is rumored to be able to commune with the dead. Soon Hannah must confront her past, the deadly spirits that share the swamp with her, and the gift that lives in her blood.

Dark and unbearably tense at times, this was one of my favorite books that came out in 2020. Immanuelle Moore lives in Bethel, a place where the Prophet’s word is law. Her mother had her with an outsider of a different race, and that has made Immanuelle and her entire family outcasts. When she is lured into the Darkwood that surrounds Bethel, a place where the Prophet supposedly killed four witches, she begins to learn the truth of Bethel, herself, and her own powers.

Samantha Mather is a descendant of Cotton Mather; when she comes to Salem from New York City, she finds herself targeted by a group of girls who are the descendants of those accused of witchcraft by her own ancestor. With that enough of a complication, she also finds out that ghosts are real when one shows up to demand she stop touching his stuff. The source of all these troubles is even more worrying–she’s caught in a curse that links everyone with ties to the Salem Witch Trials, and she has to break it if she wants to stop history from repeating itself.

Tea comes from an entire family of witches, but her abilities set her apart: she can resurrect the dead, a fact she learns when she accidentally brings her brother back to life. Her necromantic talents mean she is a bone witch, and she will find few friends from here on out… until she and her brother are taken in by an older bone witch. Tea tries to learn to wield her powers and how to work elemental magic, but dark forces are gathering and danger will soon be at her door.

Miuko is the ordinary, very human daughter of an innkeeper in the realm of Awara, where gods and monsters walk. When a curse is laid on her, she begins to transform into a demon, one who can kill with a single touch. She must embark on a dangerous quest to find a cure for this condition… except as she travels, she finds a freedom she never thought possible.

Seventy-five years from now, humanity flees a dying planet on a fleet of massive arks, each ship developing its own unique culture. One ship receives an alien distress call, and the crew sent to respond to it disappears. One of the missing is Eryn’s sister, and she joins the crew to search for them… but what they find is a terrifying and deadly threat that will follow them back home.

Olivia has spent what feels like all her life at the Merilance School for Girls, with her only memento of home her mother’s journal, a book that unravels into madness. Then she is invited back home to Gallant by a mysterious letter that no one at the house will admit to having known about. Even with no welcome from her family, Olivia feels more at home at Gallant than she ever has anywhere else, even after seeing ghouls in the hallways. There are secrets in the old house, and she will unravel them all.

Noor is psychologist who works at a memory removal clinic in London; while she spends her days helping people forget their worst moments, she has difficult connecting emotionally with others. Worse, she begins to suspect her boss, Louise, is engaged in some very shady business. Her life touches upon a series of customers, each of them wanting to forget a terrible moment in their lives… but then they must grapple with its absence afterward.

Malini is, to all appearances, a completely powerless princess, exiled to die in the out provinces by her misogynist brother. But she is ruthless, and she is patient, and she will do anything to see him thrown from power and subjected to the vengeance he deserves. And then she meets Priya, a priestess of a culture subjugated by the empire, one that was ruthless and murderous in its own right… and the remaining adherents of that religion will stop at nothing to take their home back.

Luca is a princess in an empire, one with the good intention of getting her horrible uncle off the throne and replacing him. But in order to dethrone a bad emperor, she needs to bring magic back to her people… and one way to do that is to take it from the client state she’s been put in charge of. And it’s not the first questionable decision she’ll make in pursuit of her goals, nor the last.

Between this book and its sort-of-sequel, sort-of-companion, Lady Hotspur, Tess Gratton has basically cornered the market on complicated, frustrating, and morally fraught female characters, most of whom are queens in the middle of power struggles that ask them to make terrible choices.

Talyien became a queen in an arranged marriage because she wanted to protect her clan after the bloody War of Wolves. But then her husband mysteriously disappears before their joint reign even starts, leaving her to pick up the pieces in a fractured kingdom. She is another one who will do whatever it takes to protect her people, and she doesn’t care what anyone has to say about it.

Baru Cormorant is the child of a people colonized by the Empire of Masks; she watched one of her fathers be murdered and her culture be slowly subsumed and overwritten. And she hatched a plan: she would destroy the Empire of Masks from within and free her people. The first step on that journey is joining the civil service and working her way higher in the ranks. But having a goal she will achieve no matter what the costs means that she is willing to sacrifice anything and anyone along the way.

Mina’s homeland has been torn by war and washed with brutal floods for generations. In an attempt to appease the Sea God, her people throw a beautiful maiden into the sea once a year to be his bride. The most beautiful girl in Mina’s village, Shim Cheong, is chosen to be this year’s sacrifice… but that’s the beloved of Mina’s brother. In order to save them both, Minna throws herself into the sea in Cheong’s place. The water sweeps her to the Spirit Realm, and there her adventure has only just begun.

Lena is a med school dropout desperate for any job she can find to help her family out of dire financial straits. When she’s offered a position by one of Boston’s most elite families, she can’t possibly say no, even if the description of the position is vague and frankly bizarre. She’s to be the assistant to the family doctor and the sickly, drunken heir that he cares for by day. At night, she quickly discovers there is something strange and very sinister about this family… and that they are responsible for the ruin of her own.

Sol is an archivist with a terrible secret: he suffers from an illness known as vampirism. Being an archivist is a good career choice for him, since he can hide from the sun in his basement office. But when he meets Elsie, the widow of a somewhat famous television writer who is trying to donate her late wife’s papers, there’s a spark between them that will quickly bloom into love.

Joan is a monster, from a family of monsters, each of them with terrifying powers that they must carefully keep secret. And then she finds out that the cute boy she’s just met at her work is a monster slayer, and he’s hunting for her family. Jess must embrace her own monstrous nature if she wants to protect her family… because monsters don’t get happy endings.

Winner of Best Anthology, Collection, or Periodical.

This is Isabel Yap’s first short story collection, a set of fantasy stories that range from urban legends to the fairy tales of immigrants. And you cannot beat this start:

“Am I dead?” Mebuyen sighs.

She was hoping the girl would not ask.

Winner of Best Novella.

After the inimitable Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it has no choice but to assist station security to determine the identity of the decedent… and that there was, indeed, murder involved. Not Murderbot murder, however. It’s going to require all of Murderbot’s skill and energy to do the worst… speak with humans.

Winner of Best Debut Novel.

In 14th century China, a family of starving peasants in the Central Plains are given two fates–for their eighth-born son, there will be greatness, and for their second-born but highly clever daughter, there will be nothing. But when the son dies after the two children are orphaned in a bandit attack, the daughter sees her chance to change her fate.

Winner of Best Self-Published/Independent Novel.

Epheria is a land divided, north and south, where the High Lords of the latter are only held in check by the Dragonguard who serve the former. Calen Bryer is a young man preparing for the Proving, a test he may not survive, even as he struggles with the recent, tragic loss of his brother. Then three strangers arrive in his town and throw him head first into a centuries-old war.

Winner of Best Novel.

A century after the gods fought war that ended in their extinction, those who want power seek out their bones. But gods will not stay dead forever, and the fate of the realm of Vigrid rests in the hand of a huntress pursuing dangerous quarry, a noblewoman seeking fame in battle, and a former thrall turned mercenary searching for vengeance.

There was only one position available when Mickey joined the colonial expedition, so he took it, since it had to be better than nothing. Now, knowing that it involves going on all of the dangerous, suicidal missions the rest of the crew doesn’t want to deal with, he’s starting to doubt his choice. Every time he dies, a new body is generated for him, one with most of his memories. When the seventh version of him goes missing on a scouting mission, the crew wastes no time making a Mickey8… but then Mickey7 returns alive and well. And there can be only one iteration of an expendable at a time. The other is destined for the recycler.

Sequel to The Unspoken Name. Two years after escaping into the unknown, Csorwe and Shuthmili have new lives and a new profession: hunting for magical secrets. And they’ve allowed Tal Charossa to tag along, even. But when an expedition goes wrong and they find themselves hunted by a new enemy, it brings them right back to Belthandros Sethennai. Because the enemy of your enemy is… less of an enemy, perhaps.

This is an anthology of stories about the Latin American diaspora that ranges from a magical now to a far future, from Earth to other planets to fantastical realms. It features stories by: Vita Ayala, J.C. Cervantes, Zoraida Córdova, Isabel Ibañez, Anna-Marie McLemore, Yamile Saied Méndez, Daniel José Older, Claribel A. Ortega, Mark Oshiro and Lilliam Rivera, and more!

Dark Breakers is a story collection from World Fantasy Award-winning author C.S.E. Cooney that contains five stories, three of which have never before been published. The common thread is the veil between worlds, the gentry, and their crossing into the human realm.

In the previous book, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Tracker and the Moon Witch Sogolon clashed in a mythical African landscape, brought into opposition by the disappearance of a mysterious boy. Now it’s time for Sogolon to tell her story–and that of a century-long feud with the chancellor fo the king.

An ancient trade center named Kithmar is home to many people and each has a unique story to tell. Alys is a petty thief from the slums; when her brother is murdered, she sets out to find his killer and answer the most difficult of questions: why? The deeper she delves into his life, however, the more she learns about herself, and the more she might wish to forget.

The city of Lucille is a place divided by many deep injustices, and people are beginning to wake to that and protest it. But Bitter, who has lived her life in foster care, is just happy to have been chosen to attend Eucalyptus, a special arts school where she can focus on her painting. The new friends she’s made are interested in the justice movement, while all she wants to do is work on her art and find romance. Can she find a way to take part in the revolution and remain true to herself?

This is a collection of stories by Janelle Monáe and a collection of collaborators expanding upon her landmark album Dirty Computer, telling the stories of a world where thought and memory can be controlled or erased by a few elites who believe they have the right to control the fate of everyone.

Sequel to The Gilded Ones. Six months after freeing the goddesses and discovering the truth of her identity, Deka faces a kingdom at war with itself and a people who call her and those like her monster. And the battle has only begun…

An aspiring journalist named Jamal Lawson heads to Baltimore to document a protest against police brutality after the murder of a Black man. But Baltimore implements a new safety protocol: a dome that surrounds the city and enforces a militarized shutdown. No one can leave. Jamal must find what allies he can in the increasingly violent and oppressive lockdown if he wants to free the city… and survive.

Sequel to Legendborn. Bree has become much more than she never expected: medium, bloodcrafter, scion. She’s infiltrated the Legendborn Order and discovered her own power. But now she must use this power to take her place in the ancient war between the demons and the Order.

It’s taken generations for the Muungano Empire, a coalition of city-states that stretches from original Earth to Titan, to free itself from the endless wars and oppression of Earth and build into a true utopia. But the powers remaining behind on Earth aren’t interested in letting them thrive and will stop at nothing to destroy everything they’ve built.

The sequel to Black Leopard, Red Wolf. After her clashes with Tracker in the previous book, the 177-year-old Moon Witch Sogolon has her own tale to tell.

Ikenna, the granddaughter of a murdered Legatus, seeks justice and revenge for his death. In order to do this, she must become one of the Praetorian Guard, and to achieve that she must first pass the trials, a brutal contest that kills three quarters of those who attempt it. Beyond that, her half-Khanaian heritage and her gender direct far more prejudice upon her head. But truth–and revenge–will not wait.

Sequel to Black Sun. After the Crow God’s eclipse, the great city of Tova has been shattered, and a comet that heralds death is about to make its appearance in the skies. Ordinary people and living avatars struggle for survival and self as enemies no longer held by empire prepare for war.

Perilous “Perry” Graves is a failed magician who makes his home in the gorgeous, wonder-filled city of Nola, where music is magic and haints dance in the night. But nine songs of power have escaped the city’s heart, and if they aren’t recovered, Nola will fall. It’s up to Perry and his sister to find the songs and save Nola.

The climate apocalypse isn’t rising sea levels or heatwaves; it comes with overgrown plant life filling the air with so much pollen that no one can breathe it. Izabel lives in a world with people living in a series of airtight domes, one where humanity is finally flourishing again and there is safety and prosperity. Then an unknown person begins slashing domes open, letting the outside air in to kill the residents–a new kind of serial killer. And Izabel’s daughter begins having strange sleep-conversations about the murders.

The titular book is a 17th century manual on sex magic, which just might be the most powerful occult book ever written… if it exists. Lily, a former novelist who has consigned herself to loneliness after suffering a tragedy, sets out to find this book under the promise of how much money she’ll be paid if she can. The world’s wealthiest people might wish to fulfill their desires with black magic… but it’s Lily’s desire to join their ranks.

Emrael Ire is an ordinary man who wants only to be a weapons master… but his final test becomes surviving an insurrection that ends with his brother enslaved. In so doing, he discovers a powerful, latent magic within himself, a skill he never wanted or imagined he might have. His one stroke of luck is his War Master tutor is also an undercover mage, and she might be able to teach him the skills he needs if he’s to rescue his brother and defeat the Fallen God.

Five former Navy SEALS, each with a different background, are brought into a special ops unit and dispatched to the Caucasus to stop a terrorist threat. When their mission goes awry, they’re offered a bargain by the literal Devil, who offers them mystical powers that will allow them to send evil people directly to Hell for his enjoyment. But no gift from the Devil comes without strings, and each member of the the new Devil’s Quintet must struggle against the corruption of their powers or face damnation themselves.