Category: Swords and Spaceships

In this near-future capitalist dystopia, Qualityland is the best country on Earth, and it’s governed by a universal ranking system that dictates the social place of every member of society. The algorithms of Qualityland are without peer and infallible. Peter Jobless is a scrapper who keeps being sent slightly imperfect but otherwise functioning machines that he can’t bring himself to destroy. And then he one day receives a shipment from the equally infallible TheShop that he knows he does not want. All he wants to do is return this useless item, but if he does so, he will prove the entire system has been wrong.

Nalah is the 16-year-old leader of the most dangerous all-girl crew in Mega City, but she doesn’t revel in the violent throwdowns. All she wants to do is escape the streets and gain residency in the Mega Towers. In order to do so, she must prove her absolute loyalty to the “benevolent” founder of her deeply classist city — which will involve doing the unspeakable and sacrificing the family she’s created.

While technically third in the series (and the other two books are also GREAT), this book is functionally standalone. In this adventure, the wandering cleric Chih travels into the titular riverlands to collect the stories of this brutal and conflicted region filled with near-immortal, legendary martial artists. They soon find themself in the midst of an ancient feud that’s deeply entangled with the stories they came here to collect.

Jewel is a courtesan in a House, a luxurious place that provides its own brand of protection from a government that will cull someone for even the smallest mistake. But when one of her fellow courtesans is murdered by a client, that shakes her badly enough — but then her friend comes back to life, somehow.

This is the start of a paranormal mystery series about an African American classical musician named Gethsemane Brown who finds herself investigating mysteries, often at the behest of ghosts. This first book starts in the Irish countryside where Gethsemane has been hired to turn a group of ill-behaved schoolboys into an orchestra…and her lovely cliffside cottage she’s staying at is haunted by the ghost of a man falsely accused of killing his wife and himself.

This book combines two things I love — murder mysteries and time loops. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until Aiden Bishop can figure out who her killer is and break the cycle of her death…and every day as he investigates, he wakes up in the body of a different guest at Blackheath Manor.

A team of women steal back the spaceship and the mission originally meant for them before it was taken over by a group of men in this dystopian, sci-fi thriller set on a spaceship. But it soon becomes clear that though their intentions are good, they might not all be on the same page with what their mission — and the future of humanity — holds in store.

In this alternate history novel, a meteorite has obliterated much of the eastern coast of the United States and the oncoming climate cataclysm caused by its impact will soon make Earth uninhabitable. Dr. Elma York is one of the scientists working to put a man on the moon, but she soon begins to wonder, with so many capable women pilots and scientists involved in the International Aerospace Coalition, why does it have to be a man?

In contrast to the other two titles I’ve mentioned, Escaping Exodus is more space fantasy than science fiction. And calling the main character an astronaut might be a stretch, considering her people live on a biological spaceship among the stars. But she is nonetheless the heir to a matriarchal ship, and it’s through her leadership that her people will find a way forward when it becomes clear that their way of live is coming to an end.

Ever wondered what a restaurant of the future might look like? How about sentient dough, stasis cubes to keep food from spoiling, and a time accelerating machine that allows you to cook elaborate meals in no time at all? There’s so much more to this book than just food, including philosophy and politics and friendship, but the food and the most famous restaurant in the galaxy make it perfect for fans of foodie genre fiction.

Like The Sol Majestic, this novel is about far more than food. We’re talking a family of alien refugees, a renowned violin instructor paying off a deal with the devil, and a trans music prodigy who becomes wrapped up in their affairs. But it’s the donut shop that the alien family runs, featuring machines that create the perfect donuts, which earns it a place on this list.

If you’ve been looking for a non-Eurocentric epic fantasy series, this one from Rebecca Roanhorse is it. Set in a world inspired by the pre-Columbian Americas, Black Sun is full of magic, adventure, political intrigue, and celestial prophecies. What more could you want? I’m also really excited to dig into Roanhorse’s newest release: Tread of Angels.

Darcie Little Badger is one of my favorite speculative fiction authors. Her young adult SFF novels are full of heart and stories influenced by Indigenous storytelling traditions. And her short fiction — like “Skinwalker, Fast-Talker,” featured on the Levar Burton Reads podcast — is also excellent.

Erdrich doesn’t always write speculative fiction, but, oh, when she does. In this dystopian novel, a pregnant woman fights for herself and the life of her unborn child as growing fears about the end of humanity threaten them both. Her newest novel, The Sentence, also blends speculative elements with the real world in what I strongly contend is one of the best pieces of fiction to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This is the first short story collection by Cassandra Khaw, and it thematically explores the way love and grief twine into human existence, sometimes relating cosmic horror and bodily trauma.

This anthology contains both short stories and poems of Irish authors, the pick of modern Irish speculative fiction. Stories range from a near future Dublin that is a dystopian capitalist hellscape to the old and witchy landscape of the Midlands.

This collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories and poetry includes the work of 48 writers from around the world who have a connection to Hawai’i and the Pacific and explore these ties from the supernatural to climate-riven future.

Wala Kitu is a brilliant professor of mathematics whose name literally means “Nothing Nothing” — the thing at which he is an expert. Aspiring villain John Sill, who wants to break into Fort Knox to steal a mysterious shoebox also filled with nothing, sees him as the perfect partner in crime. It’s up to Wala Kitu to figure out how to foil John Sill’s plans to become a literal Bond villain while somehow also remaining in his employ.

Nine-year-old Magdala and her father flee across the harsh desert of the American West in search of the holy city of Las Vegas, hoping for succor from the neon-powered saints who reside there. But they never make it across the Sonoran desert; one by one the adults die and Magdala fends for herself for seven years before turning her path once again toward Las Vegas — and this time she will not be stopped.

This massive (432 pages!) volume contains a diverse plethora of short stories published this year that runs the gamut of modern SFF.

This second annual collection of short stories written by authors from across the globe was edited by Lavie Tidhar, which is exciting of itself. But of the 29 stories contains eight exclusive stories that have been published nowhere else before!

In an alternate Belgian Congo, the native Africans developed steam power before their would-be colonial oppressors. Everfair is a safe haven within the Congo, a place for native populations and escaped slaves to find fair treatment and peace, and its story is told in a multitude of voices.

Nishi Shawl’s previous short story collection has 14 tales that speak to the reader’s subconscious and summon magic, traveling to strange and wonderful places.