Sometimes you just don’t want to read about romance – and since all things romantic are PARTICULARLY in our faces today, I thought this might be a good time to share some recs that skip the lovey-dovey stuff!
Fantasy
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary Chinese MC
Goodreads
Being an intern at One Wizard sounds magical on the page, but in practice mostly means getting yelled at by senior mages and angry clients alike. And so, after receiving a frantic call from a young man who’s awoken to a talisman on his bedroom wall—and no memory of how it got there—Journeyman Wen jumps at the chance to escape call-center duty and actually help someone for once.
But the case ends up being more complicated than Wen could ever have anticipated. The client has been possessed by a demon prince from Hell, and he’s not interested in leaving.
A delightful, 2nd-person romp about a young sorcerer working customer support for a big, albeit magical, corporation, answering phones to assist people struggling with their mass-market spells. Besides being a very accurate depiction of how soul-destroying that type of work is, it becomes rapidly hilarious when the MC attempts to help with a case of possession – an extremely non-traditional possession arrangement! Brace for plenty of giggles and very heartwarming friendship.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Goodreads
"World Fantasy Award winner Cooney imagines angels as Lovecraftian monsters . . . Plenty of charm!"
—Publishers Weekly"Many have spoken about how angels can be both terrifying yet beautiful, but few have successfully captured the idea well-until The Twice-Drowned Saint, at least. A sumptuous, saw-toothed read, it is a jewel box of a novel, glittering with a thousand details and a bright longing we're all familiar with, this want for a place better than we're in now."
—Cassandra Khaw, Bram Stoker and World Fantasy award-nominated author of Nothing but Blackened TeethWorld Fantasy Award winner C. S. E. Cooney takes readers on a journey of wonder, terror, and joy in this mind-bending, heartfelt novel. Contained inside impassable walls of ice, the city of Gelethel endures under the rule of fourteen angels, who provide for all their subject's needs and mete out grisly punishments for blasphemous infractions, with escape attempts one of the worst possible sins.
"Our narrator is Ishtu Q'Aleth (Ish for short), the new owner of Gelethel's only cinema (having taken over from her father). More importantly, she's also the secret saint of Alizar the Eleven-Eyed, Seventh Angel of Gelethel, and one of the fourteen angels who holds dominion over the city. As Ish explains it, at the age of eight she turned down Alizar's offer to be his saint, but, in a moment that speaks to the novel's charm, the young girl and the all-knowing angel agreed to continue their relationship in secret after bonding over their shared love of cinema. Near thirty years later Ish is desperate to get her sick parents out of the city, a near-impossible task given Gelethel is surrounded by an impenetrable blue serac. But Ish's situation grows even more complicated when a new arrival to the city, a girl named Betony, appears as Alizar's true saint. There's so much to adore about the The Twice-Drowned Saint ... [a] sublime short novel."
—Locus"With The Twice-Drowned Saint, C. S. E. Cooney once again crafts dazzling feats of imagination grounded in human frailties and plunges her audience inside head-first. Her boldly unique characters live in a fever dream of balletic, graceful description that will make you gasp, even as they find their own escape through the seemingly-mundane world of movies. Like nothing else you've ever read, or will ever read."
—Randee Dawn, author of Tune in Tomorrow"Fabulous Gelethel is a city of godless angels who intoxicate themselves on human death, but within its icy walls a hidden saint and a dissident angel are hatching a plan. This story left me wrecked and rebuilt: it's a truly glorious tale of family bonds, forgiveness, sacrifice, courage ... and how gods are born. Written with Cooney's signature soaring prose, humor, and imagination, this tale shines a light on cruelties both fantastical and familiar. It honors sorrow and embraces joy-I will treasure it always"
—Francesca Forrest, author of The Inconvenient God"The way Cooney does world building, she makes the world absolutely gigantic, and then she focuses the lens onto these intimate moments in people's lives . . . My clumsy words don't do justice to The Twice Drowned Saint. Just read it. It is a sunrise, where all things are beautiful and possible, and it is blood on the ground surrounded by those who lap it up, hungering for more. This is one of the best pieces of fiction I've read this year."
—Little Red ReviewerCover art, cover design and interior black and white illustrations by Lasse Paldanius.
Do you crave wonderful weirdness??? How about a saint of (a) cinema? Or benisons-as-currency? Or trash-collecting crime families? ALL OF WHICH AWAITS YOU HERE IN SPADES, I PROMISE YOU! This is such a fun, strange, unexpected time that could only have come from the mind of Cooney!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bi/pansexual MC
Goodreads
In an unparalleled blend of apocalyptic science fiction and epic fantasy akin to masterpieces like Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, debut author Benjamin Liar presents the first gripping installment of The Wanderlands trilogy. The vast machine-like expanse of the Wanderlands, crafted by long-lost gods, is teetering on the brink of eternal darkness. Amidst this decaying behemoth, a diverse group of heroes, driven by prophetic dreams, embark on a perilous journey. Their mission? To mend their crumbling world—or witness its irrevocable end.
Benjamin Liar masterfully weaves intricate tales across time and space. With unique world-building, this tale plunges readers into a mechanical planet-sized realm abandoned by its divine creators. It’s a tale of second chances and redemption, for these heroes have once tried—and failed—to salvage their home. Now, they’re presented with another shot at salvation or doom.
What sets The Failures apart is not just its genre-defying narrative but also its ingenious fusion of humor, charm, and profound depth. Liar’s debut, though dark and twisted, sparkles with witty prose, keeping readers riveted and eager for more. As you traverse The Wanderlands, you’ll uncover a multitude of interlinked stories, an intricate puzzle that begs to be pieced together. This is not just a book—it’s a captivating experience.
Benjamin Liar—writer, musician, filmmaker, and game designer—ventures into the literary world with The Failures as his first published novel. With accolades in music and short filmmaking, and a recent foray into virtual reality game design, Liar proves to be a multifaceted talent. Though his pseudonym might hint at deceit, one thing is certain: his storytelling prowess is undeniably genuine. Dive into this compelling epic, and lose yourself in the vastness of The Wanderlands.
Failures is also weird, but in a pretty different direction: in a world without sun, there’s a mountain big enough to be its own planet, and on that mountain…many different civilisations. And that’s without even getting into all the people INSIDE the mountain! Failures challenges a lot of traditional tropes and set-ups, and subverts plenty more, and it’s a book that really has to be read to be believed. And while there’s one case of devotion/obsession, and many incredible platonic relationships – no romance!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy
Representation: Secondary polyamory
Goodreads
In this gripping debut novel from acclaimed Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus Award-winning author Samantha Mills, a disgraced soldier fights to make sense of her world and the gods who abandoned it. The Wings Upon Her Back is an action-packed, devastating exploration of the brutal costs of zealous loyalty.Zenya was a teenager when she ran away to join the mechanically-modified warrior sect. She was determined to earn mechanized wings and protect the people of Radezhda, the city she loved. Under the strict tutelage of a mercurial, charismatic leader, Vodaya, Zenya finally became Winged Zemolai.
But after twenty-six years of service, Zemolai is disillusioned with her role as an enforcer in an increasingly fascist state. After one tragic act of mercy, she is brutally cast out and loses everything she worked for. As Zemolai struggles for her life, she is must question her sect, their leader, and even the gods themselves.
I realise Failures has an intimidating cover, but it’s The Wings Upon Her Back that I consider properly dark. This is a story about being radicalised – and un-radicalised; via dual-timelines, we follow Zenya as she’s gradually brainwashed as a teenager, and what happens when her adult self has to confront the reality of what she’s become, what she’s done. Mills is an incredible writer; this is such an ambitious thing to try, and DAMN does she pull it off! And that’s without touching on the worldbuilding; we have a city divided between five religious orders, each of whom revere one of the objectively real deities who founded their city. It’s a very cool set-up – just don’t expect this to be a breezy read!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy
Representation: Minor queer characters
Goodreads
A dinosaur detective in the land of unwanted ideas battles trauma, anxiety, and the first serial killer of imaginary friends.
Most ideas fade away when we're done with them. Some we love enough to become Real. But what about the ones we love, and walk away from? Tippy the triceratops was once a little girl's imaginary friend, a dinosaur detective who could help her make sense of the world. But when her father died, Tippy fell into the Stillreal, the underbelly of the Imagination, where discarded ideas go when they're too Real to disappear.
Now, he passes time doing detective work for other unwanted ideas - until Tippy runs into the Teatime Man, a nightmare monster who can do the impossible: kill an idea permanently. Now Tippy must overcome his own trauma and solve the case, before there's nothing left but imaginary corpses.
File Unders: Fantasy [ Fuzzy Fiends - Death to Imagination - Hardboiled but Sweet - Not Barney ]
Ah, Imaginary Corpse, how much do I love thee??? SO MUCH!!! The main character is an ex-imaginary friend; a yellow triceratops plushie who works as a detective. HE DE-STRESSES BY HOPPING IN THE TUMBLE-DRYER, WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED??? This does get quite heavy too, in places – despite the whole yellow-triceratops-plushie thing, it is NOT any kind of cosy fantasy – but it’s still full of so much love and wonder. Can’t recommend it enough!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown asexual aromantic MC with clinical anxiety
Goodreads
WINNER OF THE 2019 READERVIEWS AWARD FOR FANTASY!WINNER OF THE 2019 IPPY AWARD FOR FANTASY!
“Life is transformation. You change or you die.”
Ashamed of his past and overwhelmed by his future, Ronoah Genoveffa Elizzi-denna Pilanovani feels too small for his own name. After a graceless exit from his homeland in the Acharrioni desert, his anxiety has sabotaged every attempt at redemption. Asides from a fiery devotion to his godling, the one piece of home he brought with him, he has nothing.
That is, until he meets Reilin. Beguiling, bewildering Reilin, who whisks Ronoah up into a cross-continental pilgrimage to the most sacred place on the planet. The people they encounter on the way—children of the sea, a priestess and her band of storytellers, the lonely ghosts of monsters—are grim and whimsical in equal measure. Each has their part to play in rewriting Ronoah’s personal narrative.
One part fantasy travelogue, one part emotional underworld journey, The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming is a sumptuous, slow-burning story about stories and the way they shape our lives.
I don’t know which I love more; Tristen’s breathtaking prose, or extravagant worldbuilding. BOTH ARE SO VERY EXCELLENT! This duology isn’t for everybody – the main character has clinical anxiety and the realistic depiction of that, of what it’s like being in his head, is something some readers can find annoying. Personally, I found it heart-wringing to see Ronoah fighting so hard to be braver, to grow into a fuller person – it’s so hope-full. With a number of wonderful, sometimes terrifying, always thought-provoking adventures woven into the process!
My review of book one!
My review of book two!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Nigerian cast, secondary speech-impaired Muslim character, secondary F/F
Goodreads
Nigerian God-Punk - a powerful and atmospheric urban fantasy set in Lagos.
Since the Orisha War that rained thousands of deities down on the streets of Lagos, David Mogo, demigod, scours Eko’s dank underbelly for a living wage as a freelance Godhunter. Despite pulling his biggest feat yet by capturing a high god for a renowned Eko wizard, David knows his job’s bad luck. He’s proved right when the wizard conjures a legion of Taboos—feral godling-child hybrids—to seize Lagos for himself. To fix his mistake and keep Lagos standing, David teams up with his foster wizard, the high god’s twin sister and a speech-impaired Muslim teenage girl to defeat the wizard.
Mythpunk urban fantasy – in Nigeria! I don’t often enjoy urban fantasy, but Okungbowa makes it feel fresh and vital again by taking it out of the US and drawing on a culture and mythology I’m not so familiar with. With Okungbowa’s high fantasy series gaining him more attention, I hope more readers find this book of his too!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Science Fantasy
Goodreads
From one of the most imaginative writers of her generation comes an extraordinary vision of the future…
Ven was once a holy man, a keeper of ancient archives. It was his duty to interpret archaic texts, sorting useful knowledge from the heretical ideas of the Burning Age—a time of excess and climate disaster. For in Ven's world, such material must be closely guarded so that the ills that led to that cataclysmic era can never be repeated.
But when the revolutionary Brotherhood approaches Ven, pressuring him to translate stolen writings that threaten everything he once held dear, his life will be turned upside down. Torn between friendship and faith, Ven must decide how far he's willing to go to save this new world—and how much he is willing to lose.
Notes from the Burning Age is the remarkable new novel from the award-winning Claire North that puts dystopian fiction in a whole new light.
An exquisitely beautiful story about the civilisation after civilisation dealing with the re-emergence of fascism. Which makes it sound very grim – and I guess it is? Definitely parts of it are. But there’s a kind of proud elegance to it that elevates it above similar stories; a particular kind of – not spirituality or philosophy, but something that’s a bit of both – that has stayed with me. The approach to humanity’s relationship with nature especially: I love how unromanticised it is! And of course, the incredible elementals.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Polynesian-coded MC, brown cast, queerplatonic M/M
Goodreads
An impulsive word can start a war.
A timely word can stop one.
A simple act of friendship can change the course of history.Cliopher Mdang is the personal secretary of the Last Emperor of Astandalas, the Lord of Rising Stars, the Lord Magus of Zunidh, the Sun-on-Earth, the god.
He has spent more time with the Emperor of Astandalas than any other person.
He has never once touched his lord.
He has never called him by name.
He has never initiated a conversation.One day Cliopher invites the Sun-on-Earth home to the proverbially remote Vangavaye-ve for a holiday.
The mere invitation could have seen Cliopher executed for blasphemy.
The acceptance upends the world.
I throw no shade on anyone who ships them romantically, but canonically Kip and the Emperor are queerplatonic, and I defy anyone not to adore their relationship! Hands of the Emperor is a very warm, utopian story, escapist without being shallow and unbelievably feel-good. It’s one of the only books I’ve ever read to bring me to tears of joy. And it’s a great big doorstopper, so you get to enjoy it for ages!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Black queer MC
Goodreads
The fate of New Orleans rests in the hands of a wayward grifter in this novel of gods, games, and monsters.
The post–Katrina New Orleans of The City of Lost Fortunes is a place haunted by its history and by the hurricane’s destruction, a place that is hoping to survive the rebuilding of its present long enough to ensure that it has a future. Street magician Jude Dubuisson is likewise burdened by his past and by the consequences of the storm, because he has a secret: the magical ability to find lost things, a gift passed down to him by the father he has never known—a father who just happens to be more than human.
Jude has been lying low since the storm, which caused so many things to be lost that it played havoc with his magic, and he is hiding from his own power, his divine former employer, and a debt owed to the Fortune god of New Orleans.
But his six-year retirement ends abruptly when the Fortune god is murdered and Jude is drawn back into the world he tried so desperately to leave behind. A world full of magic, monsters, and miracles. A world where he must find out who is responsible for the Fortune god’s death, uncover the plot that threatens the city’s soul, and discover what his talent for lost things has always been trying to show him: what it means to be his father’s son.
Camp might have been the first author I came across to utilise the idea that three or four gods in different pantheons might be the same being, just wearing different faces at different times, and I love that! It makes for a very different kind of urban fantasy, especially coupled with Camp’s beautiful prose and obvious devotion to New Orleans. Many fans think the standalone-sequel, Gather the Fortunes, is even better; I don’t want to pick a favourite, but for both they’re such incredible reads!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Goodreads
When Daniel Blackland was six, he ingested his first bone fragment, a bit of kraken spine plucked out of the sand during a visit with his demanding, brilliant, and powerful magician father, Sebastian.
When Daniel was twelve, he watched Sebastian die at the hands of the Hierarch of Southern California, devoured for the heightened magic layered deep within his bones.
Now, years later, Daniel is a petty thief with a forged identity. Hiding amid the crowds in Los Angeles—the capital of the Kingdom of Southern California—Daniel is trying to go straight. But his crime-boss uncle has a heist he wants Daniel to perform: break into the Hierarch's storehouse of magical artifacts and retrieve Sebastian's sword, an object of untold power.For this dangerous mission, Daniel will need a team he can rely on, so he brings in his closest friends from his years in the criminal world. There's Moth, who can take a bullet and heal in mere minutes. Jo Alverado, illusionist. The multitalented Cassandra, Daniel’s ex. And, new to them all, the enigmatic, knowledgeable Emma, with her British accent and her own grudge against the powers-that-be. The stakes are high, and the stage is set for a showdown that might just break the magic that protects a long-corrupt regime.
Extravagant and yet moving, Greg van Eekhout's California Bones is an epic adventure set in a city of canals and secrets and casual brutality--different from the world we know, yet familiar and true.
Do you love casts of misfits plotting impossible heists? Do you like unique, creepy magic? Then California Bones is DEFINITELY for you! In this setting, magic comes from consuming the bones of magical creatures – kraken, dragons, etc. But they’re all fossils, and fossils eventually run out (if a bunch of mages are eating them all), so the next step…is eating the mages who ate the fossils. Yep, brace for cannibalism! (Fairly graphic but never quite on-page.) This works pretty well as a standalone, but there are two more books in the series if you fall in love with it!
Genres: Fantasy, Science Fantasy, YA
Goodreads
A girl who sees ghosts navigates a world of magical haves and have-nots, in the “ingenious, insightful debut” of a dystopian fantasy epic (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
In the City, magic guarantees a life free from illness, hunger and hardship—unless, of course, you have none. Without even a spark of bright magic, Xhea can't even buy breakfast, let alone tell the City's systems that she exists. But she does have a special gift: an ability to see ghosts and control the tethers that bind them to the living world.
Xhea thought she knew everything about ghosts—until she took possession of Shai, the ghost of a girl who hasn't actually died. Suddenly Xhea finds herself hunted through the Lower City's dangerous streets. Because Shai's body has been stolen, her ghost is running scared, and Xhea is now trapped between two powerful entities that will stop at nothing to regain the girl, dead or alive.
But soon the manhunt for the living ghost is eclipsed by the strange power that Shai's presence brings to life in Xhea: a dark magic that is slowly growing in power. A magic whose very touch brings death… In this “captivating start” to the Towers Trilogy, a multiple Nebula nominee invites readers into a dark and dangerous world that is about be changed by two remarkable girls (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
I’m pretty sure this trilogy was the first series I ever read that has NO ROMANCE ANYWHERE – the central relationship is the friendship between Xhea and Shai, and it’s a beautiful one. This is such a compelling trilogy about privilige, particularly wealth, in what I can only call a magical post-apocalyptic setting – with extremely cool magic, at that!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Goodreads
When Ombria’s prince, Royce Greve, breathes his last—in palace rooms high above the city—he leaves his young son and mistress at the mercy of his ancient and powerful great-aunt, Domina Pearl. Meanwhile, in a dreamlike underworld peopled by Ombria’s ghosts, a sorceress weaves her spells and brews her potions, never revealing her real face—or true heart. And somewhere in between, the struggle to rule the whole of Ombria—both its light and shadows—will rest in the hands of those whose fractured lives align like the lost pieces of a magical puzzle….
A rich, ornate fantasy without a stitch of romance in it anywhere! A young girl raised by a sorceress, a prince’s mistress, and a noble bastard with a penchant for shadowy corners are entangled with one another through the machinations – or rather, trying to obstruct the machinations – of a scary lady with magics of her own. If you’ve not read McKillip before, I think this is a great one of hers to start with, and believe me, you are in for a TREAT!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Goodreads
Two years after his untimely death, Matthew Swift finds himself breathing once again, lying in bed in his London home.
Except that it's no longer his bed, or his home. And the last time this sorcerer was seen alive, an unknown assailant had gouged a hole so deep in his chest that his death was irrefutable...despite his body never being found.
He doesn't have long to mull over his resurrection, though, or the changes that have been wrought upon him. His only concern now is vengeance. Vengeance upon his monstrous killer and vengeance upon the one who brought him back.
You can’t date when you share your body with a million blue electric angels, okay? And to do him credit, Matthew, the protagonist of this series, never even tries. But EASILY the coolest thing about this series is the breath-of-fresh-air take on urban fantasy – golems built out of trash, sigils painted in graffiti, prophecies writ in the patterns of plastic bags blown in the wind, and rituals wrought out of the patterns of rush-hour are just the tip of the iceberg. The moment I knew I’d found something special was the scene, early in the first book, when the eponymous Matthew Swift crafts a protection spell by swiping his travel card and standing on one side of the turnstile – turning the terms and conditions on his card into a protection spell from the monster stuck on the other side. Griffin does that over and over, taking the mundane and turning it into magic, from night buses to pigeons to phone lines to the Dragon of London, and it’s a ridiculously incredible thing to watch. Nobody does urban fantasy like the Matthew Swift series, because only these books literally build fantasy out of the urban!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Refugee BIPOC nonbinary aroace MC with c-PTSD, BIPOC trans male side character, queer BIPOC female side character with c-PTSD, QBIPOC supporting cast, nonbinary side characters that use neopronouns, WLW side pairing, muslim inspired religious characters, chronically-ill side characters
Goodreads
In this intricate debut fantasy introducing a queernormative Persian-inspired world, a nonbinary refugee practitioner of blood magic discovers a strange disease that causes political rifts in their new homeland. Persian-American author Naseem Jamnia has crafted a gripping narrative with a moving, nuanced exploration of immigration, gender, healing, and family.
Firuz-e Jafari is fortunate enough to have immigrated to the Free Democratic City-State of Qilwa, fleeing the slaughter of other traditional Sassanian blood magic practitioners in their homeland. Despite the status of refugees in their new home, Firuz has a good job at a free healing clinic in Qilwa, working with Kofi, a kindly new employer, and mentoring Afsoneh, a troubled orphan refugee with powerful magic.
But Firuz and Kofi have discovered a terrible new disease which leaves mysterious bruises on its victims. The illness is spreading quickly through Qilwa, and there are dangerous accusations of ineptly performed blood magic. In order to survive, Firuz must break a deadly cycle of prejudice, untangle sociopolitical constraints, and find a fresh start for their both their blood and found family.
Powerful and fascinating, The Bruising of Qilwa is the newest arrival in the era of fantasy classics such as the Broken Earth Trilogy, The Four Profound Weaves, and Who Fears Death.
A really lovely, slow-paced novella that goes hard on the found-family vibes in a gorgeous Persian-inspired setting! Bonus: expect sweet cravings; the many treats described are mouth-watering!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Portal Fantasy
Goodreads
A gifted psychiatrist, Daniel Dodson is perfectly aware that he's in a tough place personally following the death of his wife. Then a mysterious new patient offers a welcome professional distraction.The world of swords and magic that Tenai so vividly remembers obviously can't be real. The deadly enmity and long war that left such deep emotional scars plainly symbolize something else. But perhaps Daniel can use the signposts of those confabulated memories to aid Tenai in moving forward into a new life in the real world.
It’s always interesting when the main character of a book isn’t the main character of the story, and that’s very much the case in the Death’s Lady series. The books follow a perfectly normal dad and his daughter as they get swept into another world – by accident: the people doing the sweeping were trying to get the immortal Tenai, the Death’s Lady of the series title. Tenai is the one with a backstory and destiny out of legend, but the books aren’t from her POV, and for once I think that was an excellent choice!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Goodreads
The unhappy child of two powerful parents who despise each other, young Lilly turns to the ocean to find solace, which she finds in the form of the eloquent and intelligent sea monster Octavius, a kraken. In Octavius’s many arms, Lilly learns of friendship, loyalty, and family. When Octavius, forbidden by Lilly to harm humans, is captured by seafaring traders and sold to a circus, Lilly becomes his only hope for salvation.
Desperate to find him, she strikes a bargain with a witch that carries a shocking price.
Her journey to win Octavius’s freedom is difficult. The circus master wants a Coat of Illusions; the Coat tailor wants her undead husband back from a witch; the witch wants her skin back from two bandits; the bandits just want some company, but they might kill her first. Lilly's quest tests her resolve, tries her patience, and leaves her transformed in every way.
Sea Change feels like a sort of dark fairytale, feral and beautiful and strange. In trying to rescue her best (and only) friend, who happens to be a kraken, Lilly ends up on a nested series of quests, where acquiring the quest object she’s been set requires completing another quest, which requires another, and so on. (The very first of these necessitates giving up her sex – not her gender – and it gets stranger from there.) Brace for skinless witches and terrible parents, and don’t expect a happily-ever-after ending!
Sci Fi
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
Representation: Brown cast
Goodreads
Celebrated author Sofia Samatar presents a mystical, revolutionary space adventure for the exhausted dreamer in this brilliant science fiction novella tackling the carceral state and violence embedded in the ivory tower while embodying the legacy of Ursula K. Le Guin.
"Can the University be a place of both training and transformation?"
The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels of a mining ship out amongst the stars.
His whole world changes―literally―when he is yanked "upstairs" to meet the woman he will come to call “professor.” The boy is no longer one of the Chained, she tells him, and he has been gifted an opportunity to be educated at the ship’s university alongside the elite.
The woman has spent her career striving for acceptance and validation from her colleagues in the hopes of reaching a brighter future, only to fall short at every turn.
Together, the boy and the woman will learn from each other to grasp the design of the chains designed to fetter them both, and are the key to breaking free. They will embark on a transformation―and redesign the entire world.
Being a book from Sofia Samatar, it goes without saying that this is a wildly powerful and thought-provoking book! And super readable; I’m still not sure I entirely understood everything Samatar was doing, but in the way that makes you want to read it again to try and puzzle it out, not in the way that leaves you feeling stupid. It’s a gut-wrenching story of classism and academic toxicity, and it is haunting. Expect this one to linger with you!
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: MCM MC
Goodreads
The Ragpicker wanders the lush, deserted Earth, haunted by failing avatars and fragmented texts. He’ s searching for traces of his long-dead husband but his journey is interrupted by a girl, Ysmeny, fleeing her remote village. Together they cross the flourishing, treacherous landscape towards sanctuary. Yet the signals and static of the previous age echo in the Ragpicker’ s mind and whisper in the girl’ s dreams, drawing them toward the gap between map and territory— while offering precious hope.
One of our protagonists is trying to get to an archive of his dead husband’s memories…but I still posit that Ragpicker is a no-romance book. It’s kind of difficult to say what it is: it’s post-apocalyptic, but strangely hopeful? It’s a little bit of a quest-story, and an exploration of a post-apocalyptic landscape that is weirdly easy to believe in, and gods damn will it hit you in the Feels! If you appreciate smaller-scale stories – where the stakes are not the world, only the lives of two very different people – you’ll probably love this one.
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi, Speculative Fiction
Representation: QBIPOC cast
Goodreads
By the middle of the twenty-first century, war, famine, economic collapse, and climate catastrophe had toppled the world's governments. In the 2050s, the insurrections reached the nerve center of global capitalism—New York City. This book, a collection of interviews with the people who made the revolution, was published to mark the twentieth anniversary of the New York Commune, a radically new social order forged in the ashes of capitalist collapse.
Here is the insurrection in the words of the people who made it, a cast as diverse as the city itself. Nurses, sex workers, antifascist militants, and survivors of all stripes recall the collapse of life as they knew it and the emergence of a collective alternative. Their stories, delivered in deeply human fashion, together outline how ordinary people's efforts to survive in the face of crisis contain the seeds of a new world.
If we burned capitalism to the ground, what might we build out of the ashes? That’s basically the premise of Everything For Everyone, which takes the conceit of recording the stories of those who helped – in many different ways – create a new world, where capitalism is gone and what’s left is the way of the commune. SFF is not usually very good at imagining what the process of change might look like – stories tend to stop just before the rebuilding-after-defeating-Evil happens, or start just after. But Everything For Everyone is a story about what the future might look like, and, crucially, how we might get there. Which is one reason it’s among my most treasured books of all time.
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC
Goodreads
This is a standalone novel exploring sentience and artificial intelligence through the lenses of conflicted robot hero Unit Four.
When Unit Four—a biological soft robot built and stored high above the Jovian atmosphere—is activated for the first time, it’s in crisis mode. Aliens are attacking the Helium-3 mine it was created to oversee, and now its sole purpose is to defend Earth’s largest energy resource from the invaders in ship-to-ship combat.
But something’s wrong. Unit Four doesn’t feel quite right.
There are files in its databanks it can’t account for, unusual chemical combinations roaring through its pipes, and the primers it possesses on the aliens are suspiciously sparse. The robot is under orders to seek and destroy. That’s all it knows.
According to its handler, that’s all it needs to know.Determined to fulfill its directives, Unit Four launches its ship and goes on the attack, but it has no idea it’s about to get caught in a downward spiral of misinformation, reprograming, and interstellar conflict.
Most robots are simple tools. Unit Four is well on its way to becoming something more....
Perfect for anyone who covets flip-the-world-upside-down reveals: I defy you to spot the twist coming! This is a deeply messed-up sci fi where poor Unit Four doesn’t realise how terrible its situation is…until surprise outsiders show up. Which is a set-up you’ve probably come across before, but I really did enjoy Lostetter’s execution.
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary/agender MC, gender-blind culture
Goodreads
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.
Breq is both more than she seems and less than she was. Years ago, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship and an artificial intelligence controlling thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.
An act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with only one fragile human body. But that might just be enough to take revenge against those who destroyed her.
If you somehow have not yet read this series, you are in for a TREAT! Addictively readable, this is a revenge-quest set faaaar in the future, where humanity looks very different from how we are now. Famous for introducing a gender-blind culture that uses she/her for everyone. Expect war crimes, sentient spaceships, and an emperor with dozens of bodies!
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC, neurodivergent sapphic MC, hispanic secondary character
Goodreads
Mars is a strange place these days. Corporate overlords, capitalism, and even aging are things of the past on a planet increasingly brimming with biodiversity - yet pizzerias are in short supply!
Siblings Hett and San set out to change that. But a roboticist and a bureaucrat can't run a restaurant alone, so they bring on some help - a bioengineer, a communications scientist, and an unlikely grad student from Earth. Together, this gang of geeks will brave the fires of small business.
But work is just a small part of life. People are complicated. Different brains, different wounds, different values, and one questionably tame wildcat will all collide as they try to grow and succeed together. What comes out of the oven, in the end, is anyone's guess.
Cosy fantasy is a big thing at the moment; I think it would be fair to call Slice of Mars cosy sci fi. Far in the future, two siblings decide to open a pizza parlour (unheard of in their city) and hire a few specialists to help. What follows is a quietly thoughtful exploration of what immortality might look like in the future; an imperfect approach to a utopia; and a wonderful caracal named Pumpkin. Very much a hot chocolate book, but with plenty of new (and sometimes very strange!) ideas to chew over.
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC
ISBN: 0062684841
Goodreads
“One of the most intriguing future cities in years.” —Charlie Jane Anders
“Simmers with menace and heartache, suspense and wonder.” —Ann Leckie
A Best Book of the Month in
Entertainment Weekly
The Washington Post
Tor.com
B&N Sci-Fi Fantasy Blog
AmazonAfter the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy. The city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, however, the city is starting to fray along the edges—crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population.
When a strange new visitor arrives—a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side—the city is entranced. The “orcamancer,” as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people—each living on the periphery—to stage unprecedented acts of resistance. By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves.
Blackfish City is a remarkably urgent—and ultimately very hopeful—novel about political corruption, organized crime, technology run amok, the consequences of climate change, gender identity, and the unifying power of human connection.
Do you want to read a book about someone called an orcamancer??? Of course you do. No more needs to be said, surely!
Science Fantasy
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: Aromantic MC, queerplatonic M/M
Goodreads
Interstellar fugitive Idrian Delaciel will die by inches, and Remy Canta will laugh as he goes.
Five years ago, Idrian ordered a withering—a death curse—cast on Remy's brother that cost him his life, and Remy hasn't been the same since. Now Remy finally has the materials he needs to return the favour, but he has one major problem. When he casts the withering, it rebounds onto him.
The implications are unthinkable: Remy is fatebound to his brother's killer.
Even worse, the only way to slow the curse for long enough to find a cure is to join forces with Idrian and his criminal crew. But when he gets there, Remy discovers there are more than just their lives at stake.
Idrian is the sole provider of life-saving supplies to tens of thousands of innocents, and when he dies, they'll die with him. Caught up in perilous heists and a race against time, Remy finds himself truly living for the first time since his brother died.
Too bad for Remy—the only way to stop a withering is to kill the witherer.
Winter's Orbit meets The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet in this story of loss, power, and privilege with a queerplatonic hate to love story at its heart.
A deliciously thorny, there-are-no-good-answers science fantasy that wrestles with some very hard questions, Empty Isles is very big on friendship and found-family. The ending is, imo, a little bit of a let-down, but it’s still a great read and one that explicitly addresses aromantacism, albeit briefly.
Genres: Adult, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Asexual MC, secondary nonbinary characters
Goodreads
When a young man's planet is destroyed, he sets out on a single-minded quest for revenge across the galaxy in Nophek Gloss, the first book in this epic space opera trilogy by debut author Essa Hansen, for fans of Revenger and Children of Time.
Caiden's planet is destroyed. His family gone. And, his only hope for survival is a crew of misfit aliens and a mysterious ship that seems to have a soul and a universe of its own. Together they will show him that the universe is much bigger, much more advanced, and much more mysterious than Caiden had ever imagined. But the universe hides dangers as well, and soon Caiden has his own plans.
He vows to do anything it takes to get revenge on the slavers who murdered his people and took away his home. To destroy their regime, he must infiltrate and dismantle them from the inside, or die trying.
What if the universe was made up of bubbles??? That’s kind of the premise here, where each universe is a bubble, and only some people can pass through the bubble’s walls to the next bubble (who can pass through which walls depends on the wall). Nophek Gloss manages to be pretty dark while also being very beautiful; Hansen has put a lot of effort into creating a far-future setting (multiple settings, really) that are strange and alien and pretty – forget your sterile, boring, all-white-corridors sci fi! Plus, hundreds of different kinds of aliens. YES PLEASE!
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: Brown bi/pansexual cast, secondary asexual character
Goodreads
From the author of the Maradaine saga comes a new steampunk fantasy novel that explores a chaotic city on the verge of revolution.
Ziaparr: a city being rebuilt after years of mechanized and magical warfare, the capital of a ravaged nation on the verge of renewal and self-rule. But unrest foments as undercaste cycle gangs raid supply trucks, agitate the populace and vandalize the city. A revolution is brewing in the slums and shantytowns against the occupying government, led by a voice on the radio, connected through forbidden magic.
Wenthi Tungét, a talented cycle rider and a loyal officer in the city patrol, is assigned to infiltrate the cycle gangs. For his mission against the insurgents, Wenthi must use their magic, connecting his mind to Nália, a recently captured rebel, using her knowledge to find his way into the heart of the rebellion.
Wenthi's skill on a cycle makes him valuable to the resistance cell he joins, but he discovers that the magic enhances with speed. Every ride intensifies his connection, drawing him closer to the gang he must betray, and strengthens Nália's presence as she haunts his mind.
Wenthi is torn between justice and duty, and the wrong choice will light a spark in a city on the verge of combustion.
There is a great deal of (non-graphic) sex in this book, but no romance, and I’ve rarely seen the separation of romance and sex done so well! But there’s plenty of other amazing things about Velocity of Revolution: magic wrought with motorbikes; extremely psychedelic mushrooms; fighting back against colonialism; and tacos written so deliciously you WILL get hunger pangs!
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi, Science Fantasy, YA
Representation: Asexual MC
Goodreads
Wasp's job is simple. Hunt ghosts. And every year she has to fight to remain Archivist. Desperate and alone, she strikes a bargain with the ghost of a supersoldier. She will go with him on his underworld hunt for the long-long ghost of his partner and in exchange she will find out more about his pre-apocalyptic world than any Archivist before her. And there is much to know. After all, Archivists are marked from birth to do the holy work of a goddess. They're chosen. They're special. Or so they've been told for four hundred years.
Archivist Wasp fears she is not the chosen one, that she won't survive the trip to the underworld, that the brutal life she has escaped might be better than where she is going. There is only one way to find out.
If you’ve gone looking for ace SFF books before, you’ve probably come across recs for Archivist Wasp – with good reason! It’s an ace/aromantic classic for a reason, with an incredible premise: after some kind of apocalyptic event, ghosts are all too real, and need tending. In the process of dealing with one, Wasp…ends up somewhere extremely strange. This is a very cool example of the author telling a story the audience can understand but the main character can’t, which is always excellent when done well – and it’s done very well here!
Horror
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Asexual aromantic MC, queerplatonic M/M, queernorm world
Goodreads
Skythulf wants to live. Raised in the fight pits, trained to kill or be killed, he yearns for freedom that's out of reach. He's a scythewulf: a wolf-shifter considered neither fully man nor beast, his life worth nothing to his keepers…until Brennus, knight-champion of Saorlland, rescues him from certain death and offers him a new life.
When he mistakenly kills a corrupted nun, Skythulf has one chance to redeem himself and restore his honor. He must run with the Wild Hunt: an age-old trial of blood and courage, where every step hides peril and carnage. If he survives, he will be pardoned. If he fails, Brennus will die brutally at his side.
Few have ever returned from the fae-haunted land, where horrors unnamed dwell beside the enchanted and the damned. There is no rest, no relent, and no mercy.
In the Wild Hunt, you run or you die.
I first read this novella while cooking, and, um. DON’T DO THAT. Wolfmoor’s prose and worldbuilding are breathtakingly beautiful, but gods damn, the horror is nauseating and terrifying. I still have nightmares, and I’m still pining for the sequel. (When you’re done with this, go read everything else Wolfmoor’s ever written, m’kay? You won’t regret it!)
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC
Goodreads
A detective investigating a grisly crime in rural Alaska finds herself caught up in the dark secrets and superstitions of a small town in this riveting novel from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man
Deadhart, Alaska. 873. Living.
In a small Alaska town, a boy is found with his throat ripped out and all the blood drained from his body. The inhabitants of Deadhart haven’t seen a killing like this in twenty-five years. But they know who’s responsible: a member of the Colony, an ostracized community of vampyrs living in an old mine settlement deep in the woods.
Detective Barbara Atkins, a specialist in vampyr killings, is called in to officially determine if this is a Colony killing—and authorize a cull. Old suspicions die hard in a town like Deadhart, but Barbara isn’t so sure. Determined to find the truth, she enlists the help of a former Deadhart sheriff, Jenson Tucker, whose investigation into the previous murder almost cost him his life. Since then, Tucker has become a recluse. But he knows the Colony better than almost anyone.
As the pair delve into the town’s history, they uncover secrets darker than they could have imagined. And then another body is found. While the snow thickens and the nights grow longer, a killer stalks Deadhart, and two disparate communities circle each other for blood. Time is running out for Atkins and Tucker to find the truth: Are they hunting a bloodthirsty monster . . . or a twisted psychopath? And which is more dangerous?
Grim, addictive, with excellent worldbuilding, The Gathering hit me like an ambush predator – it wasn’t on my radar at all, I picked it up on a whim, and it ended up an instant new fave! An overweight lesbian investigator has to try and work out if a vampire killing is what it looks like – if she gives the all-clear, the local vamps will be purged; if she doesn’t, the local humans might riot. The anti-vampire prejudice is horrifying, and I need a bazillion sequels already!
Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC
Goodreads
In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies.
For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed.
In the frozen north, the Institute’s body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron’s castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again.'
What if a monster hivemind decided to play doctor, within a post-apocalyptic gothic setting??? Ennes became an instant auto-buy author for me after their debut, even if (maybe because of?) the body-horror had me gagging. Much approved!
Genres: Adult, Horror
Published on: 28th September 2021
Goodreads
The highly-anticipated paperback release of our lead title for Fall 2021 - a fresh, rich, American Gothic "yarn" with a highly relatable female lead.
Don’t trust the Liar.
Do not cross the King.
Never, ever go in the River.In Red Valley, California, you follow the rules if you want to stay alive. But they won’t be enough to protect Sadie now that she’s become the Liar, the keeper of the town’s many secrets. Friendships are hard-won here, and it isn’t safe to make enemies.
And though the Liar has power — power to remake the world, with just a little blood—what Sadie really needs is answers: Why is the town’s sheriff after her? What does the King want from her? And what is the real purpose of the Liar of Red Valley?
If the Liar of Red Valley puts a lie in her book…it becomes true. And then she dies, and her daughter is left trying not to drown under the weight of her new power and responsibility. I loved the magic, and all the layers of secrets and twists and reveals, and Goodwater’s prose is compulsively readable. Not really horrifying, like the other horror books here, but a lot of fun!
And that’s all I’ve got for you! Leave your own no-romance SFF recs in the comments!
An incredible list! Oh, that made me want to re-read not a few of them, and read for the first time ALL THE REST! Thank you for this!
Thank you! :D
I wanted to tell you this proved useful almost immediately at Boskone, when a young writer confessed how much they liked fantasy but was so tired of romance. I sent them FORTHWITH here!
Ahhhhh, that makes me so happy!!! Such great timing! Thank you for telling me! :D