The Wyrd & Wonder theme this year is Moon – in honour of the TWO full moons we have this month! So I REALLY wanted to make a list of books with plot-relevant moons – mostly to see if I could. (And if I could do it without resorting to werewolf books.)
And you know what? I did find enough to make a decent-sized list! Ta daaa!
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown cast, queer MC, queer amputee MC, M/M
Goodreads
Two warriors shepherd an ancient god across a broken land to end the tyrannical reign of a royal family in this new epic fantasy from the author of The Vanished Birds.
The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.
But that god cannot be contained forever.
With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom—and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined.
Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga that will transport and transform you—and is like nothing you’ve ever read before.
The moon goddess is the ancestress of the royal family in Spear Cuts Through Water – and decides she’s had enough of her terrible descendants. So she escapes, with the help of Jun and Keema. There’s a LOT more to the story than that, but that’s the central plotline!
Smiler's Fair (The Hollow Gods, #1) by Rebecca Levene
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy
Goodreads
Yron the moon god died, but now he's reborn in the false king's son. His human father wanted to kill him, but his mother sacrificed her life to save him. He'll return one day to claim his birthright. He'll change your life.
He'll change everything.
Smiler's Fair: the great moving carnival where any pleasure can be had, if you're willing to pay the price. They say all paths cross at Smiler's Fair. They say it'll change your life. For five people, Smiler's Fair will change everything.
In a land where unimaginable horror lurks in the shadows, where the very sun and moon are at war, five people - Nethmi, the orphaned daughter of a murdered nobleman, who in desperation commits an act that will haunt her forever. Dae Hyo, the skilled warrior, who discovers that a lifetime of bravery cannot make up for a single mistake. Eric, who follows his heart only to find that love exacts a terrible price. Marvan, the master swordsman, who takes more pleasure from killing than he should. And Krish, the humble goatherd, with a destiny he hardly understands and can never accept - will discover just how much Smiler's Fair changes everything.
Another book – actually this is a four-book series! – about a moon-god! A reborn one, at that. And unlike the goddess in Spear Cuts Through Water, nobody knows this one is a god. Smiler’s Fair is kind of what you’d get if you made The Night Circus grimdark – wild, weird, original, and real dark. (Or so I’ve been told – I haven’t read this one yet, but I’m dying to!)
Daughters of Flood and Fury (Stormbringer #2) by Gabriella Buba
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Filipino-inspired cast and setting, bisexual MCs, lesbian MC, F/F
Goodreads
In this powerful sequel to Saints of Storm and Sorrow, Lunurin and Alon struggle to unify the archipelago against the returning Codicíans, while Inez embraces her power and makes new allies among the ruthless pirates of the South Sea.
Enthralling Filipino-inspired fantasy for fans of The Hurricane Wars, R.F. Kuang and Tasha Suri.
Several years after the defeat of the Codicíans in Aynila, Lunurin and Alon are fighting to solidify their alliances across the archipelago. But petty rivalries, suspicion and conflicted loyalties threaten to undermine their efforts.
Inez has been training as a tide-touched healer with Alon, but the gentle side of Aman Sinaya's gift does not come naturally to her. When she hears a rumour that her sister Catalina is living among a group of missionaries on a nearby island, Inez embarks on a dangerous journey over the sea. Aboard a pirate ship, she meets Umali, the boat's fierce fire-tender captain. Umali has never been gentle, and she burns brighter than anyone Inez has ever known.
Lunurin and Alon are desperate to follow Inez, but the Codícians are closing in with a powerful armada to retake Aynila. To stand any chance, Lunurin must unify the disparate factions of her forces before the festival of the eclipse, when the world's magic will be at its strongest.
Three goddesses stand behind them. But without human allies, even that power may not be enough to save their islands and the people they love.
Every active volcano in the archipelago eventually hosts the Amihan Moon – when the full moon is perfectly aligned with the volcano in question, appearing to nestle into the volcano’s caldera. Now it’s about to happen on the island of Aynila – which means all the wild magic of the archipelago is converging on the island, and specifically on its magic-users. Everyone – including tide-touched Inez, able to manipulate water, and Lunarin, who calls typhoons – has had their magic turned up to 11. And have to deal with that.
The other thing about the Amihan Moon is that the laho – a giant sea-dragon – always comes to the festival to try and swallow the moon. A good chunk of the book is Lunarin and her husband Alon readying the island-wide rituals that are required to keep the laho from doing that! And a good chunk of the rest of it is Inez, in particular, wrestling with her power, which she has never had great control over – a situation that, naturally, is made much worse by the Amihan Moon strengthening her…
The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (Fairyland, #3) by Catherynne M. Valente
Genres: Fantasy, MG
Goodreads
September misses Fairyland and her friends Ell, the Wyverary, and the boy Saturday. She longs to leave the routines of home, and embark on a new adventure. Little does she know that this time, she will be spirited away to the moon, reunited with her friends, and find herself faced with saving Fairyland from a moon-Yeti with great and mysterious powers.
Here is another rich, beautifully told, wisely humorous and passionately layered book from New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente.
In book three of the Fairyland series, the moon – specifically, the moon of Fairyland, not the moon you and I know – is the setting! It would be plot-relevant for that reason alone – but MOON-QUAKES are happening, and September and her friends are going to find out why…
Sisters of the Raven (Sisters of the Raven, #1) by Barbara Hambly
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Goodreads
The Yellow City is in crisis. Men have always possessed the magic that sustains civilization, from healing the sick to calling the rains to keeping the mice from the granaries. Now the rains are weeks late, the wells are drying up, and the Sun Mages cannot summon the powers that the empire needs to survive. When magic appears-inexplicably-in the hands of a few women, the men react swiftly and furiously. Raeshaldis, the only girl ever accepted to the College of the Sun Mages, finds the mages won't teach her the spells. Corn-Tassle Woman's budding powers can't protect her from an abusive husband. And the Summer Concubine must play the dutiful consort even as danger looms for her Raven sisters. For while famine threatens and fanatics riot, someone is killing the most gifted female magic-workers...
The moon is INCREDIBLY plot-relevant in this series, but you only find out how in the very final pages of book two…
The Mercy Makers (The Moon Heresies, #1) by Tessa Gratton
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bi/pansexual brown MC, secondary brown sapphic character, minor nonbinary character, minor trans character, queernorm world
Goodreads
A talented heretic must decide between the pursuit of forbidden magic, or the ecstasy of forbidden love—either way, her choice will upend the world, in the start of a sweeping, romantic epic fantasy trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Tessa Gratton.
Can an empire trip and fall on a mere strand of silk?
Iriset is a prodigy and an outlaw. The daughter of a powerful criminal, she dons her alter ego Silk to create magical disguises for those in her father’s organization, but she longs to do more with her talent: to enhance what it means to be human by giving people wings, night-sight, and other abilities; to unlock the possibilities of gender and parenthood; to cure disease and even to end mortality itself.
Everything changes when her father is captured and sentenced to death. To save him, Iriset must infiltrate the palace and the empire’s fanatical ruling family. There, she realizes she has a chance—and an obligation—to bring down the entire corrupt system. She'll have to entangle herself in the lives of the emperor and his sister, getting them to trust and even to love her. But love is a two-way street, and Iriset’s own heart holds the most mysterious and impenetrable magic of all.
The setting of the Moon Heresies series is a crater created by a fallen moon – and its civilisation is powerfully shaped by what came out of that fallen moon. But it’s not just that; this world’s other moon doesn’t move – it hangs perfectly suspended above the crater, and the city in it. And an enormous amount of the plot in Shape of Monsters (which releases next month) revolves around that fallen moon, and how exactly the other moon ended up frozen in place…
The Mirror Empire (Worldbreaker Saga, #1) by Kameron Hurley
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Representation: Disabled MC
Goodreads
On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past… while a world goes to war with itself.
In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin.
As the dark star of the cataclysm rises, an illegitimate ruler is tasked with holding together a country fractured by civil war, a precocious young fighter is asked to betray his family and a half-Dhai general must choose between the eradication of her father’s people or loyalty to her alien Empress.
Through tense alliances and devastating betrayal, the Dhai and their allies attempt to hold against a seemingly unstoppable force as enemy nations prepare for a coming together of worlds as old as the universe itself.
In the end, one world will rise – and many will perish.
This might be cheating a little, because sometimes these astrological bodies are referred to by the characters as ‘stars’. But they’re satellites! That’s literally the definition of a moon, an astronomical body that orbits something else! So.
In this setting, different kinds of magic-users draw their power from different satellites: Para, Tira, Sina, and Oma. Whichever satellite is in ascendance, those magic-users are most powerful, and the rest have little or no magical power. Since each kind of magic works in different ways and is good for different things, the passage of these moons has an enormous effect on history, on how civilisations develop – depending on which magic is available to people at any given time…
Mostly, the cycle of the satellites is reasonably predictable – but Oma can show up without warning, and its arrival is what kicks off the events of the trilogy. See, oma-jistas – the mages whose power comes from Oma – can open gates between worlds…
The Moon King by Neil Williamson
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Goodreads
All is not well in Glassholm. Life under the moon has always been so predictable: day follows night, wax phases to wane and, after the despair of every Darkday, a person’s mood soars to euphoria at Full. So it has been for five hundred years, ever since the Lunane captured the moon and tethered it to the city.
Now, all that has changed. Amidst rumours of unsettling dreams and strange whispering children, society is disintegrating into unrest and violence. The very sea has turned against Glassholm and the island’s luck monkeys have gone wild, distributing new fates to all and sundry. Turmoil is coming.
Three people find themselves at the eye of the storm: a former policeman investigating a series of macabre murders, an outsider artist embroiled in the murky intrigues of revolution, and a renegade engineer tasked with fixing the ancient machine at the city’s heart. Each must fulfil their role or see Glassholm shaken apart, while all are subject to the machinations of their inscrutable and eternal monarch, The Moon King.
As in the Moon Heresies series, Moon King features a moon that is hanging in place above a city, unmoving. But it still waxes and wanes, and the emotional/mental state of the city’s population is tied to the moon’s cycle. People don’t turn into wolves when the moon is full – but they do become manic, euphoric, risk-taking. Then as the moon wanes, people become – more and more depressed, really. Everyone knows that dark of the moon is when the worst, most horrific crimes are committed. So the plot – by virtue of the characters’ mental-states affecting their decision-making, or lack thereof – is very much shaped by the moon here!
First Mage on the Moon by Cameron Johnston
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Wheelchair-bound MC
Goodreads
Cameron Johnston returns in this innovative space fantasy, where wizards race to be the first on the moon – also known as the land of the gods. A fast paced read perfect for fans of Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Ella Pickering is drowning in debt. Once a Unity skymage trained to make aerial supply runs in the great war with the Ranneas Empire, following a crash she now uses a wheelchair and works gruelling shifts making magical weapons in the Unity workshops, thinking of better days.
One night Ella witnesses an experiment by engineer Jackan Grissom go awry. His device morphs into a crude rocket blasting skywards before falling into the war’s spell-ravaged No Man’s Land. But this inspires a dangerous dream: could such a device reach the moon – the forbidden home of the gods? Could they go and beg them to stop the war?
They will need help, but as more folk get involved in their blasphemous plot, can they keep it under wraps? Can magic get them to the moon? Or will their heresy lead them to the gallows?
I mean. Do I really need to explain? Obviously the moon is plot-relevant in a book about mages trying to travel to the moon! It’s in the title!!!
The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) by N.K. Jemisin
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Science Fantasy
Representation: Black cast, major gay character, F/M/M polyamory, secondary trans character
Goodreads
This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
If you know, you know!
If you know other examples of plot-relevant moons, I’d love to hear about them!
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