The best books that transport you to another time and place

The dreary desolation of the ash-covered Final Empire sets the tone for this heist story featuring a ragtag band of revolutionaries intent on taking down the immortal Lord Ruler. From the dark streets and seedy bars where the heroes make their plans to the lux parties of the elite, the Final Empire is as much a part of the story as the characters. Most of the story takes place in Luthadel, the capital city where their target, the Lord Ruler, reigns over a city being crushed under the weight of so much inequity and hopelessness. Sanderson builds this world so well that by the end of the prologue, you understand why things have to change and you’re willing to go to the extremes along with the characters to make that happen.

If you’ve ever wondered what life was like for the people living in the Americas after the last ice age, then read this book. Through the eyes of Young Hunter, we explore what we now call New England thousands of years before the first Europeans crossed the Atlantic. And through Young Hunter, we learn to use weapons, how to survive in the wild, Native American folktales and names, and we learn why Young Hunter’s people fear beings called the Ancient Ones. All of these worldbuilding layers are revealed as Young Hunter embarks on a dangerous journey tracking the creatures that attacked his people, with each layer drawing you in until you are as fearful of the Ancient Ones as Young Hunter and just as determined to face them.

This historical fiction takes you deep into the Ottoman Empire of the 1400s. Lada and Radu are sent to live among the sultan’s court in exchange for their father, Vlad Dracul, retaining his hold on the throne of Wallachia. The story begins in Wallachia then moves to the sultan’s palace. The contrast between these two places, from the descriptions of the food, landscape, and people to the different customs of these oft-opposed cultures (one Muslim, the other Christian) is brought to vivid life through White’s engaging prose.

When I first read Fingersmith, I was so impressed that a contemporary author had written a book so rooted in the aesthetics of the Victorian time period that I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Waters had been transported from Victorian England to the present via a time machine. Everything about the book feels authentic, from the language and writing style that seems to be ripped straight from the pages of a book published in the 1800s, to the characters themselves who come across as darker, more mature versions of characters from Dickens’ novels. Fingersmith is worldbuilding at its finest and a must for anyone interested in historical fiction, Victoriana, scheming, devious, sly, and cunning characters, and the most shocking plot twist of the 19th and 21st centuries.

Y takes place on 20th-century Earth, but with a twist: all men have been exterminated by a mysterious virus except one. You’d think setting the story on Earth in the current time period would be easy, but I think that kind of setting is even harder because we know what that world should feel like and if things deviate, we’ll be quick to notice. And yet, although the premise of Y has not happened on Earth, the worldbuilding makes it plausible that it could. Y dives into the past and jumps into the future, it travels from one end of the U.S. to the other, it tangles international conspiracies with a lovelorn hero and a monkey that won’t stop flinging its poop—and you accept it because the foundation—the worldbuilding—is secure.