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I’ve been obsessed with sci-fi romance since I was a kid watching the Klingon wedding of Worf and Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I love the idea of mashing these two distinct genres together. While sci-fi and romance both explore the human condition, sci-fi goes wide while romance is intimate. I think this makes the crossover of these two genres work especially well. My foremost inspiration for sci-fi romance is Lois McMaster Bujold, who offers a masterclass in how to deftly weave compelling romance into a sci-fi setting without sacrificing any action or political intrigue.
This book is unhinged in the best way. I love Gideon’s unique voice. Around her is a deadly-serious necromancer murder mystery with interplanetary stakes, and she cares more about cracking dirty jokes and finally eating some warm food. Her relationship with her arch-nemesis/only friend Harrow leaps off the page.
I love the scene where they get into a pool so Harrow can finally confess to Gideon her darkest secret—so hot and so disturbing all at the same time. While this book isn’t technically a romance and the genre feels more like a horror fantasy set in space, I couldn’t resist putting it on the list. As Gideon says to Harrow, “One flesh, one end, bitch.”
15+ pages of new, original content, including a glossary of terms, in-universe writings, and more!
A USA Today Best-Selling Novel!
"Unlike anything I've ever read. " --V.E. Schwab
"Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!" --Charles Stross
"Brilliantly original, messy and weird straight through." --NPR
The Emperor needs necromancers.
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.
Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense.
Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth, first in The Locked Tomb Trilogy, unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’ve always loved a good crime drama/suspense thriller novel–the way they keep you glued to the pages, and you think you’ll just sit down for a quick couple of chapters before dinner, and the next thing you realize, it's 12am, and you’re on the last chapter. The depth of the character studies that you get with this genre is the other reason I enjoy it so much, there’s nothing worse than having main characters that are one dimensional and unreachable as a reader. I have always tried to create this kind of character depth and gripping narrative in my own books.
What I enjoyed most about this book was the story and plot that the author wove together.
This story takes thrilling, unexpected twists that kept me engaged with the characters and the plot. Its intensity is matched by its excellent pacing, delivering surprises at every turn.
Just when I thought I'd figured out where it's headed, it veers in another direction.
'An epic drama reminiscent of the best classic Hong Kong gangster films but set in a fantasy metropolis so gritty and well-imagined that you'll forget you're reading a book' KEN LIU
'Gripping!' ANN LECKIE, author of Ancillary Justice and The Raven Tower
'Lee's astute worldbuilding raises the stakes for her vivid and tautly-described action scenes' SCOTT LYNCH, author of The Lies of Locke Lamora
*****Shortlisted for the Nebula Awards, the Locus Awards, the Aurora Awards, the Sunburst Awards and an Amazon.com Best Book of the Month*****
When I was nine years old, my first poem was ‘published’ in my elementary school’s annual creative writing booklet. It was such a thrill to see my poem in print and to know lots of people would be reading it. I was hooked on writing, but it would be many, many years before I was published again. While I know it’s never too late to publish a book, I regret how long I waited. Young writers, don’t be afraid to go for it and don’t ever feel you’re not old enough for your words to matter. Readers need your unique, fresh vision.
I enjoy a new twist on an old story. Nineteen-year-old author Chloe Gong twisted Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet so tightly that it bled out an intense new version set in 1920s Shanghai. The sweet, tragic innocence of Shakespeare’s young lovers is chucked out the window in favor of two former sweethearts teaming up long after their days of young love are over.
I enjoy Gong’s writing style; her words practically jump off the page straight into my eyeballs. Gangsters? Blood feuds? Monsters? Yes, please!
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
I was an avid reader growing up, but I never saw myself reflected unless it was a book about the Holocaust. Those are crucial stories to tell, but I wanted a Jewish girl going through a wardrobe to a secret land or having magical adventures. So, I decided to write those stories for women and combine them with steamy romance, because I love that, too. All my main characters are Jewish, and I draw from Judaism and Jewish folklore for my worldbuilding and magic systems. It's also important for me to showcase my diverse hometown of Vancouver. To that end, my characters are of varying ethnicities and sexual identities.
I love m/m romance and I love urban fantasy, but until now, that combination hadn’t grabbed me in a way that had me sit up in excitement. I tore through this series (currently and desperately awaiting the final book). Not only does Nash devise a fun and fascinating magic system with Dom’s playing cards, I shipped Dom and Kempthorne so hard. The obstacles they must overcome, both externally and with their inner demons, had me turning pages as fast as I could. It’s an absolute delight.
Something wicked is moving in the shadows of London...
In the underground world of glitzy illegal auctions, fast cars, and stolen magical artifacts, John "Dom" Domenici knows he's out of his depth. But he needs the job at Kempthorne & Co like he needs to breathe. The alternative-going back to the organized crime gangs of London's East End-is unthinkable.
So when Alexander Kempthorne, boss of Kempthorne & Co Artifact Retrieval Agency, wants him on a special case to track down an illegal artifact dealer, Dom can't say no.
It shouldn't matter that Kempthorne's world is full of deadly secrets. It…
I grew up on a steady book diet of child detectives, fairy tales involving monsters in the woods, and historical fiction about the black plague. The same themes go through the books I love to read and write, transporting me with world-building set in realms or historical settings with technology so strange it could be fantasy. Characters are shaped by the world around them and the more perilous the world, the more it challenges the characters. If there are monsters, I’m in.
Alan Campbell set the mixed steampunk science-fantasy genre for me, with his high fantasy worlds where machines and magic go hand in hand, to prison cities surrounded by poisonous waters that can turn you into permanent sea-dwellers, and telepathic abilities worth killing for.
This is a world where a trip to the beach might kill you if the telepaths don’t find you first.
Leaving the behind the imaginings of Deepgate, Alan Campbell introduces a new world, a new cast of characters in a novel that reads like a cross between Stephen Deas and Joe Abercrombie.
With non-stop action, beautiful characterization and Alan's usual flair for imagination and lyrical writing, welcome to a world of water - where dragons are used as weapons and countries are separated by power, greed and fear...
Thrown out of the Graveyard corps by a corrupt and weak emperor, Granger has to turn to running his own prison. It's not a lucrative business but if he keeps his head…
I’ve been pulled to rich, deep, complex fiction all my life. And I started building my own world when I was nine, adding to The Kota Series over two decades. Even while getting an English Literature degree, I was bored by simple worlds, characters, and stories and always found myself more interested in unique books and fresh reads. Really, the weirder the world, the better! That’s what I’ve continued to look for as a reader, and I’ve been lucky to encounter new authors that a lot of people might not have heard about yet. I’ve found some real world-building gems, like these I’ve discussed. I hope to find many more!
Some dystopian books show futures that aren’t relatable or believable at all. The whole story is a great mix of genres – not just dystopian but also sci-fi, thriller, and it reads like a crime novel with mobsters. The reachers themselves are telepathic/telekinetic and add a unique dimension to a story that otherwise could fit in with a non-fantasy setting. The world-building in this book is so effective exactly because it feels real. I was sucked in and sympathetic toward the reachers because you can easily put many different peoples in their place today, and the political and social aspects of the story feel frighteningly possible.
Rachel’s father called it the running game. Count the exits, calculate the routes, and always be ready to run. She is a Reacher, wanted by the government and the criminal underworld for her psionic powers.
Charlie and his brother John have a reputation for accomplishing the impossible. But after losing his family, Charlie is a broken mess and John is barely keeping him afloat. In desperation, they take a job from a ruthless crime lord, only to discover the girl they are hunting is a Reacher. One of their own kind.
With the help of dangerous and dubious allies, can…
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
There were 3.7 billion people on Earth when I was born. By November 2022, there will be 8 billion. I am fascinated and terrified by this growth. I love stories that address this issue head-on, be it colonisation of other planets, compulsory euthanasia, or uploading consciousness into machines. When I started writing, I didn’t realise how I was bringing these themes together—I was writing a book I’d love to read. Now I can see those influences, and I am grateful for the authors who have shaped my thinking and my work.
I have given copies of the Galactic Milieu Trilogy as gifts more than any other book. This is the bravest near-future sci-fi series I have ever read. Intervention, published in 1987, follows events from 1945 through to 2013 when the five races of the Galactic Milieu embrace humanity. I love the merger of historical events with future possibilities in a story centred around a dynasty of ‘operant’ human beings.
As a teenager, I was fascinated by stories of telepathy, etc., but I found most books that dealt with ‘higher mind powers’ were in the fantasy or horror market. But this series is perfect sci-fi, technically plausible while politically powerful—and again, with a large, diverse cast.
For 60,000 years, the worlds of the Galactic Milieu have observed Earth, waiting for humanity to evolve sufficiently to join them. Now, humanity is almost ready for Intervention. Across the world, children with unusual mental powers are being born, known as operants. One such is Rogi Remillard, humble book dealer. Helped by an entity he labels the family ghost, Rogi will inadvertently steer his family - and so all mankind - into the future.
Rogi's journey starts with his nephew Denis, as he guides his strong metapsychic abilities. The young man's irresponsible father certainly isn't interested, focusing instead on his…
Writing science fiction was the natural result of a lifetime of reading it for pleasure and studying whenever I could as part of my English Lit course at University. When I started writing, it was really important to me as a woman (especially a gay woman) to write female characters that weren’t just strong and likable; I wanted them to be interesting, unpalatable, and tough. Above all, not easy to dismiss. All of the women in the books I’ve listed fulfill at least some of these categories, which is the core of why these novels hold such a special place in my heart.
This was a book that really surprised me. A very no-nonsense macho family member recommended it to me on a holiday, and I remember raising my eyebrows reading the back cover and finding out it heavily featured an interspecies romance.
The minute I started reading, I got so wrapped up in the adrenaline and action that I actually went on to recommend it to my sci-fi-loving dad, who read it in a day and went on to borrow the rest of the series. The heroine, a power armor-wearing mercenary, is incredibly competent and badass but avoids falling into either Mary Sue or Damsel in Distress territory as the plot proceeds.
Additionally, while I kept going for the action-romance, the worldbuilding was surprisingly interesting and in-depth. Whenever I’m reluctantly charmed by something, I find it hard not to gush about it; it’s just such a fun experience as a reader to…
A promising young mercenary's future gets thrown into jeopardy after a fateful encounter with an alien in the start to a propulsive space opera series perfect for fans of Firefly and Killjoys.
"Devi is hands-down one of the best sci-fi heroines I've read in a long time." RT Book Reviews Devi Morris isn't your average mercenary. She has plans. Big ones. And a ton of ambition. It's a combination that's going to get her killed one day -- but not just yet.
That is, until she just gets a job on a tiny trade ship with a nasty reputation for…
The Multiverse had been my deepest passion of interest for a long time. Experiencing crossover stories in various mediums, both official and fan-made, especially fan-made. To see how two different worlds would meet. I spent hours reading fanfictions involving crossovers, as well as conjuring up my own. I considered the multiverse as a grand bedrock to create any story, hence why I wrote The Mariverse, followed by The Mariverse: Guardians, to create my own bedrock for my writing career.
For those who don’t want to read a novel length but want to experience worlds beyond worlds, this book I would recommend, a neat short story where the protagonist uses the multiverse as a form of self-discovery, experiences he would never have in his own life and considers to a change of character.
Might not be a full-blown adventure, but a calmer mundane life experience, relatable while simplifying the multiverse without any complexities.
After being rejected in school, because I had to move with my family again and again, I never had really friends and knew how being left alone and rejected felt. So I put my nose into books and developed a love for writing. Since I didn’t know what to do with them, I left them alone when I married. After being diagnosed with cancer later in my life, I couldn’t go back to work, I remembered my love to write and read so I started to write short stories again. I want to help young people going through similar rejections and bullying, to lift them up, and take the negativity out of their minds.
I love reading sci-fi YA books and this book was really talking to me. Peaceful contact or not?
Reading this book by the author – her first– it reminded me of the much-loved movie Avatar, which I also love.
Like in the movie, when Captain Melissa and her crew finally arrived at the new planet, to contact the people living there, they looked peaceful. They find out, that they are telepathic, not only the people, the plants, and animals as well.
After the people of the planet perform a play, they find out, what was really going on there. Not everything you see can be trusted when you look behind the scenes. From the outside, it was all peaceful, but when you touch the plants, they speak to you.
As the crew sets foot on a new world, human aggression meets the peaceful nature of an advanced race.
Captain Melissa Shakeworth leads her crew to a new world to make first contact with a tranquil, nonviolent, advanced race of beings.
As she tries to maintain control over her unpredictable crew in a world that is peaceful, she struggles to stay respectful and honorable as things quickly spin out of control.
One crew member’s volatility and aggressiveness goes too far, endangering his life and the safety of the crew and the entire mission.
