Here are 100 books that Voyage of the Damned fans have personally recommended if you like
Voyage of the Damned.
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Growing up, I commonly read a sci-fi or fantasy novel a day. I craved freshly innovative stories, not megastar copycats. Innovation lacking, I stopped reading. I loved Salvatore’s invention of the Drow and favored groundbreaking stories where authors build on a predecessor’s shoulders rather than writing formulaic remakes for easy sales. Devastatingly, when I began writing, publishers, agents, and literary voices unitedly screamed at authors to “stay in their genre.” Write sci-fi or fantasy, never both. That wasn’t me, so I wrote about what happens when technology clashes with magic. The result? Mosaic Digest recently dubbed me “one of speculative fiction’s most inventive voices.”
Although heists and team-driven stories are difficult to mess up, I rarely find a gem with fun, snarky, and interesting characters like those delivered by Bardugo.
Clever banter effortlessly drives the storyline from beginning to end. When you start to feel the characters are proving to be one-dimensional and predictable, they begin to change and evolve (albeit a bit slowly for my tastes), which made for a surprisingly satisfying read (I’m including book two in this observation).
Worldbuilding is intelligent enough to keep you trusting the author when you grow concerned that the ending will be unrealistically implausible. Okay, maybe that last observation is my personal pet peeve with modern authors, but Six of Crows pulled off the credibility factor reasonably well.
*See the Grishaverse come to life on screen with Shadow and Bone, now a Netflix original series.*
Nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2017, this fantasy epic from the No. 1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of the Grisha trilogy is gripping, sweeping and memorable - perfect for fans of George R. R. Martin, Laini Taylor and Kristin Cashore.
Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams - but he can't pull it off alone.
A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can't walk…
A heartfelt romantic fantasy set in a whimsical traveling theatre troupe—where the newest member is fleeing home, and the lead actor is hiding a dangerous fae curse.
Vai Delvecchio, escaping a family scandal, joins the eccentric Quicksand Theatre Company, where magic fuels both stage tricks and real-world consequences. As they…
I’m a trope-obsessed author who counts found family among her favorite Ao3 tags. I cannot get enough of books which read like fanfiction, and I’ll recommend my favorites every chance I get. I also do my part to put more queer found family books into the world—my debut adult fantasy The Sins On Their Bones is being published by Random House Canada in May 2024. When I’m not writing, I’m a full-time servant to my two enormous cats.
If you’re looking for the best-found family in the most stunning dragon book ever, look no further than the Den in this book, a queer Jamaican-inspired book about magic-wielders and dragon-riders defending their island from colonizers.
I cheered Elara, Faron, and the rest of the cast on as the book soared to thrilling heights and completely swept me away. I came for the world, magic, and dragons and stayed for the banter, found family, touching story of love and loss—and dragons. I firmly believe that this one will become a classic of YA fantasy.
I’m a trope-obsessed author who counts found family among her favorite Ao3 tags. I cannot get enough of books which read like fanfiction, and I’ll recommend my favorites every chance I get. I also do my part to put more queer found family books into the world—my debut adult fantasy The Sins On Their Bones is being published by Random House Canada in May 2024. When I’m not writing, I’m a full-time servant to my two enormous cats.
As a fan of epic fantasy, swoon-worthy romance, and political intrigue, I fell so hard for this book—and it’s the first in a series of four books, so there was more than enough to feed my desire for all the action.
The series follows Robin, a seemingly ordinary boy whose kidnapping leads him to discover that he’s anything but. His journey of self-discovery and self—acceptance truly spoke to me as a reader, and the kick-ass family he gathers around him along the way cemented the Realm of Fey series as one of my favorite found family fantasies.
A heartfelt romantic fantasy set in a whimsical traveling theatre troupe—where the newest member is fleeing home, and the lead actor is hiding a dangerous fae curse.
Vai Delvecchio, escaping a family scandal, joins the eccentric Quicksand Theatre Company, where magic fuels both stage tricks and real-world consequences. As they…
I’m a trope-obsessed author who counts found family among her favorite Ao3 tags. I cannot get enough of books which read like fanfiction, and I’ll recommend my favorites every chance I get. I also do my part to put more queer found family books into the world—my debut adult fantasy The Sins On Their Bones is being published by Random House Canada in May 2024. When I’m not writing, I’m a full-time servant to my two enormous cats.
I was immediately enthralled by this queer Jewish-found fantasy book, pitched as Scorpio Races meets Peaky Blinders.
The daughter of a renowned family facing impending ruin teams up with a rogue enchanter and an ambitious heir to win a deadly horse race using forbidden magic.
As I read this book in a single sitting, my heart felt like I was the one running a race. I loved the entire gang, as well as the star of this particular found family—the cat.
Enter the corrupt world of Veradell, where warring monarchs vie for a kingdom full of forbidden magic, illicit romance and cut-throat horse racing. Steeped in Jewish folklore, this fast-paced YA fantasy by Kalyn Josephson is perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows.
Mikira Rusel is out of options. With her father imprisoned and facing rising debts, there's only one way to save her family from ruin: enter the Illinir, a high-stakes, cross-country horse race known for its high death toll as much as its flashy prize money.
To have any chance of success she'll have to recruit Ari,…
Growing up in an eccentric, liberal family, as a member of the Church of England, under the shadow of the British Government’s homophobic Section 28, the messages I received were distinctly mixed. If I’d heard the word ‘bisexual’ before the age of twenty my life might have been very different. And to this day, the most common assumption is that one can’t be simultaneously queer and Christian. As I’ve discovered, and as these books show, that isn’t true – and moving beyond that assumption reveals new and fascinating horizons.
A Beauty and the Beast retelling, set amid the upheaval of the Second World War, in which the Beast is a dragon and the protagonist is a person who doesn’t see why his daughter should take the rap for her father’s misdemeanour. Humane and compassionate, this story isn’t afraid of exploring the theology of sexuality, but it never gets bogged down in details, and it maintains its fairy-tale atmosphere while remaining grounded in time and place. I loved it.
An m/m World War II-era retelling of Beauty and the Beast.During a chance summer shower, an English country parson takes refuge in a country house. The house seems deserted, yet the table is laid with a sumptuous banquet such as the parson has not seen since before war rationing. Unnerved by the uncanny house, he flees, but stops to pluck a single perfect rose from the garden for his daughter - only for the master of the house to appear, breathing fire with rage. Literally. At first, the parson can't stand this dragon-man. But slowly, he begins to feel the…
Growing up in an eccentric, liberal family, as a member of the Church of England, under the shadow of the British Government’s homophobic Section 28, the messages I received were distinctly mixed. If I’d heard the word ‘bisexual’ before the age of twenty my life might have been very different. And to this day, the most common assumption is that one can’t be simultaneously queer and Christian. As I’ve discovered, and as these books show, that isn’t true – and moving beyond that assumption reveals new and fascinating horizons.
If ever there was a book that felt like it had been written just for me, this is it. Set in a fictional European country in the early nineteenth century, it has swashbuckling, nights at the opera, complicated family history, politics, magic, and lesbians. The way that Christianity is integrated into the fantastic element won’t be for everybody, but I was won over by Margerit’s earnest insistence on claiming her identity as a queer woman of faith and power. I’d wholeheartedly recommend the rest of the series, too.
Margerit Sovitre did not expect to inherit Baron Saveze’s fortunes—even less his bodyguard, a ruthlessly efficient swordswoman known only as Barbara. Wealth suddenly makes Margerit a highly eligible heiress and buys her the enmity of the new Baron. He had expected to inherit all, and now eyes her fortune with open envy.
Barbara proudly served as the old Baron’s duelist but she had expected his death to make her a free woman. Bitterness turns to determination when she finds herself the only force that stands between Margerit and the new Baron’s greed.
At first Margerit protests the need for Barbara’s…
I am a multi-award-winning African Australian writer, and have a deep passion for stories by people of colour, stories that engage with difference. I write across genres and forms, and my award-winning works are mostly Afrocentric. I am especially curious about unique voices in black speculative fiction in transformative stories of culture, diversity, climate change, writing the other, and betwixt.
This book arrives with a profound introduction on "writing ourselves into being," and casts a crucial gaze on writing from the margins.
It invites the reader to engage with difference, whether the difference is queer or skin colour or cultural heritage or whichever form of diversity. Contributors share with the reader their art, craft, and lived experience, where "writing oneself in," as Octavia Butler did, is fundamental self-creation, snatching space that has been stolen or withheld.
This anthology of personal truths, as authors unskin to their innermost selves, is as startling as it is introspective.
In Ex Marginalia, 20 authors of speculative fiction explore what it means to create at the intersections of their multiple marginalities. A gay man pens a letter to his departed muse, an African woman ruminates on the end of a marriage, a Filipino writer defends romantic villains.
These essays chart identities and perspectives systematically excluded by a field that has failed to deliver on its promise of progress. But these voices cannot—will not—remain in the margins any longer.
Growing up in an eccentric, liberal family, as a member of the Church of England, under the shadow of the British Government’s homophobic Section 28, the messages I received were distinctly mixed. If I’d heard the word ‘bisexual’ before the age of twenty my life might have been very different. And to this day, the most common assumption is that one can’t be simultaneously queer and Christian. As I’ve discovered, and as these books show, that isn’t true – and moving beyond that assumption reveals new and fascinating horizons.
Set in a London congregation at the height of the AIDS crisis, this is a powerful novel that packs a lot into one Easter weekend. Its ingenious triptych structure underlines the fact that there’s often more going on than a superficial understanding of either faith or sexuality would like to believe. The oldest book on this list by a couple of decades, this is one of the first novels to engage seriously with what it means to be queer in an institution that prefers to ignore that fact, and it was both a challenge and a comfort in my own coming-out years.
I have been writing about LGBTQ+ culture for magazines and newspapers for almost a decade, and am a voracious consumer of queer stories. Queer literature makes our various needs and desires as a community come alive on the page, and helps us to connect with and understand one another. Reading LGBTQ+ books is a way to learn about contemporary queer life, and work out what more we can be doing to help those more marginalised than us.
The follow-up to his acclaimed book What Belongs to You, Cleanness is a relatively short but gorgeously executed novel about an American teacher living in Sofia, Bulgaria. It gives snapshots of his relationship, as well as dating app hooks ups – for better or worse. Greenwell is one of the greatest writers of our time, and he turns each sentence beautifully.
Longlisted for the Prix Sade 2021 Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize Longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 A New York Times Critics Top Ten Book of the Year Named a Best Book of the Year by over 30 Publications, including The New Yorker, TIME, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, and the BBC
In the highly anticipated follow-up to his beloved debut, What Belongs to You, Garth Greenwell deepens his exploration of foreignness, obligation, and desire
Sofia, Bulgaria, a landlocked city in southern Europe, stirs with hope and impending upheaval.…
I'm an Emmy Award-winning writer, wife, and adoptive mother with an unapologetic passion for Black queer stories. I'm also an artist-activist who takes great pride in producing content that sparks honest dialogue and positive change. Life's complexities energize me, and, as a queer artist of color, I'm committed to reflecting these intricacies in my work. I write, produce video, and host allyship seminars as well as art as activism workshops for LGBTQ+ youth. If you're both inspired and entertained by layered depictions of BIPOC queer culture then please check out the recs in my Queer-tastic reading list. Enjoy!
The Memory Librarian is an adaptation of Monáe's 2018 emotion picture, Dirty Computer. Told in the icon's signature Afro-futuristic fashion, this unquestionably queer AF collection of sci-fi stories describes a dystopian world where dirty computers (people who stray from societal norms) are ostracized in the worse ways imaginable. What's even scarier, while the stories take place in the future, the premise isn't that far from our present-day reality.
Books that boast BIPOC themes are being banned at a record rate. And this year alone, over 200 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced into legislation. Just as Americans have banded together around their common causes, the inhabitants in Monáe's sci-fi saga unite as chosen family. Together they navigate technology, battle memory control, explore identity, and fight for freedom in a ruthless police state.
"Everything comes full circle. And time takes care of itself. Our work is the work of…
In The Memory Librarian music, fashion, film and futurist icon Janelle Monae returns to the Afrofuturistic world of her critically acclaimed album, Dirty Computer, to explore how different threads of liberation - queerness, race, gender plurality, love - become tangled in a totalitarian landscape... and to discover costs of unravelling them.
Whoever controls our memories controls the future.
Janelle Monae and an incredible array of talented collaborating creators have written a collection of tales comprising the bold vision and powerful themes that have made Monae such a compelling and celebrated storyteller. Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts -…
