Something was in the water in 2015 – something fantastical, something magical, something that inspired a bloom of brilliant fantasy works to bolster us through the dark days to come. Despite three tumultuous presidential elections, a global pandemic, a rising billionaire class, and monumental social upheaval, these fantasy authors kept on keeping on. Thank the high fantasy heavens they did, because they blessed our cultural dark night of the soul with rays of magical light: the 10 best fantasy books of the last decade.
Circe
Madeline Miller’s Circe hit the shelves in 2018, following up on her heartbreaking, ugly cry inducing, gloriously and Greekly tragic Song of Achilles – an LBGT fantasy tale that will go down in history as one of the greatest modern myths. Miller’s second novel Circe takes an equally emotional stab at The Odyssey, centering the action around the original myth’s secondary antagonist whose favorite pastimes include turning men into pigs. How did the sea witch Circle get started in her sailor to swine-making career? Well, first she got exiled from the halls of Helios for using witchcraft agains a rival (who deserved it tbh) and forced to live out her immortal days on a remote island. Her punishment from the gods turned into a blessing in disguise, as Circe is now free to spend her endless days experimenting with the magical plants and herbs that flower upon the desolate shores – until a crop of sailors come along with Greek hero Odysseus in tow – then things get complicated.
The Fifth Season
N.K. Jemison’s The Fifth Season is the first of a post apocalyptic fantasy series as titanically awe inspiring as the world in which it takes place. The stage is set on a vast supercontinent known as The Stillness, which is rocked by massive climate cataclysms called “fifth seasons” at least once a century. The society of The Stillness is divided into a strict caste system, with the energy manipulating orogenes at the bottom – hated and feared for their magical abilities. After all, a particularly powerful orogene was responsible for summoning the most recent fifth season which nearly destroyed the world, the wreckage of which three orogene women are forced to navigate as the trilogy’s protagonist trio. Ultimately a parable about climate change and humanity’s tenuous balance with the natural world, The Broken Earth trilogy is an unmissable myth for the modern fantasy reader.
Gideon The Ninth
Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is the story of a Dune-like star system where planet controlling Houses all compete for the favor of an interstellar emperor – the similarities end there. Instead of fighting over boring old worm dirt, these Houses compete with cool necromancy magic! And instead of being populated by bland protagonists with messiah complexes, the central characters of this story are awesome goth space lesbians! Gideon Nav is a swordswoman indentured to the sepulchral Ninth House and its ghoulish heir Harrowhark Nonagesimus, who offers Gideon a way out of bondage on one condition: she has to accompany her as a bodyguard to a decaying mansion to compete against the other Houses in a series of trials to become an undead god. A daunting prospect, made more difficult by the fact that these two women hate each other’s guts. But is an enemies to lovers arc slowly clawing its way up out of the grave? You bet.
A Darker Shade of Magic
A Dark Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab is a story set in Londons. Plural. In this multiverse, there are four Londons, each with a differing relationship to magic. Kell is a denizen of Red London, where the arcane arts are blooming, and has a side hustle smuggling magical artifacts to White and Grey London, where magic is strained and dangerous. After being pickpocketed by a savvy Grey London thief while out on a job, Kell and his robber are drawn together over the mysterious object that was pilfered – a magical stone with a connection to Black London, a dark place where magic is long dead. If they don’t want to see Red, White, and Grey Londons follow down Black London’s shadowy footsteps, they’re going to have to figure out a way to alter the course of reality away from the bitter end of magic across all universes.
Piranesi
Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi is the story of a mild-mannered protagonist who is trapped within the walls of a house that is anything but. Piranesi’s home is a labyrinth, filled with endless hallways populated by creepy statues, and rooms large enough to contain entire oceans. Poor Piranesi doesn’t know how he got into this unfortunate timeshare, his past is a blur, fuzzy as the identity of the mysterious man that visits him from time to time. Solely known as “The Other” the man tells Piranesi that the pair of them are working on something grand, something that will help uncover the secrets of in-house reality. This book is a mind-bender whose plot features as many left turns as house-maze’s many hallways, culminating in a reality warping conclusion you didn’t see coming. You’ll just bump right into it like one of the weird statues that Piranesi is forced to catalog, and it’s sure to knock your noggin.
Binti
Lauded by Fifth Season author N.K. Jamison herself, Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti is the story of young woman going through many a young person’s rite of educational passage: college. Unlike many of her peers, Binti the first in her people to be accepted into Oomza University – the finest liberal arts college in the galaxy. As if sneaking away from home and onto a transport ship to Oozuma hard enough, Binti is also forced to contend with an alien attack from the Meduse – a Lovecraftian group of interstellar horrors. As Binti begins to uncover the history of humanity’s relationship with these jellyfish-esque extraterrestrials, she learns that the true monster that haunts the galaxy is humanity itself. Binti’s homework assessment? Make amends between an alien race wronged by her own kind, and find a way forward to galactic peace.
The Grace of Kings
First of The Dandelion Dynasty series, Kevin Liu’s The Grace of Kings is a queer fantasy love story set in the mythical reimagining of Chinese history. The lovers in question are, like many of the best fantasy couples, polar opposites. Kuni Garu is a charming bandit, while Mata Zyndu is the noble son of a recently deposed royal. What bonds them together? Their mutual hatred of the tyrannical emperor that rules their land with an iron fist, a hand that they’re going give some schoolyard discipline with the wooden ruler of political rebellion. But that’s only the start of their problems, what happens when they end up on opposite sides of a civil war? They’ll work it out, after all, fantasy couples have been through worse.
The Blacktongue Thief
A leading light in the grimdark genre, author Christopher Buehlman returns with genre-appropriately titled The Blacktongue Thief. The novel is the story of Kinch Na Shannack, a young thief who was schooled by the Takers Guild – and like many recent grads is now indebted with student loans. Luckily, the skills that Kinch learned in lowlife higher education will be exceedingly useful in his quest to procure coins – by grabbing them out of a recently sliced purse. Unluckily, Kinch’s latest target is a hardened veteran of the goblin wars and a servant of the literal god of death – a resume that Kinch learns about the hard way.
The Saint of Bright Doors
If you thought YOUR religious trauma was bad, you’ll be blessed to know that the hero of Vajra Chandrasekera’s The Saint of Bright Doors had it way worse. The novel is the story of Fetter, a young man raised in a religious cult, trained with the sole purpose of assassinating a religious figure who just so happens to be his own father. After Fetter travels to a mysterious city populated by even more mysterious doors of light, he joins up in a divine revolutionary movement with the most emotionally rigorous entry requirement imaginable: group therapy. In a city where emails fly in from divine sources, nothing is as it seems, but hey, at least Fetter will never run out of issues to work out in counseling.
The Spear Cuts Through Water
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez is kinda like The Princess Bride, except way sadder and spookier and with far less rats of unusual sizes. Framed as a tale told from a grandmother to her grandchild, Jimenez’ novel is the saga of the Old Country, a dreamlike place whose people suffer under the rule of a tyrant emperor and his three demonic sons. These ruthless royals established power by imprisoning the land’s protective diety, but the god is slowly shuffling off her chains. The captive divinity is helped along by a penitent royal guard and a roughhousing outcast, who accompany her on a power-seeking pilgrimage to overthrow the empire and establish peace. Legendary, lyrical, and lushly queer.
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