This was an incredible year for SF and fantasy, both in long and shorter fiction. There were outstanding debut novels and incredible new work by established authors. So much new work was original and innovative and outside the box, it was hard to pick a favorites list.
Back in November, I did a book rec list for the year on the Book Smugglers blog: http://thebooksmugglers.com/2017/12/books-year-smugglivus-post-martha-wells.html and I wanted to take this chance to add a few books to it that I read in December.
The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera
This is my favorite single-volume epic fantasy of the year. It’s an epistolary novel with a love story between two extraordinary women warriors who are born to save the world. The voice, the story, the characters and the worldbuilding are all just incredibly compelling. This is going on my award nomination list and I can’t wait to read the next volume and whatever else the author does.
Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor
Okorafor’s adult SF&F like the Binti novella series and Who Fears Death is award-winning, but her young adult work is awesome too. Akata Warrior, the sequel to Akata Witch, is about a young girl in modern day Nigeria who discovers she’s a member of an ancient magical secret society. This is complex, riveting storytelling and world-building in a series that should be handed to every Harry Potter fan, especially those who felt Hermione should have been the main character.
Rivers of London graphic novels by Ben Aaronovitch: Night Witch, Black Mold, Detective Stories
These graphic novels fill in the gaps in the excellent Rivers of London series, a police procedural with magic. Though the novels are all from the first person POV of the main character, Peter Grant, these stories give us alternate viewpoints from the other characters and expand the world in interesting ways.
Martha Wells has written many fantasy novels, including the Books of the Raksura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads), the Ile-Rien series (including the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer) as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, media tie-ins, and non-fiction. Her most recent fantasy novels are The Edge of Worlds in 2016 and The Harbors of the Sun in July 2017, the end of the Books of the Raksura series. She will also have three new SF novellas in The Murderbot Diaries series, forthcoming from Tor.com in 2018. Her books have been published in eight languages. You can find her on her website at marthawells.com and twitter.
