Best fantasy and science fiction books of 2024, as chosen by the Amazon Editors
As a young boy, I struggled with reading. I couldn’t sit still long enough to read past the first chapter. Words floated around the page and changed the meaning of sentences to the point that I couldn’t understand them. Fantasy books, however, changed that for me. They made me want to read, want to sit still, want to focus. That young boy who struggled through The Lord of the Rings could never have imagined that he would have the honor to select the best fantasy and science fiction books of the year for Amazon, but he took to heart the lessons he learned in the pages he struggled through, with one phrase particularly guiding him: even the smallest person can change the course of the future. That is, after all, one of the reasons so many of us read fantasy—to see our small selves reflected in the pages where great acts of courage and sacrifice take place, to know that we, too, can prevail. The books below will have plenty of that for readers, and much, much more.
And when you’re done reading all the great science fiction and fantasy books of 2024, take a look at the rest of the Amazon Editors’ Best Books of 2024—if you’re like me, you’ll be surprised at just how many of these books make you feel the same way as when you read a great epic.
Like a gorgeous, glittering jewel, The Familiar catches your eye and holds you in its thrall. With this captivating novel, Leigh Bardugo gives us a taste of something slightly different—and it’s a journey well worth taking. Rich with the atmosphere and intrigue of Renaissance Spain, this is the story of a lowly scullion, Luzia, who has kept her magical skills secret, and herself largely invisible, in order to avoid the ever-watchful gaze of the Inquisition. But Luzia wants more than this life, and while she doesn’t seek the spotlight, it finds her in an unintended way, and what follows is a story of power, politics, love, science, and magic. I loved the evolution of the women in this novel, but you also can’t beat the royal intrigue, an immortal tether, or the magnetic pull of two people meant for one another. The ending is perfection and Bardugo is, indeed, an author with many tricks up her sleeve—I can’t wait to see what’s next. —Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor
For many readers, their Stormlight Archive journey began in 2010 with the publication of The Way of Kings. For me, I first picked it up in 2014 and read about 200 pages. I set it aside and would come back from time to time to try to get myself to finish all 1137 pages. But I never could. With each new release in the series, I would try again. And again, I’d get a few hundred pages in, feel overwhelmed at the massive scope of not only book one, but the additional thousands of new pages in the series, and set it aside. But finally, in 2020, I forced myself to read through to the end. And it absolutely blew me away. This series has redefined my personality in a way that few books ever have. "Life before death" became a constant mantra in my head. "Strength before weakness" became words to live by. And "journey before destination" will be forever etched in my soul. With Wind and Truth, we have reached the destination, and just as the ancient oaths remind us, it was the journey to this point that really made all the difference. Stormlight fans, you will be glad you took that first step, and even more glad that you continued to take the next one. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
How do I even describe this book? It’s a time travel-spy thriller-government conspiracy-love story, and it’s also so much more. I’ve never read anything like it, and I loved every second. It's near-future London, and a time travel device has been discovered by a top-secret government agency. The operatives bring back "expats" from different times in history when they would not have survived (to avoid disrupting the future) and pair them with "bridges”—people to help them acclimate to current times. The story follows Arctic explorer Graham Gore and his bridge over the course of a year as he adjusts to modern-day life. This genre-bending novel explores humanity in all its frailty and potential, and how love can alter the course of history in ways we never expect. It’s a fantastical debut that’s funny, riveting, heartbreaking, and unputdownable. I want everyone to read this book. —Abby Abell, Amazon Editor
Fans of TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, change your plans and get your book nook ready—Somewhere Beyond the Sea is here and it’s just as good as we were hoping it would be. Book two in this series ups the stakes and keeps all the same lovable characters, while adding new voices to the mix and heightening the tension to what comes following book one’s happily ever after. Linus and Arthur, the subjects of said happily ever after in book one, now have to fight to keep their magic alive as politicians threaten to take it away. The pages of this story come alive and wrap you up like a cozy blanket, at once feeling like a magical escape as well as a critical take on the modern politics of immigration, identity, love, and found family. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
From Korean author Sung-il Kim and translated by Anton Hur, Blood of the Old Kings is a wildly imaginative epic fantasy that hits all the right beats. Right from the first chapter, the reader is thrust into a world under tyrannical rule of an expanding empire—an empire whose war machines are powered by magic harvested from the corpses of dead sorcerers. A dragon lays in chains in the heart of a volcano. A woman who has lost everything seeks vengeance for those the empire took from her. And so, they strike a deal—an eye for an eye, power in return for sacrifice. What follows is a quest for redemption and revenge that pulls you in and keeps you glued to the page with surprises around every corner. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
Readers will not be disappointed in the Hugo Winner T. Kingfisher's latest book, A Sorceress Comes to Call, which features the author’s signature take on dark fairytales in portraying a young girl, Cordelia, trapped in her mother’s magical ability to make her “obedient,” and control her every action. But the mother doesn’t just control Cordelia—she can make other people do what she wants them to as well—and the wake of death and destruction she leaves behind her follows them all the way to a marriage proposal. Cordelia has never stood up to her mother before—how could she, with her mother’s ability to make her obey? But with new friends in the sorceress’s sights, Cordelia might just find a way to put an end to the dark magic once and for all. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
From the Chinese legend of Xishi, Ann Liang brings a modern spin to an ancient story of love, deception, and the rivalry of two neighboring kingdoms. Xishi’s beauty is known throughout the kingdom of Yue. When she catches the eye of Fanli, a young advisor in the military, she is thrust into a world of espionage. Given the chance to serve her kingdom, Xishi is to infiltrate the neighboring kingdom of Wu, seduce its king, and bring it down from the inside. With the help of Fanli, Xishi makes her way up the social ladder in the Wu court. The higher she climbs, the further the fall, and she’s teetering on the edge of bringing down an empire—whether its her beloved Yue kingdom, or the rival Wu court, Xishi’s skill as a spy will determine which kingdom will meet its demise. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
Evie Sage is back in the Assistant and the Villain series, and the Villain still isn’t pleased with her ever-present optimism (but still longs for her to stay regardless). Readers of the series should eagerly dive in; Maehrer delivers another humorous and entertaining story that subverts genre expectations through well-written and unique characters. Readers just discovering this series should start at book one, Assistant to the Villain, which is just as irreverent and witty as the second installment. But be warned: you may end up rooting for the Villain, and won’t want to put it down once you start. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
This book is an ode to those of us who will always believe that magic is real and just within our reach. Two high school boys, Jeremy and Rafe, disappear into the woods of West Virginia and mysteriously reappear six months later, healthier than when they vanished. Rafe has no memory of where they were, and Jeremy refuses to tell him. The story picks up 15 years later, when Emilie approaches Jeremy to help her find her sister, who vanished in those same West Virginia woods. But Jeremy can only find her with Rafe’s help. And so begins a heroes’ journey, as Rafe, Jeremy, and Emilie venture into a magical realm, revealing secrets long buried, dangers at every turn, but most importantly, hope that what was lost can be found again. This enchanting and buoyant novel is a love letter to magic in all its glorious forms, which left me feeling lighter, and excited by all the possibilities this mysterious world has to offer. —Abby Abell, Amazon Editor
Navola is the kind of book that draws you in from page one and promises an explosive finale—and it does not disappoint. Paolo Bacigalupi sets up a vast political fantasy in the sprawling city-state of Navola (reminiscent of fifteenth-century Florence), which follows Davico, the young heir to a mercantile banking empire who is more interested in medicinal plants than the political machinations of the royal families. The author takes his time while leading the reader to the city-state's true conflict; be prepared to dive into the worldbuilding before uncovering what is truly going on behind the scenes. Light on fantasy elements, fans of both historical fiction and epic fantasy can easily find themselves lost in this expansive narrative, which at times can feel simultaneously like reading a familiar classic and living in a brand-new world. Told from the first-person perspective of Davico, you will find the narrative reading like it could be the reminisce of either an emperor or a beggar, and you'll have to read to the end to find out which it is. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
If you’re looking for a book to get cozy with for an evening, The Spellshop has you covered. This gem of a fantasy will warm your heart the way homemade cinnamon rolls do—and you just might come across said cinnamon rolls at the spell shop, only these ones are magic. Forced away from her beloved library, where she’s spent the last eleven years guarding the ancient wisdom within, Kiela and her assistant (a magically autonomous spider plant named Caz) are forced to face a reckoning: the very magic they have tried to safeguard has been destroying the world around them. And feeling partially responsible for the destruction, and the rebellion it incited, she decides to do something about it, and opens a secret spell shop as a small act of rebellion. You’ll fall right into this world and won’t want to leave, so grab a blanket and get comfortable. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
What would you do if you had a book that could take you anywhere in the world? If you think about it, that’s the whole point of books, after all—words on a page that have the power to pull you into the story they tell. The best books pull you in and never let you go, and in the case of The Book of Doors, you will be enthralled. In a novel where the very source of magic is books themselves, Brown tells the riveting story of Cassie, a simple bookseller in New York City, who comes into the possession of a book that can take her anywhere in the world. Not only will it take her to places she never imagined she’d go, but it also forces her on an adventure that will span spacetime and confront the age-old ideas of good and evil. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
The writing duo behind the sweeping space opera that is The Expanse brings us a new sci-fi book, and start to a promising series, in The Mercy of Gods. This is a sci-book for sci-fi die-hards, and I honestly wasn’t sure if this was a book for me just a few pages in—but by the time I got to the end of the first chapter, I was hooked. On the precipice of groundbreaking scientific discovery, Dafyd Alkhor and his team are caught-up in the politics of academic research. But those politics are thrown to the wind when an alien species—the Carryx—invades and decimates the human population. Only the best and brightest are kept alive, to compete with other species captured by the Carryx in a game of extinction. Dafyd plays a more dangerous game as he attempts to free humanity, but pays a heavy price to do so. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
A fast-paced and unrestrained story where the plot is thick and the stakes are clear: five of the most dangerous killers—all of them known for secrecy and lies—must band together and align on a single goal: to kill the God King. The killing is the easy part; the rest is where it gets interesting. Mai Corland manages to not only bring the reader on an exciting assassination attempt where the characters are all untrustworthy, unstable, and highly likeable, but also flawlessly executes the story from each character’s first-person point of view, which is a feat all on its own. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
I love a good story that spans continents and lifetimes, and that’s exactly what Kiersten White delivers in Lucy Undying, wrapped up in a compelling Dracula story unlike any you’ve ever read. This is a book you can pick up and easily submerse yourself in; the opening chapters are written so well that you almost forget you’re in a book, and then suddenly you’re two hundred pages in and utterly transfixed with the immortal Lucy, one of Dracula’s first victims, who is trying to find the strength to overthrow the vampire king and face the past that she’s been trying to outrun her entire undead life. This is a beautiful story of darkness and death that is underpinned by the brightness of life and love. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
Looking for more excellent reading recommendations? Enjoy at your leisure, readers:
