What sets fantasy apart from other genres of fiction? Its untethering from reality. In a year like 2021, that will be a welcome feature for many readers out there. If you're looking for the best fantasy books, 2021 is shaping up to be a vintage year in the genre. Here in this section we'll be keeping an eye on new fantasy publications in 2021, as well as shortlisted books and winners of the most prestigious prizes in fantasy like the British Fantasy Awards — with winners already announced in February, 2021—and the World Fantasy Awards, whose winning books will be announced in November. However you like your fantasy—epic or short, high or low, dark or comic, contemporary or historical—it's a great time to be an avid reader in the realms of the imagination.
Part of our best books of 2021 series.
Sistersong
by Lucy Holland
Sistersong is a story based on the ‘Twa Sisters’ folk ballad is set in a late Antique Britain after the Romans have left. King Cador’s three children inherit a land torn by warring tribes and fearful of a life confined within the hold, protected from Saxon invaders. The arrival of Myrdhin, meddlesome magician, upends the calm and brings pagan and Christian magic and myths into the frame.
There’s no date yet for it’s US release but we’ll keep you posted.
Alexandria: A Novel
by Paul Kingsnorth
Top of the pile of fantasy books to be read is Paul Kingsnorth’s Alexandria, only just published in the UK. A small religious community is living in what were once the fens of eastern England. They are perhaps the world’s last human survivors. Now, they find themselves stalked by a force that draws ever closer, a force intent on destroying everything they stand for. Set on the far side of the ecological apocalypse, Paul Kingsnorth’s new novel is a mythical, polyphonic drama driven by elemental themes: of community versus the self, the mind versus the body, machine versus man – of whether to put your faith in the present or the future.
Alexandria completes the Buckmaster Trilogy, which began with Kingsnorth’s prize-winning The Wake. That was set in distant Saxon England, and I was reminded of it by Sistersong.
Son of the Storm
by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Son of the Storm is an epic tale that takes us to pre-colonial West Africa, following a young scholar Danso, whose encounter with Lilong of a powerful, skin-changing warrior woman upends his world and sends them both to the Nameless Islands where Lilong hails from, with their history of a subjugated culture and forbidden magic. Enticing echoes here of Black Leopard, Red Wolf, a favourite from 2019 with its labyrinthine retelling of African history and mythology as a fantastical road trip mystery.
The Chosen and the Beautiful
by Nghi Vo
In The Chosen and the Beautiful Nghi Vo’s reimagining of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the protagonist is a queer, elite-level golfer in a man’s world. She’s also an adopted Asian-American, which imposes glass ceilings and barriers of another kind. Her secret is a form of paper magic that can enchant or destroy.
The Bone Ships
***Winner Best Fantasy Novel at the 2021 British Fantasy Awards***
The Bone Ships by RJ Barker is the first book in The Tide Child trilogy (the second book in the trilogy, Call of the Bone Ships, is also already out, as book prize awards tend to lag publication by a year or so).
