Best Fantasy Books of 2023
Last updated: March 26, 2025
Get ready to embark on epic journeys, traverse mystical realms, and encounter fantastical creatures as we delve into the best fantasy books of 2023. From the imaginative minds of authors, this year has delivered an enchanting array of tales that will transport readers to uncharted worlds and captivate them with gripping narratives.
“The First Bright Thing is a fantasy novel about magical circuses and found family. It’s been compared with The Night Circus, and I can see why, but the vibes are different. It’s a historical fantasy set in America during the Roaring Twenties, with a time travel element. It’s about a circus in which everyone has a magical ability that’s called a spark. They use their powers to put on performances that can change a person’s life right at the moment they need it. One of the performers has the ability to see the future, and glimpses the Holocaust and World War Two looming ahead. They want to use their powers to prevent it from happening. They’re also on the run from the Circus King, who is obsessed with the Ringmaster and has his own terrible circus that goes around terrifying people. It’s a beautiful story about people using their abilities to work together to make a better world. I’m a sucker for that.” Read more...
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Debuts of 2023
Yume Kitasei, Novelist
“This is a contemporary fantasy set in California, New York, France, and many other places. It’s a fun paranormal adventure story that contains a very sweet romance. The main character is a woman who has given up her powers and gone into hiding to take care of her elder brother and protect him from their younger brother. She’s been making herself smaller: she has extraordinary abilities but chooses to do something mundane for a living to preserve their cover identities. As the book unfolds, this all starts to unravel and she is forced to confront the past. It’s really fun. The magic system in the novel is based on Chinese calligraphy. Tsai has built a very rich world. She is multilingual and made a cool choice not to translate any of the other languages (Chinese and French) in this book – you can understand a lot through context, even though there’s no translation. It works really well.” Read more...
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Debuts of 2023
Yume Kitasei, Novelist
“Nona the Ninth is the third in Muir’s Locked Tomb series. Every installment so far has been nominated for a Hugo. ‘Nona’ has the body of Harrow, the titular character of the second book, and is suspected of having the mind of either Harrow or Gideon. Whoever she is, she is now amnesiac, and has a childlike mind in her older body. “ Read more...
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2023: The Hugo Awards
“It’s completely original, but also completely captures the classic spirit of fairy tales. Marra is trying to rescue her sister, who has married into powerful royalty, and is being terribly abused. So there’s a quest, and there are three tasks, and a fairy godmother, and the goblin market; and all the magic has the haunting, under-explained quality of true fairy tales.” Read more...
“Scalzi returns with a sci-fi caper that begins in New York in the early days of the pandemic. The novel is, gleefully and explicitly, pandemic escapism – the book that Scalzi wrote when producing his intended brooding epic novel proved impossible. As Scalzi says in the author’s note: ‘It’s a pop song. It’s meant to be light and catchy, with three minutes of hooks and choruses for you to sing along with, and then you’re done and you go on with your day, hopefully with a smile on your face.'” Read more...
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2023: The Hugo Awards
“Moreno-Garcia’s novel The Daughter of Doctor Moreau takes place in Yaxaktun, Mexico, and follows two voices: Doctor Moreau’s daughter Carlota, and his mayordomo (household manager) Montgomery. The doctor is creating human-animal hybrids, claiming that they offer hope of medical advances—but he is also beholden to a patron, who hopes the experiments will ultimately provide cheap labour. The moral uncertainty is well-drawn, but takes a back seat to the human (or part-human) relationships. These feel real; there are no simplistic character choices made to serve romance or villainy, and the resulting relationships are unpredictable and compelling. The story also gains verisimilitude from its historical setting, with fact and fiction deftly woven together.” Read more...
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2023: The Hugo Awards
“Mary Robinette Kawal won this award back in 2019 with The Calculating Stars, in which a meteorite strike forces colonisation of the moon and Mars. Here, in The Spare Man, space is already inhabited; the futurist technology of the spaceship setting is richly imagined, but it is a backdrop to the plot, which is entirely unconcerned with space exploration or species survival. Instead, The Spare Man is a murder mystery. While some of the forward momentum derives from the need-to-know-who-dunnit, Kawal deftly holds readers’ interest through several mechanisms at once. The protagonist’s spouse is accused, building a powerful tension from the outset, and as the book unfolds the danger from both the true murderer and law enforcement mounts. This is intelligently crafted storytelling.” Read more...
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2023: The Hugo Awards
“Legends and Lattes is about an orc. And after war, after fighting, after being what an orc is supposed to be, this orc decides one day that they don’t want to fight anymore. They want to open a coffee shop. Think about that – that’s what the book is about. It’s not about going on epic adventures, or fighting huge, tremendous evil. It’s literally about opening a coffee shop in a little city.” Read more...
T.J. Klune, Novelist
“It’s a brilliant novel about an alt-reality Victorian England where translation has actual power. If you find these pairs of words that almost mean the same thing but not quite, you can inscribe them on silver bars, and they generate energy. These silver bars are used to power industry. So the British Empire is bringing linguists from all the colonised countries, from the most far-flung places, but then these linguists rebel. There’s an amazing scene where all the rebel linguists are in Oxford. These people speak everything and love languages—they have mad combinations of languages that no one but a linguist would have learned. And that love of real, arcane languages has brought them together, and in fact is what makes them start a revolution. It’s a deceptively fun book.” Read more...
The best books on Endangered Languages
Samantha Ellis, Memoirist
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2023: The Hugo Awards, recommended by Sylvia Bishop
The Hugo Awards, first presented in 1953, were originally known as the ‘Science Fiction Achievement Awards.’ But, in practice, their shortlists encompass speculative fiction as a whole, including fantasy—and is considered one of that genre’s most prestigious prizes. Here, Sylvia Bishop offers an overview of this year’s nominees in the ‘Best Novel’ category, which represent the most popular sci-fi and fantasy books of 2023.
