The question at the heart of science fiction and fantasy is "what if?" What if gods were real, but you could kill them? What if humans finally made it out among the stars — only to discover we're the shabby newcomers in a grand galactic alliance? What if an asteroid destroyed the East Coast in 1952 and jump-started the space race years early?
This year's summer reader poll was also shaped by a series of "what ifs" — most importantly, what if, instead of looking at the entire history of the field the way we did in our 2011 poll, we focused only on what has happened in the decade since? These past 10 years have brought seismic change to science fiction and fantasy (sometimes literally, in the case of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series), and we wanted to celebrate the world-shaking rush of new voices, new perspectives, new styles and new stories. And though we limited ourselves to 50 books this time around, the result is a list that's truly stellar — as poll judge Tochi Onyebuchi put it, "Alive."
As always, a pretty extensive decision-making process went into the list, involving our fabulous panel of expert judges — but we know you eager readers want to get right to the books. So if you're inclined, follow these links to find out how we built the list (and what, sadly, didn't make it this year). Otherwise, scroll on for the list!
We've broken it up into categories to help you find the reading experience you're looking for, and you can click on these links to go directly to each category:
Worlds To Get Lost In · Words To Get Lost In · Will Take You On A Journey · Will Mess With Your Head · Will Mess With Your Heart · Will Make You Feel Good
Worlds To Get Lost In
Are you (like me) a world-building fanatic? These authors have built worlds so real you can almost smell them.
The Imperial Radch Trilogy
The Dead Djinn Universe (series)
The Age of Madness Trilogy
The Green Bone Saga
The Expanse (series)
The Daevabad Trilogy
Teixcalaan (series)
The Thessaly Trilogy
Shades of Magic Trilogy
The Divine Cities Trilogy
The Wormwood Trilogy
Black Sun (series)
Words To Get Lost In
If you're one of those people who thought genre fiction writing was workmanlike and uninspiring, these books will change your mind.
Piranesi
Circe
Mexican Gothic
The Paper Menagerie And Other Stories
Spinning Silver
Exhalation: Stories
Olondria (series)
Her Body And Other Parties: Stories
The Buried Giant
Radiance
Will Take You On A Journey
Sure, all books are some kind of journey, but these reads really go the distance.
The Changeling
Wayfarers (series)
Binti (series)
Lady Astronaut (series)
Children of Time (duology)
Wayward Children (series)
The Space Between Worlds
Will Mess With Your Head
Do you love twisty tales, loopy logic, unsolved mysteries and cosmic weirdness? Scroll on!
Black Leopard, Red Wolf
Southern Reach (series)
The Echo Wife
The Locked Tomb (series)
Remembrance of Earth's Past (series)
Machineries of Empire (series)
Will Mess With Your Heart
Books that'll make you cry, make you think — and sometimes make you want to hide under the bed.
The Broken Earth (series)
Station Eleven
This Is How You Lose the Time War
The Poppy War Trilogy
The Masquerade (series)
An Unkindness of Ghosts
The Bird King
American War
Riot Baby
On Fragile Waves
Will Make You Feel Good
Maybe, after the year we've just had, you want to read a book where good things happen, eventually? We've got you.
The Goblin Emperor
Murderbot (series)
The Interdependency (series)
The Martian
Sorcerer to the Crown/The True Queen
How We Built This
Wow, you're some dedicated readers! Thanks for coming all the way down here to find out more. As I said above, we decided to limit ourselves to 50 books this year instead of our usual 100, which made winnowing down the list a particular challenge. As you may know, this poll isn't a straight-up popularity contest, though, if it were, the Broken Earth books would have crushed all comers — y'all have good taste! Instead, we take your votes (over 16,000 this year) and pare them down to about 250 semifinalists, and then during a truly epic conference call, our panel of expert judges goes through those titles, cuts some, adds some and hammers out a final curated list.
What Didn't Make It — And Why
As always, there were works readers loved and voted for that didn't make our final list of 50 — it's not a favorites list if you can't argue about it, right? Sometimes, we left things out because we felt like the authors were well known enough not to need our help (farewell, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman, we hope you'll forgive us!), but mostly it happened because the books either came out before our cutoff date or already appeared on the original 2011 list. (Sorry, Brandon Sanderson! The first Mistborn book was actually on this year's list, until I looked more closely and realized it was a repeat from 2011.)
Some books didn't make it this year because we're almost positive they'll come around next year — next year being the 10th anniversary of our original 2012 YA poll, when (spoiler alert!) we're planning a similar redo. So we say "not farewell, but fare forward, voyagers" to the likes of Raybearer, Children of Blood and Bone and the Grishaverse books; if they don't show up on next year's list I'll, I don't know, I'll eat my kefta.
And this year, because we had only 50 titles to play with, we did not apply the famous Nora Roberts rule, which allows particularly beloved and prolific authors onto the list twice. So as much as it pains me, there's only one Seanan McGuire entry here, and Max Gladstone appears alongside poll judge Amal El-Mohtar for This Is How You Lose the Time War but not on his own for the excellent Craft Sequence. Which — as we said above — you should ABSOLUTELY read.
One Final Note
Usually, readers will vote at least some works by members of our judging panel onto the list, and usually, we let the judges themselves decide whether or not to include them. But this year, I put my editorial foot down — all four judges made it to the semifinals, and had we not included them, the final product would have been the less for it. So you'll find all four on the list. And we hope you enjoy going through it as much as we enjoyed putting it together!
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