Hello Factioneers! Welcome to our best of list for 2023!
We have an amazing group of books this year ranging from debuts to sequels, to ends of series, and even a few prequels! Doorstoppers to quick comfort reads. Fantasy. Science Fiction. Everything you helped pick from the best of the best of last year!
We got more nominations for books than ever. And I wish we could have included them all, but if we missed your favorite make sure you let us know in the comments so we can check it out too! So, without further ado, here is our community’s picks for best SFF books of 2023!
P.S. If you like any of these titles, you can click on their cover to see their Goodreads page. And if you have read any, and loved them, make sure you leave a review on Goodreads or your favorite purchasing site!
Top 50
50. The Shadow Casket (The Darkwater Legacy #2) by Chris Wooding
A band of rebels.
A traitor in their midst.
A revolution about to begin.
It’s been three years since Aren seized the Ember Blade. Three years since they struck the spark they hoped would ignite the revolution. But the flame has failed to catch. The Krodans have crushed Ossia in an iron grip of terror. The revolution seems further away than ever.
Far in the north, the Dawnwardens seek to unite the fractious clans of the Fell Folk and create a stronghold from which to retake their land. But even if they can overcome the danger of treachery from within, they still have to contend with the dreadknights. Only the druidess Vika can resist these near-unstoppable foes, and there’s only one of her.
But what if there was a weapon that could destroy the dreadknights? A weapon of such power it could turn the tide? A weapon that, if it fell into the wrong hands, might mean the end of all hope?
The Shadow Casket has returned from out of the past, and it will save or damn them all.
49. The Hexologists (The Hexologists #1) by Josiah Bancroft
The Hexologists, Iz and Warren Wilby, are quite accustomed to helping desperate clients with the bugbears of city life. Aided by hexes and a bag of charmed relics, the Wilbies have recovered children abducted by chimney-wraiths, removed infestations of barb-nosed incubi, and ventured into the Gray Plains of the Unmade to soothe a troubled ghost. Well-acquainted with the weird, they never shy away from a challenging case.
But when they are approached by the royal secretary and told the king pleads to be baked into a cake—going so far as to wedge himself inside a lit oven—the Wilbies soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery that could very well see the nation turned on its head. Their effort to expose a royal secret buried under forty years of lies brings them nose to nose with a violent anti-royalist gang, avaricious ghouls, alchemists who draw their power from a hell-like dimension, and a bookish dragon who only occasionally eats people.
Armed with a love toughened by adversity and a stick of chalk that can conjure light from the darkness, hope from the hopeless, Iz and Warren Wilby are ready for a case that will test every spell, skill, and odd magical artifact in their considerable bag of tricks.
48. Divinity 36 (Tinkered Starsong #1) by Gail Carriger
The aliens are coming for us, and they want our voices.
Phex is a barista on a forgotten moon. Which is fine—he likes being ignored and he’s good at making drinks. Until one day an alien hears him singing and recruits him to become a god.
Now Phex is thrust headfirst into the galaxy’s most cutthroat entertainment industry, where music is visible, the price of fame can kill, and the only friends he has want to be worshiped.
Welcome to the divinity. Where there is no difference between celebrity and religion, love and belief, acolyte and alien. Where the right kind of obsession can drive a person crazy or turn them divine.
47. He Who Drowned the World (The Radiant Emperor #2) by Shelley Parker-Chan
How much would you give to win the world?
Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor.
But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband—and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang, who has already sacrificed everything for a chance at revenge on his father’s killer, the Great Khan.
Unbeknownst to the southerners, a new contender is even closer to the throne. The scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang has maneuvered his way into the capital, and his lethal court games threaten to bring the empire to its knees. For Baoxiang also desires revenge: to become the most degenerate Great Khan in history—and in so doing, make a mockery of every value his Mongol warrior family loved more than him.
All the contenders are determined to do whatever it takes to win. But when desire is the size of the world, the price could be too much for even the most ruthless heart to bear.
46. A Woman of the Sword by Anna Smith Spark
Lidae is a daughter, a wife, a mother—and a great warrior born to fight.
Her sword is hungry for killing.
Her right hand is red with blood.
War is very much a woman’s business.
But war is not kind to women.
And war is not kind to mothers and their sons.
45. A War to End All (Manifest Delusions #3) by Michael R. Fletcher & Clayton W. Snyder
Sanity, true cleanliness, and order;
Such things only exist after all else has been burned away.
A war, then. A war of our own. A war for perfection and cleanliness and order.
A war to end suffering.
A war to end filth and disease.
A war to end immorality and injustice.
A war to end blasphemy.
The last war this world would ever see.
A war to end all.
44. In the Shadow of Lightning (Glass Immortals #1) by Brian McClellan
Demir Grappo is an outcaste—he fled a life of wealth and power, abandoning his responsibilities as a general, a governor, and a son. Now he will live out his days as a grifter, rootless, and alone. But when his mother is brutally murdered, Demir must return from exile to claim his seat at the head of the family and uncover the truth that got her the very power that keeps civilization turning, godglass, is running out.
Now, Demir must find allies, old friends and rivals alike, confront the powerful guild-families who are only interested in making the most of the scraps left at the table and uncover the invisible hand that threatens the Empire. A war is coming, a war unlike any other. And Demir and his ragtag group of outcasts are the only thing that stands in the way of the end of life as the world knows it.
43. Lords of Uncreation (The Final Architecture #3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Idris Telemmier has uncovered a secret that changes everything—the Architects’ greatest weakness. A shadowy Cartel scrambles to turn his discovery into a weapon against these alien destroyers of worlds. But between them and victory stands self-interest. The galaxy’s great powers would rather pursue their own agendas than stand together against this shared terror.
Human and inhuman interests wrestle to control Idris’ discovery, as the galaxy erupts into a mutually destructive and self-defeating war. The other great obstacle to striking against their alien threat is Idris himself. He knows the Architects, despite their power, are merely tools of a higher intelligence.
Deep within unspace, where time moves differently, and reality isn’t quite what it seems, their masters are the true threat. Masters who are just becoming aware of humanity’s daring—and taking steps to exterminate this annoyance forever.
42. Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own.
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.
In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences.
Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.
41. An Inheritance of Magic (Inheritance of Magic #1) by Benedict Jacka
The wealthy seem to exist in a different, glittering world from the rest of us. Almost as if by… magic.
Stephen Oakwood is a young man on the edge of this hidden world. He has talent and potential, but turning that potential into magical power takes money, opportunity, and training. All Stephen has is a minimum wage job and a cat.
But when a chance encounter with a member of House Ashford gets him noticed by the wrong people, Stephen is thrown in the deep end.
For centuries, the vast corporations and aristocratic Houses of the magical world have grown impossibly rich and influential by hoarding their knowledge.
To survive, Stephen will have to take his talent and build it up into something greater—for only then can he beat them at their own game.
40. A Power Unbound (The Last Binding #3) by Freya Marske
Secrets! Magic! Enemies to… something more?
Jack Alston, Lord Hawthorn, would love a nice, safe, comfortable life. After the death of his twin sister, he thought he was done with magic for good. But with the threat of a dangerous ritual hanging over every magician in Britain, he’s drawn reluctantly back into that world.
Now Jack is living in a bizarre puzzle-box of a magical London townhouse, helping an unlikely group of friends track down the final piece of the Last Contract before their enemies can do the same. And to make matters worse, they need the help of writer and thief Alan Ross.
Cagey and argumentative, Alan is only in this for the money. The aristocratic Lord Hawthorn, with all his unearned power, is everything that Alan hates. And unfortunately, Alan happens to be everything that Jack wants in one gorgeous, infuriating package.
When a plot to seize unimaginable power comes to a head at Cheetham Hall—Jack’s ancestral family estate, a land so old and bound in oaths it’s grown a personality as prickly as its owner—Jack, Alan and their allies will become entangled in a night of champagne, secrets, and bloody sacrifice, and the foundations of magic in Britain will be torn up by the roots before the end.
39. The Necessity of Rain by Sarah Chorn
It begins with a butterfly in chains.
Since the dawn of time, life has been comfortable and predictable. The gods have wrested pockets of Creation from Chaos, formed civilizations, and built entire realities.
Now, the nature of Creation is changing, and the Divine are losing their divinity.
Rosemary, daughter of the God of Creation, can no longer deny this when a strange delegation from Dawnland braves the paths through Chaos and survives. Come to negotiate trade and protection agreements with the Divine of Meadowsweet, it is the butterfly woman who so captivates Rosemary.
The weight of her sorrow, the heaviness of her secrets.
For the soul is a battleground. Clouds are massing along the horizon, and Rosemary…
She must survive the storm.
38. Legacy of a Hated God (Mennik Thorn #4) by Patrick Samphire
Nik Thorn should know better than to get involved with gods.
But when a priest of a hated god asks Nik to save his life, Nik can hardly refuse, particularly when the priest knows exactly how, where, when, and why he is going to be killed. How hard can it be?
Of course, that’s not Nik’s only problem.
When is it ever?
A god has been murdered, the city’s high mages are about to go to war, and fury is rising in the streets.
Agatos will burn.
37. Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs
For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements—books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect.
All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna’s isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes.
But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they’ll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined, and all the secrets their parents kept hidden; secrets that span centuries, continents, and even other libraries.
36. The Narrow Road Between Desires (The Kingkiller Chronicle #2.6) by Patrick Rothfuss
Bast knows how to bargain. The give-and-take of a negotiation is as familiar to him as the in-and-out of breathing; to watch him trade is to watch an artist at work.
But even a master’s brush can slip. When he accepts a gift, taking something for nothing, Bast’s whole world is knocked askew, for he knows how to bargain—but not how to owe.
From dawn to midnight over the course of a single day, follow the charming fae as he schemes and sneaks, dancing into trouble and back out again with uncanny grace.
In this story he traces the old ways of making and breaking, following his heart even when doing so goes against his better judgement.
After all, what good is caution if it keeps him from danger and delight?
35. Night Angel Nemesis (The Kylar Chronicles #1) by Brent Weeks
After the war that cost him so much, Kylar Stern is broken and alone. He’s determined not to kill again, but an impending amnesty will pardon the one murderer he can’t let walk free. He promises himself this is the last time. One last hit to tie up the loose ends of his old, lost life.
But Kylar’s best—and maybe only—friend, the High King Logan Gyre, needs him. To protect a fragile peace, Logan’s new kingdom, and the king’s twin sons, he needs Kylar to secure a powerful magical artifact that was unearthed during the war.
With rumors that a ka’kari may be found, adversaries both old and new are on the hunt. And if Kylar has learned anything, it’s that ancient magics are better left in the hands of those he can trust.
If he does the job right, he won’t need to kill at all. This isn’t an assassination—it’s a heist.
But some jobs are too hard for an easy conscience, and some enemies are so powerful the only answer lies in the shadows.
34. Starter Villain by John Scalzi
Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place.
Charlie’s life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.
Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.
But becoming a supervillain isn’t all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they’re coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.
It’s up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyperintelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.
In a dog-eat-dog world, be a cat.
33. Esrahaddon (The Rise and Fall #3) by Michael J. Sullivan
A hero to some. A villain to many. The truth forever buried.
The man who became known as Esrahaddon is reported to have destroyed the world’s greatest empire—but there are those who believe he saved it.
Few individuals are as divisive, but all agree on three facts:
He was exiled to the wilderness,
Hunted by a goblin priestess,
And sentenced to death by a god—all before the age of eight.
How he managed to survive and why people continued to fear his name a thousand years later has always been a mystery, until now.
32. Translation State (Imperial Radch) by Ann Leckie
When Enae’s grandmaman passes away, Enae inherits something entirely unexpected: a diplomatic assignment to track down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. No one actually expects Enae to succeed; it’s an empty assignment meant to keep hir occupied. But Enae has never had a true purpose—no one ever expected hir to do more than care for grandmaman—so sie is determined to accomplish this task to the best of hir ability.
Reet knows nothing about his biological family. He loves his adoptive parents, but has always secretly yearned to understand his identity, the roots that would explain why he seems to operate just a bit differently. After all, no one else hungers to study the world by ripping it apart, by slicing into those around them in order to make sense of things. So when a political group approaches him with the claim that he has ties to a genetically mysterious, long-deceased family, Reet is only too eager to believe them.
Qven was created to be a Presgr translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presgr and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something different isn’t “optimal behavior”. It’s the type of behavior that will have you eliminated. But Qven rebels anyway, determined to find a way to belong on their own terms.
As a Conclave of the various species approaches—and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presgr is on the line—the paths of all three will collide in a chain of events that will have ripple effects across galaxies.
31. Gods of the Wyrdwood (Forsaken #1) by RJ Barker
The northlands of Crua are locked in eternal winter, but prophecy tells of the chosen child—who will rule in the name of their god and take warmth back from the South. Cahal du Nahere was raised to be this person: the Cowl-Rai, the saviour. Taken from his parents and prepared for his destiny.
But his time never came
When he was fifteen, he ceased to matter. Another Cowl-Rai had risen, another chosen one, raised in the name of a different god. The years of vicious physical and mental training he had endured, the sacrifice, all for nothing. He became nothing.
Twenty years later, and Cahal lives a life of secrecy on the edges of Crua’s giant forests—hiding what he is, running from what he can do. But when he is forced to reveal his true nature, he sets off a sequence of events that will reveal secrets that will shake the bedrock of his entire world, and expose lies that have persisted for generations.
30. The Fragile Threads of Power (Threads of Power #1) by V. E. Schwab
Once, there were four worlds, nestled like pages in a book, each pulsing with fantastical power, and connected by a single city: London. Until the magic grew too fast and forced the worlds to seal the doors between them in a desperate gamble to protect their own. The few magicians who could still open the doors grew more rare as time passed and now, only three Antari are known in recent memory—Kell Maresh of Red London, Delilah Bard of Grey London, and Holland Vosijk of White London.
But barely a glimpse of them have been seen in the last seven years—and a new Antari named Kosika has appeared in White London, taking the throne in Holland’s absence. The young queen is willing to feed her city with blood, including her own—but her growing religious fervor has the potential to drown them instead.
And back in Red London, King Rhy Maresh is threatened by a rising rebellion, one determined to correct the balance of power by razing the throne entirely.
Amidst this tapestry of old friends and new enemies, a girl with an unusual magical ability comes into possession of a device that could change the fate of all four worlds.
Her name is Tes, and she’s the only one who can bring them together—or unravel it all.
29. To Shape a Dragon’s Breath (Nampeshiweisit #1) by Moniquill Blackgoose
The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon.
Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions. They have a very specific idea of how a dragon should be raised, and who should be doing the raising—and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, her dragon will be killed.
For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very different understanding of the history of her land, challenges abound—both socially and academically. But Anequs is smart, determined, and resolved to learn what she needs to help her dragon, even if it means teaching herself. The one thing she refuses to do, however, is become the meek Anglish miss that everyone expects.
Anequs and her dragon may be coming of age, but they’re also coming to power, and that brings an important realization: the world needs changing—and they might just be the ones to do it.
28. The Bone Shard War (The Drowning Empire #3) by Andrea Stewart
Lin Sukai has won her first victory as Emperor, but the future of the Phoenix Empire hangs in the balance—and Lin is dangerously short of allies.
As her own governors plot treason, the Shardless Few renew hostilities. Worse still, Lin discovers her old nemesis Nisong has joined forces with the rogue Alanga, Ragan. Both seek her death.
Yet hopes lies in history. Legend tells of seven mythic swords, forged in centuries past. If Lin can find them before her enemies, she may yet be able to turn the tide.
If she fails, the Sukai dynasty—and the entire empire—will fall.
27. The Words of Kings and Prophets (Gael Song #2) by Shauna Lawless
Ireland, 1000 AD. Gormflaith is unhappily married to Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, and although a queen she struggles with her limited position. As an immortal Fomorian with the secret gift of magic, Gormflaith has a burning to find and destroy the hidden fortress of her sworn enemies, the Descendants, who seek to kill her kind at all costs. She begins to use her magical powers, and discovers she is more skilled than she ever realized, but can she control what she will become?
Meanwhile Fódla, the Descendants’ healer, mourns her banished sister but clings to life as the guardian of her young nephew. She seeks a place of safety for them both, but he has secrets of his own that could threaten everything—and Fódla must do all in her power to keep him hidden away from those who would use him for evil.
When a mysterious man comes to King Brian’s court, his presence could spell disaster or deliverance for both Gormflaith and Fódla—and for Ireland herself. For he is Tomas, an ambitious immortal with few scruples—and he will do anything to see his plans become reality.
Soon, mortals and immortals alike are drawn towards a bitter conflict that could decide the future of Ireland and all her people.
26. Witch King by Martha Wells
After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.
But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence?
Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions.
He’s not going to like the answers.
25. The September House by Carissa Orlando
When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.
Margaret is not most people.
Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.
24. Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland—and disappeared. Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house—and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling—go to rot.
Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.
As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire choice to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.
If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.
23. The Olympian Affair (The Cinder Spires #2) by Jim Butcher
For centuries the Cinder Spires have safeguarded humanity, rising far above the deadly surface world. Within their halls, aristocratic houses rule, developing scientific marvels and building fleets of airships for defense and trade.
Now, the Spires hover on the brink of open war.
Everyone knows it’s coming. The guns of the great airship fleets that control the skies between the last bastions of humanity will soon speak in anger, and Spire Albion stands alone against the overwhelming might of Spire Aurora’s Armada and its new secret weapon—one capable of destroying the populations of entire Spires.
A trading summit at Spire Olympia provides an opportunity for the Spirearch, Lord Albion, to secure alliances that will shape the outcomes of the war, and to that end he dispatches privateer Captain Francis Madison Grimm and the crew of the AMS Predator to bolster the Spirearch’s diplomatic agents.
It will take daring, skill, and no small amount of showmanship to convince the world to stand with Spire Albion—assuming that it is not already too late.
22. A Curse of Krakens (The Seven Kennings #3) by Kevin Hearne
Seeker and Sower
Pen Yas ben Min’s cousin was one of the legendary heroes of the wars against the giants until her untimely death. Pen has grown up in her famous cousin’s shadow, but when she’s given a quest to plant the seed of the magical Fourth Tree, she has a chance to step into the light—and usher in a new age for her country.
Fighter and FriendAbhi’s life—and the world—changed when he discovered a lost the power to speak to animals. After fighting so many battles, he’s weary and longs for home and his love, Tamhan. But before he can return, there is one last mission that only Abhi can do: speak to the colossal creatures who wait beneath the waves—the krakens.
Sailor and ExplorerKoesha and her shipmates have already made an impossible journey by navigating the Northern Yawn, at the end of which she secured an unusual cloak. But when that cloak turns out to be the key to unlocking the mystery of the Seventh Kenning, Koesha has to risk everything on another life-threatening journey and hope she can steer her crew to safety.
21. Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
While we live, the enemy shall fear us.
All her life Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth. Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the all-powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the Majoda their victory over humanity.
They are what’s left. They are what must survive. Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet. But when Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to the nursery to bear sons until she dies trying, she knows she must take humanity’s revenge into her own hands.
Alongside her brother’s brilliant but seditious friend and a lonely, captive alien, she escapes from everything she’s ever known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined.
Top 20
20. The Malevolent Seven by Sebastien de Castell
“Seven powerful mages want to make the world a better place. We’re going to kill them first.”
Picture a wizard. Go ahead, close your eyes. There he is, see? Skinny old guy with a long straggly beard. No doubt he’s wearing iridescent silk robes that couldn’t protect his frail body from a light breeze. The hat’s a must, too, right? Big, floppy thing, covered in esoteric symbols that would instantly show every other mage where this one gets his magic? Wouldn’t want a simple steel helmet or something that might, you know, protect the part of him most needed for conjuring magical forces from being bashed in with a mace (or pretty much any household object).
Now open your eyes and let me show you what a real war mage looks like. But you’re probably not going to like it, because we’re violent, angry, dangerously broken people who sell our skills to the highest bidder and be damned to any moral or ethical considerations.
At least, until such irritating concepts as friendship and the end of the world get in the way.
My name is Cade Ombra, and though I currently make my living as a mercenary wonderist, I used to have a far more noble-sounding job title—until I discovered the people I worked for weren’t quite as noble as I’d believed. Now I’m on the run and my only friend, a homicidal thunder mage, has invited me to join him on a suicide mission against the seven deadliest mages on the continent.
Time to recruit some very bad people to help us on this job.
19. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Dungeon Crawler Carl #6) by Matt Dinniman
A pantheon of forgotten gods. An old grudge between a talk show host, an heiress, and the man they shattered along the way. A rapidly deteriorating AI system. An inconvenient tiara upon the head of a friend.
It is bedlam on the eighth floor.
As management reels from the unexpected conclusion of the seventh level, the surviving crawlers stumble onto the eighth and find themselves scattered. It’s a map based on Earth’s final days before the collapse, where ethereal, intangible ghosts of humanity go about their lives, oblivious of the impending doom. Living amongst these ghosts are monsters based in Earth lore. “Legendary” creatures tied to the geographical location they inhabit.
Each team of crawlers is given a task: find and capture six of these beasts. The captured monsters will be turned into cards. Cards that can be summoned into battle again and again. The stronger, the deadlier, the better.
At the end of the floor, the bad guys will also have decks, and they will have some of the most powerful cards available. So it’s crucial to assemble the toughest squad possible.
But, like always, there is a catch. There’s always a catch.
As Carl and Donut know all too well, just because someone is captured, it doesn’t mean they have been tamed.
Her name is Shi Maria. She’s easily the most powerful monster in their area. If they want to survive, they must capture her. But she is no ordinary beast. She’s intelligent. She was once married to a god, a god who is now missing. Her special attack is known to drive one insane. They call her the Bedlam Bride.
18. Cassiel’s Servant (Kushiel’s Legacy #1.5) by Jacqueline Carey
In Kushiel’s Dart, a daring young courtesan uncovered a plot to destroy her beloved homeland. But hers is only half the tale. Now see the other half of the heart that lived it.
Cassiel’s Servant is a retelling of cult favorite Kushiel’s Dart from the point of view of Joscelin, Cassiline warrior-priest and protector of Phèdre nó Delaunay. He’s sworn to celibacy and the blade as surely as she’s pledged to pleasure, but the gods they serve have bound them together. When both are betrayed, they must rely on each other to survive.
From his earliest training to captivity amongst their enemies, his journey with Phèdre to avert the conquest of Terre D’Ange shatters body and mind and brings him an impossible love that he will do anything to keep.
Even if it means breaking all vows and losing his soul.
17. Hell Bent (Alex Stern #2) by Leigh Bardugo
Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory—even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.
Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.
16. In the Lives of Puppets by T. J. Klune
In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots—fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.
The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio—a past spent hunting humans.
When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.
Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?
15. Fourth Wing (The Empyrean #1) by Rebecca Yarros
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away, because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die
14. Of War and Ruin (The Bound and the Broken #3) by Ryan Cahill
Solian ata’yar. Dauv ata’yar. Nur temen vie’ryn valana.
Live as one. Die as one. For those we’ve lost.
The city of Kingspass burns, and Calen Bryer’s world has been shaken to its core. With Valerys at his side, Calen must battle his demons and push forward. There are people who need him, people who need what he must become, and he will not let them stand alone.
In Loria, Ella struggles to understand the ancient power that flows through her veins. The world is changing around her, and she is changing with it. Her journey has only just begun.
Thousands of miles away, beneath the mountains of Lodhar, assassins move in the dark as the kingdoms of the Dwarven Freehold ready themselves for war. Not everything is as it seems. Dahlen Virandr and Belina Louna have no choice but to unravel the mysteries of the mountain before everything crumbles around them.
Meanwhile, in Al’Nasla, Rist Havel learns the true cost of becoming an Imperial Battlemage. He will question every truth he has ever been told. He has never been a fighter, never been the one people look to, but he will fight for those he loves no matter what it takes.
With the Uraks ravaging the towns and villages of the North, Alina and Dayne Ateres prepare their people for war. They have been beneath a Lorian boot for too long. Valtara will be free. The wyvern of House Ateres will fly again, by blade and by blood.
As the continent of Epheria descends into war and chaos, Kallinvar struggles to come to terms with an immense loss. Despite the hole in his heart, he has no choice but to stand and fight. The Shadow is coming, and the Knights of Achyron are the only ones powerful enough to hold back the tide.
Unbeknownst to all, another force is rising—a force long thought tamed.
The balance of power is about to shift, and Epheria will never be the same.
The Blood Moon is rising.
13. The Traitor (Covenant of Steel #3) by Anthony Ryan
Alwyn must make a difficult decision between his heart and his morals as he prepares for his final battle.
It’s been a long journey for Alwyn Scribe. Born a bastard and raised an outlaw, he’s now a knight and the most trusted advisor to Lady Evadine Courlain. Together they’ve won countless battles and helped to bring order to a fractured kingdom.Yet Evadine is not the woman Alwyn once knew. As puritanical fury increasingly replaces her benevolent faith, Alwyn begins to question what her true motives really are.
As the kingdom braces itself for one final battle, Alwyn’s conscience fights its own war with his heart. Now, more than ever, he must decide whose side he’s really on.
12. Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang
Magic has made the city of Tiran an industrial utopia, but magic has a cost—and the collectors have come calling.
An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant.
What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power.
Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance?
11. System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries #7) by Martha Wells
“Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse.”
Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.
But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast.
“Yeah, this plan is… not going to work.”
Top 10
10. Tress of the Emerald Sea (The Cosmere #28) by Brandon Sanderson
“An original fairy tale that will delight fans of William Goldman’s The Princess Bride and Neil Gaiman’s Stardust.”?Booklist
The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie.
But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?
9. Waybound (Cradle #12) by Will Wight
“This is the Wei! Brilliant. Amazing. Completely satisfying end to one of the best fantasy series of all time!”— Arun, FanFi Addict
Years ago, Lindon left his home as a powerless Unsouled. Now, he goes to war with the most powerful beings in the world over the future of Cradle itself. The Weeping Dragon has a grudge to settle, and Lindon intends to take out the Dreadgod with his friends by his side.
But rival Monarchs know his plans, and they won’t let things end so easily. If Lindon does win, he will ascend to the heavens. But he may not find a safe haven there either.
In the worlds above, Suriel and Ozriel face off against the Mad King to determine the new shape of the cosmos. The victor will decide the fate of countless universes.
Whether he wins or dies, Lindon will soon leave this life behind. The time has come to say goodbye to Cradle.
8. A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos #0) by Samantha Shannon
“Epic in scope … The heroes shine in their uniqueness, with diverse family dynamics interwoven throughout and representation ranging from queer lords and warriors to genderfluid alchemists. … This is expansive, emotionally complex, and bound to suck you in.”” ?Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
Tunuva Melim is a sister of the Priory. For fifty years, she has trained to slay wyrms—but none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation is starting to question the Priory’s purpose.
To the north, in the Queendom of Inys, Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hróth, narrowly saving both realms from ruin. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadow—exactly where she wants to be.
The dragons of the East have slept for centuries. Dumai has spent her life in a Seiikinese mountain temple, trying to wake the gods from their long slumber. Now someone from her mother’s past is coming to upend her fate.
When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, these women must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat.
7. Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes #0) by Travis Baldree
“Well, damn, he’s done it again. Bookshops & Bonedust is hilarious, heartwarming, and wholesome as heck. If you loved the first you’ll almost certainly love this perfectly executed prequel even more, as the stakes are higher and the scones are hotter still!”?Nicholas Eames, author of Kings of the Wyld
Viv’s career with the notorious mercenary company Rackam’s Ravens isn’t going as planned.
Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she’s packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk—so far from the action that she worries she’ll never be able to return to it.
What’s a thwarted soldier of fortune to do?
Spending her hours at a beleaguered bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted, but it may be both exactly what she needs and the seed of changes she couldn’t possibly imagine.
Still, adventure isn’t all that far away. A suspicious traveler in gray, a gnome with a chip on her shoulder, a summer fling, and an improbable number of skeletons prove Murk to be more eventful than Viv could have ever expected.
6. Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde #1) by Heather Fawcett
“Emily herself is delightful, brilliant but flawed, and often darkly funny. Her frustration with her feckless but charming colleague Wendell Bambleby is the perfect spark, and the romance is light but hits surprisingly hard when it chooses to.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party—or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, and the Fair Folk.
So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily’s research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.
But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones—the most elusive of all faeries—lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she’ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all—her own heart.
Top 5
5. The Tyranny of Faith (Empire of the Wolf #2) by Richard Swan
“A fantasy series that fans of authors like Joe Abercrombie, George R.R. Martin, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle should have on their shelf…The Tyranny of Faith is a compelling follow-up to Richard Swan’s The Justice of Kings, full of the intrigue, foreboding, detailed worldbuilding and deep character explorations that made the first book so good. I had high expectations going into this book and it surpassed them. A five star read, hands down.”?Winter Is Coming
A Justice’s work is never done.
The Battle of Galen’s Vale is over, but the war for the Empire’s future has just begun. Concerned by rumors the Magistratum’s authority is waning, Sir Konrad Vonvalt returns to Sova to find the capital city gripped by intrigue and whispers of rebellion. In the Senate, patricians speak openly against the Emperor, while fanatics preach holy vengeance on the streets.
Yet facing down these threats to the throne will have to wait, for the Emperor’s grandson has been kidnapped—and Vonvalt is charged with rescuing the missing prince. His quest will lead him—and his allies Helena, Bressinger and Sir Radomir—to the southern frontier, where they will once again face the puritanical fury of Bartholomew Claver and his templar knights—and a dark power far more terrifying than they could have imagined.
4. Light Bringer (Red Rising Saga #6) by Pierce Brown
“[Pierce] Brown’s plots are like a depth charge of nitromethane dropped in a bucket of gasoline. His pacing is 100 percent him standing over it all with a lit match and a smile, waiting for us to dare him to drop it.”—NPR
“The measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends.”—Virginia au Augustus
The Reaper is a legend, more myth than man: the savior of worlds, the leader of the Rising, the breaker of chains.
But the Reaper is also Darrow, born of the red soil of Mars: a husband, a father, a friend.
The worlds once needed the Reaper. But now they need Darrow. Because after the dark age will come a new age: of light, of victory, of hope.
3. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi #1) by Shannon Chakraborty
“A thrilling, transportative adventure that is everything promised–Chakraborty’s storytelling is fantasy at its best.”—R. F. Kuang, author of Babel
Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.
But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.
Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power, and the price might be your very soul.
2. The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy #1) by Mark Lawrence
“A fantastic setting, a feisty heroine, and hints of a deeper mystery that calls to mind the depths of Frank Herbert’s Dune and its intertwined cultural and religious issues.” – Library Journal
A boy has lived his whole life trapped within a vast library, older than empires and larger than cities.
A girl has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust where nightmares stalk and no one goes.
The world has never even noticed them. That’s about to change.
Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another. A journey on which knowledge erodes certainty, and on which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned.
And the Winner of Fantasy-Faction’s Top 50 SFF Books of 2023 is…
1. The Will of the Many (The Hierarchy #1) by James Islington
“Fans of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising will enjoy this book, but it’s darker, deeper, and takes unexpected paths worth traveling. Trust that the author will get you there in the end.”—Kirkus, Starred Review
AUDI. VIDE. TACE.
The Catenan Republic—the Hierarchy—may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.
I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive, and my focus—what they call Will—to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.
I tell them I belong, and they believe me.
But the truth is I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.
And I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.
To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.
And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.
Congratulations to James Islington! The race this year was close race between The Will of the Many and The Book That Wouldn’t Burn. But The Will of the Many won by a close margin! We can’t wait to read the next books in both series, and if you haven’t read them yet, you definitely should!
And congratulations to everyone who made our list! The regulars, the debuts, the unexpected, all of you have made our lives better with your stories. We at Fantasy-Faction can’t thank you enough for the joy, laughter, and bitter tears you have given us. And we can’t wait to see what comes next!
Happy Reading Everyone!
P.P.S. If you loved any of these books (or any books really) and want to help the authors out, review their books! On Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever else you can. This helps authors so much and is one of the best ways to thank them for their awesomeness. ?
Title image by Patrick Hendry.
