Fantasy

The Old Axolotl: Hardware Dreams, Jacek Dukaj

The Old Axolotl is an exhilarating post-apocalyptic tale about a world in which a cosmic catastrophe has sterilized the Earth of all living things. Only a small number of humans have managed to copy digitalized versions of their minds onto hardware in the nick of time. Deprived of physical bodies, […]

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War Girls, Tochi Onyebuchi

The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky.  In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to […]

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Empire of the Wild, Cherie Dimaline

From the author of the YA-crossover hit The Marrow Thieves, a propulsive, stunning and sensuous novel inspired by the traditional Métis story of the Rogarou–a werewolf-like creature that haunts the roads and woods of Métis communities. A messed-up, grown-up, Little Red Riding Hood. -Goodreads Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads

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The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth, Veeraporn Nitiprapha

The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth, which won the South East Asian Writers Award for the original Thai edition, is also lush with characters — and foliage and fauna. In Veeraporn’s telling, the Thai capital doesn’t unfold, as in Pitchaya’s plaited tale, but explode. –The New York Times Goodreads Reviews […]

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The Wall, John Lanchester

The novel expertly touches on the most pressing issues of our time – migration, political unrest and climate change – and acts as a warning for what could come. –The Standard UK Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads

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Beneath the Mother Tree, D.M. Cameron

A spine-chilling mystery and contemporary love story, Beneath the Mother Tree plays out in a unique and wild Australian setting, interweaving Indigenous history and Irish mythology…On a small island, something sinister is at play. Resident alcoholic Grappa believes it’s the Far Dorocha, dark servant of the Faery queen, whose seductive […]

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Compass Rose, Anna Burke

This swashbuckling 26th century adventure novel is smart, colorful and quirky, yet it manages to deliver a healthy dose of heart, humor, and humility on every single page. -Goodreads Compass Rose is a dystopian high-seas adventure that examines climate refugees, changing ocean ecosystems, and ways humanity might adapt to rising, […]

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The Witch of the Meadows, Laurel Wanrow

Part one of The Windborne series. For months, seventeen-year-old Fern has been sneaking out on her mother—really sneaking out—through a magical portal to an island halfway around the world. There, the grandmother Fern never knew existed needs her help rejuvenating their ancestral land. She has always been good at growing […]

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Winternight Trilogy, Katherine Arden

This looks fantastic! A fairytale/fantasy where surrounding nature strongly intersects with the story. A magical debut novel for readers of Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, and Neil Gaiman’s myth-rich fantasies, The Bear and the Nightingale spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular […]

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Forgotten Things, Stephen Mullaney-Westwood

The beauty of the Cornish countryside… The innocence of childhood in the 1980’s… An ancient mystery not quite forgotten. Mullaney-Westwood’s first novel is a spiritual coming of age tale mixing haunting faery lore and a deep love for the natural world. Fairy tales are one thing…faeries, are another. ‘A magical […]

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The Middle Earth Universe, J.R.R. Tolkien

This is the 600th book post made in the years I’ve run Dragonfly, and I wanted to make it special on this fifth anniversary. Perhaps this should have been my first post ever, but it took me a long time to come up with a standard for any sort of […]

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Compulsory Games, Robert Aikman

Aickman’s superbly written tales terrify not with standard thrills and gore but through a radical overturning of the laws of nature and everyday life. His territory of the strange, of the “void behind the face of order,” is a surreal region that grotesquely mimics the quotidian: Is that river the […]

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The Vorrh Trilogy, Brian Catling

Click here for all, including The Vorrh and The Erstwhile. The richly grotesque Vorrh trilogy describes a quest to rescue the tree of knowledge and return Creation to a state of primal innocence. –The Guardian In the stunning conclusion to Brian Catling’s Vorrh trilogy, the colonial city of Essenwald gives […]

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The Books of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the timeless and beloved A Wizard of Earthsea —“…reads like the retelling of a tale first told centuries ago,” (David Mitchell)—comes this complete omnibus edition of the entire Earthsea chronicles, including over fifty illustrations illuminating Le Guin’s vision of her classic saga. Goodreads Reviews Back […]

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Djinn City, Saad Hossain

Indelbed is a lonely kid living in a crumbling mansion in the super dense, super chaotic third world capital of Bangladesh. When he learns that his dead mother was a djinn — more commonly known as a genie — and that his drunken loutish father is a sitting emissary to […]

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