It has been a bonza year for all things fantasy, sci-fi and speculative fiction! We've rounded up some of our favourite reads that include cozy fantasies, epic space operas, and multiple not-too-distant dystopias.

Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong

Every year, thousands flock to San-Er, the dangerously dense capital twin cities of the kingdom of Talin, where the palace hosts a set of deadly games. Those confident in their ability to jump between bodies can enter a fight to the death – for the chance to win unimaginable riches.

Princess Calla Tuoleimi has been in hiding for five years, ever since she murdered her parents to free the people of Talin from her tyrannical family. Only one person stands in her way of finishing the job: her reclusive uncle King Kasa. However, she knows he always greets the victor of the games. If she wins, she will finally get the chance to kill him. Enter Anton Makusa, whose childhood love has lain in a coma since they were both ousted from the palace. He's deep in debt trying to keep her alive. Which means his last chance at saving her is entering the games and winning. When Anton proposes an unexpected alliance with Calla, they quickly find their partnership spiraling into something all-consuming. But before the games close, Calla must decide what she's playing for – her lover or her kingdom. For no matter what, only one of them can walk out alive.

Prophet by Helen Macdonald & Sin Blache

Your happiest memory is their deadliest weapon. This is Prophet. It knows when you were happiest. It gives life to your fondest memories and uses them to destroy you. But who has created it? And what do they want?

An all-American diner appears overnight in a remote British field. It's brightly lit, warm and inviting but it has no power, no water, no connection to the real world. It's like a memory made flesh – a nostalgic flight of fancy. More and more objects materialise – toys, fairground rides, pets and other treasured mementos of the past. And the deaths quickly follow. Something is bringing these memories to life, then stifling innocent people with their own joy. This is a weapon like no other. But nobody knows who created it, or why.

Sunil Rao seems a surprising choice of investigator. Chaotic and unpredictable, the former agent is the antithesis of his partner Colonel Adam Rubenstein, the model of a military man. But Sunil has the unique ability to distinguish truth from lies – in objects, words and people, in the past and in real time. And Adam is the only one who truly knows him, after a troubled past together. Now, as they battle this strange new reality, they are drawn closer than ever to defend what they both hold most dear.

Infinity Gate (The Pandominion, Book 1) by M.R. Carey

Infinity is only the beginning.

The Pandominion: a political and trading alliance of a million worlds - except that they're really just the one world, Earth, in many different realities. And when an AI threat arises that could destroy everything the Pandominion has built, they'll eradicate it by whatever means necessary, no matter the cost to human life.

Scientist Hadiz Tambuwal is looking for a solution to her own Earth's environmental collapse when she stumbles across the secret of inter-dimensional travel. It could save everyone on her dying planet, but now she's walked into the middle of a war on a scale she never dreamed of. And she needs to choose a side before it kills her.

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

Viv's career with the renowned 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 struggling bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted. Even though it may be exactly what she needs. Still, adventure isn't far away. A suspicious traveller in grey, 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. Sometimes, right things happen at the wrong time. Sometimes, what we need isn't what we seek. And sometimes, we find ourselves in the stories we experience together.

The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic by Breanne Randall

Sadie Revelare has always believed that the curse of four heartbreaks that accompanies her magic would be worth the price. But when her grandmother is diagnosed with cancer with only weeks to live, and her first heartbreak, Jake McNealy, returns to town after a decade, her carefully structured life begins to unravel.

As feelings for Jake begin to rekindle, and her grandmother growing sicker by the day, Sadie faces the last of her heartbreaks, and she has to decide: is love more important than magic?

Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

A smog has spread. Food crops are disappearing. A chef escapes her career in London to take a job at a decadent, mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world's troubles. There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body. In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef's boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.

The Will of the Many by James Islington

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 that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that 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 that 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.

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Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella

Brian, an aimless slacker, works doubles at his shift job, forgets to clean his room and lays about with his friends Nik and Darby. He's been struggling to manage his transition to adulthood almost as much as his monthly transitions to a werewolf. Really, he is not great at the whole werewolf thing, and his recent murderous slip-ups have caught the attention of Tyler, a Millennial were-mentor determined to take the mythological world by storm.

Tyler has got a plan, and weirdly his self-help punditry actually encourages Brian to shape up and to stop accidently marking out guys who ghosted him on Grindr as potential monthly victims. But as Brian gets closer to Tyler's pack, and alienated from Nik and Darby, he realises that Tyler's expansion plans are much more nefarious than a little lupine enlightenment.

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ 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?

Shanghai Immortal by A.Y. Chao

Half vampire. Half fox-spirit. All trouble. Pawned by her mother to the King of Hell as a child, Lady Jing is half-vampire, half-hulijing fox-spirit and all sasshole. As the King's ward, she has spent the past ninety years running errands, dodging the taunts of the spiteful hulijing courtiers, and trying to control her explosive temper - with varying levels of success. So when Jing overhears the courtiers plotting to steal a priceless dragon pearl from the King, she seizes her chance to expose them, once and for all.

With the help of a gentle mortal tasked with setting up the Central Bank of Hell, Jing embarks on a wild chase for intel, first through Hell and then mortal Shanghai. But when her hijinks put the mortal in danger, she must decide which is more important: avenging her loss of face, or letting go of her half-empty approach to life for a chance to experience tenderness – and maybe even love.

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz by Garth Nix

Sir Hereward: the only male child of an ancient society of witches. Knight, artillerist, swordsman. Mercenary for hire. Ill-starred lover.

Mister Fitz: sorcerous puppet, loremaster. Practitioner ofarcane artsand wielder of sorcerous needles.

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: godslayers. Agents of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, charged with the location andremoval of listed extra-dimensional entities,more commonly known as gods. Together, they are relentless travellers in a treacherousworld of magic, gunpowder, and adventure.

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

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 Hroth, 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.

Translation State by Ann Leckie

The mystery of a missing translator sets three lives on a collision course that will have a ripple effect across the stars in this powerful new novel by award-winning author Ann Leckie.

Qven was created to be a Presger 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 Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else isn't "optimal behavior". I's the type of behavior that results in elimination. But Qven rebels. And in doing so, their path collides with those of two others. Enae, a reluctant diplomat whose dead grandmaman has left hir an impossible task as an inheritance: hunting down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. And Reet, an adopted mechanic who is increasingly desperate to learn about his genetic roots - or anything that might explain why he operates so differently from those around him.

As a Conclave of the various species approaches – and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presger is on the line – the decisions of all three will have ripple effects across the stars.

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

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 encylopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party – much less get invited to one. Emily prefers the company of her books, her dog Shadow, and the Fair Folk to that of friends or lovers.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hransvik, 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 her research, and utterly confound and frustrate Emily.

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.

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Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars – the highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program inside America's private prison system. Harkening back to the time of gladiators, but watched by millions of live-stream subscribers, prisoners compete for the ultimate prize – their freedom.

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara 'Hurricane Staxxx' Stacker, teammates and lovers, are the fan favourites. If all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. But will the price be simply too high?

From one of American fiction's brightest stars, this is an electrifying, page-turning near-future dystopia perfect for fans of The Handmaid's Tale, Squid Game and Watchmen.

After the Forest by Kell Woods

Ginger. Honey. Cinnamon. Flour. A drop of blood to bind its power.

1650: The Black Forest, Wurttemberg. Fifteen years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their mother and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people recovering in the aftermath of a brutal war. Greta has a secret, though: the witch's grimoire, secreted away and whispering in her ear, and the recipe inside that makes the most sinfully delicious – and addictive – gingerbread. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat.

But in a village full of superstition, Greta and her intoxicating gingerbread is a source of ever-growing suspicion and vicious gossip. And now, dark magic is returning to the woods and Greta's own powers – magic she is still trying to understand - may be the only thing that can save her. If it doesn't kill her first.