Hello, friends! This has to be one of the easiest topics I’ve written about, because it feels like almost all the fantasy novels I have read have been immersive. And most of them were worlds I would gladly visit! That’s what makes fantasy novels such a great choice when you need to escape from reality.
But since there are so many, I didn’t want to mention the ones that are always named when fantasy books are recommended. I loooooove V.E. Schwab and Susanna Clarke, and highly recommend them, but everyone knows them. Same with Golden Compass, The Night Circus, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time, Katabasis, The Fifth Kingdom, and Lord of the Rings. (Fun fact: You can sing those titles to the first lines of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel.)
No, this time I am going to mention a few amazing fantasy titles that I haven’t gone on and on about lately, to give them a boost. And each has an incredible, unique world worth visiting. Let’s meet them!
Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft
I love this book, which I think of as the “Seinfeld parking garage episode” of fantasy books, in an endearing way. While visiting the gargantuan Tower of Babel, a colossal building with unusual happenings and sights on each floor, Thomas Senlin and his new wife, Marya, get separated. In order to reunite, Senlin will have to fight increasing dangers and weirdness as he climbs higher and higher. (It’s kinda like Dragon Crawler Carl, in reverse.) Not only does Bancroft manage to pack the tower full of inventive ideas, he sustains it for another three books after this one.
The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty
This might be the most well-known book on this list, but it’s currently on my mind, because I think it’s time to revisit it. It came out almost a decade ago, if you can believe it! It’s the gorgeous start to a series, set in an alternate historical Cairo where a grifter with powerful magical abilities learns she is tied to the legendary city of Daevabad. The city holds the six djinn tribes and more political intrigue than George R.R. Martin can shake a stick at, and she enters Daevabad with the help of her djinn companion, who she accidentally summoned. Like you do.
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Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi
In another amazing twisting of history, this Persephone-inspired fantasy is set in an alternative 15th-century West Africa. Òdòdó is an outcast in of Timbuktu, a member of a blacksmith guild shunned by the rest of her town, until she is kidnapped by the warrior king and carried across the Sahara to his kingdom of Ṣàngótẹ̀ to be his bride. But Òdòdó isn’t going to let this stand, and she begins to turn his kingdom against him, plotting to take his throne for herself. It’s a lush, sweeping desert-set story which delivers one hundred percent of the political intrigue, imagination, and magic, and zero percent of the sand in uncomfortable places.
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
Holy cats, this book. This series! I am a huge Catherynne M. Valente fan, and it never ceases to amaze me how many magical, wonderful settings she has in her books. The descriptions are always scrumptious—it feels as if she has a secret stash of adjectives that the rest of us don’t get to use. This middle grade series is like Alice in Wonderland if it was written by magical mice who ingest nothing but Skittles and Red Bull. It’s so fun and inventive, and you can almost feel the imagination warming your face as you read along.
Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang
And for dark academia fans, this standalone fantasy is set at the High Magistry at the University of Magics and Industry. After two decades of ceaseless hard work, Sciona has finally become the first woman highmage admitted to the university. But her male peers don’t approve, and make things difficult for her, including assigning her a janitor to help with her work instead of a lab assistant. But the joke’s on them, because the janitor has secrets. It’s a magical science lab revenge-fantasy novel, with an excellent magic system that would definitely have made science class much more interesting.
Okay, star bits, now take the knowledge you have learned here today and use it for good, not evil. If you want to know more about books, I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me say lots of adjectives about them on the BR podcast All the Books! and on Instagram.
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