May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the United States and Asian Heritage Month in Canada, and while the month may be nearing its end, there’s still plenty of time to find your next favorite book.
People of East Asian and Pacific Islander descent have made vast contributions to the fields of science of fiction and fantasy throughout history, and May is the perfect month to honor that by checking out books by AAPI authors. We’ve rounded up 10 recent books that no science fiction and fantasy bookshelf should be without.
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The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso (Chronicles of the Bitch Queen #1)
The first volume in author K.S. Villoso’s Chronicles of the Bitch Queen, The Wolf of Oren-Yaro follows the queen of an island nation inspired by the Philippines as she fights to retain power from those who would seek to steal it from her. After being double-crossed and left for dead, Queen Talyien must fight to stay alive and regain her crown. But that’s much easier said than done as assassins and betrayals lurk around every corner.
"Born under the crumbling towers of her kingdom, Queen Talyien was the shining jewel and legacy of the bloody War of the Wolves. It nearly tore her nation apart. But her arranged marriage to the son of a rival clan heralds peace. However, he suddenly disappears before their reign can begin, and the kingdom is fractured beyond repair. Years later, he sends a mysterious invitation to meet. Talyien journeys across the sea in hopes of reconciling their past. An assassination attempt quickly dashes those dreams. Stranded in a land she doesn’t know, with no idea whom she can trust, Talyien will have to embrace her namesake."
The following two books, The Ikessar Falcon and The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng, finish out Talyien’s tale, so if you want a complete series to lose yourself in, this got you covered. The author also has several standalone novels set in the same world.
Find The Wolf of Oren-Yaro on Amazon.
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart (The Drowning Empire #1)
Andrea Stewart swept onto the fantasy scene in 2021 with her fantastic debut novel The Bone Shard Daughter. It’s the tale of an empire propped up by a grisly magic order that keeps its populace in check, and the various memorable characters who work to topple the system. Stewart combines fantasy with horror in ways that feel fresh, with monstrous constructs sewn together from various bits of different animals stalking palace corridors and horrific costs to perform magic.
It’s not all grim though; this series also has a fantastic sense of humor, complete with one of the most lovable animal companions around. The Drowning Empire is set on a drifting island chain and features plenty of inter-island politicking and adventure.
"The emperor’s reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animal-like constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire’s many islands. Lin is the emperor’s daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic. Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright – and save her people."
Book two of The Drowning Empire, The Bone Shard Emperor, came out in late 2021. The final book of the trilogy is expected sometime in 2023.
Find The Bone Shard Daughter on Amazon.
Jade City by Fonda Lee (The Green Bone Saga #1)
Fonda Lee’s Green Bone Saga is what would happen if epic fantasy and crime family films like The Godfather had a baby, and it is glorious. Combining influences from the fallout of the Vietnam War, Asian crime gangs like the Triads, martial arts films, and a code of honor reminiscent of Japanese Samurai, Lee’s tour de force trilogy feels like a true melting pot of various cultures and ideas. It combines together to create an incredibly immersive modern fantasy world.
In this world, magic is drawn from jade, and the lengths the various criminal factions of the series will go to in order to control the jade trade is nothing short of riveting.
"Jade is the lifeblood of the island of Kekon. It has been mined, traded, stolen, and killed for — and for centuries, honorable Green Bone warriors like the Kaul family have used it to enhance their magical abilities and defend the island from foreign invasion. Now, the war is over and a new generation of Kauls vies for control of Kekon’s bustling capital city. They care about nothing but protecting their own, cornering the jade market, and defending the districts under their protection. Ancient tradition has little place in this rapidly changing nation. When a powerful new drug emerges that lets anyone — even foreigners — wield jade, the simmering tension between the Kauls and the rival Ayt family erupts into open violence. The outcome of this clan war will determine the fate of all Green Bones — and of Kekon itself."
This trilogy finished last year with Jade Legacy, which is an astounding capstone to a series that takes place over three decades with the Kaul family. If you want a series with such shocking twists that you’ll probably need therapy after reading, this is it.
Find Jade City on Amazon.
The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu (The Dandelion Dynasty #1)
Ken Liu’s novel The Grace of Kings is a silkpunk fantasy tale about the corrupting influence of power, the dangers of empire, and the power of friendship and family in the darkest of times. Liu’s style evokes the feel of a mythic tale as he details main character Kuni Garu’s transformation from village layabout to a figure destined to shape the future of an entire continent.
Though it begins as Kuni’s tale, the deeper into the story you get, the more the scope expands to include other members of his family and even more ambitious adventures.
"Wily, charming Kuni Garu, a bandit, and stern, fearless Mata Zyndu, the son of a deposed duke, seem like polar opposites. Yet, in the uprising against the emperor, the two quickly become the best of friends after a series of adventures fighting against vast conscripted armies, silk-draped airships, and shapeshifting gods. Once the emperor has been overthrown, however, they each find themselves the leader of separate factions—two sides with very different ideas about how the world should be run and the meaning of justice."
Liu has published three books in The Dandelion Dynasty to date: The Grace of Kings, The Wall of Storms and The Veiled Throne. The final volume, Speaking Bones, is due out this June, making now the perfect time to get into this epic series.
Find The Grace of Kings on Amazon.
Reset by Sarina Dahlan
“Can you love someone you don’t remember?” This question forms the basis for Reset, the debut novel by author Sarina Dahlan. It finds humanity in a pseudo-utopian future where memories are erased every four years in order to promote a society free of attachments. Dahlan’s style is literary and thought-provoking, reminiscent of classic science fiction greats like Ray Bradbury.
Reset is about big picture questions about love and life and what it means to be human, and since it’s a standalone novel you get the full tale in one sitting.
"After the Last War destroyed most of the world, survivors form a new society in four self-sustaining cities in the Mojave Desert. In the utopia of the Four Cities, inspired by the lyrics of “Imagine” and Buddhist philosophy, everything is carefully planned and controlled: the seasons, the weather — and the residents. To prevent mankind from destroying each other again, its citizens undergo a memory wipe every four years in a process called tabula rasa, a blank slate, to remove learned prejudices. With each new cycle, they begin again with new names, jobs, homes, and lives. No memories. No attachments. No wars. Aris, a scientist who shuns love, embraces tabula rasa and the excitement of unknown futures. Walling herself off from emotional attachments, she sees relationships as pointless and avoids deep connections. But she is haunted by a recurring dream that becomes more frequent and vivid as time passes. After meeting Benja, a handsome free-spirited writer who believes his dreams of a past lover are memories, her world is turned upside down. Obsessed with finding the Dreamers, a secret organization thought to have a way to recover memories, Benja draws her down a dangerous path toward the past. When Metis, the leader of the Dreamers, appears in Aris’s life, everything she believes falls to pieces. With little time left before the next tabula rasa, they begin a bittersweet romance, navigating love in a world where names, lives, and moments are systematically destroyed."
Dahlan also has a prequel novel, Preset, due out in 2023 that will explore the rise of the Four Cities years before the events of Reset.
Find Reset on Amazon.
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
This reimagining of the tale of Kaikeyi, the infamous queen from the Hindu epic The Ramayana, takes this conflicted figure and reimagines the story from her point of view. What events led her to make the decisions she did, like banishing Rama to wander the land for more than a decade?
Debut author Vaishnavi Patel seeks to explore those questions in a vividly realized tale that feels in the same vein of Madeline Miller’s Circe, taking well-known myths and showing them in a new light.
"The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, [Kaikeyi] is raised on tales of the gods: how they churned the vast ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality, how they vanquish evil and ensure the land of Bharat prospers, and how they offer powerful boons to the devout and the wise. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother, listens as her own worth is reduced to how great a marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear. Desperate for some measure of independence, she turns to the texts she once read with her mother and discovers a magic that is hers alone. With this power, Kaikeyi transforms herself from an overlooked princess into a warrior, diplomat, and most favored queen, determined to carve a better world for herself and the women around her. But as the evil from her childhood stories threatens the cosmic order, the path she has forged clashes with the destiny the gods have chosen for her family. And Kaikeyi must decide if resistance is worth the destruction it will wreak—and what legacy she intends to leave behind."
Find Kaikeyi on Amazon.
Light Years From Home by Mike Chen
When he’s not busy writing best-selling Star Wars tie-in novels like Star Wars: Brotherhood, Mike Chen churns out groundbreaking original work. Light Years From Home is one of the author’s latest novels; one part alien abduction story and one part family drama, it tells the story of two sisters whose lives are turned upside down by an extraterrestrial event. Years later, their family is forced to confront their past and all the baggage they’ve accumulated since.
Is it more difficult to stop an alien invasion or make peace with your siblings? Light Years From Home digs into that question in all its messy and heartwarming glory.
"Evie Shao and her sister, Kass, aren’t on speaking terms. Fifteen years ago on a family camping trip, their father and brother vanished. Their dad turned up days later, dehydrated and confused—and convinced he’d been abducted by aliens. Their brother, Jakob, remained missing. The women dealt with it very differently. Kass, suspecting her college-dropout twin simply ran off, became the rock of the family. Evie traded academics to pursue alien conspiracy theories, always looking for Jakob. When Evie’s UFO network uncovers a new event, she goes to investigate. And discovers Jakob is back. He’s different—older, stranger, and talking of an intergalactic war—but the tensions between the siblings haven’t changed at all. If the family is going to come together to help Jakob, then Kass and Evie are going to have to fix their issues, and fast. Because the FBI is after Jakob, and if their brother is telling the truth, possibly an entire space armada, too. The perfect combination of action, imagination and heart, Light Years from Home is a touching drama about a challenge as difficult as saving the galaxy: making peace with your family…and yourself."
Light Years From Home is a standalone novel, but Chen has plenty of other books if you enjoy this one, including that aforementioned Star Wars novel Brotherhood, which explores Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s relationship during the Clone Wars.
Find Light Years From Home on Amazon.
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
The debut novel by Xiran Jay Zhao, Iron Widow is a gritty tale that’s being described as The Handmaid’s Tale meets Pacific Rim, a blending of mecha science fiction and Chinese history. If that’s not enough to peak your interest, I don’t know what is.
Zhao has made lots of waves with this novel since its release in September of 2021, breaking onto the New York Times Bestseller List and gaining a huge following with her powerful vision of a future where young girls are sacrificed in order to power giant robots built for war.
"The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead. To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed."
Find Iron Widow on Amazon.
Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Ryka Aoki’s novel Light From Uncommon Stars is a powerful, genre-defying work. The book follows a transgender violin student named Katrina, who gets an offer from the Queen of Hell to make her a master violinist, with the hidden catch that Katrina’s soul may be on the line.
Meanwhile, the Queen of Hell may be falling for an alien donut shop owner, and the question of whether it’s worth it to sacrifice people’s souls for her own gain becomes a whole lot harder to answer.
"Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She’s found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline. As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found."
Find Light From Uncommon Stars on Amazon.
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (The Poppy War #1)
R.F. Kuang’s breakout trilogy that began with The Poppy War is a grimdark coming-of-age fantasy. It tells the story of Rin, an orphan who discovers she possesses a particular magic that could save her people…if she can survive the ways her newfound powers will change her, and her rise through an elite military school.
The Poppy War has gained no shortage of acclaim since it first released in 2018, and with the final volume, The Burning God, out as of last year, now’s a great time to discover why so many people have fallen in love with this brutally dark fantasy series.
"When war orphan Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the academies—she surprised everyone: test officials, the guardians who wanted to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise, and even herself. But being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not easy at Sinegard, the most elite military school in Nikan. Targeted by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers that gods long thought dead are very much alive, and that she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly mythical art of shamanism that could be the weapon the empire desperately needs. While Nikara is at peace, its enemy and former occupiers, the Federation of Mugen, bides its time . . . and a Third Poppy War is just a spark away. Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. Yet as she discovers more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity. And it may already be too late."
Find The Poppy War on Amazon.
Thus concludes our round-up of 10 science fiction and fantasy books to check out for AAPI Heritage Month. It’s but the tiniest sampling of the many amazing books out there by Asian American and Pacific Islander authors, and really, any month is a great month to read these books. We hope you found a few new stories to add to your to-read list!
Which of these books are you most excited for? Did we miss one of your favorites? Let us know in the comments!
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