17 of our most anticipated fantasy and sci-fi books of 2024
By Daniel Roman
ROAD TO RUIN by Hana Lee (Magebike Courier #1) — May 14
Another debut we're excited to read in 2024 is Road to Ruin, the first book in the Magebike Courier series by Hannah Lee. Road to Ruin is about a woman named Jin-Lu, who works as one of the titular magebike couriers in a barren post-apocalyptic fantasy world. With marauders, monsters and terrible storms battering the wastes, only magebike couriers are brave enough to deliver important objects from one domed city to another.
However, when Jin-Lu is tasked with delivering letters between a prince and his betrothed, a woman who wants nothing more than to escape her family and future, she's sucked into a plan to help her escape her fate. Cue a chase across the ravaged landscape, a complicated tangle of polyamorous feelings and emergent secrets about the nature of magic.
The Mad Max vibes are strong with this one, which is pretty cool; I can't recall too many books that make me think of that sort of post-apocalyptic adrenaline fest, which makes Road to Ruin more than a little intriguing for the TBR.
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MIRRORED HEAVENS by Rebecca Roanhorse (Between Earth and Sky #3) — June 4
2024 is going to be a year with some serious series enders. Mirrored Heavens is the third and final book in Between Earth and Sky, the highly-acclaimed fantasy series by Rebecca Roanhorse. Between Earth and Sky is set in a fantasy world inspired by the Pre-Columbian and indigenous cultures of Central America.
Beginning with Black Sun, we followed the blind priest Serapio and the Teek sailor Xiala on a perilous voyage which fulfilled a prophecy of vengeance and renewal. Roanhorse's series is as notable for its vivid magic and heart-wrenching character turns as it is for its unique world. If you've wished for more fantasy books that captured the magic, myth and spirit of cultures like the Maya and Aztec, this is the series you've been looking for. As with Richard Swan's Empire of the Wolf, it's another fantastic trilogy that we're simultaneously dying to read and dreading being over.
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THE SPICE GATE by Prashanth Srivatsa — July 16
The Spice Gate by Prashanth Srivatsa is a Southeast Asian-inspired fantasy novel which takes place in a world where eight mysterious gates connect far-flung kingdoms, each of which has access to their own distinct spice. These spices are highly sought after trading commodities, but only those born with a special mark are able to use the Spice Gates, which are believed to be relics of an ancient god.
Amir is one such spice carrier, subjugated by the rich to be a pack mule for their interests. He makes plans to escape and take his family with him, but is drawn into a vast web of conspiracies, assassins and more. Something is brewing in the vast and uninhabited world between the gates, and Amir soon finds himself at the center of a "grand, Spice Gate–hopping adventure." Sign me up.