Our 10 best fantasy and science fiction books of 2023
By Daniel Roman
2023 was a year with lots of great new book releases in the fantasy and science fiction space. Here at Winter Is Coming, we dug deep into the year's book slate, with monthly release lists as well as periodic reviews, author interviews and more. Suffice it to say, we did a fair amount of reading, much of which was centered around new releases in the genre.
The bells may have tolled on a new year, but I'm still mulling some of the best books I read in the last. Is it a little late to shout from a mountaintop about them? No it is not, because it's never too late to gush about your favorite books.
As with any favorite books list, I have to give a big old disclaimer at the top that this is highly subjective. How can I call out the objective "best" titles of the year when there are many I wished I could have read but didn't get to? There are a lot of books from 2023 I know are probably amazing because I've heard from enough people I trust about them, but I didn't have the time to dig into myself, likeThe Pattern of the World by J.T. Greathouse, The Surviving Sky by Kritika H. Rao, The Olympian Affair by Jim Butcher, Thick as Thieves by M.J. Kuhn, Murtagh by Christopher Paolini and others. And don't even get me started on the Year of Sanderson that I still need to catch up on. There were a lot of exciting fantasy and sci-fi books published in 2023.
So what follows are my personal 10 favorite fantasy and sci-fi books I read that released in 2023, in no particular order. If you had other favorites, I'd love to hear about them! One can never have too much on the TBR, after all.
Ethera Grave by Essa Hansen
Ethera Grave is the third and final volume in Essa Hansen's debut sci-fi trilogy The Graven, and it is a mind-bending affair. The first novel, Nophek Gloss, introduced us to emotionally scarred child Caiden, who joined a spacefaring crew and learned the ropes of a weird and wild multiverse. We watched him grow up through Azura Ghost, where some important figures from his past returned. That second book ended with a massive cliffhanger that left the fate of the multiverse hanging in the balance.
And my, did Ethera Grave deliver the payoff. Ethera Grave is an action-packed yet philosophical book that mixes pulse-pounding fight scenes that feel ripped out of a JRPG with cool science fiction concepts and deeply fleshed out characters. The imagination in this series is part of what sets it apart; the aliens, creatures, technology and conflicts which we see throughout the story are wonderously unique. Its multiverse isn't the same as the kind commonly portrayed in media in recent years, with many different similar worlds. Instead, it's comprised of various bubble universes which are situated against each other, each with their own unique physics and biology. Combined with wonderful found family dynamics and a cosmically enormous conflict, Ethera Grave makes for an engrossing read.
The ending of The Graven stands out clearly in my mind as one of my favorite book moments from 2023. The way the trilogy wrapped up was ambitious, weird and deeply emotional, which felt just right for the journey that Caiden and his friends have gone on.
The Tyranny of Faith by Richard Swan
The Tyranny of Faith is the second installment in Richard Swan's Empire of the Wolf. If you ever wished you had more lawyering in your fantasy, well, this is a series for you. Even if you haven't wished for that, Swan's world is dark and brooding and easy to get lost in. The series follows Justice Konrad Vonvault—who is basically an investigator, judge, and executioner all in one (with a side of necromancy)—and his protégé Helena. The story is told from Helena's perspective, which preserves an air of mystery about Vonvault and the imperial institution he serves.
The first book in the series, The Justice of Kings, was a dark medieval fantasy mystery that was hard to put down. The second, The Tyranny of Faith, kicks things up to a whole other level. It still includes the gradual unraveling of mysteries that made the first book so much fun, but with even more epic fantasy worldbuilding, magic and action. We meet a bunch of new characters as the story shifts focus to the imperial capital, and finally get to see how enigmatic figures like Vonvault fit into the larger whole.
The Tyranny of Faith is a pitch perfect sequel that doesn't even remotely suffer from middle book syndrome. It's bigger, meatier, and more complex than its predecessor, while still retaining the core mystery elements that make the series feel different than many other medieval fantasies. The third and final book, The Trials of Empire, comes out next month, and I'm counting down the days now that I'm finally over my book hangover from The Tyranny of Faith.
2023 had many more literally gems. Click the button below to read about them: