Our 10 best fantasy and science fiction books of 2023

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

Fonda Lee is the author behind The Green Bone Saga, a masterwork of contemporary fantasy about a crime family fighting to keep power on the East Asian-inspired island of Janloon. With Untethered Sky, Lee did something a bit different. This novella is set in a brand new fantasy world where specialized trainers raise enormous flying murderbirds called Rocs to hunt down man-eating Manticores. Manticores are just as scary as you'd think; they're humanity's one real natural predator, and they are big, fast, and prone to eviscerating those caught in their path in a heartbeat.

Untethered Sky is a novella which can be devoured in a single sitting (ask me how I know), but don't let its relatively short length fool you. The book packs in the sort of vivid character work and tight twists and turns you'd expect from any Fonda Lee story. Main character Esther's journey to become a Roc trainer is filled with heartbreak and excitement, as she gets the thing she desires most only to find out that that's just the beginning of her long road. There's something especially magical to me about stories which depict a long span of time in a characters' life over the course of a relatively compact page count, and Untethered Sky pulls it off really well. Esther's journey feels like a journey, with a fulfilling yet bittersweet ending.

Okay, maybe more bitter than sweet. I'm not saying I cried, but I'm not saying I didn't cry either. Plus, the animal training sequences were exceptional.

Witch King by Martha Wells

Sure, everyone knows Martha Wells for her beloved Murderbot series, and who can blame them? By all accounts, Murderbot is a great time with a fascinatingly hilarious protagonist. I am ashamed to admit I haven't yet read Murderbot (will that change this year?!), but in 2023 I did finally take the plunge and read my first book by Martha Wells. Witch King is a standalone fantasy book about a demon who wakes up to find out that he's been betrayed and left for dead; he promptly sets out to round up his closest allies and figure out what exactly has gone amiss during his time on the outs.

The story is told in two parts: in the present, the demon Kaiisteron revisits some of his old haunts in order to piece together how he ended up nearly dying and being deposed; and in flashbacks, we see how Kai went from a young demon to one renowned the world over for his role in a deadly war against a supernaturally powerful race of humanoid zealots.

There are a lot of reasons that I loved Witch King. Even all these months laters, characters like Kai and Ziede have stuck with me. The novel is a standalone, which makes me eager to revisit it to see them again. This may have been a problem for some readers who wished for a vaster series, but for me, the standalone nature of Witch King made it even more beautiful and thought-provoking. You don't realize entirely what kind of story it is that you're reading until you see how it ends. We're not witnessing the entirety of Kai's life, just one very specific chapter that's emblematic of how he and his band of misfit friends fit into the tapestry of history.

So yes, by the end of 2023 I was still that one nerd you know who hasn't read Murderbot, hanging my head in shame. But I wouldn't change that, because Witch King was a wonderful introduction to Martha Wells' work that I had a blast reading.