Essential Reading, Part 2

You knew this was coming, didn’t you. It’s time to share the authors I consider to be essential reading in the 2020s. These are authors who are publishing NOW, not decades ago. I’ve tried to highlight work that has appeared since about 2015, to keep it manageable.

What should you expect to find on this list? Why, all of the priorities I mentioned in the first post of this thread! Responses to climate change. Calling out oppression and inequality. Diverse casts (women, minorities, non-neurotypical characters) and diverse settings presented by Own Voices (authors who grew up in the cultures they describe). Gay relationships (and, increasingly, polyamorous relationships).

If any of this turns you off, that’s cool. You do you, as they said back in the 2000s.

So here are the authors. They are presented in alphabetical order because making people compete for places on a list is gross, actually.

Kate Elliot is known for star-spanning space operas, but the work of hers that most struck me was “Servant Mage,” a fantasy novella about an oppressed young mage who gets kidnapped into a civil war where both sides are not all that nice.

N. K. Jemisin has done several series about political upheaval. Her favorite of mine is The City We Became, where New York City fights off Lovecraftian horrors from beyond time and space. There are too many layers to list and the series was cut short, but it it’s still a standout dark fantasy.

Seanan McGuire is a mistress of glib urban fantasy, who stuns you with the depth beneath that shiny exterior. Her novella series beginning with “Every Heart a Doorway” examines the portal fantasy in a hilarious yet devastating way.

Naomi Novik started out writing military fantasy with dragons, but she’s really spread her wings since then (ha ha). Her Scholomance series is about teen mages struggling to stay alive when their fellow students and the school building itself might turn against them at any moment.

Martha Wells, interestingly enough, also started out writing a series about dragons. (Those dragons, they are everywhere!) However, her breakout work was/is The Murderbot Diaries, a science fiction novella series about a human/machine construct who is torn between doing its job as a ruthless security operative and its overwhelming desire to shut down and just watch videos.

That’s it, I’m stopping at five authors. Because I have very high standards and these writers consistently meet them. I don’t claim to be an expert, and I haven’t read absolutely everything. Some of you may think that other authors are great and I just haven’t read them yet. I’d love to hear about them, though! Feel free to name drop in the comments.

Also, if you feel like sharing my list, please ask first. That way I can brag about it.

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