TODAY: Favorite Speculative Fiction Series

The second of three posts: Classic series, Some of my Favorites (today), Problem series

So many books. . .so little time (continued)

And so hard to decide! Here are some favorites. I’m adding a third post in a day or two with series I find problematic. Strangely, among those problematic series are some of my favorite reads. So wait for it, and realize “problematic” doesn’t necessarily mean “bad” or DNF.

Note: as you’ll notice, I’m a U.S. reader, and some of my thoughts about these books arise from that. Also, this is a blog, not some scholarly treatise, so it’s full of my own opinions. Yours may vary!

A FEW FAVORITES

I’m listing them alphabetically by author because I can never decide which I love most.

First Law, Joe Abercrombie (b. 1974)

What a great series! Start with Book One, The Blade Itself. If you love dark fantasy, and a lot of violence, and you haven’t read these books, you have a treat in store. You will discover some great characters in The First Law series and all of its spin-offs. Logen Ninefingers (say one thing for Logen, he’s a great character)! The Dogman (not THAT Dogman lol), and his strange and intriguing daughter Rikke! Inquisitor Glokta, one of the best, most complex villains ever written, and his by turns hard-nosed and appealing daughter Savine! The hapless Orso! The amazing warrior woman Monzcarro! It’s hard to stop listing them. They just keep coming. There’s plenty of action, sometimes seeming like a cross between action film and comic book, but always a thrill. The plotting is great, featuring lots of magic and other favorite fantasy tropes, but the plots also make their own fascinating commentary on history, from Viking Age medieval settings through to the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution–even reflecting obliquely on our own times. See my earlier review here. But I think the characters are what make this trilogy, the two follow-up series, and all of the series-adjacent novels in the world of the First Law among the best I’ve read. Abercrombie is touring right now to introduce The Devils, book one of a new series. If he comes to your area and if you are as big a fan as I am, go to this event! I’m all signed up for one here in Albuquerque, on May 15th. Because I’m a writer based in the U.S., my link is to the U.S. tour, but there is a European tour as well. NOTE: I’m a reader of books, not a listener, but friends of mine who consume their fantasy via audiobook tell me the narrator of Abercrombie’s books is superb.

The Long Price Quartet, Daniel Abraham (b. 1969)

Abraham has written other fantasy novels in other series, and as half of the team calling itself James S. A. Corey, he co-writes the hugely popular novels on which the Hugo-Award-winning SF streaming series The Expanse is based. I love The Long Price Quartet most, though. Its South Asian-inspired setting is fascinating. The tetralogy gains true depth and verisimilitude through its focus on economics and technology as factors just as important as military action when nation-states collide. And–unlikely as it sounds!–poetry. All the characters are wonderful, but his character Seedless has to be one of the most ingenious literary creations I’ve ever encountered in the pages of fiction. These books are entertaining, but they are deep, not the usual an orc a wizard and an elf walk into a castle stuff. I got introduced to these novels through a great short story by Abraham, “The Meaning of Love,” published in the anthology Rogues and was grabbed right away by its unusual setting, very similar to the one in The Long Price Quartet. See my review here for more thoughts about this amazing four-book series and how it truly is a series for our dangerous times.

The Culture, Iain Banks (1954-2013)

Can I call this a series? Let me call this a series! It’s one of the greatest bunch of novels–all related–I’ve ever read. The writing is superb. The events of these ten SF novels take place over millennia but in the same universe, and from time to time, story-lines and characters intersect. The world-building is masterful. Which is my favorite? It’s so hard to pick. Consider Phlebas, the first I read, completely blew me away, but is it the best? They’re all great. Consider Phlebas was the kind of book that drove me right out to buy every single one of the author’s other books–an experience I haven’t had since my Patrick O’Brian craze. The order of reading can be a bit difficult to discern. Here’s a web site that can help with that, and here’s one with a slightly different take. Another consideration: the Amazon web site lists nine books, but there is actually another one. I usually read e-books, but I needed to order two of the books, used in paperback, to get all of them. That situation may have changed by now. Banks, who died in 2013, was a prolific writer not only of these amazing SF books but of realistic fiction as well, and his realistic novels are equally celebrated. I’ve blogged about Banks before, here, and here, and here. He’s apparently the favorite writer of several would-be oligarchs, but I can’t help that. He’s great.

Parable of the Sower/Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler (1947-2006)

Butler’s duo of novels is so prescient, so important to American readers in their depiction of a dystopia we seem to be approaching at warp-speed, that it is practically a crime not to read them. In fact, The Parable of the Sower, published in 1993, imagines a 2024 that cut much too close to the truth, and 2025 seems to be getting worse. In our current dystopic climate, her novels–and especially this one–are on a number of banned book lists. Why do certain readers find them disturbing–because they do cut too close to the truth? and these readers don’t want to know the truth, or find it somehow threatening? Fiction doesn’t exist to sooth overly-sensitive souls stuck in their own world-views. I personally think fiction is prophetic–good fiction–in its capacity to speak truth to power. That doesn’t mean you have to be sucked down the rabbit hole of just anyone’s fiction. You need to exercise your critical judgment, as with anything else. As Plato pointed out long ago and as Hitler’s propagandists demonstrated, fictions do present the danger that they can mislead or even corrupt if you read or consume them, or any information, uncritically. So exercise your critical judgment here, and engage your empathy. Studies have shown that readers of fiction actually enhance their capacity for empathy, which is the quality that helps human beings act in a caring and fair way instead of simply lusting after power and advantage, the strong over the weak. (The novel’s main character is a person who struggles because she has too much empathy–and then she triumphs because of it.) Butler’s novels are good fiction, well-written and thought-provoking. Look around you. You’ll probably see her warnings coming to life before your very eyes. What a tragedy she died so young, before she could give us more novels as important as these, such as a planned third novel in the series. What a tragedy we don’t have any further wisdom from her to help us navigate through this troubled moment in our history.

The Farseer Trilogy, Robin Hobb (b. 1952)

How to have fun reading fantasy. These are the kinds of books you might have read as a kid, under the covers with a flashlight. The kinds of books you want to binge before a fire with a cup of hot chocolate. By that, I don’t mean that these books are “cozy.” They just give you that thrilling feeling you get when you go to a rousing good movie and the credits begin to roll. This first Farseer trilogy, and many other related novels all set in the author’s imagined Realm of the Elderlings, are a treat to read. What great characters–especially the two that drive the series, Fitz, a boy of mysterious parentage who becomes an assassin, and the enigmatic Fool. Who is the Fool? What is the Fool? The quest for identity elevates these novels above others that simply go for the adventure. In several interlocking series, the Farseer novels entice the reader into an entire richly-realized world of magic, dragons, warfare, pirates, palace conspiracy, you name it. Every fantasy situation, character, and trope a fantasy reader could want, with good writing into the bargain. Catnip to cats. Visit Robin Hobb’s web site to find out more. With such a far-ranging fantasy world, reading order becomes important. Here’s a good guide.

The Life and Times of Corban Loosestrife, Cecelia Holland (b. 1942)

Holland, a highly acclaimed writer of historical fiction, turned to historical fantasy in this series, but the history is very accurate. The six novels of the series cover the full range of Viking Age exploration, beginning with young Corban Loosestrife’s exile from his home in Ireland after Viking raiders murder most of his family members and make off with his twin sister. In his quest to find his sister, Corban heads west, ending up in North America. The first three books, The Soul Thief, The Witches’ Kitchen, and The Serpent Dreamer, take us through Corban’s adventures in the 10th Century British Isles, Scandinavia, and North America. The last three, Varanger, The High City, and Kings of the North, follow Corban’s son and nephew on their own journey, beginning with the part of the world later to be known as Russia, to Constantinople, and then back to Britain. At first, I was entertained by these books but not enthralled. Around Book IV, I began to be enthralled. My problem, paradoxically, was my love of two of her best stand-alone novels, Floating Worlds (SF–see my review here) and Until the Sun Falls (historical fiction). They are both superb. But eventually the mixture of history, magic, and legend in the Corban Loosestrife series grabbed me and didn’t let go. Holland is a very prolific writer. While I haven’t loved every book of hers I’ve read, Floating Worlds and Until the Sun Falls are two of my favorite books ever, and I ended up getting deeply attached to the Corban Loosestrife characters and settings. Her body of work is rich and complex, and most of her novels are historical fiction. I always maintain historical fiction is just another kind of speculative fiction, but my blog isn’t really about that, so I’ll leave it alone.

Imperial Radich, Ann Leckie (b. 1966)

Leckie’s Imperial Radch series, which won the 2024 Hugo Award for best series, includes Hugo and Nebula Award winner Ancillary Justice and the sequels Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy. These intricately plotted and beautifully detailed SF novels do an outstanding job of exploring alien consciousnesses, worlds and times and customs very distant from ours, and making us believe they are real. She uses the trope of the sentient ship to great effect. These become people we care about, not just machines. When the humanoid world of the main characters comes into conflict with an almost unimaginably alien opponent, the tension rises. I have to confess, when I read the first book of the series, I didn’t just fall in love with it. See my review here. Partly that’s because I don’t particularly like the sentient ship trope (except in Wall-E!) Partly that’s because reading is a weird process. You might read a book but not be in the right mood for that particular book. Have you ever had that experience? When Leckie’s series won the Hugo for best series last year, I decided I needed a re-do. I re-read Ancillary Justice and blitzed right on through the other two. I came away struck dumb with admiration. What a great series! I’m glad I made myself re-read that first book. Actually, once I got started on my re-read, I didn’t need any “making myself.” I zipped right along, completely enthralled. Other series-adjacent books further extend the great world-building of the main trilogy. Leckie’s recently-published Translation State, a series-adjacent and very fine novel, was short-listed for the 2024 Nebula award. See my review here.

New Croubozon, China Miéville (b. 1972)

Miéville is a one-of-a-kind writer. He writes speculative fiction, but no one quite knows how to categorize it. Bizarro? Slipstream? New Weird? Whatever you call it, it’s brilliant, and his novels have won every major speculative fiction award out there. He explores a world parallel to ours full of the extreme and the strange, yet these fictional worlds pull our focus right back to our own time and place and our own difficulties. A number of series-adjacent novels are set in the same world. It is strangely parallel to our own world–and strangely not. None of New Croubozon books are exactly sequels, although some characters show up in more than one of the novels. Perdido Street Station is the one most like a horror novel. The Scar (my personal favorite) has plenty of weird stuff but deeply-imagined characters who behave like actual human beings, not cardboard cutouts, with the complex motivations that the best fictional characters exhibit. The Iron Council is actually more of an enormous prose poem than a novel, so reader beware if you don’t like that kind of thing. I do, although it seemed a bit excessive here. Miéville’s writing rivals the best today, in any genre, and it’s all not only brilliant speculative fiction but brilliant social commentary. My other favorites are his stand-alone novels Embassytown, which I need to re-read, and The City and the City. Note: See above, about oligarchs loving the books I love noooooo. Here‘s what Mieville has to say about that. Now I feel better. And worse.

His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman

Pullman’s series is the anti-Narnia. Some readers will like that; others will distrust it. Whatever you think about that, the trilogy is the gripping saga of a young girl on a quest to rescue her imperiled friends in the steampunk-flavored England of a parallel universe. During her journey of discovery, she begins to figure out what her mysterious uncle is up to, and whether he is threatening the collapse of the world. Is he a dark force or a hero? And who is she, anyway? Her story is also a quest for identity. The first book, The Golden Compass (titled Northern Lights in the U.K.), was made into a disappointing movie, sadly for the many readers who adore Pullman’s books. They have a great follow-up series to console them: The Book of Dust. If the Narnia books were inspired in part by Milton and Spenser, here’s the William Blake version of Milton, “Milton is of the Devil’s party and doesn’t know it” (see this and this). The first series seems at first glance to be a book for children, and Pullman has indeed written many children’s books. But His Dark Materials–while it does have talking armored polar bears and the like–is more than that, certainly far more than an entertaining story for children, and the second series takes the main character into young adulthood. Both series deal with some big ideas about the nature of authority, the composition of the universe, and matters of good and evil. Pullman himself has disdained the distinction between literature for children and any other kind, and he rejects the label “atheist” while exploring a complex approach to religion that make a lot of orthodox Christians turn pale.

The Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson (b. 1952)

Wow, what a series. Even my persnickety physicist son-in-law loves these books, and he hates any SF that tries to sneak physical impossibilities and goofy improbabilities past the reader. This, in spite of the books being written in the ’90s–and so to some extent dated. But Robinson is one of the most intriguing writers today, and these books are powerful. Nebula Award-winning Red Mars (1992) is the first, then Hugo and Locus Award-winning Green Mars (1993) and Blue Mars (1996). As the red planet becomes increasingly terraformed, the explorers who have settled on the planet must deal with the vast physical problems they’ve set out to solve, but also the thorny and terrible sociological and political–and personal–problems arising from their decisions. Meanwhile, those left to struggle on a dying, dysfunctional Earth play their own part in a tense, evolving political quagmire. Okay, and then go on to The Ministry for the Future (2020) and prepare to be devastated. Or any of his other novels.

Thanks to these artists for the original royalty-free images of the first two posts in my blog on speculative fiction series:

Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/travelphotographer-3989469/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5902990″>Laurentiu</a&gt; from <a href=”https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5902990″>Pixabay</a&gt;

Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/janbaby-3005373/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2030780″>Jan Alexander</a> from <a href=”https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2030780″>Pixabay</a&gt;

Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/kascreates-1427481/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=1511507″>Kerryn</a&gt; from <a href=”https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=1511507″>Pixabay</a&gt;