Recs if you like The Spear Cuts Through Water...

Book set in or inspired by South East Asia. This is specifically for @mangopopsicles but everyone else is welcome to use this too lol!

Books where something has happened to the moon - it’s gone missing/been destroyed/broken apart/otherwise messed with

this is for aesthetics only

Fresh, original fantasy that makes me feel some type of way. Whether it be the characters, plot, writing style, or worldbuilding, these books stand out from the crowd as unique. Fantasy, and its many sub-genres, is highly saturated and at times it can feel like I'm reading the same story over and over again. This list is sure to surprise and delight even the most seasoned fantasy reader.

Books that inspired or are similar to Studio Ghibli films

A list of ABSOLUTELY beautiful fantasy written so that it speaks to your soul. It is at once lyrical, poetic , with masterful prose and equally gripping story. The imagery is out of this world. Literally .

I have put one book per author mostly to keep it cohesive but you can pick anything from authors here and they will most definitely take you to some ancient tavern with haunting music .

A Birmingham book club’s picks for 2026!

(Broadly defined) Poetic, dreamy, strange, odd fantasy/sci-fi: suggestions welcome. I beg you: suggest.

Disability in SFF dreadfully underrepresented. Open to reccs

Yearning for Pinoy representation? Try these reading these books that’s a mix of fiction and non-fiction. Learn Filipino history, solve mysteries with Filipino characters, fight fantasy wars inspired by Filipino mythology, and experience plots that make you go, “Oh! My parent has definitely said that to me!”

My decisions are final

Sci-fi and fantasy books prominently featuring queer characters or set in a queer-normative world

Nominees for the Ursula K Le Guin Prize for for Fiction, awarded since 2022 for imaginative fiction. (Mostly I have made this because they're always really great picks and I want to work my way through all of them.)

Books which don't treat you like you're an idiot, and trust you to engage with them; complex naming conventions, elaborate worldbuilds, large casts of characters, narrative tricks, beautiful prose, heavy intertextuality.

Do you feel like you've read everything there is to read? Or get annoyed that the same books are on all the rec lists? Well, here are some more obscure masterpieces!

Some of the covers are terrible - especially among the older or self-pubbed books; there's a few YA in here; and some that are science fantasy rather than 'pure' fantasy. But trust me: they're all EXCELLENT. (And if you already love a bunch of these, let's be friends!)

For readers who believe that not all Queer representation needs to be quote-unquote good representation for it to be valid. For readers who crave morally complex queer characters that are allowed to be just as messy as their straight and cisgender counterparts.

tangled narratives and re-formed genres sprouting from the toxic ground of colonialism

Fantasy books inspired by Filipino culture, mythology, and history.

A list of books that have been considered for and/or won the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. From the official website - "This award is intended to recognize those writers Ursula spoke of in her 2014 National Book Awards speech—realists of a larger reality, who can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now."

A fantasy book for every letter. I tried to get a real mix of different stories from a variety of authors, each book beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, (not including 'the', 'a', 'an'). I hope you enjoy!