Rin Chupeco’s delightfully pulpy tale of a vampire hunter and the vampires who make him question everything he’s been brought up to believe could be but the first in many a tale of the undead. In fantasy, that could very well mean that the vampire novel rises from the dead. Nostalgia cycles are faster than ever: We have just come to terms with Y2K trends being back in fashion (low-rise jeans, the horror!), but there are already rumblings of a 2010s reappraisal. All that and a lush, complex world inspired by the Ottoman Empire? We can’t wait to get swept away. For their third novel, Rowland will turn to fantasy romance, the uber-popular subgenre of the moment, while still diving into the type of government conspiracy plot that made their previous duology so unputdownable. With his sophomore novel, he’ll be providing his own spin on epic fantasy in a tale of imprisoned gods and wicked emperors filtered through Jimenez’ metatextual approach to storytelling.Ī Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra RowlandĪlexandra Rowland’s Conspiracy of Truths duology are the type of books that could become cult classics: funny, ambitious fantasy novels with a lot more on their minds than a simple good versus evil battle. The Vanished Birds, Simon Jimenez’s marvelous and ambitious debut, fully embraced all the storytelling capabilities of science fiction.

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez Both a celebration and interrogation of the dark academia aesthetic, Babel might be the most thinkpiece-friendly fantasy of the year. Words that have been translated from one language to another often lose something along the way, and in Kuang’s world, this dropped element can be manifested into magical silver bars. Babel is set in an alternate version of Victorian-era Oxford and follows Robin Swift, a Chinese orphan training to become one of the translators who power the British Empire. Kuang’s standalone historical fantasy novel might be her most ambitious work yet-which is really saying something, since Kuang’s acclaimed Poppy War trilogy was inspired by the life of Mao Zedong.

Tordotcom