Good SF and fantasy isn't escapism so much as perspective - a step outside the world that shows it clearer. This shelf mixes modern phenomena with the books that built the genre, every one chosen for story first and world-building that serves it. If it is comic fantasy you are after, Discworld is still the deepest bench in the genre, and forty-one novels is a daunting place to arrive cold - our Discworld reading order sorts out where to begin.
Editor's Picks
- The Fifth Season - the modern masterpiece
- The Priory of the Orange Tree - epic fantasy, one volume
- The Name of the Wind - the storyteller's fantasy
01Project Hail Mary
A man wakes alone on a spaceship with no memory and a dying sun to save. Problem-solving as pure joy - the most purely entertaining SF novel in years. Outstanding on audiobook, genuinely.
02Dune
Spice, sandworms and the fall of great houses on a desert planet. The genre's towering epic - politics, ecology and prophecy on the grandest scale. Push through the first hundred pages of terminology; after that the machine starts turning.
03Children of Time
Humanity's last ark meets a world where uplifted spiders have built a civilisation. Bracing, brilliant British SF with the best non-human minds in print. Two sequels continue the experiment.
04The Fifth Season
A world that ends over and over, and the women who can move mountains blamed for it. The modern masterpiece - three Hugos in a row for the trilogy. The structure clicks around page eighty.
05The Priory of the Orange Tree
Dragons east and west, a queendom without an heir and one enormous, satisfying standalone. Epic fantasy without the ten-book commitment. A prequel exists if you want more.
06The Name of the Wind
An innkeeper tells the true story behind his legend. The most beautiful prose in modern fantasy - and the best first chapter in the genre. Book three remains unwritten, be warned.
Frequently Asked Questions
I've never read fantasy - where do I start?
The Priory of the Orange Tree if you want the full epic in one volume; The Name of the Wind if you care most about the writing. Both stand alone beautifully.
And for science fiction?
Project Hail Mary - funny, propulsive and requiring no science beyond curiosity. Graduates go to Children of Time and then Dune.
Is Dune hard going?
The first hundred pages ask some patience while the world assembles; after that it moves like a thriller. Worth every grain of effort.
Standalone or series - which is safer to try first?
A standalone, if you are new to either genre. It tells you whether you enjoy the writer and the world without asking for a commitment of several thousand pages, and if it lands the series are still there. The strongest single-volume entries on this shelf are the ones we would hand over first.
Shelf 01Fiction
Literary novels, contemporary storytelling and the books everyone's talking about.
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Shelf 02Crime & Mystery
Cosy crime, gritty thrillers and a good whodunnit for a wet afternoon.
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Shelf 03Nature & Countryside
Nature writing, walking, farming and the wild places - our house speciality.
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Shelf 04History
Popular history, biography and the stories behind the stories.
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