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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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