You’ve in all probability found out by now that the Lit Hub employees reads a whole lot of literary fiction—however we additionally learn a whole lot of bizarre shit. I’m speaking odd novellas filled with magical realism, I’m speaking chunky sci-fi epics, I’m speaking swords and sorcery and bloody monsters within the woods. So along with our massive record of our favourite books of the yr, we thought we’d additionally deliver you a listing of a few of the nice 2024 SFFH titles that we cherished. It’s not even all of the SFFH that we cherished, as a result of a few of us learn a whole lot of it—but it surely’s a superb cross-section of what the yr needed to supply.
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(You may discover some overlap between this and the aforementioned bigger best-of record—hooray for style infiltrating the mainstream! Like a spooky fungal community of weirdness! Also, our definition of those genres is purposefully expansive—one man’s literary fiction is likely to be one other’s horror, as a result of style definitions are all made up. Anyway, Cthulhu Fhtagn and so on!)
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Marie-Helene Bertino, Beautyland
FSG, January 16
As beforehand really helpful: It is a humorous side-effect of working in books that I typically find yourself studying new fiction months earlier than the remainder of the world. As such, I learn Beautyland for the primary time practically eighteen months in the past—I begged for an early galley and dove proper in when it arrived, as a result of Marie-Helene Bertino is one in every of my favourite writers. I’ve not stopped eager about it since. Every single factor Bertino writes comprises a glimmering magic and a spritely playfulness, however Beautyland is one thing particular even by her personal excessive bar. The story is straightforward sufficient: a younger woman rising up in Philadelphia together with her single mom believes that she is an alien, right here to report again on what it means to be human.
But what may’ve been mawkish or foolish in different fingers is as a substitute the one most heartwarming factor you’ll learn this (or perhaps any) yr. It is a giant hug of a e book, a heat blanket, a good friend’s laughter throughout a bar, the best way the moon makes icy branches bend in circles, the sensation of sitting down after an extended day… I may go on. It is a e book that can make you’ve got hope, not only for humanity however for the very private act of being a human being. If you’re struggling proper now to see the fantastic thing about this life, Beautyland holds the important thing. –Drew Broussard, Podcasts Editor
Tobias Carroll, In the Sight
Whisk(e)y Tit, February 6
I really like a wierd novella, significantly one which comes upon me unawares. Tobias Carroll’s newest is so deeply my shit in that respect and actually in each different. It’s a couple of man who drives across the nation peddling experimental DIY mind modification medicine who finally ends up form of on the run—appears like a thriller and it’s, in the identical manner that Lost Highway is a thriller. that Universal Harvester is a thriller. It’s a fast learn, sensible for a chilly day or a darkish evening, with the best degree of strangeness to ship your individual thoughts a-wandering. And if that isn’t it’s personal type of DIY mind modification… –DB
Kelly Link, The Book of Love
Random House, February 13
As beforehand really helpful: Kelly Link speaks to my internal baby. This is to not say that her books are infantile, solely that they’re filled with open doorways. Many of the doorways on this novel result in locations I acknowledge, as somebody who grew up with Princess Cimorene (IYKYK): the generic touchstones, the tone of her humor—half eye-roll, half wink—the abundance, the play. The pleasure! Of course, a few of the doorways result in new locations, and that is the magic of Kelly Link. There’s no level in explaining the plot, which doesn’t have something to do with why it’s so good (that is one thing I may write about each e book I really like). Suffice it to say that The Book of Love is bursting with doorways, with concepts, with relationships, with fantasy, it’s massive and satisfying and escapist (in locations) and troublesome (in locations) and fantastic. –Emily Temple, Managing Editor
Mohamed’s terrific novella hits the bottom sprinting and by no means slows up. A girl named Veris is pulled from her residence to come back earlier than the Tyrant who has conquered her individuals (and so many others): the Tyrant’s two younger kids have gone into the forbidden woods on the fringe of the dominion. Only one individual has ever come again from these woods—and so Veris is shipped in to get well them. She has sooner or later to do it, or her household and city will likely be put to the sword. She might need one thing like a magical means, however in a harmful magical wooden, which may not be sufficient. This is what Tordotcom does finest and Mohamed’s horror-fantasy is the perfect of the perfect. I may’ve stayed on this world for 5 occasions as lengthy—but it surely’s even stronger in my creativeness due to its brevity. (Her different launch this yr, The Siege of Burning Grass, has been burning a gap in my TBR; exhausting to get to all of the books within the yr, however in 2025, I anticipate nice issues.) –DB
Natasha Pulley, The Mars House
Bloomsbury, March 19
I cherished this e book after I learn it in 2023 (see my observe earlier about Beautyland) and it feels all probably the most potent within the wake of the election. It begins when the principal ballerina of the London Ballet should flee a flooded London to turn into a climate-refugee on Mars. There, he (together with all different Earthstrongers) should put on a cage that weighs down his physique in Mars’s lighter gravity—and when he finds himself on the middle of a political firestorm, he leads to an organized marriage with a xenophobic nativist Martian politician. Big enemies-to-lovers power ensues, and little or no is what it initially appears in Pulley’s twisty, soapy, sci-fi romp. The e book considers, in methods I assumed compelling, the ethics of energy and the best way that being persecuted can flip a individuals into persecutors. Also, they speak to mammoths!! –DB
Carson Winter, The Psychographist
Apocalypse Party, April 2
In the final couple years, Carson Winter has developed a lane in what I’d loosely name “anti-capitalist horror” and The Psychographist is probably the most overt condemnation of promoting and fashionable mass-consumption that I’ve seen from him thus far. It’s a couple of classically conceived middle-American household of 4, fighting jobs and marriage and a mortgage and highschool and friendship, after they’re provided a chance to make a bunch of cash by letting a wierd product sit of their home. They’ll be a spotlight group, though they don’t know or perceive what it’s that’s being studied. When the Hoyers embrace Mr. Cormorant’s supply, they start a Bret Easton Ellis-ish descent into depravity. Things find yourself like they do in the direction of the tip of Stephen King’s Needful Things besides in some way a lot worse. A pointy evisceration of the ‘American Dream’ of extra, extra, extra. –DB
I don’t know that I may have rightly conceived of ‘cozy horror’ earlier than studying Wiswell’s charming debut—The Addams Family, perhaps?–however there’s no higher option to describe this e book’s style. Shesheshen, Wiswell’s brilliantly unique monster, is a pleasant narrator and the world-building is gently expansive, with room for the creativeness to play within the margins. Also, it’s a pleasure to see ace/aro essential characters getting stable rep in a romance novel—and make no mistake, this positively options the S and the H from SFFH but it surely additionally tags on an R. Cross-genre exuberance is the long run!! –DB
Emet North, In Universes
Harper, April 30
The multiverse is so hip proper now, however Emet North’s astonishing debut reminds readers that the very thought of alternate universes needs to be nearly not possible to really comprehend. The novel-in-stories (or is it??) follows 4 characters throughout lives that look very completely different, typically so completely different that they is likely to be utterly unrelated… besides that the characters (Raffi, Britt, Kay, and Graham) proceed to evolve, to point out new sides of themselves even in nearly-unrecognizable circumstances. It’s a shocking trick, to knit these tales right into a cohesive entire whereas additionally letting every of them be their very own form of unusual. It’s a form of literary derring-do that I want we noticed extra of, and it’s among the finest novels about queering our conception of the world in an effort to higher embrace its many, multi-faceted wonders. –DB
Park Seolyeon, tr. Anton Hur, A Magical Girl Retires
HarperBy way of, April 30
As beforehand really helpful: If novellas have zero followers, I’m useless. I cherished this enjoyable, campy e book a couple of depressed millennial lady who finds out she is likely to be The Chosen One. It’s candy and sensible and humorous and is aware of precisely what it’s doing. Usually excessive idea books like this get a bit misplaced in their very own sauce, however Seolyeon retains her focus tight and will get out and in shortly. It’s additionally a really grounded e book in a whole lot of methods. Even although the world of the e book bears extra resemblance to Sailor Moon than the actual world, the protagonist is generally fighting points that any former-gifted-kid-turned-gay-adult can relate to: what’s her place on the planet? Has she let her previous self down? Does she have a crush on her excessive femme finest good friend? A Magical Girl Retires is as a lot enjoyable as you’d anticipate it to be (learn: extraordinarily). –McKayla Coyle, Publishing Coordinator
As beforehand really helpful: The factor about tales is that they don’t finish, not likely. Arthur falls to Mordred and his physique is taken to Avalon—however that isn’t the tip. What occurred to the Round Table, the knights who survived that ultimate marketing campaign? And what does it say about English (or, much more broadly, Western) tradition that there nonetheless lingers some sense that maybe Arthur waits but on the truthful isle, to sometime return when he’s wanted most? What does that inform us about ourselves, that we dangle onto these tales and nonetheless handle to see ourselves inside them?
Lev Grossman’s formidable novel doesn’t present a definitive reply to any of those questions, however neither do different fashionable interrogations of what was misplaced when Arthur died like Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant or Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem—and but, maybe by advantage of his being an American, Grossman dispenses with constancy to the Englishness of all of it and as a substitute units out to inform a cracking good story. It is, at its most straightforward, the story of a younger knight who arrives at Camelot to show himself and be a part of the Round Table, solely to seek out that he’s missed the good things. Arthur is useless, and the few knights who stay are washed up, unusual, and rudderless.
But the story isn’t over and Grossman’s doorstopper completely zips by with magic, monsters, swordplay, and a stirringly inclusive reimagining of the Round Table. All the names you’re hoping make an look do—but it surely isn’t fan service. Rather, Grossman is utilizing the fun of those components to interrogate (as one character ponders) “why, after we are made for a vibrant world, we should reside in a darkish one.” At the time of this writing, I confess that this query is extra urgent than I might’ve imagined after I learn Grossman’s e book this spring. If you’re pondering it too, maybe venturing into this epic of knights, monsters, legends, and self-discovery will assist hold your candle burning in opposition to the darkish occasions to come back. –DB
Matthew Lyons, A Mask of Flies
Tor Nightfire, August 6
In Matthew Lyons’ propulsive new horror thriller, a financial institution theft gone sideways forces one of many robbers to take the remnants of her gang, plus a hostage or two, to her previous household cabin to recoup and get well. Upon arrival, they uncover a VHS with terrifying metaphysical implications as Lyons takes a pointy left flip in the direction of Lovecraftian cosmic horror. –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Managing Editor
If a self-published e book makes the transfer to a standard writer, does that make it a brand new e book for that yr? Does it matter? A good friend prompt I check out Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl collection when it began a pair years in the past, however LitRPG is a tough area to get proper—I’d largely reasonably hearken to my beloved actual-play podcasts (shout-outs significantly to The Glass Cannon Network and The Adventure Zone) to get all of the dice-rolling I would like. What a stunning shock, then, that Dinniman’s Douglas-Adams-but-playing-D&D romp was a lot enjoyable that I instantly went out and acquired the following two books (of their PRH hardcovers, as a result of I additionally love a full matching set). It isn’t good but it surely’s higher: it feels genuinely joyful, written for the sheer pleasure of it and that pleasure is infectious. These books acquired me by means of the week after the election with much less psychic injury than I would’ve in any other case incurred. This one’s for anyone who is aware of what I imply after I say “roll-ricka-roll for initiative.” –DB
Hildur Knútsdóttir, tr. Mary Robinette Kowal, The Night Guest
Tor Nightfire, September 3
Knútsdóttir’s English-language debut is brief, sharp, and beautiful. It’s a easy premise, as with all the perfect psychological horror: a lady is affected by fixed fatigue and no physician can determine the issue. But when she falls asleep together with her smartwatch on, she wakes to find that she’s walked unbelievable distances within the evening. What was she doing? Does anybody else have barely mysterious bruises? Is she answerable for herself, or is somebody (or one thing) else driving? An ideal chiller, for followers of Sara Gran’s Come Closer. I can’t wait to see what we get from Knútsdóttir subsequent. –DB
Lilliam Rivera, Tiny Threads
Del Rey, September 24
Lilliam Rivera cuts the style trade to shreds on this horror-filled tackle late stage capitalism. At the novel’s begin, Samara has simply begun a brand new job for a legendary vogue home; she arrives optimistic however shortly turns into conscious of the classism and racism underlying the enterprise of couture. Tiny Threads takes us into the again rooms of vogue giants, displaying us the stark variations between the haves and have-nots, however there’s extra to unravel on this terrifying yarn. Okay, sufficient with the needlecraft puns. –MO
Sophie White, Where I End
Erewhon Books, September 24
I’ve really helpful some really twisted novels on this website (thanks, Lit Hub, for permitting me to reside as much as my creepiest potential!) however I feel this can be probably the most disturbing one but. White’s novel was first printed two years in the past, to a lot acclaim and little readership, and on condition that I used to be one of many many who remained ignorant when it first graced the earth, I’m so completely satisfied this sneaky little masterpiece acquired one other shot at messing up readers. But what’s it about? Well, quite a bit, truly, however the naked bones description goes thusly: a younger lady lives on a distant Irish island, the place she and her grandmother reluctantly look after her comatose mom, often called the “bed-thing”. The island’s small inhabitants is satisfied the household is cursed, but it surely isn’t till White’s Shirley-Jackson-esque narrator meets a visiting artist that she begins to know the total wrong-ness of her quick life. –MO
Kay Chronister, The Bog Wife
Catapult, October 1
Shirley Jackson is without doubt one of the patron saints of bizarre households for good cause: We Have Always Lived within the Castle is a masterpiece of household dynamics and creeping dread. So I don’t say flippantly that Kay Chronister’s The Bog Wife is an ideal learn for the entire Merricat lovers on the market: it’s about an odd household with difficult dynamics and the dread, it does creep. The household in query, the Haddesleys, have lived by a cranberry lavatory within the West Virginian wilderness for generations—tending the lavatory and the ‘lavatory wives’ who come from it within the wake of the loss of life of the earlier patriarch, in an effort to keep on the road. But the road has withered in varied methods by the point the novel begins and Chronister juggles a number of factors of view, all of them contributing to the reader’s unease and uncertainty concerning the potential supernatural qualities of the household’s story, with out ever sacrificing on emotional depth. Before you go residence for the vacations and grump about your loved ones’s oddities, be grateful you’re not a Haddesley. –DB
CJ Leede, American Rapture
Tor Nightfire, October 15
As beforehand really helpful: Maeve Fly, CJ Leede’s Splatterpunk-winning debut, was an actual bolt from the blue: nasty, humorous, thrilling, and a learn that took me by full shock. But if that e book set Leede’s marker as a author to observe, American Rapture establishes that she, because the saying goes, positively has the vary—and the trend. American Rapture is directly a livid howl at American puritanism and spiritual oppression, a joyful cry of the ability of discovered household and self-honesty, and a thrill-ride by means of perhaps the perfect American outbreak-story since The Stand.
It follows Sophie, a superb Catholic teen, as she undergoes a complicated sexual awakening on the similar second as a virus turns many of the American inhabitants into slavering lust-zombies. The e book is unflinching in its depictions of violence each religious and bodily (animal lovers needs to be conscious/forewarned: there is without doubt one of the finest canines in all of contemporary fiction on this e book, a superb and finally very courageous boy) and I used to be a sobbing mess for the final fifty pages, which is all to Leede’s credit score: the expertise of studying this e book is that of catharsis by cleaning fireplace. It is an unbelievable instance of what not simply good horror novels however good novels interval can do. –DB
