fantasy and science fiction books

These are some of my favorite literary genres, but finding fantasy books that seemed interesting to me has always been a challenge—science fiction has always been easier to me— so I made this list with some titles I have read over the years that I enjoyed, maybe you can find something that catches your interest.

Some of these are part of a bigger series but can also be read as standalones, the only exception might be The Silmarillion but I'm assuming you are already familiar with Tolkien's legendarium so I added this one, my first Tolkien book was The Children of Húrin so you will be fine.

Fantasy

• Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake (1946)

As the novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born. He stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle. Meanwhile, far away and in the kitchen, a servant named Steerpike escapes his drudgework and begins an auspicious ascent to power. Inside of Gormenghast, all events are predetermined by complex rituals, the origins of which are lost in time. The castle is peopled by dark characters in half-lit corridors. Dreamlike and macabre, Peake's extraordinary novel is one of the most astonishing and fantastic works in modern fiction.

• The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (1977)

The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them such as Elrond and Galadriel took part. The tales of The Silmarillion are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-Earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils, the jewels containing the pure light of Valinor.

• Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock (1972)

The youthful Elric is a cynical and melancholy king, heir to a nation whose 100,000-year rule of the world ended less than 500 years hence. More interested in brooding contemplation than holding the throne, Elric is a reluctant ruler, but he also realizes that no other worthy successor exists and the survival of his once-powerful, decadent nation depends on him alone. Elric's nefarious, brutish cousin Yrkoon has no patience for his physically weak kinsman, and he plots constantly to seize Elric's throne, usually over his dead body. Elric of Melniboné follows Yrkoon's scheming, reaching its climax in a battle between Elric and Yrkoon with the demonic runeblades Stormbringer and Mournblade. In this battle, Elric gains control of the soul-stealing Stormbringer, an event that proves pivotal to the Elric saga.

• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (1968)

Once in that court he had felt himself to be a word spoken by the sunlight. Now the darkness also had spoken: a word that could not be unsaid. On the island of Roke, Ged, a boy sorcerer learning the high arts of wizardry, falls victim to his own pride and vanity and accidentally releases a terrible shadow into the world. Binding itself to Ged, the shadow-beast destroys all hope of peace for the young mage until he can master it by gaining that greatest of powers: knowledge of the shadow’s true name.

• The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen (1890)

An eccentric doctor decides to conduct an experiment that promises to give a woman, Mary, the ability to see the other side of reality. The experiment, however, brings unexpected results, and Mary ends up with irreversible consequences. Years later, mysterious events, such as strange rituals in the forest, disappearances, and alleged suicides, seem to be linked to the case.

• The Black Company by Glen Cook (1984)

Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must, burying their doubts with their dead. Until the prophecy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more. There must be a way for the Black Company to find her.

• The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison (1922)

With the arrival of a Witchland envoy making demands of Demonland's chief lords, peace between the two lands is irrevocably shattered. The chief lords Juss and Spitfire send their brother Goldry to defeat the witch king. Though he is initially victorious, Goldry ultimately gets captured, leaving it up to his brothers to rescue him. So begins a fantasy adventure whose influence has endured for nearly a century.

• The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany (1924)

Journeying beyond ‘the fields we know’ to the ageless realm of Elfland, a young prince must win the heart of Lirazel, the King of Elfland’s daughter—but the laws of time and nature work strangely between these two worlds, offering a warning to those who seek magic too readily.

• Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith (1970)

Zothique is the name of a continent. A mythical world of spells, wonders, incongruities, curses and countless terrors. In this universe, love and death have the colors of illusion, and hallucinations are always less frightening than reality. In towns and villages, in forests and countryside, the dead, mummies and skeletons leave the living no respite and constantly attack and pursue them. If the tales in this collection are completely disorienting, they nonetheless remain the exact expression of our deepest terrors.

• The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson (1912)

The Sun has gone out: the Earth is lit only by the glow of residual vulcanism. The last few millions of the human race are gathered together in a gigantic metal pyramid, the Last Redoubt, under siege from unknown forces and Powers outside in the dark. These are held back by a Circle of energy, known as the "air clog," powered from the Earth's internal energy. For millennia, vast living shapes - the Watchers - have waited in the darkness near the pyramid: it is thought they are waiting for the inevitable time when the Circle's power finally weakens and dies. Other living things have been seen in the darkness beyond, some of unknown origins, and others that may once have been human.

Science Fiction

• The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares (1940)

A fugitive, pursued by the law, arrives in a rowboat at a deserted island with abandoned buildings. But one day, this solitary man feels he is no longer alone, for other human beings have appeared on the island. He observes them, spies on them, follows their movements, and tries to overhear their conversations. This is the starting point of the mystery, the continuous shift between reality and hallucination, which gradually leads the fugitive to the resolution of all the enigmas.

• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. (1959)

In a nightmarish ruined world slowly awakening to the light after sleeping in darkness, the infant rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Isaac Leibowitz. From here the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes.

• Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)

Case was the sharpest data-thief in the matrix—until he crossed the wrong people and they crippled his nervous system, banishing him from cyberspace. Now a mysterious new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run at an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, a mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case is ready for the adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992)

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous… you'll recognize it immediately.

• Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1989)

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

• The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (2006)

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.

• Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for. When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.

• The Invincible by Stanisław Lem (1964)

The Invincible tells the story of a space cruiser sent to an obscure planet to determine the fate of a sister spaceship whose communication with Earth has abruptly ceased. Landing on the planet Regis III, navigator Rohan and his crew discover a form of life that has apparently evolved from autonomous, self-replicating machines—perhaps the survivors of a "robot war." Rohan and his men are forced to confront the classic quandary: what course of action can humanity take once it has reached the limits of its knowledge?

• Ubik by Philip K. Dick (1969)

Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business—deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in “half-life,” a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciter’s face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time. As consumables deteriorate and technology gets ever more primitive, the group needs to find out what is causing the shifts and what a mysterious product called Ubik has to do with it all.

• Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky (1972)

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.

Science Fantasy

• The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe (1980)

The Earth is old and the sun is dying. In the great Citadel of the City Imperishable, Severian, apprentice of the torturers' guild, betrays his oath. Exiled, Severian begins his phantasmagoric odyssey through the dark and perilous world of the deep, distant future.

• The Dying Earth by Jack Vance (1950)

New races of man had evolved, new species of beast; science had vanished and magic had arisen to dominate the twilight of our world as it dominated the earth's morning. The Dying Earth is Jack Vance's finest work—a stunning evocation of a world peopled by wizards, witches, demons, monsters, dashing princes and forlorn maidens.

• Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman (1991)

Over a millennium ago, Erna, a seismically active yet beautiful world was settled by colonists from far-distant Earth. But the seemingly habitable planet was fraught with perils no one could have foretold. The colonists found themselves caught in a desperate battle for survival against the fae, a terrifying natural force with the power to prey upon the human mind itself, drawing forth a person's worst nightmare images or most treasured dreams and indiscriminately giving them life.