The Best, Underrated Fantasy Books of 2023
As the holidays near, it can be a challenge to buy gifts for the most voracious book readers in your life—but 2023 has seen a ton of excellent fantasy
books
hit shelves, to the point that it’s been hard to keep up with all the greatest new material. Here’s 20 of our favorite underrated choices that will make the fantasy fan in your life very happy this year.
Looking for more gift ideas? Check out all of
Gizmodo’s 2023 gift guides
.
The Thing in the Snow
by Sean Adams
:
William Morrow
Why we love it:
Set in the frozen norths in an abandoned research facility now only occupied by four people (and… something else outside), this darkly funny thriller is part horror, part workplace comedy spoof, wrapped around an intriguing mystery.
Where to buy:
Amazon
Tell Me I’m Worthless
by Alison Rumfitt
:
Cipher Press
Why we love it:
This queer gothic horror debut is a chilling take on the genre, as a young woman and her friends revisit the mysterious house that sits at the heart of their traumas in an attempt to end them once and for all.
Where to buy:
Amazon
Vampire Weekend
by Mike Chen
:
MIRA
Why we love it:
Vampires meet punk rock in this touching tale of connection, as a young woman hiding her vampiric secret longs to find a place for herself in a band—only to have her life upended as a distant relative comes crashing into her life and learns her true power.
Where to buy:
Amazon
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi
by Shannon Chakraborty
:
Harper Voyager
Why we love it:
Daevabad Trilogy
writer Shannon Chakraborty envisions a new world of magic and mythos, this time on the high seas as an older woman finds herself contemplating an end to her career as a notorious pirate—only for an offer she can’t refuse for one last adventure sends her on a journey that could leave her a legend… for better or worse.
Where to buy:
Amazon
Hospital
by Han Song, translated by Michael Berry
:
Amazon Crossing
Why we love it:
Chinese author Han Song’s grim satire on the complexities of health care offers a disorienting, dystopic narrative as a young man finds himself mysteriously taken ill, and forcibly sent to a bizarre, labyrinthine medical facility filled with secrets.
Where to buy:
Amazon
The God of Endings
by Jacqueline Holland
:
Flatiron Books
Why we love it:
A suspenseful, emotional exploration of love, loss, and the meaning of life through the lens of an immortal woman who finds her lengthy past coming back to haunt her when she crosses paths with a mysterious gifted child.
Where to buy:
Amazon
Pinata
by Leopoldo Gout
:
Tor Nightfire
Why we love it:
This Mexican horror fantasy is a worthy successor to Gout’s prior horror,
Ghost Radio
, a chilling tale of possession and trauma that embraces its cultural setting in a uniquely immersive manner.
Where to buy:
Amazon
Chlorine
by Jade Song
:
Footnote
Why we love it:
The debut novel from Song melds aquatic horror and coming of age through the lens of adulthood exploring the pressure put on young women in society. The siren call of this book beckons for you to sink deeper into its narrative about seeking perfection to fit in but ultimately transforming into something different.
Where to buy:
Amazon
Wolfwood
by Marianna Baer
:
Harry N. Abrams
Why we love it:
A daughter takes up her mother’s brush to forge paintings for an art show. Turns out the family gift might be more of a curse as the art pulls them into its fantastical reality filled with threatening flora and foes.
Where to buy:
Amazon
The Marigold
by Andrew F. Sullivan
:
ECW
Why we love it:
The effects of gentrification and stalled planning with empty buildings taking up space as the disparate are pushed out is explored in
The Marigold
. Multiple tales of body horror, urban decay and eco-fiction dig into how capitalistic sprawl affects communities.
Where to buy:
Amazon
The Salt Grows Heavy
by Cassandra Khaw
:
Tor Nightfire
Why we love it:
A mermaid and a plague doctor face the darkness within themselves in
order
to take on extrernal otherworldy threats like a village of ageless children out for blood. Filled with new fairytale twists and mystery Khaw’s book invites you experience myths you think you know in a new way.
Where to buy:
Amazon
The Memory of Animals
by Claire Fuller
:
Tin House Books
Why we love it:
In a post-apocalyptic future humanity’s last hope for a cure from a raging pandemic is an experimental vaccine that Neffy, an indebted twenty-seven year old marine biologist and others volunteer for. While in trials and hidden from the ravaging disease outside they face the reasons they ended up there.
Where to buy:
Amazon
Relentless Melt
by Jeremy P. Bushnell
:
Melville House Books
Why we love it:
A supernatural mystery unfolds in a tale that harkens to the golden age of detective fiction. A young woman moonlights as a man to attend criminal investigation courses, there she meets another student pursuing magical knowledge. Together they uncover a trail of violent abductions that lead to the very top of society.
Where to buy:
Amazon
The Ghost in Bone
by Mike Carey
:
Subterranean Press
Why we love it:
London exorcist Felix Castor returns after 15 years in this new novella that follows his latest case: a high-paying, high-risk adventure involving a missing Russian oligarch and evil forces that test even Felix’s impressive abilities.
Where to buy:
Available on
Amazon Kindle
and in a signed, limited-edition version from
Subterranean Press
The Saint of Bright Doors
by Vajra Chandrasekera
:
Tordotcom
Why we love it:
In this blend of fantasy (magic portals) and mundane concerns (therapy, junk mail), a man raised to be a killer flees the violence of his rural home for life in the big city, but soon finds there’s just as much peril lurking there—as well as the potential to change his destiny.
Where to buy:
Amazon
Silver Nitrate
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
:
Del Rey
Why we love it:
This blend of “Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism” follows a sound editor trying to establish her career in 1990s Mexico City—but gets more than she bargained for when she meets a cult director who needs help finishing his long-unfinished, supernaturally infused, and probably cursed last film.
Where to buy:
Amazon
Schrader’s Chord
by Scott Leeds
:
Tor Nightfire
Why we love it:
If you’re a fan of music and horror stories, you can’t
not
get excited about a tale involving a record collection with the power to connect the worlds of the living and the dead. Naturally, the main character of this book—who inherits his estranged father’s record store after his mysterious demise—gives those cursed LPs a spin, and darkness soon ensues.
Where to buy:
Amazon
Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology
edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
:
Vintage
Why we love it:
This anthology of spooky tales (ghosts, monsters, curses, revenge plots…) by Indigenous authors features an introduction by Stephen Graham Jones
(My Heart Is a Chainsaw)
and contributions from Darcie Little Badger, Tiffany Morris, Rebecca Roanhorse, and many more. Read an excerpt
here
.
Where to buy:
Amazon
The Reformatory
by Tananarive Due
:
Gallery / Saga Press
Why we love it:
If the author’s name looks familiar, you may know her from her contributions to Shudder’s excellent documentary
Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror
(which she executive produced);
she also teaches
Afrofuturism and Black Horror at UCLA. Due’s latest project is this searing historical-fiction novel set in 1950s Florida, where a tween able to see ghosts uncovers racism both past and present when he’s sent to a segregated reform school.
Where to buy:
Amazon
Where the Dead Wait
by Ally Wilkes
:
Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Why we love it:
Where do the dead wait? In this horror novel, it’s the frozen Arctic, where an ex-explorer must sail back to the site of his failed, cannibalism-tainted last mission to search for a lost colleague. Things get even eerier thanks to the tagalong presence of a nosy reporter, as well as the missing man’s wife—a medium who holds séances at sea.
Where to buy:
Amazon
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