Quite a bit of the science fiction and fantasy I read in 2019 was ambitious, as the best of the genre has so often been, and virtually all of it continued the trends of the 21st century: twisting norms, digging deep under the floorboards of genre assumptions, and relentlessly reflecting not so much the concerns as the cheap talking points of society at large. Again, maybe SFF has always done all of that, but in any case, these were the year’s best entries:

10 The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman (Knopf) - Pullman’s “Book of Dust” series continues in this cerebral sequel, where gorgeous prose and quietly bravura pacing combine to provide a kind of substitute for a compact plotline. This is an author talented enough to make travel itineraries interesting. 

9 Red-Stained Wings by Elizabeth Bear (Tor) - Another entry, another second book in a series (all the rage; only two books on the list this year are neither sequels nor series-starters), this time Book Two in Bear’s tales of the Lotus Kingdoms - epic high fantasy here rendered with some of the most engaging writing of Bear’s career.

8 Fall by Neal Stephenson (Morrow) - Stephenson’s latest doorstop comes with one of the most dreaded warning signs of literary pomposity: an alternate title (“or, Dodge in Hell”), and although the novel itself - about a CEO whose consciousness is uploaded into a constantly-evolving ‘afterlife’ - is equally self-indulgent, it’s also bursting with energy and inventiveness.

7 The Kingdom of Copper by SA Chakaborty (Harper) - This book (another second-in-series, this time the author’s “Daevabad” trilogy) takes readers to the same world as its “The City of Brass” predecessor and gives readers even more of what they got the first time: unusual fantasy settings, some very good action sequences, and most of all, memorably-drawn characters.

6 Recursion by Blake Crouch (Crown) - “Dark Matter” fan favorite author Blake Crouch here reproduces the elements that made his earlier book such a hit - twisty plotting and instantly-readable characters - and expands on them in a story about people all over the world suddenly afflicted with false memories. 

5 Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone (Tor) - Readers of Gladstone’s fantastic “Craft” novels will already be familiar with this author’s many storytelling gifts, but even those readers may be surprised by the blissful richness of this novel about a present-day innovator who becomes a rebel in a far-distant future ruled by a power-drunk dictator. 

4 Empire of Lies by Raymond Khoury (Forge) - SFF novels that posit some kind of historical ‘what if’ hypothetical are a staple of the genre (and a tricky one, since they so often imply or outright state that there’s a way history is supposed to run), and Khoury’s chosen what-if - that the Ottoman Empire defeated the Holy Roman Empire centuries ago and has been ruling the West ever since - is hardly original. But he writes it all with terrific gusto and conviction.

3 Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger (Del Rey) - Our list this year rises to its finish with three lavish fantasy novels, starting with this one by Paul Krueger in which four main characters - a warrior, a prince, a sleuth, and a thief - find common cause against a malevolent enemy and become unlikely friends in the process. And while that organizing structure should annoy me - the Resistance to Donald Trump, only set in a fantasy-version of Asia - Krueger renders it with such joyful narrative inventiveness that I was carried along.

2 The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon (Bloomsbury) - This enormous block of a book (gorgeously designed by the folks at Bloomsbury) likewise should have annoyed, since there’s hardly a high-fantasy cliché it doesn’t indulge, from medieval-style royalty to hidden sects of sorcerers to actual dragonriders. But Samantha Shannon exuberantly demonstrate that the proof is in the doing: long as it is, the whole thing is mesmerizing.

1 Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James (Riverhead) - Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the best SFF book of 2019, seems very clearly to be Marlon James’ answer to all those high-fantasy clichés. This first book in the “Dark Star” trilogy, the hunt by a rag-tag band of loners for a missing boy, is an old-fashioned quest novel in which nothing is old-fashioned: the characters, the settings, the magic, even the moralities - all are wonderfully, wittily warped and challenged.