12 Canadian sci-fi and fantasy novels to escape into this summer
In need of a magical or futuristic escape this season? Here are 12 speculative fiction titles by Canadian writers to get lost in.
A Vicious Game by Melissa Blair
In the third instalment of the high fantasy series, Keera is once again tested by foe and friend alike. A Vicious Game returns to the magical kingdoms within The Halfling Saga as Keera now struggles outside of the capital to contend with odd dreams and a new king.
When Keera stumbles upon new knowledge from her ancestors, the Light Fae, she is faced with the power of her people and the responsibility to protect them.
Melissa Blair is an Anishinaabekwe of mixed ancestry who splits her time between Treaty 9 in Northern Ontario and Ottawa. The other books in The Halfling Saga are A Broken Blade and A Shadow Crown.
Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson
Midnight Robber is the 2000 science fiction novel which takes place on the Caribbean-colonized planet, Toussaint. When a young girl named Tan-Tan is taken by her father and they are cast out to a world of brutality and monsters from folklore, she becomes the Robber Queen.
Inspired by Caribbean folklore, Midnight Robber is a story of survival and resilience.
Nalo Hopkinson is an acclaimed Jamaican-Canadian science fiction writer, editor and creative writing professor. Her debut 1998 novel, Brown Girl in the Ring, received the Locus Award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for Canada Reads in 2008.
Her upcoming fantasy novel, Blackheart Man will be out in Aug. 2024.
The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard
The Other Valley follows the story of Odile Ozanne, who lives in a town with a magical valley. To the east, the town exists twenty years forward in time. To the west, it's 20 years behind. Odile seeks to join the Conseil, who decides which of the town's residents may cross the border into the valley to see departed loved ones.
When she recognizes two mourners by accident, Odile realizes they have travelled from the future to see someone Odile knows in her present — setting off a chain of events that change the course of several lives.
The Other Valley is Scott Alexander Howard's first novel. He holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. He currently lives in Vancouver.
Goddess Crown by Shade Lapite
Goddess Crown is a YA Afro-fantasy novel set in the kingdom of Galla. Kalothia was raised in secret — in a woodland outside of the kingdom where she learned to fish and hunt and look after herself. On her 16th birthday, she is forced to flee her home after it is invaded by attackers and she ends up in the king's court, where she gets caught up in dangerous power struggles.
Goddess Crown is for ages 13 and up.
Shade Lapite is a British Nigerian writer living in Toronto. She runs a blog called Coffee Bookshelves, which celebrates and promotes writing by authors of colour. Goddess Crown is Lapite's debut novel.
Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee
Untethered Sky is about the lengths we go to for the ones we love, even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice. When Ester's mother and brother are killed by a manticore, she becomes obsessed with finding a way to bring justice and some semblance of peace to what's left of her family.
Her quest leads her to the King's Royal Mews where she pairs up with a roc, a flying beast known to hunt manticores, in order to participate in the hunt. The journey could cost Ester her life, but there's no turning back now.
Fonda Lee is a Canadian American science fiction and fantasy writer. Lee is a three-time Aurora Award winner, including best novel for Jade City and best YA novel for Exo. Jade City also won the World Fantasy Award in 2018.
Song of the Six Realms by Judy I. Lin
In the epic gothic romance Song of the Six Realms, Xue is a young musician, orphaned and indentured to perform for the House of Flowing Water with no escape in sight. That is, until she performs for Duke Meng, a noble who offers Xue a deal: be the musician of his estate for one year and then he'll set her free.
When he reveals himself to secretly be a divine ruler of the Celestial Realm, Xue is faced with the knowledge that she may be the key to saving the Six Realms from disaster.
Judy I. Lin was born in Taiwan and immigrated to Canada with her family at a young age. She is the author of the Book of Tea duology, which includes A Magic Steeped in Poison and A Venom Dark and Sweet.
We Speak Through the Mountain by Premee Mohamed
We Speak Through the Mountain is a sequel novella to the post-apocalyptic Albertan book The Annual Migration of Clouds. Reid Graham is 19 years old and fighting against both the climate crisis-affected Rocky Mountains and his own chronic illness to make her way to Howse University, a supposed safe haven.
When she arrives she finds it more and more difficult to forge connections and leave behind the guilt she has of leaving her community. When she is sent word from home, Reid is faced with an impossible decision and a crumbling reality.
Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction writer based in Edmonton. Her series Beneath the Rising received nominations for the Crawford Award, British Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards and Aurora Awards.
Her book The Annual Migration of Clouds won the 2022 Aurora Award for best novella. Her other books include The Butcher of the Forest and No One Will Come Back for Us.
The Lady of Rapture by Sarah Raughley
The Lady of Rapture is the third and final instalment of the Bones of Ruin trilogy. In The Lady of Rapture, the African tightrope walker, Iris, was thought to be immortal. In the aftermath of her calculated murder, the Enlightenment Committee realizes there's another Hiva like her and the threat of apocalypse still looms.
Set on revenge, the end of days are numbered in the conclusion to the epic Victorian fantasy series.
The Lady of Rapture follows The Bones of Ruin and The Song of Wrath.
Sarah Raughley is a fantasy novelist from Southern Ontario. Her YA Effigies series includes Fate of Flames, Siege of Shadows and Legacy of Light. Raughley was the 2022 judge for CBC's student writing challenge, The First Page.
River Mumma by Zalika Reid-Benta
River Mumma is a magical realist story inspired by Jamaican folklore. The main character is a young Black woman having a quarter-life crisis while adventuring through the streets of Toronto. The story follows Alicia, a young woman who still lives at home with her mom and has no career prospects.
One evening, River Mumma, the Jamaican water deity, appears to inform Alicia that she has 24 hours to find her missing comb in the city.
Why River Mumma chose her is a mystery. Alicia barely remembers the legends she was told about the deity as a child. Still, Alicia embarks on her quest through the city which turns into a journey through time — to find herself, but also what the river carries.
Zalika Reid-Benta is a Toronto-based author who explores race, identity and culture through the lens of second-generation Caribbean Canadians in her work. The Columbia MFA graduate's debut novel Frying Plantain was on the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. CBC Books named Reid-Benta a writer to watch in 2019 and she served as jury chair for the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice
Moon of the Turning Leaves takes place 10 years after the events of the post-apocalyptic novel Moon of the Crusted Snow and depicts an epic journey to a forgotten homeland. With food supplies dwindling, Evan Whitesky and his band of survivors need to find a new home.
Evan volunteers to lead a group — including his daughter Nangohns and a great archer and hunter — to their ancestral home, the "land where the birch trees grow by the big water."
Along the way, they come across other survivors — not all of whom can be trusted.
Rice is an Anishinaabe author, journalist and radio host originally from Wasauksing First Nation. Rice's first short story collection Midnight Sweatlodge, which was about his life growing up in his Anishinaabe community, won an Independent Publishers Book Award in 2012. Moon of the Turning Leaves is the sequel to Moon of the Crusted Snow, which was on the Canada Reads 2023 longlist.
The Downloaded by Robert J. Sawyer
The Downloaded follows two vastly different groups of people in the year 2059: a group of astronauts planning to embark on an "interstellar voyage" and a group of convicts stuck in a virtual reality prison. Suddenly, both virtual realities converge as space adventurers and criminals alike must return to the real world and save the planet from annihilation.
Robert J. Sawyer is a Canadian American writer of science fiction. He is the recipient of the Nebula Award in 1995 and the Hugo Award in 2003. He has written 25 books including Quantum Night, The Oppenheimer Alternative and Flashforward.
The Book of Rain by Thomas Wharton
The Book of Rain is a sci-fi novel set in a world where ghost ore, a new minable energy source much more lucrative than gold, can disrupt time and space and slowly make an environment inhospitable. In one of three ghost ore hotspots in the world, the Alberta mining town of River Meadows, residents have been evacuated, except Amery Hewitt can't seem to stay away.
The former resident frequently returns to River Meadows to save the animals still living in the contaminated zone. When Amery goes on another dangerous trip and doesn't return, her game designer brother, Alex, enlists the help of his mathematician friend Michio to help get her back — and all they need to do is break the laws of physics.
The Book of Rain was shortlisted for the 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
Edmonton author and professor Thomas Wharton has written several books, including his first novel, Icefields, which won the 1996 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in Canada and the Caribbean. Icefields was a finalist for Canada Reads 2008, when it was defended by Steve MacLean. His novel Salamander, was shortlisted for the 2001 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and was also a finalist for the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize the same year.
