The first half of 2024 has proven to be yet another brilliant year for fans of dark and grimdark fantasy and science fiction. From brutal vampire societies, to AI cities dying, insects at war, and some good ol’ fashioned dragon slaying, there is something on our list for just about everybody. We are incredibly fortunate to have been provided with heaps of amazing review opportunities so far this year, and from that we give you our team’s choices for the best of dark and grimdark SFF so far in 2024.
Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff
Empire of the Damned delivers many moments of high-intensity, including memorable showdowns, exchanges, and unpredictability, with very little going the way expected or in Gabriel’s favour. Certain scenes may arguably be over the top yet Empire of the Damned is an undeniably addictive and fun read.
Read the rest of our review, here.
About the book
From holy cup comes holy light;
The faithful hands sets world aright.
And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight,
Mere man shall end this endless night.
Gabriel de León has saved the Holy Grail from death, but his chance to end the endless night is lost. Drawn into an uneasy alliance with the mysterious vampire Liathe, Gabriel must now deliver the Grail to ancients of the Blood Esani, and learn the truth of how Daysdeath might be finally undone.
But the Last Silversaint faces peril, within and without. Pursued by terrors of the Blood Voss, drawn into warfare between the Blood Dyvok and duskdancers of the frozen Highlands, and ravaged by his own rising bloodlust, Gabriel may not survive to see the Grail learn her truth.
And that truth may be too awful for any to imagine.
Read Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff, recommended by James
The Truth of Aleke by Moses Ose Utomi
Utomi’s ability to cram such a dense and well-developed world in just over 100 pages is commendable and done with a fluid grace; it almost felt like reading a full-sized novel. The Truth of the Aleke was so well curated and detailed for its length, whilst simultaneously leaving me wanting more, having been overtaken by the curiosity the ending leaves us with.
Read the rest of our review, here.
About the book
The Aleke is cruel. The Aleke is clever. The Aleke is coming.
500 years after the events of The Lies of the Ajungo, the City of Truth stands as the last remaining free city of the Forever Desert. A bastion of freedom and peace, the city has successfully weathered near-constant attacks from the Cult of Tutu, who have besieged it for three centuries, attempting to destroy its warriors and subjugate its people.
Seventeen-year-old Osi is a Junior Peacekeeper in the City. When the mysterious leader of the Cult, known only as the Aleke, commits a massacre in the capitol and steals the sacred God’s Eyes, Osi steps forward to valiantly defend his home. For his bravery he is tasked with a tremendous responsibility―destroy the Cult of Tutu, bring back the God’s Eyes, and discover the truth of the Aleke.
Read The Truth of Aleke by Moses Ose Utomi, recommended by Sab
The Book that Broke the World by Mark Lawrence
The Book That Broke the World is a triumph of imagination and a deeply thought-provoking meditation on the nature of memory, the value of knowledge, and the degree of self-determination we may or may not have in our lives.
Read the rest of our review, here.
About the book
The Library spans worlds and times. It touches and joins distant places. It is memory and future. And amid its vastness Evar Eventari both found, and lost, Livira Page.
Evar has been forced to flee the library, driven before an implacable foe. Livira, trapped in a ghost world, has to recover the book she wrote—one which is the only true threat to the library’s existence—if she’s to return to her life.
While Evar’s journey leads him outside into a world he’s never seen, Livira’s path will taker her deep inside her own writing, where she must wrestle with her stories in order to reclaim the volume in which they were written.
The secret war that defines the library has chosen its champions and set them on the board. The time has come when they must fight for what they believe, or lose everything.
Read The Book that Broke the World by Mark Lawrence, recommended by John
The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon
Deft of prose and evocative imagination, Emma Mieko Candon’s The Archive Undying unfolds an uncannily prescient promise: “When an AI god dies, its city dies with it.” This opening line sets the tone for a gripping narrative that binds elements of trauma, flesh-and-blood characters, and the mesmerising allure of the complex relationship between humanity and AI.
Read the rest of our review, here.
About the book
WHEN AN AI DIES, ITS CITY DIES WITH IT
WHEN A CITY FALLS, IT LEAVES A CORPSE BEHIND
WHEN THAT CORPSE RUNS OFF, ONLY DEVOTION CAN BRING IT BACK
When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to life: its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he’s seen. He’s run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines.
The Archive Undying is the first volume of Emma Mieko Candon’s Downworld Sequence, a sci-fi series where AI deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies.
Come get in the robot.
Read The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon, recommended by Arina
Riven Earth by Zammar Ahmer
Nature and humanity clash in Zammar Ahmer’s Riven Earth, a breathtakingly epic yet intimately character-driven grimdark fantasy that will sink its roots into the hearts of everyone who loves a good dose of heavy emotional destruction with their fantastical adventures.
Read the rest of our review, here.
About the book
The world has stopped turning.
Burned by a blazing sun. Thrust into eternal winter.
Life survives only in the Sunset Forest.
For untold millennia, mankind lived subservient to the dryads, forced into worship of the Earth-Mother, Astea. Then one man ventured into the Scorched Desert and returned with the secret of fire. His rebellion brought the dryad empire to ash. In its place, he founded the Kingdom of Heartsong.
Twelve years later, the new king is missing. The earth trembles. Famine ravages the land, and a mysterious illness creeps through the capital.
Plots of treason and revenge abound, but as the mistakes of the past bear fruit, men will reap what they have sown.
Read Riven Earth by Zammar Ahmer, recommended by Esmay
The Storm Beneath the World by Michael R. Fletcher
In Michael R. Fletcher‘s The Storm Beneath the World we get another full-swing-warhammer-to-the-chest of Fletcher’s wild imagination. In a world made up of insect queendoms living and warring on the backs of million-year-old creature-countries floating above the firestorm below, where to discover one has magical powers is to become a dangerous corrupt and rejected from society no matter the station you were born in to, we are treated to a wild ride through the eyes of a diverse group of ashkaro (insect characters) as they discover their world may come to an end amongst the chaos of their own changing lives.
Read the rest of our review, here.
About the book
Cursed by the gods, the insectile ashkaro live on flying islands travelling the eternal River of Days while a hellish firestorm devours the world below. Collected into queendoms, the higher caste brights live in the luxurious windward rain-forest while the servile dulls scrape out a desperate existence in the leeward desert.
Conflicts escalate between two neighbouring queendoms. Where Nysh embraces modern ideals of equality and independence, Yil honours the Fallen Goddess by enslaving their neighbours and maintaining traditional castes.
In preparation for the imminent war, Nysh sends ashkaro youths with dangerous Talents to secret schools, training them as assassins and spies. Joh, a dull male with a Talent for suggestion, and Ahk, a bright female with a Talent for stealth, are torn from their families and thrown into the academy. The two naively believe that the biggest threat comes from the other students, not realizing the war has already begun.
United in purpose, divided by caste, they can only save the island from the Mad Queen by working together.
Read The Storm Beneath the World by Michael R. Fletcher, recommended by Carrie
The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo
My best description for The Woods All Black is literary monsterfucking. It is one of the queerest stories I have ever read – and confronts its reader with their own complicity in contemporary oppression. In that, this is a very timely novel despite its 1920s setting and mentality. I beg you, read this one. The Woods All Black blew my mind and cemented Lee Mandelo as a king of modern gothic.
Read the rest of our review, here.
About the book
Leslie Bruin is assigned to the backwoods township of Spar Creek by the Frontier Nursing Service, under its usual mandate: vaccinate the flock, birth babies, and weather the judgements of churchy locals who look at him and see a failed woman. Forged in the fires of the Western Front and reborn in the cafes of Paris, Leslie believes he can handle whatever is thrown at him—but Spar Creek holds a darkness beyond his nightmares.
Something ugly festers within the local congregation, and its malice has focused on a young person they insist is an unruly tomboy who must be brought to heel. Violence is bubbling when Leslie arrives, ready to spill over, and he’ll have to act fast if he intends to be of use. But the hills enfolding Spar Creek have a mind of their own, and the woods are haunted in ways Leslie does not understand.
The Woods All Black is a story of passion, prejudice, and power — an Appalachian period piece that explores reproductive justice and bodily autonomy, the terrors of small-town religiosity, and the necessity of fighting tooth and claw to live as who you truly are.
Read The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo, recommended by Fabienne
The Dragons of Deepwood Fen by Bradley P. Beaulieu
A multiple-point-of-view fantasy novel with some of the coolest dragons I have read about in ages, The Dragons of Deepwood Fen was a great read from start to finish.
Read the rest of our review, here.
About the book
This first book in a new fantasy series from the author of the acclaimed Song of the Shattered Sands series follows an unlikely pair as they expose the secrets at the heart of the mountain city of Ancris.
Lorelei Aurelius is the smartest inquisitor in the mountain city of Ancris. When a mysterious tip leads her to a clandestine meeting between the Church and the hated Red Knives, she uncovers a plot that threatens not only her home but the empire itself.
The trail leads her to Rylan Holbrooke, a notorious thief posing as a dragon singer. Rylan came to Ancris to solve the very same mystery she stumbled onto. Knowing his incarceration could lead to the Red Knives achieving their goals, Lorelei makes a fateful decision: she frees him.
Now branded as traitors, the two flee the city on dragonback. In the massive forest known as the Holt, they discover something terrible. The Red Knives are planning to awaken a powerful demigod in the holiest shrine in Ancris, and for some reason the Church is willing to allow it. It forces their return to Ancris, where the unlikely allies must rally the very people who’ve vowed to capture them before it’s too late.
Explore the mountain city of Ancris, where fast-paced adventure and intrigue abound, in this new offering from the author of the acclaimed Song of the Shattered Sands series.
Read Dragons of Deepwood Fen by Bradley P. Beaulieu, recommended by Fiona
Unexploded Remnants by Elaine Gallagher
This novella is great fun, both thought provoking, action packed and rattles along at a brisk pace with evocative writing that offers plenty of description but doesn’t linger overly on exposition. If I had a criticism it’s that Unexploded Remnants left me wanting more.
Read the rest of our review, here.
About the book
An A.I. wages war on a future it doesn’t understand.
Alice is the last human. Street-smart and bad-ass.
After discovering what appears to be an A.I. personality in an antique data core, Alice decides to locate its home somewhere in the stargate network. At the very least, she wants to lay him to rest because, as it turns out, she’s stumbled upon the sentient control unit of a deadly ancient weapon system.
Convincing the ghost of a raging warrior that the war is over is about as hard as it sounds, which is to say, it’s near-impossible. But, if Alice fails and the control unit falls into the wrong hands, the balance of power her side of the Milky Way could fall apart. As Alice ports throughout the known universe seeking answers and aid she will be faced with impossible choice after impossible choice and the growing might of an unstoppable foe.
Read Unexploded Remnants by Elaine Gallagher, recommended by Chris
The Fireborn Blade by Charlotte Bond
Novellas like The Fireborn Blade by Charlotte Bond are exactly the reason I love shorter form fiction. Engaging, fast-paced, inventive, and just a damned-fun few hours to spend engrossed in a story, The Fireborn Blade could have been the intro or extro story for an anthology, but is certainly strong enough to stand on its own two feet.
Read the rest of our review, here.
About the book
Kill the dragon. Find the blade. Reclaim her honor.
It’s that, or end up like countless knights before her, as a puddle of gore and molten armor.
Maddileh is a knight. There aren’t many women in her line of work, and it often feels like the sneering and contempt from her peers is harder to stomach than the actual dragon slaying. But she’s a knight, and made of sterner stuff.
A minor infraction forces her to redeem her honor in the most dramatic way possible, she must retrieve the fabled Fireborne Blade from its keeper, legendary dragon the White Lady, or die trying. If history tells us anything, it’s that “die trying” is where to wager your coin.
Maddileh’s tale contains a rich history of dragons, ill-fated knights, scheming squires, and sapphic love, with deceptions and double-crosses that will keep you guessing right up to its dramatic conclusion. Ultimately, The Fireborne Blade is about the roles we refuse to accept, and of the place we make for ourselves in the world.
Read The Fireborn Blade by Charlotte Bond, recommended by Adrian
Need more book recommendations?
We’ve been looking at the best in dark and grimdark SFF for years; here are the last few years posts to help you make sure that TBR will start teetering over you!