Last month I named my favorite science fiction and fantasy novels for the first part of 2015. As a continuing effort to highlight novels worth reading, I've updated the list by asking people to recommend their own favorite SF/F novels of 2015.
I've arranged the list starting with those novels which received the highest number of recommendations. The people who made the recommendations are listed at the bottom. While a number of authors recommended novels, none of them were allowed to name their own works.
I plan to update this list on a monthly basis through the end of the year, so if you have SF/F novels to recommend send them my way. Please limit recommendations to two novels per month per person. Yes, this means people who already recommended novels can send more recs each month. And before anyone even tries, it's not hard to figure out when people are trying to game my tally system. So don't ask people to flood me with recs for your novel.
In addition, I'm also compiling lists of recommended 2015 short stories, anthologies & story collections. So send those recs to me.
Novels with multiple recommendations
- Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear (5 recs)
- The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard (4 recs)
- Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho (4 recs)
- The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (4 recs)
- The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu (4 recs)
- Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (3 recs)
- Uprooted by Naomi Novik (3 recs)
- Updraft by Fran Wilde (3 recs)
- Court of Fives by Kate Elliott (2 recs)
- The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins (2 recs)
- Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor (2 recs)
Novels with one recommendation
- The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
- Wonders of the Invisible World by Christopher Barzak
- Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop
- Long Black Curl by Alex Bledsoe
- Dead Heat by Patricia Briggs
- Tracker by C.J. Cherryh
- Time Salvager by Wesley Chu
- Gemini Cell by Myke Cole
- White City by Seb Doubinsky
- Unseemly Science by Rod Duncan
- Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
- Dead Ice by Laurell K. Hamilton
- Day Shift by Charlaine Harris
- Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley
- Dark Heir by Faith Hunter
- Angles of Attack by Marko Kloos
- Cold Iron by Stina Leicht
- Labyrinthian by Sunny Moraine
- The Nexus Trilogy by Ramez Naam
- Touch by Claire North
- The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
- Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
- Windswept by Adam Rakunas
- Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuchibas by Kazuki Sakuraba
- All That Outer Space Allows by Ian Sales
- Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
- An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
- Vermilion: The Adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp by Molly Tanzer
- A Headful of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
- Mockingbird by Chuck Wendig
- Weathering by Lucy Wood
Many thanks to everyone who shared with me their favorite SF/F novels of 2015: Aliette de Bodard, Richard Bowes, K Tempest Bradford, Maurice Broaddus, Adam Callaway, Shaun Duke, Andy Hedgecock, S.L. Huang, Aidan Moher, J. Oliver, Jeffrey Petersen, Joe Sherry, John H. Stevens, Charles Tan, Jetse de Vries, Eddi Vulić, Sean Wallace, Paul Weimer, Cynthia Wentworth, AC Wise. There were also a handful of people who asked to remain anonymous.
If anyone sees errors on this list (such as novels which weren't first published in 2015), let me know.
Update: I removed Pivot by L.C. Barlow and Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett because they were published in previous years. I also moved The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson to my pending short story post because it is a novella.