The 10 best science fiction and fantasy books of 2024 | by Nicolas Winter | Dec, 2024

CLike every year, the time has come to take stock.
This year, science fiction and fantasy managed to shine for the reader but not necessarily where we expected it, hidden in unexpected corners.
So here, before the Oscars and after the GOTYs, are the crème de la crème of the best science fiction and fantasy books of 2024!

— For those who missed it, you can also look at the 5 fantasy books of this year in this article: “ 5 science fiction and fantasy books for Christmas! »

Éditions Jou, 128 pages, 12 euros

Size is not everything, know it !
Thus, the first book in this annual top is a small 120-page book from a micro-publishing house which is worth a look.
Ian Soliane introduces you to Claire. But not the real one, the copy. Because Claire is no more, she died of a terrible disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. (SLA). After all tells of decay and grief, it speaks of the impossibility of mourning and questions palliative AI, this substitute in the form of a dead end. A poignant and magnificent story that grips the heart.

→ Check out the reviewAfter all of Ian Soliane

→ Buy the novel on the publisher’s website

Editions Fruit Amer, 352 pages, 22 euros
Translation: Alice Ray

FINALLY !
Since the time we have been waiting for a French translation of Nathan Ballingrud In France, Atlas of Hell sounds like a deliverance.
Over the course of six horrific short stories, the American author reveals all his genius for terror and the strange. There we find mixed together a priest of the Church of the Maggot, Satanists, cannibals and pirates, creatures called ” surgeons » who cut up the people they meet, a diabolist and his daughter or even a bookseller looking for a forbidden book in the heart of the bayou.
It’s big, completely crazy in its pictorial ambition Jerome Boschand, to put it bluntly, deliciously enjoyable.

→ Check out Nathan Ballingrud’s Atlas of Hell review

Éditions du Bélial’, 512 pages, 24.90 euros
Translation: Pierre-Paul Durastanti

Come on, hopthe first piece of this top with, of course, one of the science-fiction sensations of the year made in Bélial’ : The House of Suns d’Alastair Reynolds. Here we are in a very future (very) far away where immortal clones united in families cross and maintain the galaxy.
One of these families, the famous Gentian Lineage, is on the verge of a terrible betrayal that could lead to its extinction. It was Purslane and Campion, two clones to whom this was not done, who decided to lead the investigation. Full of sense-of-wonderwith action and even emotion, the book is a real joy for fans of traditional science fiction who are not afraid to rub shoulders with the twists and turns of the universe.
Un must, ouiand addictive as hell to boot.

→ Check out the review of The House of Suns d’Alastair Reynolds

Éditions du Seuil, 384 pages, 24 euros
Translation: Henri-Luc Planchat

Some had discovered it in the magazine Bifrost last year but it is truly this year that Sequoia Nagamatsu arrives in France with its news fix-up Higher in the Darkness.
We discover a world ravaged by a terrible epidemic and where adults and children are dying by the millions. Nothing original, you might say!
In reality, it is the treatment of this devastating pandemic, far from any showiness and full of finesse and emotion that makes the difference.
We visit a euthanasia center for children disguised as an amusement park, a pig who awakens to consciousness through medical experiments or even a cyberdog repairer who tries to repair these artificial memories again and again. paws for bereaved families. Immensely beautiful and poignant, Higher in the darkness is a series of stories where mourning takes all forms and where humanity tries to find a taste for life despite disaster and loss.
Formidable, Really.

→ Check out the review of Higher in the darkness of Sequoia Nagamatsu

Éditions L’École des Loisirs, 224 pages, 15 euros

Who said that mediocrity had overwhelmed the youth/young adult section with mediocre romance and dark romance?
An author shone this year with her latest book aimed at young people (and others) but which shows to what extent the stylistic requirement and the depth of the story are not contradictory when it comes to stories for the youngest. Flore Vesco loves to twist and reread tales and that’s what she’s doing again with Delicious Childrenfascinating and unexpected rereading of the Little Thumb where two families will collide somewhere in the woods. A brilliant feminist story, reflection on parenthood and revenge, the novel constantly surprises and delights with its flamboyant style. Definitely one of the best books of this year that explodes all limits, whether you are young or old.

→ Consult the review of Delicious Children of Flore Vesco

Editions Albin Michel Imaginaire, 624 pages, 24.90 euros

Back to the cobbles, but in fantasy this time.
Laurent Mantese signe THE surprise this year with a story about the old age of the most famous barbarian in the real universe: Conan!
The old King of the Seven Nations is not doing well, he is suffering from an infection in his shameful parts even though his presence seems essential to restore order to his kingdom on the brink of the abyss.
In a citadel at the edge of the world, while winter bites the flesh and the sky darkens, surrounded by his simple-minded son and his KhajymConan will have to lead a final battle in blood and guts.
Violent from the first to the last page, Probe and Size is an unforgettable piece of barbaric fantasy where a Celinian language mixes with the universe of Robert E. Howard.
A final baroque, cruel and grueling adventure.

→ Consult the review of Probe and Size of Laurent Mantese

Editions Robert Laffont, 288 pages, 20.50 euros

What would an imaginary top be without Catherine Dufour ?
This year, the Frenchwoman returns with a science fiction novel that sends us to the Moon alongside El-Jarline, a farmer. While the Earth continues to die, the humans who have found refuge on the Moon hide in its bowels, forming soul cities while some live under hermetic Domes on the surface to cultivate the Earth and preserve the surviving fauna . Through the reports delivered by El-Jarline we discover a human society that is both very different and completely similar to ours while a mysterious illness wreaks havoc.
The Fields of the Moon offers the best that science fiction has to offer, both an exotic and deeply human story, the novel by Catherine Dufour gives birth to a sublime character while offering him a new awareness of others and the world around him. It’s magnificent, always intelligent and exciting, in short, it’s Catherine Dufour.

→ Consult the criticism of Moon Fields of Catherine Dufour

Éditions Verso, 448 pages, 22.90 euros

The King of the world this year?
Romain Lucazeauduck !
This time, it is with a proto-uchrony in a modern world where Antiquity is only a word that the French returns to imagine a terribly violent metaphor for the war in Ukraine.
We find the hegemonic Persian Empire of the tyrant Orode exhausting itself on the city of Ectabane, discreetly supported by Carthage and the Pelagic league. It is the intertwined story of a bloody war and eight men caught in the spiral of violence. With language as impressive as ever and once again surprising use of the ancient imagination, Romain Lucazeau doesn’t care about science fiction and history to give us an uncompromising vision of Hell on Earth created and maintained by man in a cycle that is impossible to stop.
It’s daring, violent, controlled, impressive.
But it may not please everyone…and that’s a good thing!

→ Consult the review of The Valley of Carnage of Romain Lucazeau

Éditions Sonatine, 400 pages, 23 euros
Translation: Pierre Szczeciner

…and the Queen of the world SO ?
Well, it’s her: Catriona Ward.
After its awesome The Last House Before the Woodsthe new queen of thrillers ventures even deeper into the world of doubt and fantasy with Mirror Bay. It’s the story of Wilder Harlow, a teenager who discovers love during a vacation away from the world in Whistler Bay with his late uncle Vernon. There he meets Harper and Nathaniel before setting out on the trail of a mysterious Lurker who is taking photos of the children in their sleep…not even to mention these disappearances in the nearby cove. The truth soon revealed, Wilder begins writing an autobiographical novel while he returns to university. That’s when Sky enters his life and we suddenly realize that the story is very far from over.
It’s difficult to talk about this little masterpiece without revealing the complex and intertwined plot which speaks of the work of a writer, of mourning, of love… and the story takes us little by little in its merciless jaws.
An immense metafictional novel, as captivating as it is tortuous, a trap for the reader who is not on his guard.

→ Consult the review of Mirror Bay of Catriona Ward

Editions Albin Michel, 1056 pages, 24.90 euros
Translation: Charles Recoursé

Necessarily. Yes, necessarily.
Here is the new novel of the gifted Stephen Markley finds himself at the top. And it’s in a collection not dedicated to the imagination, which should make one cringe but, never mind, the imagination can and must be everywhere.
Voted book of the year by the magazine LIRE and named to the list of 100 notable books of the year by the New York Timesliterally showered with praise by the French and foreign press, The Flood is a HUGE book of more than 1000 pages which attempts eco-politics-science fiction by writing a political and ecological history of the United States between the years 2013 and 2039. Thanks to a choral narrative of which it has the secret and a gallery of fabulous characters, of rare complexity where nuance is king, Stephen Markley gives birth to an essential monument where the fight for the climate through political struggle takes place at all levels.
If some will argue that he forgets the rest of the world along the way, focusing solely on American politics, we will tell them to go and review their modern geopolitics a little by asking themselves which is the only country in the world where the planet holds its breath waiting for an electoral result?! Because yes, if the climate crisis can change, it is according to the decisions of the American ogre.
Markley offers an impressive and terrifying vision of the future, it says everything and does not shy away from any subject.
Unlike a Kim Stanley Robinson which gave us a jumbled book incapable of knowing whether it was an essay or a novel, with cardboard characters as a pretext for a somewhat facile militant message, Stephen Markley plays the card of absolute realism by relying above all on the depth of its characters to show that we must fight like lions, now, right away. Because it’s probably already too late.
Highway.
Phenomenal.
A book for our times that we must all read before tomorrow.

→ Consult the review of Flood of Stephen Markley