10 Debut Novels that Show TONS of Promise
Gidion the Ninth, by Tamsin Muir – This is the book that inspired this list and brought me back to reading fantasy. I’m super excited to see where Tamsin Muir is going to go with her career, but she’s off to a bloody good start. This is a closed-box mystery that mixes dark fantasy with space opera. After all, who doesn’t want a galactic empire ruled by necromancers? The book has some hiccups and speed bumps, it is a first novel, after all, but the sheer audacity of this story makes it all worth it.
Jhereg, by Steven Brust – I’m going to flip-flop between new writers and established professionals. Brust is the oldest on this list, I think. This book is also the most polished of all the entries on this list. This mafia-like, high-powered, swords and sorcery novel doesn’t read like a writer’s first book. It offers the promise of a writer who knows what he’s doing, and in the decades that followed, Brust absolutely delivered.
Death of a Fairy Tale, by Emily Fluke – I believe science fiction and fantasy should be ever-evolving genres. With this book, Fluke takes urban fantasy to a new place. It’s what you might get if Dresden was female with a family, oh, and it’s slightly meta, not in that the main character knows she’s in a book, but that the book offers the reader a subtle sense of knowing what it is and that the reader is along for the ride. I wish more urban fantasy writers would take some risks like Emily Fluke. Looking forward to seeing where Fluke takes her writing.
His Majesty’s Dragon, by Naomi Novak – This is what you would get if Patrick O’Brien, author of Master and Commander, and Jane Austin were in a dnd game run by Anne McCaffery. This is possibly the best historical fantasy series ever written, full of epic battles and heart-wrenching and heart-warming character growth for its entire continuing cast.
The Bone Shard Daughter, by Andrea Stewart – If Gideon the Ninth brought me back to fantasy, this book is one of the ones keeping me here. First, it’s not just another European fantasy setting with some name changes and a new “twist” on a magic system. Stewart uses some Asian motifs to spark off a setting that’s refreshingly different than other fantasy settings. She intertwines her characters and their stories into this setting in a way that kept me from being reminded of pretty much every fantasy I’ve tried to read since the late 90’s.
Vurt, by Jeff Noon – This book is weird. It’s like if someone nabbed some ephemeral, imagination DNA from H.P. Lovecraft, Phillp K. Dick, Harlan Ellison Chuck Palahniuk, M.C. Esher, and Salvador Dali — THEN said, “Go write a cyberpunk novel that may or may not be supernatural in nature.” Weird. And then his other books get weirder because he could pull it off.
Mazes of Power, by Juliette Wade – One of my big pet peeves about genre fiction these days is the semi-religious fervor for world-building. We talk about it all the time, and then books come out where the author has done an immense amount of work on the fictional world they’ve created for their story. We know that because they seem to want to show us and tell us all about it. Not Juliette Wade. She gives us just what we need for THIS one story that starts off her quintet. We can sense way more in the background, but this story only offers up what we need. For which I’m grateful. I can’t wait to see where this series goes and how it wraps up.
Geekomancy, by Michael R Underwood – Of all the books on this list, Geekomancy is the only one that made me think, “Damn. I wish I’d come up with that.” It’s another evolution of urban fantasy where magic comes from geeky people loving nerdy things. It’s a bit of fan service, I suppose… kinda like Ready Player One is fan service… however; it’s all from a place of loving homage, something that permeates most of Underwood’s subsequent work, and I’m here for all of it.
Missing You Metropolis, by Gary Jackson – This is the only poetry book on this list. It’s full of poems about comics, comic characters, and what it’s like growing up as a black nerd. It’s here not just because it shows promise for Jackson’s future work (Origin Story is a masterpiece) but because Jackson has given so many nerds permission to write poetry about our experience and the things we love.
Gardens of the Moon, by Steven Erikson – Yes, I’m a huge Malazan fanboy. I’m cheating a little with this one. It’s not Steve’s first book, but it is Steven Erikson’s first book. It can be an acquired taste for some. Even the author suggests others start with the second book of The Malazan Book of the Fallen. Still, this one kicked off quite a career, not just for Erikson, but for Ian C Esslemont as well. Whether you like or loathe Malazan, it sparked a fantasy world with over 20 books now between the two writers. That’s a hell of a debut.
Again, I have Amazon associate links because I’m a hustling creative in late-stage, free-market capitalism.
