For the purposes of this blog post, we’ve included either stand-alone reads, or the first books of new series. To counteract that – we’ve also included a list of 2016 books that are continuing some of our favourite series.

The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan

A thrilling epic fantasy of exploration and adventure, spies and assassins, explosive magic and the furious battle to forge an empire. For decades the lands of the Ironship Syndicate have been defended by the Blood-blessed, men and women able to channel the powers contained in the potent blood of wild drakes. Yet now a crisis looms: the drake bloodlines are weakening, and war with the Corvantine Empire seems inevitable.

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

Another first book of an epic fantasy, Nevernight is set in the dark heart of an academy for assassins. Mia is known as the killer of killers and destroyer of empires, but her true story begins when she is just 10-years-old and forced to watch her father hang as a traitor. At the time of his death, her shadow deepens and a darkness joins Mia, bringing her surprising powers.

Revenger by Alastair Reynolds

The galaxy has seen great empires rise and fall. Planets have shattered and been remade. Among the ruins of alien civilisations, humanity still thrives by building their own from the rubble. And there are vast fortunes to be made, as long as you know where to find them, and Captain Rackamore and his crew do. It’s their business to find the tiny, enigmatic worlds which have been hidden away, booby-trapped, surrounded with layers of protection, and to crack them open for the ancient relics and barely-remembered technologies inside.

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Naomi Alderman’s extraordinary, visceral novel is feminist speculative fiction at its best. Our world is recognisable in its pages at first, but then something vital changes. Suddenly – tomorrow or the day after – teenage girls find that they now have immense physical power. With a flick of their fingers, they can inflict agonizing pain and even death. With this single twist, the four lives at the heart of the novel are utterly transformed, and the world changes utterly.

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

An 11-year girl named Rose is riding her bike in the woods near her home in Deadwood, USA, when the ground disappears beneath her feet and she finds herself in a deep pit, lying in the palm of a giant metallic hand. 17 years later, Dr Rose Franklyn is leading a top-secret scientific investigation into the strange artefact she unwittingly discovered all those years ago. It is clear to Rose and her team that the hand is not only ancient but also not of this world. A search begins for the rest of this vast creation and what they find defies their imaginations.

Lament for the Fallen by Gavin Chait

When a strange craft falls from the sky and smashes into the jungle near Isaiah’s isolated West African community, the boy’s life is changed forever. Inside the ruined vessel the villagers find the shattered body of Samara – a man who is perhaps something more than human. Samara has fallen 35,000 km to earth in order to escape the automated hell of an orbiting prison called Tartarus. As he transforms the lives of those who rescued him he also attracts the attention of the brutal warlord who rules over this benighted, ravaged post-21st century land. And all the while – in the darkness above – waits the simmering fury that lies at the heart of Tartarus.

The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville

A thriller of war that never was – of survival in an impossible city – of surreal cataclysm. In The Last Days of New Paris, China Miéville entwines true historical events and people with his daring brand of fiction. This story takes place in 1941, in the chaos of wartime Marseille, and in 1950, where a lone Surrealist fighter walks a new, hallucinogenic Paris, where Nazis and the Resistance are trapped in unending conflict.

Super Extra Grande by Yoss (translated by David Frye)

In the tradition of Douglas Adams, Yoss delivers a space opera of intergalactic proportions. Set in a distant future, after the invention of faster-than-light space travel has propelled a still-immature mankind into the far corners of the Milky Way, Super Extra Grande_ features creatures of immense variety. With his vast curiosity and wild imagination, Yoss brings us a rare specimen in the richly parodic tradition of Cuban science fiction.

Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente

Severin Unck is the headstrong young daughter of a world famous film director. She has inherited her father’s love of the big screen but not his exuberant gothic style of filmmaking. Instead, Severin makes documentaries, artful and passionate and even rather brave – for she is a realist in a fantastic alternate universe, in which Hollywood occupies the moon, Mars is rife with lawless saloons, and the solar system contains all manner of creatures, cults and colonies. Clever, dreamy, strange and beautifully written – Radiance is a novel about how stories give form to worlds.

Who’s Afraid? by Maria Lewis

Tommi Grayson’s never exactly been a normal girl. Bright blue hair, a mysterious past and barely controlled rage issues have a way of making a woman stand out. Yet she’s never come close to guessing who she really is. When her mother dies, a shattered Tommi decides to track down her estranged father. Leaving Scotland for a remote corner of New Zealand, she discovers the truth of her heritage, and it’s a whole lot more than merely human. Barely escaping with her life, now Tommi must return to her her friends, pretending everything is normal, while all too aware of the dangers lurking outside – and within. Worse still, something has followed her home…

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics, and Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own…

The Lyre Thief by Jennifer Fallon

When Princess Rakaia of Fardohnya discovers she is not of royal birth, she agrees to marry a much older Hythrun noble in a chance to escape the wrath of her father. She takes nothing but her jewels and her baseborn half sister, Charisee, who has been her slave, handmaiden and best friend – and who can (helpfully) pass as Rakaia’s double. These two sisters embark on a Shaksepearian tale of switched identities, complicated love triangles and meddlesome gods. With powerful magics, byzantine politics, sweeping adventure and a couple of juicy love stories thrown in for good measure, The Lyre Thief is classic Jennifer Fallon.

Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay

Guy Gavriel Kay’s swashbuckling, gently fantastical alternate history is set in a world inspired by the conflicts and dramas of Renaissance Europe. A trading ship carries many passengers: a young woman seeking vengeance for her lost family, a spy posing as a Doctor’s wife, an artist commissioned to paint the Grand Khalif, and the ship’s commander – a younger son with ambivalence about the life he’s been born to live. And farther east, a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the Khalif – to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming.

The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington

Here is an epic fantasy debut perfect for fans of Robert Jordan. It has been 20 years since the god-like Augurs were overthrown and killed. Now, those who once served them – the Gifted – are spared only because they have vastly limited their own powers. As a young Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war lost before he was even born and is despised for the magical power he wields: a power that he can’t control, despite his best efforts. Worse, Davian soon discovers he wields the forbidden power of the Augurs, unwittingly setting in motion a chain of events that will shake the world.

The Diabolic by S.J. Kincaid

The Hunger Games meets Star Wars in this thrilling tale of court intrigue. Nemesis is a Diabolic, a humanoid teenager created to protect a galactic senator’s daughter, Sidonia. The two have grown up side by side, but are in no way sisters; Nemesis is expected to give her life for Sidonia, and she would do so gladly. But when the power-mad Emperor learns Sidonia’s father is participating in a rebellion, he summons Sidonia to the Galactic court where she is to serve as a hostage. Now, there is only one way for Nemesis to protect Sidonia: she must become her. Nemesis travels to the court disguised as Sidonia and with threats on every side, she must keep her true abilities a secret – or else.

Vigil by Angela Slatter

Vigil is the first book in a new urban fantasy from award-winning Australian writer Angela Slatter. As the daughter of one human and one Weyrd parent, Verity Fassbinder has her feet in two worlds and rare abilities. One of these include the power to walk between the human world and the other, and accordingly, she has been charged with keeping the peace between both races. And now with Sirens dying, illegal wine (made from the tears of human children) on sale, and an unknown destructive force at large on the streets of Brisbane – Verity must investigate.

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn’t expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during high school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one’s peers and families. But now they’re both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them.

Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper. Meanwhile, Boris Chong has his own problems: his ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger; his cousin is infatuated with a robotnik; his father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague; and a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return.

This Savage Song by V.E. Schwab

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city – a grisly metropolis where the violence has begun to create real and deadly monsters. Kate wants to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the inhabitants pay for his protection. August wants as good-hearted as his own father, even though his curse is to be what the humans fear. The thin truce that keeps the Harker and Flynn families at peace is crumbling, until an assassination attempt forces Kate and August into a tenuous alliance.

Summerlong by Peter S. Beagle

Peter S. Beagle has released his long-anticipated new novel. Summerlong is a bittersweet tale of passion, enchantment, and the nature of fate. When Lioness Lazos, an enigmatic young waitress, comes to Gardner Island even the weather takes notice. As an impossibly beautiful spring leads into a perfect summer, she is taken in by a complicated family of two disenchanted lovers and an unlucky-in-love daughter. Lioness grows more captivating day by day, but below the surface lies something much darker – even summer days must pass.

The Immortals by Jordanna Max Brodsky

Jordanna Max Brodsky’s debut sets the Greek Gods against a modern Manhattan backdrop – think Percy Jackson for adults! Selene DiSilva, a tough and fierce woman who values her solitude, is shocked to discover the corpse of a young woman that bears all the signs of a ritualistic murder. Selene (who is actually the goddess Artemis) rediscovers her ancient rage and vows to hunt the killer. But when classics professor Theo Schultz decodes the ancient myth behind the crime, the solitary Huntress finds herself working with a man who’s her opposite in every way. Plus, they’ll need help from the one source Selene distrusts most of all: the city’s other Immortals.

PLUS…

Here are some 2016 continuations of sci-fi series that we love…

• King’s Rising by C.S. Pacat (Captive Prince, Book 3)
• The Stars Askew by Rjurik Davidson (Caeli-Amur, Book 2)
• A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab (Shades of Magic, Book 2)
• Night Without Stars by Peter F. Hamilton (Chronicle of the Fallers, Book 2)
• Death’s End by Cixin Lium, translated by Ken Liu (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, Book 3)
• The Long Cosmos by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (Long Earth, Book 5)
• Morning Star by Pierce Brown (Red Rising, Book 3)
• The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, Book 6)
• Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows, Book 2)
• The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin (The Passage, Book 3)
• The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu (The Dandelion Dynasty, Book 2)
• League of Dragons by Naomi Novik (Temeraire, Book 9)
• The Wheel of Osheim by Mark Lawrence (The Red Queen’s War, Book 3)
• The Malice by Peter Newman (The Vagrant, Book 2)
• City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett (The Divine Series, Book 2)
• Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (The Illuminae Files, Book 2)
• Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley (The Rook Files, Book 2)
• The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch (Peter Grant, Book 6)