At the beginning of February, Locus released their 2023 Recommended Reading list, and we were thrilled to see how many of our incredibly talented JABberwocky authors made it onto this year’s list.
For full length novels, seven amazing books made the cut.
Perennial bestsellers Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Grady Hendrix were both featured in the horror section of the list, with Silvia’s SILVER NITRATE, a dark thriller that melds Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism about a curse that haunts a legendary lost film, and Grady’s HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE, a new take on the haunted house trope that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else. These two books have been raking in the accolades and best-of lists, and HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE is currently a Bram Stoker award finalist.
In the list of science fiction must-reads were three shared clients with the Zeno Agency in the UK: Aliette de Bodard’s A FIRE BORN OF EXILE, a poignant, heartwarming romantic space opera about love, revenge and the weight of the past; Lavie Tidhar’s THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE WORLD, which follows a mathematician, a book dealer, and a mobster caught between realities and desperately seeking a notorious book that disappears upon being read; and Ian McDonald’s HOPELAND, a time-traveling, futuristic saga of a family trying to outlast and remake a universe.
On the list of debut novels is Bethany Jacobs’s THESE BURNING STARS, a thrilling cat-and-mouse revenge plot space opera that takes us across an empire that spans star systems, built on the bones of a hidden genocide. THESE BURNING STARS has been raking in the praise from reviewers, and is a one of this year’s Phillip K. Dick award finalists.
In fantasy, Jonathan Carroll—another shared Zeno client—is on the list for his novel MR. BREAKFAST, a funny and thoughtful novel that hops between timelines to explore the idea of how our choices limit or expand the lives that we’re able to lead.
As for anthologies, the list commends THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION OF THE YEAR, VOL.7, edited by Hugo-Award-winning editor Neil Clarke. This annual anthology combines all the best science fiction stories of the year, making it the ultimate must-have for any fan of the genre. They also listed Lavie Tidhar’s BEST OF WORLD SF, VOL. 3, a fixture on the global science fiction scene that collects authors from Austria, Bulgaria, China, Finland, Ghana, Greece, India, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Singapore and South Africa.
Finally, in shorter work, Suzanne Palmer’s novella TO SAIL BEYOND THE BOTNET (originally in Clarkesworld, May 2023) and Aliette de Bodard’s short story “The Mausoleum’s Children” (originally in Uncanny Magazine, May/June 2023).
Published in Locus magazine’s February 2024 issue, the list is the recommendations made by the Locus editors, columnists, outside reviewers, and other professionals/critics. They looked at 1,012 titles between short and long fiction while deciding on this final recommended reading list.