Goodreads Just Revealed the Best Fantasy and Sci-Fi Books of 2026 So Far

Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: books will never let you down. Alix takes refuge in the  reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives…inside their favorite books.

Rainy March is a proud, third-generation Book Witch, sworn to defend works of fiction from all foes real and imaginary. Book Witches live by a strict code: Real people belong in the real world; fictional characters belong in works of fiction. Which is why Rainy has been forbidden from seeing the Duke of Chicago, the dashing British detective who stars in her favorite mystery series. But when her beloved grandfather disappears and a priceless book is stolen, there’s only one person she trusts to help her solve the case: the Duke.

Agnes Aubert leads a meticulously organized life. As the proudly type-A manager of a cat rescue charity, she has devoted her life to finding forever homes for stray cats. Now it’s the shelter that needs a new home. And the only landlord who will rent a space to a cat rescue is a mysterious man called Havelock—who also happens to be the world’s most infamous magician, running an illegal magic shop out of his basement. Then one day a glamorous magician comes looking for Havelock, putting the magic shop—and the cat shelter—in jeopardy. To save the shelter, Agnes will have to team up with the magician who nearly ended the world . . . and may now be trying to steal her heart.

In the waning years of the Azalea Dynasty, the emperor is dying, the land consumed by famine, and poetry magic lost to all except the powerful. Wei Yin is desperate. After the fifth death of a sibling, with her family and village on the brink of starvation, she will do anything to save those she loves. Even offer herself as concubine to the cruel heir of the beautiful and brutal Azalea House. To survive, Wei must harden her heart, rely on her wit, and become dangerous herself.

When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy, and naked in a gutter, it doesn’t take her long to recognize Kair Toren, a city she knows intimately from the pages of the famously unfinished dark fantasy series she’s been obsessively reading. While she quickly discovers she cannot be killed, the same cannot be said for the living, breathing characters she’s coming to love. Soon, instead of trying to get home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes—and attentions—of dueling princes, dukes, and villains, all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas.

In 1785, Professor Sebastian Grave receives the news he fears most: the terrible Beast of Gévaudan has returned, and the French countryside runs red in its wake. A monster-slayer with centuries of experience, Sebastian joined the hunt for the creature 20 years ago and watched it slaughter its way through a long and bloody winter. It nearly cost him his life to bring the monster down. Now, two decades later, Sebastian has been recalled to the hunt by Antoine Avenel d’Ocerne, an estranged lover who shares a dark history with the Beast and a terrible secret with Sebastian. Drawn by both the chance to finish the Beast for good and the promise of a reconciliation with Antoine, Sebastian cannot refuse.

All colonist Oliver Lewis ever wanted to do was run the family ranch with his sister and keep his family’s aging fleet of intelligent agriculture bots ticking as long as possible. He figures it will be a good thing when the transfer gate finally opens all the way and restores instant travel and full communication between Earth and his planet, New Sonora. But there’s a complication. The colossal Apex Industries is hired to commence an “eviction action.” But why spend money printing and deploying AI soldiers when they can turn it into a game? Why not charge bored Earthers for the opportunity to design their own war machines and remotely pilot them from the comfort of their homes? The game is called Operation Bounce House.

Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back in the next installment of Martha Wells’ bestselling and award-winning Murderbot Diaries series. After volunteering to run a rescue mission, Murderbot realizes that it will have to spend significant time with a bunch of humans it doesn’t know. Including human children. Ugh.

Isako is a legendary swordswoman, but every legend must come to an end. When her long-time client unexpectedly retires, she plans to follow—to walk out into the frozen wasteland of their planet with her head held high and her family enriched by her death. But when she’s offered a final mission, she can’t refuse, especially when she realizes who lies at the center of it all: Martim, her last—and worst—apprentice, who’s somehow made his way to the top. As she’s thrust into a world of corporate espionage and shadowy secrets, what she uncovers could forever change humanity’s existence among the stars.

Carol Girard and her husband are living an ordinary life in a small town in the Adirondacks. Until something extraordinary happens: an inexplicable flickering of light in the sky, which is determined to be communication from intelligent life on another planet. And so begins a decades-long exchange of messages with this mysterious, faraway civilization. We follow the stories of the Girard family: Carol, who is on a desperate search for spiritual meaning; Michael, her son, who finds solace in the ground beneath his feet; and Ro, Carol’s daughter, whose childhood goal to work in interstellar communication will evolve into something far grander.

1983. Becks is 19 and hiding from the fact that her uncle, the only person who understood her, is dead. Luckily, he left her a half-finished video game to complete. 2078. Dr. Portman works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and robotics, wrestling with her responsibility to Earth’s precarious future. But increasingly, it seems an exceptional project may transcend everything she believed to be possible… 2586. After decades of life on the sea, Yesiko knows a scavenger’s work is rife with moral compromise. Yet when a long-lost piece of technology walks aboard her ship, she is set on a path toward a sacrifice even she may be unwilling to make. Linking these women across the centuries is a chain reaction of love, longing, and creativity that reveals our deep interconnectedness.

Oliver Ines spends his childhood in an English village where his bedroom is covered in glow-in-the-dark wallpaper bearing the planets and stars. Decades later, he has become one of the most renowned astronauts of his time. When a billionaire taps him to lead a landmark mission to the distant moon Europa, Ollie makes a choice that will send his whole world spinning. As the mission advances deeper into unchartered territory, Ollie finds himself retreating into the past. But will the world he remembers still be waiting for him ten years later when he returns?