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A few months ago, Margret opened up some thread discussions to highlight black fantasy authors and anti-racism texts by black and POC authors, and to continue that rec list, this week, share three of your favourite fantasy books and/or series that are written by a POC author. :)

Links to other threads:

Fantasy Books by Black Authors

Ani-Racism Books and Recommendations

**Note copied from Margret's thread that also applies here:
Please note that we will be heavily moderating these threads, and allowing black and BIPOC the platform to speak if needed. If you make racist statements you will be removed from the group.

This thread made me realize I don't have many options since I rarely read more than four works per POC authors (exc. than series).

My temporary list of auto-read authors:
Yoon Ha Lee
Xia Jia
Chen Qiufan (I replaced Hao Jingfang since her works I read are all SF)
(not including authors whose works I read are in all in one series like R.F. Kuang)

Honorary mention: Octavia Butler

Silvana wrote: "This thread made me realize I don't have many options since I rarely read more than four works per POC authors (exc. than series)."

I realized the same thing so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's favourites :)

M.L. Wang - The Sword of Kaigen
R.F. Kuang - The Poppy War
Ken Liu - The Grace of Kings

Aaaaand I misread the thread title, I though it includes scifi authors. I edited my temp list accordingly.

I also checked my fave author list, there are actually very few non-POC authors whose all works I read across series/formats and enjoy.

And since we could include titles as well, here are my fave titles from this year by POC authors (note: some are science fantasy/genrebending books):

Top 3:
The Vanished Birds - Simon Jimenez
The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday - Saad Hossain
Black Leopard, Red Wolf - Marlon James

Others:
The Prey of Gods - Nicky Drayden
Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Sharks in the Time of Saviors - Kawai Strong Washburn
Dragon Pearl - Yoon Ha Lee
Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Shadow of Kyoshi - F.C. Yee
Skin Folk - Nalo Hopkinson
Except for Lee, Yee, and Hopkinson, I have not read more than two books from each of them so they're still in my maybe-fave list :)

2020 New Release Favs:

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (my favorite read so far this year, so creepy and perfect for Halloween)

and I recently picked up The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin (I haven't read it yet, but I have read some of her other books and they're all good)


Other non-new release favs:
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (The first in a series, each book is pretty short, only around 100 pages. They're all pretty good)
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia (definitely more of a YA read but it was cool reading a story that features characters from African folklore like Anansi, John Henry ect)
The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco (another fun, scary ghost story but this time the ghost is our narrator, it's another perfect for Fall/Halloween read)

1. Nalo Hopkinson - loved both novels I’ve read by her Brown Girl in the Ring and Midnight Robber. Her short story collections were also really good but like all collections some stories were better than others.

2. N.K. Jemisin - i mean pretty self explanatory.

3. Ken Liu - Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of my all time favorite books so to get to read something so heavily by it and still be it’s own thing and well executed was fantastic. Hoping the third one gets released sometime soon.

Also considered: Octavia E. Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, Karen Lord, Tade Thompson, Victor LaValle, Rivers Solomon and Rin Chupeco

Bill wrote: "1. Nalo Hopkinson - loved both novels I’ve read by her Brown Girl in the Ring and Midnight Robber. Her short story collections were also really good but lik..."

What do you think of Tade Thompson's fantasy books? I only read his Rosewater ones.

I can't wait to read more Nalo Hopkinson's books and solidify my so far favorable opinion.

I think I really need to read The Sword of Kaigen - there seems to be a lot of love for this (I heard it won the last SPFBO competition :-)

My Top 3 POC Fantasy Authors:
1. Sabaa Tahir - absolutely loved Ember in the ashes series 3 books collection set by sabaa tahir.
2. R.F. Kuang - have really enjoyed the The Poppy War trilogy so far.
3. Fonda Lee - thought that Jade City was a pretty good debut.