Best Fantasy and Scifi I read in 2004
Explore the best fantasy and sci-fi books of 2004 with this curated list of top reads. Discover must-read novels, hidden gems, and award-winning titles in fantasy and science fiction from 2004.
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The Light Ages
by Ian R. MacLeod
In this moody work set in a fantastical Age of Industry, Robert Borrows runs away from Bracebridge, West Yorkshire, only to find that he cannot escape from the magical secrets of his past.
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Iron Council
by China Miéville
A new cast of characters shares mythical adventures in the sprawling, phantasmagoric city of New Crobuzon.
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Secret Life
by Jeff VanderMeer
This collection of 23 stories reflects a diversity of approaches to key questions about the human condition, including questions about mortality, love, obsession, and creativity. "Balzac's War" is a harrowing, powerful far-future novella that pits brother against brother in a landscape ravaged by war with Earth's newly sentient human-made species. In 13th-century Cambodia, a lone artist is torn between his love of his craft and his unspoken love for a woman in "The Bone Carver's Tale." In "The Emperor's Reply" and "The Compass of His Bones," set in 17th-century Peru, the last Incan Emperor, having brutally fallen at the hands of the Conquistadores, seeks his revenge.
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Cloud Atlas
by David Stephen Mitchell
Recounts the connected stories of people from the past and the distant future, from a nineteenth-century notary and an investigative journalist in the 1970s to a young man who searches for meaning in a post-apocalyptic world.
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Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
by Susanna Clarke
English magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory. But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England's magical past and regained some of the powers of England's magicians. He goes to London and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he is lending his help to the government in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships to confuse and alarm the French. All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange is handsome, charming, and talkative-the very opposite of Mr Norrell. Strange thinks nothing of enduring the rigors of campaigning with Wellington's army and doing magic on battlefields. Astonished to find another practicing magician, Mr Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it soon becomes clear that their ideas of what English magic ought to be are very different. For Mr Norrell, their power is something to be cautiously controlled, while Jonathan Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic. He becomes fascinated by the ancient, shadowy figure of the Raven King, a child taken by fairies who became king of both England and Faerie, and the most legendary magician of all. Eventually Strange's heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens to destroy not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear. Sophisticated, witty, and ingeniously convincing, Susanna Clarke's magisterial novel weaves magic into a flawlessly detailed vision of historical England. She has created a world so thoroughly enchanting that eight hundred pages leave readers longing for more.
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Air
by Geoff Ryman
What happens when the whole world goes online . . . through the air? A brilliant literary SF novel by the author of 253.
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Lurulu
by Jack Vance
Continues the adventures of Myron Tany, a rebellious member of a wealthy family who tours the galaxy on an interstellar freighter alongside a crew of actors, musicians, thieves, and other questionable characters.