10 Best Genre Blending Sci-fi Fantasy Books Full Of Magic, Technology, And The Unexplainable

Tchaikovsky is a prolific writer, and any of his works would be fantastic additions to this list, but Elder Race is singular in its perfect blending of the sci-fi and fantasy genres.

When a minor daughter seeks the help of a legendary sorcerer to stop a demon threatening her land and her people, she instead meets a man more familiar with space travel and living in and out of stasis than the all-powerful magic wielder she expected.

Nyr is an anthropologist sent to observe Lynesse and her community over the centuries, but keeps getting pulled into their conflicts. The entire story illustrates what happens when a high-tech and low-tech community collide, alongside brilliant commentary on mental health, differing perspectives, and what it means to help others.

Known for her cozy sci-fi series, Becky Chambers is one of my favorite authors, and this is by far my favorite of her books.

Sibling Dex, a nonbinary tea monk, travels throughout a peaceful, postapocalyptic world acting as a kind of therapist and mobile cafe owner to the people they meet. They cross paths with a robot - not unusual for a book with science fiction elements, but unusual here in that the robots fled humanity years ago. This novella follows their collaborative adventures as Sibling Dex tries to help the robot learn what people truly need.

The story is deeply heartfelt, exploring concepts of finding and/or having a “purpose,” what it means to want more, and seeking and finding understanding with others. Don’t let the “cozy” moniker fool you: this book explores deep concepts thoughtfully and will (hopefully) have you come away with more to reflect on than just what kind of tea you might get from a tea monk.

Just opening the front cover to the cast of characters list gives you a taste of what you’re in for in The Locked Tomb series. With names like Harrowhark Nonagesimus and Coronabeth Tridentarius, you know you’ve never explored a world quite like this before.

This murder mystery featuring lesbian necromancers in space (the hook that initially drove me to pick up the first book in the series!) sets up a complex political landscape pulling the levers behind a competition of puzzles that Harrow (who not only sees dead people but can magically impel said dead things to do stuff for her) and her pun-and-sword-wielding bodyguard Gideon must not only solve but survive. This is truly only the tip of this story’s proverbial iceberg, but it is simultaneously impossible to give too much away (as too many things happen in this story), and too easy to ruin your experience by trying to explain it anyway.

I would truly be remiss if I wrote a list of sci-fi fantasy books and didn’t include N.K. Jemison’s Broken Earth trilogy!

This is a dystopian climate fiction book in which the earth rotates through seasons of catastrophic natural disasters, controlled by a persecuted class of magic-wielders. It’s also a story about a magical school—if said magic school decided its students should be treated as subhuman—an alien contact story, and a love story about found families; it truly offers genre-blending at its finest.

The world is populated by rich, diverse characters—including LGBTQ+ representation and not one, but THREE strong female protagonists—who challenge concepts of oppression and worthiness, all while featuring several beautiful relationships, including a polyamorous one.

The concept of “lonely character gets transported to a magical world” has existed since I was reading bedtime stories as a little kid. But Skipshock was one of the most unique stories I’ve read in adulthood on its release last year.

Our protagonist, Margo, is stuck in boarding school (isn’t it always boarding school?), but she falls in league with a man named Moon and must pose as a salesman throughout time as they are pursued by enemies who don’t want time travel to be free for just anyone.

The time travel in this story isn’t frivolous: traveling across worlds does real physical damage to the bodies of those who do the traveling. Time and its manipulative use become a well-managed metaphor for privilege and the abuse of power by people who have it.

Told from the perspective of one of Brandon Sanderson’s most notorious and quippy narrators, Tress of the Emerald Sea takes place on waves of spores rather than water, and features one of the loveliest found families I’ve read in years. Come for the sweet adventure, stay for the complex and fascinating world, and the thrilling, unique magic system!

Moved to leave the only home she has ever known in pursuit of the boy she loves, Tress joins a ragtag crew aboard a ship in order to find him. The journey features classic fantasy obstacles: pirates, a dragon, and an otherworldly witch, to name a few, but the character’s cleverness makes each new encounter feel fresh and quirky.

It doesn’t get more “I support women’s wrongs” than rooting for Zetian, a female mech pilot who discovers that instead of being used as fodder for a male-dominated system in which men pilot giant fighting robots to defend their homeland at the expense of killing the female co-pilots they psychically link with, she can kill the guys right back instead.

Driven by revenge on behalf of her sister, who was killed while serving as a concubine-pilot, Zetian signs up for the same position. Catapulted into celebrity and exploring her newfound power, she slowly uncovers sinister truths about the world she lives in and the government she serves, while navigating her relationships with a past lover and a prisoner-turned-mech-pilot who aids her cause. 

I had seen this book compared to both Black Mirror and Studio Ghibli films, a combination I never thought I’d need or want, but was suddenly desperate to have.

This is a tale of two sisters determined to find their way back to one another. The Ones We’re Meant to Find follows both Cee, an amnesiac stranded on an island whose only memory is that of her sister, and Kasey, who lives in a futuristic climate-conscious city, who refuses to believe her adventurous sister is dead.

You’ll be heartbroken at the separation of these siblings, inspired by their love and determination for one another, and turning pages to see how that most recent twist is going to pan out.

It doesn’t get much more sci-fi-meets-fantasy than a prince who lives in a technologically advanced utopia and his forbidden love with a goddess. When Prince North crash-lands onto Nimh’s surface world home, she believes he’s the hero prophesied to save them, and the two embark to better both of their worlds.

I love it when a book features one character from a world of science and one from a world of fantasy who must come together to resolve their differences and make both worlds better, and this story does it so well. It has some beloved tropes like the fish-out-of-water protagonist(s) and prophecies/the chosen one, and executes them alongside beautiful imagery and a slow burn relationship to root for.