Recommendations based on Middlegameby Seanan McGuire

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. In an Absent Dream

    by Seanan McGuire
    A young girl discovers a magical world where choices have consequences and must decide between staying or returning to reality.

    This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world ... (Goodreads)

  2. Gideon the Ninth

    by Tamsyn Muir
    Gideon, a swordswoman, competes in a deadly game of puzzles and challenges to become an immortal servant. But dark secrets lurk in the shadows.

    Gideon the Ninth is set in a galactic empire of nine planets, each ruled by a noble house that practices its own unique type of necromancy . Although advanced technology exists, the Nine Houses ... (Wikipedia)

  3. The Library of the Unwritten

    by A.J. Hackwith
    In the Library of the Unwritten, books that have yet to be written are guarded. When a character escapes from one of these books, chaos ensues.

    In the first book in a brilliant new fantasy series, books that aren't finished by their authors reside in the Library of the Unwritten in Hell, and it is up to the Librarian to track down any ... (Goodreads)

  4. The Fifth Season

    by N.K. Jemisin
    A world where seismic and magical disasters ravage the land, and a woman's journey to save humanity.

    In a prologue, an extraordinarily powerful orogene discusses the sad state of the world and laments the oppression of his race. He then uses his enormous power to fracture the entire continent along ... (Wikipedia)

  5. Every Heart a Doorway

    by Seanan McGuire
    A portal fantasy exploring the stories of children who have ventured through magical doorways and returned to the mundane world.

    Rarely, children may find doorways which transport them to other worlds. As a child, Nancy found a doorway that led her to the land of the dead, based on the story of Persephone and Hades . When she ... (Wikipedia)

  6. I Am Princess X

    by Cherie Priest
    A girl creates a comic book character, Princess X, with her best friend. After her friend's death, she discovers Princess X is real and sets out to find her.

    Best friends, big fans, a mysterious webcomic, and a long-lost girl collide in this riveting novel, perfect for fans of both Cory Doctorow and Sarah Dessen; illustrated throughout with comics. Once ... (Goodreads)

  7. A Memory Called Empire

    by Arkady Martine
    Ambassador Mahit Dzmare travels to the heart of the Teixcalaanli Empire to investigate the death of her predecessor.

    Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining ... (Goodreads)

  8. The Priory of the Orange Tree

    by Samantha Shannon
    A world divided by religion and dragons, where a queen must unite the land to defeat an ancient evil.

    A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens. The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to ... (Goodreads)

  9. Rosewater

    by Tade Thompson
    Kaaro, a government agent with psychic abilities, navigates a mysterious alien biodome in Nigeria.

    Tade Thompson's, Rosewater, is the start of an award-winning, cutting edge trilogy set in Nigeria, by one of science fiction's most engaging new voices. Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community ... (Goodreads)

  10. The Tea Dragon Festival

    by Kay O'Neill
    A young blacksmith apprentice discovers the art of tea dragon caretaking and learns about the value of preserving traditions.

    "A lovely, gentle fantasy." –– KIRKUS Revisit the enchanting world of Tea Dragons with an all-new companion story to the two-time Eisner Award-winning graphic novel The Tea Dragon Society ! Rinn has ... (Barnes & Noble)

  11. Oathbringer

    by Brandon Sanderson
    Epic fantasy tale of a world on the brink of destruction and the heroes trying to save it.

    In Oathbringer , the third volume of the New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive, humanity faces a new Desolation with the return of the Voidbringers, a foe with numbers as great as their ... (Goodreads)

  12. Wanderers

    by Chuck Wendig
    A group of strangers are mysteriously drawn together to save the world from an impending disaster.

    Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange malady. She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable ... (Goodreads)

  13. Uprooted

    by Naomi Novik
    A young woman's battle to save her home from a magical force, while uncovering secrets of her past.

    “Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human ... (Goodreads)

  14. The Stone Sky

    by N.K. Jemisin
    A climactic finale to a trilogy, featuring a powerful woman's journey to save her world from destruction.

    Following the events of, The Obelisk Gate, , the former inhabitants of Castrima-under are moving north after damage by rival comm Rennanis has compromised the mechanisms of the geode and made it ... (Wikipedia)

  15. The Wise Man's Fear

    by Patrick Rothfuss
    Epic fantasy adventure of a young man's quest for knowledge, power and love.

    On the second day of his recounting the story of his life to Chronicler at the Waystone Inn, Kvothe continues the narrative commenced in, The Name of the Wind, , wherein a younger Kvothe pursues his ... (Wikipedia)

  16. The Broken Kingdoms

    by N.K. Jemisin
    A blind artist discovers her godly powers and must navigate the politics of the gods in a world where magic is forbidden.

    A decade after the events of, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, comes the story of Oree Shoth, a young street artist who lives in the city of Sky, which has been unofficially renamed "Shadow" after the ... (Wikipedia)

  17. Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection

    by Brandon Sanderson
    Eight stories set in the same universe, exploring the power of imagination and the limits of reality.

    Brandon Sanderson creates worlds, and those worlds are linked. His universe spans the Stormlight Archive, the Mistborn series the tales of Elantris, and others, comprising a unique constellation of ... (Goodreads)

  18. The Consuming Fire

    by John Scalzi
    The second book in the Interdependency series, as the collapse of the Flow threatens the survival of humanity.

    Following the events of The Collapsing Empire, End is now isolated from Hub as the result of a Flow shoal breakdown. Seeking to unite the population of the Interdependency behind an agenda to get ... (Wikipedia)

  19. All Systems Red

    by Martha Wells
    Murderbot navigates a dangerous world while struggling to maintain its own autonomy.

    "As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure." In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are ... (Goodreads)

  20. The Library at Mount Char

    by Scott Hawkins
    A group of orphans with supernatural abilities must battle for control of a mysterious library.

    An unexplained catastrophe destroys part of a town, but twelve children survive. The survivors are "adopted" and raised by a powerful, god-like figure called Father. Together they live in "the ... (Wikipedia)

  21. The Three-Body Problem

    by Liu Cixin
    A science fiction novel exploring the consequences of first contact with an alien civilization.

    The story takes place in flash-forwards, flashbacks, and the present time. Below is a chronological plotline. During the Cultural Revolution , Ye Wenjie, an astrophysics graduate from Tsinghua ... (Wikipedia)

  22. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

    by Susanna Clarke
    A whimsical tale of two magicians mastering the mysteries of English magic.

    The novel opens in 1806 in northern England with The Learned Society of York Magicians, whose members are "theoretical magicians" who believe that magic died out several hundred years earlier. The ... (Wikipedia)

  23. The Collapsing Empire

    by John Scalzi
    A daring adventure to save humanity's future in a universe connected by portals.

    The Interdependency is a thousand-year-old human empire of 48 star systems connected by the Flow, a network of "streams" allowing faster-than-light travel . Each stream is one way and has an entry ... (Wikipedia)

  24. The Water Dancer

    by Ta-Nehisi Coates
    A young slave with a mysterious power escapes from a plantation and embarks on a journey to rescue his loved ones.

    An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found, here, and, here,. Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was ... (Goodreads)

  25. The Wasp Factory

    by Iain Banks
    A disturbed teenage boy discovers startling truths about his family and himself.

    The story is told from the perspective of 16-year-old Frank Cauldhame. Frank lives with his father on a small island in rural Scotland , and he has not seen his mother in many years. There is no ... (Wikipedia)

  26. Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

    by Carmen Maria Machado
    Collection of surreal stories exploring the complexities of gender, sexuality and identity.

    In Her Body and Other Parties , Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her ... (Goodreads)

  27. The Unbound

    by Victoria Schwab
    A girl with the power to enter and manipulate alternate realities must save her own world from collapsing.

    Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books. Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in ... (Barnes & Noble)

  28. A Wind in the Door

    by Madeleine L'Engle
    A magical journey exploring the mysteries of the universe and the power of love.

    Main character Meg Murry is worried about her brother Charles Wallace, a 6-year-old genius bullied at school by the other children. The new principal of the elementary school is the former high ... (Wikipedia)

  29. Ninth House

    by Leigh Bardugo
    Galaxy "Alex" Stern, a survivor of multiple homicides, is offered a full ride to Yale in exchange for monitoring the university's secret societies.

    Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer ... (Goodreads)

  30. Nimona

    by Noelle Stevenson
    A shapeshifting sidekick helps a villainous knight take on a powerful kingdom.

    The graphic novel debut from rising star ND Stevenson, based on his beloved and critically acclaimed web comic, which Slate awarded its Cartoonist Studio Prize, calling it "a deadpan epic." Nemeses! ... (Goodreads)