Would it even be a month-long feature on the Fantasy Hive if we didn’t corral the team into creating lists of recommendations?? 

Of course not.

With that in mind, every Friday we’re going to follow along with our Women in SFF photo challenge, and bring you our Top Three of that Friday’s prompt.

For the first week, the team discussed their Top Three favourite (female) reads since last Women in SFF.

In our second week, we shared out Top Three favourite female authors discovered either through Women in SFF, or recently.

Last week, we looked at our Top Three Favourite books that blend genres or top three favourite genre blends

This week, we’re looking at our Top Three Favourite fictional worlds!

Julia

Gates of Hope

I love the Flora and Fauna in this book so much, and also the moonhounds. I want a moonhound! Where do I get one? The world building itself is also really interesting with being a “universe” more than a world!  Not sure if I’d survive long in it though. Depends on where I’d end up!

Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis

Regency England, but with dragons! Tiny cute pet dragons, and who doesn’t want a dragon that actually fits into your home… Also there’s always some sort of villain, but I love how much hope and love and friendship there also is!

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Zen Cho

One book set in the future, where I actually love what may come next. Yes, we almost ruined earth and had a robot uprising, but instead we saw sense and shaped a whole new world and society. I adore the inclusivity, the slower pace and the sheer peace and wholesomeness in here.

Theo

N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth, which is introduced in The Fifth Season. Jemisin plays beautifully with our notion of the ground as the ultimate solidity in our lives – epitomised in sayings like “he’s got his feet on the ground.” In Jemisin’s hand the earth itself becomes potentially as treacherous, turbulent and dangerous as an ocean storm. Societies have evolved, like plants selected by the rare but devastating apocalypse of forest fires. Systems are in place, roles decided to ensure that humanity in some form will survive a tumult that rivals the worst imagined nuclear winter.

Rachel Emma Shaw’s world of Last Memoria where the magic is in the ability to steal memories, a theft that stains the thief’s skin and haunts her mind. But if memories can be collected in this way, then what need have some people of writing? The purpose of writing, of libraries of the internet itself, is the sharing of past knowledge to save the present the aggravation of discovering it. (Even Isaac Newton only said he saw as far as he did because he was standing on the shoulders of giants). So Shaw turns the idea of a pre-writing oral history painstakingly remembered into a culture where memories need not die with the people who lived them.

I could have selected Teresa Frohock’s Los Nephilim series for last week’s genre blending, post since she weaves her tale of demonic and angelic beings and magic around the reality of the Spanish Civil War and the lead up to the outbreak of the Second World War. However, it also fits here as she is equally adept at blending the ordinary world of the 1930s and the world of magical beings, servants of heaven and hell, who cast spells through music. Immortality does not mean immunity from death, merely an inevitability of reincarnation  and the search for those one loved in a previous life. Hence the nephilim’s parting mantra “watch for me.” 

Beth

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

One of my favourite fictional worlds is that of Andrea Stewart’s The Drowning Empire trilogy. When I first read The Bone Shard Daughter, I was utterly swept away by the world building; this archipelago empire of islands that moved with the seasons, ruled by a magic powered by the shards of bone taken from its inhabitants.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

This is a bit of a cheating answer I guess? “If I had three wishes I’d wish for more wishes…” But yeah, that’s basically what I’m doing here – the thought of being able to open doors between worlds… I loved that so much. I mean, it’s why portal fantasies are so popular, it’s why we keep coming back to classics like Narnia, or Blyton’s Far Away Tree. The idea that we could just step out of our world into something entirely new.

Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons by Quenby Olson

And if I can’t escape this world, then the next best thing is a version of our world where actually, dragons do exist and they’re remarkably similar to cats, if cats could set chickens on fire and went around biting crotches instead of sleeping upon them.

Nils

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

This world is Middle Eastern inspired and full of Arabic mythology. There are desert landscapes to traverse across, ancient ruins to explore, magical relics to find, and of course there are jinns kings. As dangerous as it may be, I’d quite happily join Loulie and Mazen on their quest to find a magical lamp, and of course listen to the wealth of tales Mazen has to share.

The Winnowing Flame trilogy by Jen Williams

This is a world that contains War-Beasts, huge fantastical ancient animal creatures that can fly, talk and breathe fire. How can that not be one of my favourites? It’s also a world I wouldn’t last long in though, I’d get eaten by a worm-touched monster, or taken by the Jure’lia, or you know get lost in the Wild.

Fractured Fables duology by Alix E Harrow

The first novella A Spindle Splintered is set in the Sleeping Beauty universe and the second, A Mirror Mended is set in the Snow White universe. Now I adore fairytales, I love all the magic and whimsy of those worlds but they’re not always kind to females. Yet the way Harrow spins these worlds to give its female characters more agency and a stronger voice is something I’m absolutely here for. I wish she’d write more.