No products in the cart.
The Year Fantasy and Sci-Fi Hit the Refresh Button
Let’s rewind to 2015 — a year that dropped two absolute bangers into the SFF universe and reshaped how we think about magic, monsters, and the end of the world.
First up: N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy, which cracked open the fantasy genre like the planet in The Fifth Season (yeah, the continent literally breaks apart). It wasn’t just a trilogy—it was a seismic event. Jemisin’s world is brutal, raw, and wildly original, with a magic system based on controlling seismic activity (tectonic tantrums, anyone?). Add in a second-person POV that hits like a neural handshake from Neuromancer, and you’ve got something that feels fresh and experimental without being alienating. The Hugo voters clearly agreed—each book in the trilogy took home the award. Three years. Three wins. Boss mode unlocked.
Then there’s A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. If Beauty and the Beast took a detour through the Feywild and picked up some Game of Thrones angst and ACOTAR-style spice along the way, this would be the result. While the first book walked so the others could sprint, the later installments deepened the lore and delivered the kind of character arcs that have readers cosplaying at cons and shipping couples like it’s a full-time job. This series didn’t just bring readers back to fantasy—it kicked down the door and said, “Let’s make fae hot again.”
In 2015, fantasy stopped playing nice. It got messy, magical, and emotionally devastating—and readers loved every second of it.