As yet another year comes to a close, so has the science fiction & fantasy books award season. The Hugos, Nebulas, World Fantasy Awards, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, and dozens more have all chosen their champions.

This means many great books were recognized and will rise in the public ethos, hoping to take their place in the stratosphere of the greats. And you, as you brace yourself for another holiday season with Aunt Tillie and fruitcake, might need a special kind of escape. I hope this article serves you well.

Now, before you read on, I must mention that this is a “companion article” of sorts — last year, I set off on the journey to algorithmically determine the greatest SFF novels of the past 50 years (1970–2021). The methodology and context described there is not required reading, although it might make this year’s supplement more enlightening (tl;dr I coalesce a dozen major SFF awards into a weighted index that attempts to objectively rank thousands of novels across time).

Below is the promised update for novels published in 2021 that have thus received their awards in 2022. As a creepy Adrian Tchaikovsky character once said, get ready, because “We’re going on an adventure!”

The top 5 books of 2022

Before we zoom out and place these books into a richer context, let’s establish the best five novels from this year’s award season. Counting down from number five:

#5: She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

She Who Became the Sun is Shelley Parker-Chan’s debut historical fantasy novel described as “Mulan meets The Song of Achilles; an accomplished, poetic debut of war and destiny, sweeping across an epic alternate China.” This novel won the British Fantasy Award and two other notable nominations this year.

Further, while I do not include awards given exclusively to debut works, it’s worth noting that Parker-Chan took the cake in this category — winning the Astounding Award for Best New Writer (announced at the Hugos), the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer (announced at the British Fantasy Awards), and finishing runner-up in the Locus Awards for First Novel.

#4: The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Similar to Parker-Chan, Tasha Suri also received the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer in 2019. Her latest work, The Jasmine Throne, has further cemented her place in a set of rising stars in the fantasy genre — winning this year’s World Fantasy Award. It begins “a new trilogy set in a world inspired by the history and epics of India, in which a captive princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic become unlikely allies on a dark journey to save their empire from the princess’s traitor brother.”

#3: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Even casual science fiction readers will recognize the name Andy Weir — the acclaimed author of the best-selling novel The Martian (and Hollywood blockbuster movie starring Matt Damon). His latest installment in books-about-men-problem-solving-their-way-out-of-space-quagmires titled Project Hail Mary won the Goodreads Choice Award for best science fiction novel and this year’s Dragon Award. It’s more heartwarming than his usual fare, and rightly recognized by the community and loved by Weir fans.

#2: A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

With more than a dozen major award nominations for his novellas, P. Djèlí Clark broke out this year with his first full-length novel, A Master of Djinn. A Master of Djinn continues the trend of magical worlds inspired by eastern cultures — this time, a steampunk early 20th century Cairo full of, you guessed it, mysterious djinns. The world-building is incredible — earning Clark a Nebula Award win and three other major nominations.

#1: A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Drum roll please! The number one book of the year is Arkady Martine’s second (and “final,” or so she says) installment in the ‘Teixcalaan Duology’ A Desolation Called Peace. This novel is truly in a league of its own. It received nearly 2x the award nominations (7) of any other competing novel (4) and won both the Hugo Award and Locus Award for best science fiction. The Teixcalaan books are stories about culture, colonialism, and friendship. Note that you will need to read A Memory Called Empire before picking up this novel, but rest assured, both are highly regarded.

Honorable mentions: Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki and Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky received four nominations each. The Unbroken by C.L. Clark and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro each received three major nominations.

Did any make the top 100 of all time?

If you’re looking for the most outstanding new novels, look no further than the list above. However, per my previous exercise, you might be wondering whether any of this year’s books were good enough to rank as one of the greats.

As it turns out, the answer is yes. A Desolation Called Peace by Martine is head-and-shoulders above the rest of this year’s publications and thus has earned itself rank #26 compared to every work since 1970. Sitting right behind Ender’s Game is high praise indeed.

Furthermore, A Master of Djinn by Clark also sneaks in at spot #62, despite only one major award win. With The Lathe of Heaven by Le Guin and Perdido Street Station by Mieville nearby, we can see that the top 100 is chock-full of impressive works. Project Hail Mary by Weir didn’t make the top 100 but sits nearby at #116.

Mathematically speaking, two books cracking the top 100 of all time (a 51-year time horizon) is about what you’d expect.

How competitive is the SFF landscape today?

To compare books across time, it’s essential to control for various factors. One such factor that I described in my previous analysis is author competition. In the 1970’s, fewer authors were writing great science fiction compared to today; this is not so surprising, given the genre’s popularity over time. More readers of the genre today = more writers and books to choose from.

However, we may have recently entered a slight downturn in the number of authors winning awards. Compared to a peak in the early 2010s, competition has been sliding down year-over-year and now sits 8% lower. That’s not a dramatic shift, but worth keeping an eye on. This change is a result of the dominance of N.K. Jemisin in recent years, as well as Ann Leckie’s ‘Ancillary Series’ absorbing 22 nominations in four years. On the other hand, rising stars like Arkady Martine have now begun to shake up the landscape, so it’ll be interesting to see if this trend continues.

“Make way for Arkady!”

There hasn’t been a major shift in the list of top authors since 1970. It’s going to take a while to unseat Gene Wolfe and his 56 nominations; or Le Guin’s 12 wins. However, as previously mentioned, there is one obvious meteoric star — Arkady Martine.

Arkady, self-described as a “byzantinist, a climate & energy policy analyst, and a city planner,” is also one hell of a science fiction author. Her first two novels, A Memory Called Empire (2019) and A Desolation Called Peace (2021), which form the Teixcalaan series, each won the Hugo Award for Best Novel and now sit at #57 and #26 respectively in the rankings of books since 1970.

Despite only two novels, this puts her at #41 on the greatest author list: nestled between Mary Robinette Kowal and Michael Swanwick.

For any authors keeping track at home, hat-tip to the following for bumps in their all-time author rankings thanks to earning nominations in 2022:

• Neal Stephenson (rank #16) for Termination Shock
• John Scalzi (#31) for The Kaiju Preservation Society
• Naomi Novik (#34) for The Last Graduate

The greatest duology ever?

Given the above, one must ask: do Arkady Martine’s Teixcalaan books now rank as the greatest duology of all time (or at least since 1970)?

The answer is — a resounding YES! However, let’s explore the space a bit more.

First, it turns out duologies are exceedingly rare. Beyond our cultural affinity for things in threes (looking at you, Holy Trinity), the challenge for authors/publishers is that if a book or two is so well received — why not write/sell more? Given this, we can only wait and see if Martine doesn’t choose to revisit this highly acclaimed universe.

Consider a few examples that bring this hairiness to life:

Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons sit at #63 and #64. These were meant to be published as a standalone novel, but it was deemed too long. Now though, many functionally read it as a duology — given the 3rd (Endymion) and 4th (Rise of Endymion) installments came six years later and were not as well received.

While the Hyperions alone still wouldn’t outrank Martine’s duology, two of Haldeman’s Forever books would. The Forever War and Forever Peace rank at #15 and #16 respectively, but are only thematically linked. Further, another sister novel called Forever Free sits at a paltry #2224. Thus, it’s not fair to consider this series a duology, but if you want two great books that can be read side-by-side, you do get that.

A pair of dark fairytales by Naomi Novik makes up a final if-you-squint duology that delivers two top 100 books. Uprooted and Spinning Silver sit at #21 and #87 on the list. However, as described eloquently by Amal El-Mohtar, a fellow Hugo winner, “Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver is not a sequel to her 2015 novel Uprooted, though both are richly remade fairy tales set in fantastical versions of Eastern Europe with addictive voice work and characterization.”

With that out of the way, let’s talk about an actual duology that — despite missing a few awards — any SFF enthusiast would tell you compares favorably to the Teixcalaan books and is still making the NYT Bestseller List 27 years after first publication. The ‘Parable Series’ by Octavia E. Butler comprises Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. Unfortunately, Sower wasn’t quite recognized upon first release — sitting at rank #663 due to only receiving two nominations in 1995. Talents however, cracks the top 100 list (rank #93) with a Nebula win and two other significant award nominations.

Lastly, an honorable mention for the great N.K. Jemisin, who might be the only author to have published two(!) actual duologies. Her ‘Dreamblood Duology’ includes The Killing Moon (4 award nominations, rank #242) and The Shadowed Sun (not ranked), while this season’s installment of The World We Make in the ‘Great Cities Series’ pairs with The City We Became (rank #51). According to Jemisin, ‘Great Cities’ is now officially a duology despite originally being intended as a trilogy. We’ll have to wait and see what the reception is for The World We Make, but a strong showing could put it in contention with Teixcalaan.

Only time will tell what the next year holds in the world of science fiction and fantasy, but rest assured, I’ll provide another round-up in 12 months. Until then, thanks for reading!