My picks for the most iconic SF/F novels of the 21st Century so far
by Rich Horton
A few weeks ago Reactor published a list, or several lists, called "The Most Iconic Speculative Fiction Books of the 21st Century", based on a survey they did of their "favorite writers" and their staff. These were in numerous categories -- anthologies, collections, translated work, comics/manga, and then one list for books period. A bit later, Jo Walton (who I assume qualifies as both one of Reactor's favorite writers and part of their staff!) did an essay on her process in selecting her choices, "On Selecting the Top Ten Genre Books of the First Quarter of the Century", also dividing them into categories, in her case Fantasy, SF, Series, YA, and novellas. And I added a brief comment to her post, and she said, well, my don't I just make my own list. So I have.
I must note that I have missed a lot of novels in the past quarter century, partly because I was concentrating so heavily on short fiction. And I'd love to hear from people about novels they think belong there that I missed. I'll add another comment -- a couple of novels on the list are there more for their "iconic" status than their success as novels (though none are bad!) So -- The Ministry for the Future is in my opinion really important -- but it's not fully successful as a novel (though it is always interesting, and brimming with ideas.) Likewise, The Three-Body Problem is interesting and original, though it has diminished in my mind since first reading it, but its status as sort of introducing Chinese SF to the Western world seemed to merit its inclusion. Also, with one exception (Susanna Clarke's two novels, because they are both so very good and quite different from each other) I limited selections to one book per author.
I'm just going to list Sf novels, Fantasy novels, and a few additional outliers and "just missed" books. I already did a very roughly comparable list of short fiction, so I won't touch that. The adjective Reactor used was "Iconic", which I take to mean not exactly the same thing as "Best" -- to, in my interpretation lean a bit towards the most influential, memorable, or important books, however you define that. I'll lean a bit that way, but mostly my list will be the books I thought the best. I'm looking for ten of each, but I couldn't help myself and there are eleven. I'm putting them in chronological order.
Fantasy
2003: Kalpa Imperial, by Angelica Gorodischer
2004: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
2008: Lavinia, by Ursula K. Le Guin
2009: The City and the City, by China Miéville
2013: A Stranger in Olondria, by Sofia Samatar
2014: The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
2015: The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin
2017: Spoonbenders, by Daryl Gregory
2017: Ka, by John Crowley
2020: Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke
2022: Babel, by R. F. Kuang
Science Fiction
2004: Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
2005: Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson
2006: Blindsight, by Peter Watts
2006: The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
2007: The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon
2014: Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
2016: Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee
2016: Everfair, by Nisi Shawl
2020: The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson
2022: The Mountain in the Sea, by Ray Nayler
2023: Orbital, by Samantha Harvey
Others:
I left two of the best novels out because I couldn't quite argue that they were SF or Fantasy. These are Nicola Griffith's Hild, an utterly absorbing historical novel which is surely Fantasy-adjacent; and Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, a searing contemporary novel which is profoundly SF-adjacent. .
For sheer influence, you can argue for any of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire volumes -- perhaps the most recent, A Dance With Dragons (2011), would be a good exemplar. These have had the greatest penetration into the conciousness of the general public, which in itself makes them influential. On the SF side, Andy Weir's The Martian and James S. A. Covey's Expanse series have has similar exposure. In all three cases, of course, TV or Movie adaptations were key.
I will note that several of the novels I mention were published in the mainstream, whether by writers from within the genre to some extent (Clarke, Gregory, Crowley, Miéville, Fowler) or by writers who sometimes don't know they're doing SF (Harvey) or who do know that very well even though they made their bones writing contemporary fiction (Chabon, Mitchell.) And, really, the border is ever thinner, as evidence by a writer like R. F. Kuang making a big splash this year with her contemporary novel Yellowface.
Here are some that just missed:
Among Others, by Jo Walton
Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer
The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal
Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie
Learning the World, by Ken MacLeod
Embassytown and Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville
Brasyl and The Dervish House, by Ian McDonald
Accelerando, by Charles Stross
The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Bone Clocks and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell (the second of those is actually my favorite Mitchell novel, but it's just barely genre)
Bones of the Earth, by Michael Swanwick
The Peripheral, by William Gibson
The Unraveling, by Benjamin Rosenbaum
The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer