Top 10 Los Gatos Library Science Fiction Books

1. Felaheen, Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Grimwood's third Arabesk novel, like its predecessors, Pashazade and Effendi, skillfully blends a hard-boiled whodunit with SF and alternate history.

2. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin

In a world where the approaching winter will last four decades, kings and queens, knights and renegades struggle for control of a throne. Some fight with sword and mace, others with magic and poison.

3. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin

Yeine desires nothing more than a normal life in her barbarian homeland of Darr. But her mother was of the powerful Arameri family, and when Yeine is summoned to the capital city of Sky a month after her mother's murder, she cannot refuse. 

4. The Lost Gate, Orson Scott Card

Card's newest series opener can't decide whether it's a thought experiment featuring a nifty magic system, a YA urban fantasy, or a series of fantasy interludes, so it settles for performing all three tasks satisfactorily, if not spectacularly. 

5. A Storm of Swords, George R. R.  Martin

The third volume of the high fantasy saga that began with A Game of Thrones and continued in A Clash of Kings is one of the more rewarding examples of gigantism in contemporary fantasy. 

6. The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis

four children travel repeatedly to a world in which they are far more than mere children and everything is far more than it seems.

7. The Phoenix Transformed, Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

Jumping 1,000 years in time, Lackey and Mallory have told the compelling story of Harrier Gillain, the first Knight-Mage in a thousand years; Tiercel Rolfort, the first High Mage in hundreds of years; and Shaiara, the young leader of a desert tribe who takes both boys under her wing but has a special affection for Harrier.

8. Effendi, Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Second entry in Grimwood's Arabesk trilogy (after Pashazade), Ashraf Bey is now the chief of detectives in the fictional Middle Eastern city of El Iskandryia, located in an alternate future where the Ottoman Empire still exists.

9. March in Country, E.E. Knight

The race is on to claim the area between the Ohio River and Tennessee. What's left of the resistance is hiding out in the tangle of central Kentucky hills- leaving the powerful, well-organized Kurian vampires the opportunity to fill the void. 

10. The Wise Man's Fear, Patrick Rothfuss

"There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man." An escalating rivalry with a powerful member of the nobility forces Kvothe to leave the University and seek his fortune abroad.

The descriptions for these books came from amazon.com, publishersweekly.com and the authors' Web pages.