There are countless Contemporary Fantasy courses, tutorials, articles available online, but for some, having a book is still a necessity to learn. This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
- Spectrum 25: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (2018)
- A Hidden Fire: Elemental Mysteries Book One (2012)
- Spectrum 23: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (2016)
- Darkness of Light (Darkness Series) (2017)
- Spectrum 26: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (2019)
- Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade (1993)
- Spectrum 24: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (2017)
- Dragon Pact: Blood Dragon Book 1 (2019)
- Practical Magic (2003)
- Where the Forest Meets the Stars (2019)
Spectrum 25: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (2018)
The best-selling Spectrum series―often imitated but never equaled―continues with this lavishly produced 25th annual. Spectrum is the premier showcase for imaginative fantastic arts in the book, comic, film, horror, illustration, sculpture, conceptual art, fine art and video-game genres. With exceptional images by extraordinary creators, this elegant, full-color collection showcases an international cadre of creators working in every style and medium―both traditional and digital.
A Hidden Fire: Elemental Mysteries Book One (2012)
“No secret stays hidden forever.” A phone call from an old friend sets Dr. Giovanni Vecchio back on the path of a mystery he’d abandoned years before. He never expected a young librarian could hold the key to the search, nor could he have expected the danger she would attract. Now he and Beatrice De Novo will follow a twisted maze that leads from the archives of a university library, through the fires of Renaissance Florence, and toward a confrontation they never could have predicted.
Spectrum 23: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (2016)
The best-selling Spectrum series continues with this twenty-third lavishly produced annual. Challenging, controversial, educational, and irreverent, the award-winning Spectrum series reinforces both the importance and prevalence of fantastic art in today’s culture.
Darkness of Light (Darkness Series) (2017)
Freak. Witch. Crazy. Schizo.Ember Brycin has always known she’s different. After finding her mother brutally murdered, her mind begins to see things that shouldn’t exist. The more she feels her sanity slipping, the more bizarre and inexplicable things constantly happen around her. When the latest school explosion lands her in a facility for troubled youth, she meets Eli Dragen—a hot as hell, darkly mysterious, bad boy from a notorious biker gang.
Spectrum 26: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (2019)
The best-selling Spectrum series continues with this twenty-sixth lavishly produced annual. Challenging, controversial, educational and irreverent, the award-winning series reinforces both the importance and prevalence of fantastic art in today’s culture.
Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade (1993)
In this stunning novel, Assia Djebar intertwines the history of her native Algeria with episodes from the life of a young girl in a story stretching from the French conquest in 1830 to the War of Liberation of the 1950s. The girl, growing up in the old Roman coastal town of Cherchel, sees her life in contrast to that of a neighboring French family, and yearns for more than law and tradition allow her to experience.
Spectrum 24: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (2017)
The best-selling Spectrum series continues with this twenty-fourth lavishly produced annual. Challenging, controversial, educational, and irreverent, the award-winning Spectrum series reinforces both the importance and prevalence of fantastic art in today’s culture. With exceptional images by extraordinary creators, this elegant full-color collection showcases an international cadre of creators working in every style and medium, both traditional and digital.
Dragon Pact: Blood Dragon Book 1 (2019)
Sarah Rennelle is a teacher who longs for nothing more than summer to return and her crazy roommate to find some sanity. Unfortunately, one wrong step into an alley and she becomes an eye-witness to a terrible crime. The episode leads her to a chance meeting with a handsome man who has his own terrible secret. Even with his mysterious demeanor she finds herself drawn to him, and more than for his good looks.Adam Grayson is a creature like no other.
Practical Magic (2003)
For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape.
Where the Forest Meets the Stars (2019)
After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her.
Best Contemporary Fantasy Books: The Ultimate List
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some contemporary fantasy books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Gender Warriors: Reading Contemporary Urban Fantasy
Author(s): U. Melissa Anyiwo (editor), Amanda Jo Hobson (editor)
ID: 2813816, Publisher: Sense Pub, Year: 2018, Size: 771 Kb, Format: pdf
Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy: Idealization, Identity, Ideology
Author(s): Dimitra Fimi
ID: 1701211, Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK, Year: 2017, Size: 18 Mb, Format: pdf
Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Popular Fantasy: Beyond Boy Wizards and Kick-Ass Chicks
Author(s): Jude Roberts, Esther MacCallum-Stewart (eds.)
ID: 2228802, Publisher: Routledge, Year: 2016, Size: 20 Mb, Format: pdf
Please note that this booklist is not errorless. Some books are absolutely best-sellers according to Chicago Tribune, others are composed by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant books you could recommend? Leave a comment if you have any feedback on the list.