When alchemist’s apprentice Jolan “Flawless” Silas Bershad, a former noble heir and the most successful dragonslayer in Almira, the legendary and unkillable warrior is passed out drunk. In the remainder of Blood of an Exile’s first chapter, Bershad adds another dragon to his tally, but not without surviving what should have been fatal wounds. He is then commanded by his old nemesis Hertzog Malgrave, king of Almira, to return to the capital.

Once there, the king gives the warrior a proposal: infiltrate the impenetrable border of the Balarian Empire, assassinate the Emperor and rescue the king’s kidnapped daughter, in exchange for a pardon. The final incentive? Hertzog’s eldest daughter Ashlyn, once Bershad’s betrothed, supports the plan. Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Garrett makes his way through the Almiran countryside, leaving chaos in his wake. Following in the tradition of grimdark fantasy, Bershad’s quest is littered with moral ambiguity and viscera, and neither his survival nor the survival of his homeland is at all assured.

Brian Naslund’s thoroughly enjoyable debut could easily be yet another entry in the rapidly growing canon of gritty fantasy, but it distinguishes itself by the depth of its environment. In fact, this fantasy epic features a war over the ecological impacts of dragon hunting and includes a compendium of the various species of dragon as an appendix. Naslund displays equal fluency when crafting vivid battles and compelling, slightly wonkish academic disputes. And to his credit, although he doesn’t shy away from sex or gore, he doesn’t rely on them to carry the novel either and instead relies on the tension of his plot.

The one possible weakness in Blood of an Exile, at least for fans of darker fantasy novels, is the occasional softening of its adherence to grimdark plot devices. Unlike similar authors Abercrombie or Cook, the moral ambiguity of Naslund’s protagonists can seem a little forced. However, the story is compelling all the same. This is a hybrid of grimdark and high fantasy, with a fairly typical quest to save the world seasoned with descriptive grit and an incredibly thorough, well-designed world.

Blood of an Exile is a perfect choice for readers who want an intelligent, well-crafted fantasy novel that draws on the grimdark aesthetic but prefer their stories without any extra helpings of hopelessness.

Sometimes it can feel as if the world of science fiction and fantasy is nothing but epic tales spanning thousands of pages and dozens of books. And while those reads are enjoyable, sometimes a good novella is just what the librarian ordered. C.S.E. Cooney’s Desdemona and the Deep, the standalone third book in the Dark Breakers series, is a perfect palate cleanser.

The land of Seafall is a study in excess, and Desdemona is at the center of it all with nothing to occupy her mind except her mother’s dreadful charity events and her best friend, Chaz. But that was before she learned the origin of her family’s fortune. Her father’s family made a series of deals with the goblin king, the latest of which left hundreds dead and a handful trapped in the world below. Determined to right her family’s wrongs, Desdemona embarks on a quest to enter the underground worlds to bargain for the lives her father callously threw away.

One of the things that makes Desdemona and the Deep so compelling is that in its scant pages, Cooney manages to sketch the boundaries and vagaries of not just one fantastic world, but of three. Desdemona’s world, the world above, is a too-real Gilded Age nightmare where the poor suffer to make the opulent lives of robber barons possible. The worlds below are equally vivid, the dark and sharp world of the goblins standing in stark contrast to the gentry’s light and dreamy plane. That the three worlds are so distinct would be impressive in a much longer book. Within the confines of novella, it is a feat.

Another thing that makes Cooney’s world building remarkable is that, unlike many fantasy writers, she isn’t content to plop a society much like ours onto a foreign set. If sculptures can come to life, Cooney’s world asks us, is it really so strange to have a world that is more accepting and affirming of its LGBTQ citizens? Of course not. And that’s part of the power of these worlds. It’s not just their ability to showcase the fantastical. It’s their ability to showcase both the best of what humanity could be and the worst of what we have been.

The one drawback to Cooney’s latest novella is also one of the things that makes it so fun: It’s a novella. The shortened format means that Chaz and Desdemona’s story almost feels cut short because we don’t get to see as much of the worlds below as we might in a longer novel. But their journey is still a well-crafted one. A gripping tale from beginning to end, Desdemona and the Deep is a great read for anyone who loves a good fairy story.

The Great War is over, and that’s cause for celebration in Lower Proszawa. Alcohol, sex and drugs flow freely at opulent parties where artists and their friends and benefactors try to ignore the threat of a new war just around the corner. Automatons, disfigured war veterans in iron masks, deadly plagues and the invisible presence of the secret police are ever-present but best ignored. In the center of it all is the Grand Dark, a theater where actors in puppet suits reenact grisly stories of murder and lust. To Largo Moorden, recently promoted to head courier of the city’s bike messenger service, everything is perfect. His new position comes with more money and possibly even a chance to move out of the messenger service entirely. His girlfriend is an actress at the Grand Dark, and there are enough drugs and parties to keep them both happy. But perfection comes with a price, and as Largo learns more about his new job, he begins to learn just how fragile Lower Proszawa’s peaceful façade really is.

Richard Kadrey’s The Grand Dark takes its time. Indeed, for the first third of the book it is unclear exactly what plot Largo Moorden is blindly walking into. Kadrey reveals Lower Proszawa almost as though by candlelight, showing readers just enough at any one time for them to see a few vibrant figures of a city under immense strain. Beyond that, the dark outlines of the threatening world are present but obscured and muted. Despite its lack of cliffhangers and action scenes, the subtle but constant pressure from that insidious outside world makes The Grand Dark an unexpected page-turner. With secret police and anarchist groups seemingly everywhere, it feels like a conspiracy in book form. Around every corner is a potential mystery, although it is sometimes unclear which mysteries are important and which aren’t. But when the central conflict of the book is finally revealed, it is both wholly unexpected in the moment and perfectly obvious in retrospect.

Kadrey’s characters are clueless, idealistic youths who could have stepped out of the bohemian dreams of a 19th-century opera composer. They dream of a better (or at least a drug-filled) life but are forced to live their lives within a dark, Kafka-esque state in which people disappear for seemingly no reason. Between these characters’ struggles and Lower Proszawa’s strange yet familiar technologies and magics, Kadrey successfully weaves the ultra-realistic with the nearly possible into a beautiful and morbid tapestry that fascinates as much as it entertains. The result is a fantastically written book for suspense or fantasy fans looking for a bit of gloom to fight the summer heat.