SFF Stories with Black Leads

This post is focuses on my favorite science fiction and fantasy stories with protagonists whose race and ethnicity is rooted in sub-Saharan Africa and the African diaspora. I'm separating out Northern Africa and putting that with the Middle East, since I figured Egypt and Saudi Arabia have more in common with each other than with the places such as the Congo or Japan.
Related Posts: SFF Stories with Native American Leads, SFF Stories with Asian Leads, and SFF Stories with Middle Eastern Leads.

The Aggregate Stats

• Total number of works/series/authors on the list: 16/7/6
• Author with most works on the list: Octavia Butler, with 7 books on the list
• Most depressing realization: The overwhelming majority of books here have no recognizable black people on the covers. Sigh.
• Biggest overall surprise: No (non-urban) fantasies. How'd that happen?

and now for...

My Favorites

SF/F Stories with Asian Leads

This post only covers from central, East and Southeast Asia. I'm covering the Middle East and north Africa in a separate post.
Related Posts: SFF Stories with Native American Leads, SFF Stories with Black Leads, and SFF Stories with Middle Easter Leads.

The Aggregate Stats

• Total number of works/series/authors on the list: 24/7/7
• Author with most works on the list: Eileen Wilks, with 8 books in her Lupi series
• Biggest overall surprise: No ninjas. Huh. With all the assassin stories out there, I would have assumed I had read something more explicitly ninja-esque.  I'm going to have to hunt one down.  Also, I was a little surprised at the diversity. After doing the list for Native Americans, I was expecting patterns to emerge, even among excellent writers.  But, they're a pretty diverse group of stories.

and now for...

My Favorites

Fate's Edge

Summary: In their third "Edge" series book, Ilona Andrews delivers another well-crafted contemporary fantasy romance story with clever world-building and wonderful characters surrounding around sweet-and-chewy center of Happily Ever After.  *Sigh*.  If you like this genre, then read this series and this book.  They don't disappoint.

In case you haven't read Ilona Andrew's Edge series, then the premise is that there are three analogous worlds side-by-side.  The Broken is the contemporary no-magic real world we live in.  The Weird is a sophisticated, high-magic world with an alternate history resulting in countries like Old Gaul and the Democracy of California.  Connecting the two is a patchwork of lawless, lower-magic lands called the Edge.  The first two books were set mainly in the Edge in Appalachia and the Mire (Louisiana swamplands) respectively, but this one is a bit different in that the characters travel through multiple areas, mostly on the West Coast, so the setting lends a little less texture to the prose than in the other two books.