9 of the Best SFF Series by Black Authors

Under her various pen names, Leslie Esdaile Banks was one of the pioneering voices in urban fantasy and paranormal romance. 

Sasha Trudeau is part of a secret group of Special Ops soldiers who work for the U.S. government to keep all things paranormal in their place and their existence hidden from the human world. 

Having survived a brutal werewolf attack, she’s now trained to kill whatever tries to get in her way. When she returns from a solo mission, she finds that her entire team has mysteriously gone missing, and her bosses aren’t talking. 

What are they hiding, and who can she truly trust?

Seske Kaleigh is the heir to the command of a gargantuan starship, a biological creation the size of a city that was carved from the insides of an intergalactic creature. 

Her clan has just now culled their latest ship, and the workers are rebuilding it for flight: stripping down the delicate bone-work, rerouting its veins and arteries, and building living quarters for their people. 

This decade-long process will allow the clan to dominate the galaxy, but these creatures are sick of being abused by humans and driven to the brink of extinction. They want vengeance… 

With the Broken Earth series (The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky), N.K. Jemisin became the first African-American author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the first author to win it in three consecutive years, and the first to win the award for all three novels in a trilogy!

The Stillness is a supercontinent divided into many “comms” and castes of people with unique abilities, skills, and dynamics. A Fifth Season, a period of catastrophic climate change that engulfs the Stillness every few centuries, is on the horizon. 

And Essun, a woman who has come home to find that her husband murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter, must reclaim her child across the increasingly desolate land before time runs out.

The Binti trilogy of novellas has won or been nominated for pretty much every award in science fiction publishing: The Nebula, the Hugo, the Locus, the Nommo, and the British Fantasy Award! 

It’s not hard to see why critics and readers alike have been drawn to Nnedi Okorafor’s compact but sprawling saga of education, culture, and transformation. Binti is the first member of the Himba people to be accepted into Oomza University. 

She runs away from home and boards a transport ship to cross the stars, but the journey is interrupted by a hijacking. The Meduse murders all the inhabitants of the ship, except for Binti, who must find a way to broker peace. But doing so will change not only her life but her body.

The face of science fiction would be entirely different without the contributions of Octavia E. Butler. She's been celebrated as one of the genre’s leading voices and one of its most clear-headed prophets of our bleak future. 

The Xenogenesis series, also known as Lilith’s Brood, is a trilogy that includes the titles Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago. Even by her lofty standards, it is an ambitious, thematically dense, and challenging read. 

Lilith Iyapo wakes up to discover that a nuclear war has destroyed Earth, and she has been taken into the stars by an alien race called the Oankali. 

They wish to use humans for breeding purposes, as part of a genetic trade to improve both species, but relinquishing control to the Oankali is not a choice every human wants to make, even if the fate of their species depends on it.

Inspired by classic children’s fantasy and West African mythology, Tomi Adeyemi’s YA series, Legacy of Orïsha, was an instant New York Times bestseller upon release, and the film adaptation, starring Cynthia Erivo, Idris Elba, and Viola Davis, is set to be released next year.

In the land of Orïsha, there are two kinds of people: divîners, who can become magicians, and the non-magical kosidán. Over a decade ago, the King, Saran, found a way to extinguish the magic and ordered the slaying of all divîners. 

One of them was Zélie Adebola’s mother, who now lives with her brother Tzain on the outskirts of society. But change is on the horizon. Princess Amari, the daughter of King Saran, has stolen a magical scroll that can restore the magical powers of any divîner who touches it. 

Her brother, Prince Inan, is determined to eradicate magic once and for all. Zélie, now imbued with her own powers, must lead the charge in the name of all divîners, lest they be annihilated once and for all.

The British-Nigerian author and psychiatrist Tade Thompson won the inaugural Nommo Award as well as the 2019 Arthur C. Clarke Award for the first book in his Rosewater series. The trilogy, released between 2016 and 2019, was influenced by Afrofuturism, cyberpunk, romance, and Thompson’s Yoruba roots.

In 2012, an alien named Wormwood appears in London, and his arrival sparks immense change for Earth. In the 2050s, it creates an impenetrable dome in Rosewater, Nigeria, where the residents are forced to navigate its strange powers. 

The dome exudes a fungus called xenoforms, which interacts with humans’ nervous systems. Some believe they can heal, while others fear it will destroy them. Kaaro, a government agent with psychic powers, is called to investigate the biodome and a spate of deaths involving other psychics. 

The winner of four Nebulas, two Hugos, and a Stonewall Book Award, Samuel R. Delany is one of the pre-eminent figures in Black sci-fi fantasy and Afrofuturism. Extremely prolific, he delves into a wide spectrum of themes, and many of his novels and stories remain radical decades after their initial publication.

His epic four-volume saga Nevèrÿon (which includes stories, novellas, and full-length novels) spans thousands of pages and features some of his most ambitious writing. Nevèrÿon (pronounced “Ne-VER-y-on”) is the setting for his remix of sword-and-sorcery fantasy. 

Captured by slavers as a child, Gorgik gains his freedom and seeks to become a liberator of all who are in chains. But his own desires threaten to undo his mission, and the novels, which act as meta-academic examinations of the story at hand, delve into the curious nuances of this epic tale.

The Black-Indigenous American writer Rebecca Roanhorse has gained widespread acclaim and won both Hugo and Nebula Awards for her works that blend mythology, fantasy, science fiction, and action. 

The Between Earth and Sky series is currently made up of three novels: Black Sun, Fevered Star, and Mirrored Heavens. It won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Series, and it’s not hard to see why. 

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration, but this year it coincides with a rare solar eclipse, one that the Sun Priest has prophesied will lead to the very unbalancing of their world. 

Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova, led by Captain Xiala, a disgraced Teek with the ability to cause calm and chaos alike with her song. Her ship carries one passenger: Serapio, a blind young man whom she has been told is harmless. But the truth will shatter everything she holds dear.