Publisher Recommendation: Tor.com Publishing

I don’t know if many of you keep track of who the publisher is for the books you read, but in general I don’t. There are so many! And the big publishing houses publish so many books it’s hard to keep track. There are a few exceptions for me, and today I’ll be recommending one in particular: Tor.com Publishing!

Why Tor.com?

If you love fantasy or science fiction, you MUST check out Tor.com. Perhaps their parent, Tor Books, is better known, but I swear Tor.com hits it out of the park with nearly every novel or novella they publish. Though they publish both novellas and novels, they are best known for having a WIDE selection of excellent SFF novellas. There are so many fantastic settings and themes explored in the works they publish that I am sure everyone can find at least a handful of things they like.

One of the other things that is great about Tor.com is the diversity!! Both in the authors they publish, and in the characters of the works they publish. Queer SFF (lesbian necromancers in space!!)? You got. Malaysian inspired fantasy? Check. Futuristic Black girl magic? Hell yeah. And sooooo much more.

Also, I’m a sucker for a publisher with a great social media presence. Tor.com absolutely KILLS it on twitter – they are hilarious and wonderful and I love following them. If Instagram is more your speed, then never fear – they have stunning photos of their books and are equally as amazing there!

Favorite Tor.com books

You can read reviews that Shari and I have written for for various Tor.com books here, but I will highlight some of my personal favorites in this post. I’ll also share some that I haven’t reviewed on the blog!

Fantasy!

So….are you tired of hearing about our lord and savior Seanan McGuire yet? Well either way, TOO BAD. Seanan has books published by a handful of publishers, and Tor.com has published her novella series entitled the Wayward Children, and Middlegame (a full length novel and a book I think about constantly, over 1.5 years after reading it). I seriously cannot recommend both of those enough. You can find my review for Middlegame here, and Shari has a few reviews up for some of the Wayward Children novellas.

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi is brilliant and important novella that I really do think everyone should read. My review for it is here, but it doesn’t do the novella justice at all. Just to lift a couple sentences from my review, “There are so many things that this novel is about. Magic – black girl magic, black anger, the experience of growing up black in America, family, racial injustice, police brutality, etc. It’s incredibly hard to summarize in one review.”

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL novella, inside and out. My review for it is here, and let me just summarize by saying: it’s queer! It’s all about women! And the writing is just stunningly amazing.

Science Fiction!

Next up are Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth! Both are full length novels, and the first and second book respectively in Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb trilogy. Listen. When I first read Gideon the Ninth, I loved it. Like it was a good ol’ five stars, everyone should try this book for me. When I read Gideon for the second time, I kinda wanted to scream and throw the book at everyone I know? Like, idk how but I fell even more in love with it. And then I read Harrow the Ninth…and my fate was sealed. I am a faithful acolyte of this trilogy. There is some BIG BRAIN SHIT going on in the author’s head because WOW. The setup, the little details, the pop culture easter eggs. I’m in awe.

And I cannot possibly end this post without recommending The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. I have a review up for the first book here. So far this series consists of four novellas and one full length novel, and they are all perfection. I mean, the main character is a sentient “murderbot” who would rather watch space soap operas all day than do anything else. Like, how relatable right?? I swear these are some of the most perfect novellas (and novel) in existence.

The end!

So my general publisher recommendation definitely devolved a little into me just pushing my fav books on you haha. I really hope you check out the ones I recommended, and just browse their site because they have SO MANY great books that they’ve published!! Literally so many. My wallet is crying.