Kirkus Best Fiction of 2018

Best Science Fiction and Fantasy

• Vita Nostra, Marina & Sergey Dyachenko (Harper Voyager)
• The Grey Bastards, Jonathan French (Crown)
• Night Fall, Simon R. Green (Ace)
• How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
• Blackfish City, Sam J. Miller (Ecco)
• State Tectonics, Malka Older (Tor.com Publishing)
• Dark State, Charles Stross (Tor)

Best Literary Fiction

• Florida, Lauren Groff (Riverhead)
• Severance, Ling Ma (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)
• The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai (Viking)
• Tell the Machine Goodnight, Katie Williams (Riverhead)
• The Female Persuasion, Meg Wolitzer (Riverhead)

Best Romance Novels

• Heart on Fire, Amanda Bouchet (Piatkus)

Best Historical Fiction

• Transcription, Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown)
• Little, Edward Carey (Riverhead)
• Circe, Madeline Miller (Little, Brown)
• The Lost Queen, Signe Pike (Touchstone)
• Confessions of the Fox, Jordy Rosenberg (One World)

Best Debut Fiction

• Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Mariner)
• The Pisces, Melissa Broder (Hogarth)
• Severance, Ling Ma (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)
• Confessions of the Fox, Jordy Rosenberg (One World)

Best Short Fiction

• Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Mariner)
• Florida, Lauren Groff (Riverhead)
• The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, Denis Johnson (Random House)
• Last Stories, William Trevor (Viking)

Best Fiction in Translation

• Moon Brow, Shahriar Mandanipour, translated by Sara Khalili (Restless)
• Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel & Ted Goossen (Knopf)
• Wait, Blink: a Perfect Picture of Inner Life, Gunnhild Øyehaug, translated by Kari Dickson (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)
• Fox, Dubravka Ugresic, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac & David Williams (Open Letter)
• The Day the Sun Died, Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas (Grove)

For more information, including complete lists, see the Kirkus website.