# The 13 Best Ancient Rome-Inspired Fantasy and Sci-Fi Novels

> Gladiators, legions and senates reimagined across invented empires and far-future starships, from cult favorites to this year's buzziest debut. Which one conquers your shelf?

*By YPB Team · Published October 4, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-13-best-ancient-rome-inspired-fantasy-and-sci-fi-novels*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Red Rising** — score 1000/1000
   Pierce Brown's dystopian space saga of a color-coded caste society with Roman names, laws and legions.
2. **Fallen City** — score 789/1000
   Adrienne Young's 2025 duology opener, an ancient-Rome-inspired fantasy of fated lovers on opposite sides of a holy war.
3. **Empire of Silence** — score 663/1000
   Christopher Ruocchio's space opera of a gladiator-turned-soldier in a collapsing human empire.
4. **The Shadow of Ararat** — score 387/1000
   Thomas Harlan's Oath of Empire opener, a fantasy of magic and myth in a Rome that never fell.
5. **The Winner's Curse** — score 387/1000
   Marie Rutkoski's tale of a general's daughter and an enslaved man in a conquering empire with a Roman feel.
6. **Sailing to Sarantium** — score 387/1000
   Guy Gavriel Kay's novel of a mosaicist summoned to a city modeled on Byzantium, the surviving Roman Empire.
7. **Furies of Calderon** — score 387/1000
   The first Codex Alera novel by Jim Butcher, set in a realm descended from a lost Roman legion.
8. **In Numina** — score 387/1000
   Assaph Mehr's detective fantasy set in Egretia, a city built from a thousand years of Roman culture and magic.
9. **The Will of the Many** — score 284/1000
   James Islington's fantasy of a Roman-style republic where lower ranks surrender their life force to those above.
10. **Ancillary Justice** — score 284/1000
   Ann Leckie's space opera of a former starship AI seeking revenge on the expansionist Radch empire.
11. **An Ember in the Ashes** — score 0/1000
   Sabaa Tahir's debut, a young adult fantasy of a martial empire modeled on ancient Rome.
12. **The Stars Undying** — score 0/1000
   Emery Robin's space opera retelling of Caesar and Cleopatra across a galactic empire.
13. **Thraxas Meets His Enemies** — score 0/1000
   Martin Scott's twelfth Thraxas novel, with a hard-drinking detective working the streets of a fantasy city at Roman-era tech level.

Tags: fantasy, books, sci-fi, ancient rome