Elder Race, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I draw a distinction between good writing and good storytelling. Not every author is good at both, and commercial publishing favors the latter. Plot-driven books sell better than language-driven.

Personally, I look for strong, competent prose. I don’t need ornate language or undreamt-of metaphors, but I will stop reading for mechanical clumsiness: overusing dialogue tags, slipping artlessly into comma splices, beating that subject-verb-object triple play for every dang sentence.
Adrian Tchaikovsky delights on both counts, writing and storytelling. He’s best known for his Children of Time series, but I got started with Elder Race, a quick read with excellent audiobook narration by John Lee.

It’s a perfect genre blend of fantasy and science fiction. An overlooked younger princess goes on a hero’s quest to find a wizard to save the realm from a demon. The wizard is in fact an anthropologist second class, living out whole centuries in suspension while he waits for his fellow scientists to retrieve him from his outpost.

It hits all my favorite notes: thoughtful internal character development, adventure tempered by human politics, magic clashing with technology. And no goddam romance. Sorry—but I don’t like love stories in my fiction. That’s a tender spot for me.

The depressed and lonely weird wizard dude with literal horns growing out of his forehead, thanks to futuristic body mods, does not end up with the courageous and beautiful young woman. Like they don’t even flirt. It’s wonderful.

There are any number of reasons why you might not like a genre. I just explained why I don’t like romance novels, so I’m in no position to hector anyone about not reading science fiction or fantasy. But if the reason you abstain is because you’re only familiar with shoddier examples, I’d invite you to give speculative fiction another go. This one will only take a few hours of your time.