WCities of the Red Night is a 1981 novel by American author William S. Burroughs. His first full-length novel since The Wild Boys (1971), it is part of his final trilogy of novels, known as The Red Night Trilogy, followed by The Place of Dead Roads (1983) and The Western Lands (1987). The plot involves a group of radical pirates who seek the freedom to live under the articles set out by Captain James Misson. In near present day, a parallel story follows a detective searching for a lost boy, abducted for use in a sexual ritual. The cities of the title mimic and parody real places, and Burroughs makes references to the United States, Mexico, and Morocco.
WThe Claw of the Conciliator is a science fantasy novel by American writer Gene Wolfe, first released in 1981. It is the second volume in the four-volume series The Book of the New Sun.
WConan the Mercenary is a fantasy novel written by American writer Andrew J. Offutt and illustrated by Esteban Maroto featuring Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian, the second volume in a trilogy beginning with Conan and the Sorcerer and concluding with The Sword of Skelos. It was first published in paperback by Ace Books in 1980, with an official publication date of January 1981. Ace reprinted the novel in April 1983, and issued a trade paperback edition in 1985. The first British edition was published by Sphere Books in July 1989.
WDelusion's Master (1981) is a fantasy novel by British writer Tanith Lee, the third book in her Tales From The Flat Earth.
W"Ealdwood" is a fantasy novella by American writer C. J. Cherryh. One of Cherryh's Ealdwood Stories, it was first published in 1981 by Donald M. Grant in a limited edition of 1,050 copies. The edition was illustrated by the author's brother, David A. Cherry. The novella draws on Celtic mythology and is about Ealdwood, a forest at the edge of Faery, and Arafel, a Daoine Sidhe.
WHawk of May is the first installment in Gillian Bradshaw’s Down The Long Wind trilogy. Published initially in 1980 by Simon and Schuster, Hawk of May is a bildungsroman set in the time of King Arthur and centered on Gwalchmai ap Lot.
WThe Homeward Bounders is a fantasy novel by Diana Wynne Jones in which a vast series of parallel universes serve as the game-boards for a race of demons that delight in war-games and fantasy-games.
WThe Hunger (1981) is a novel by Whitley Strieber. The plot involves a beautiful and wealthy vampire named Miriam Blaylock who takes human lovers and transforms them into vampire-human hybrids.
WIn the Grip of Winter is the second book of The Animals of Farthing Wood series by Colin Dann. It was first published in 1981, and later republished as part one of the first "Omnibus".
WJumanji is a 1981 fantasy children's picture book, written and illustrated by the American author Chris Van Allsburg. The book is about a magical board game that implements animals and other jungle elements as the game is played in real life. A sequel to the book titled Zathura was released in 2002. The book was adapted into a 1995 film of the same name and it spawned a franchise that includes three sequels and an animated television series.
WLanark, subtitled A Life in Four Books, is the first novel of Scottish writer Alasdair Gray. Written over a period of almost thirty years, it combines realist and dystopian surrealist depictions of his home city of Glasgow.
WLittle, Big: or, The Fairies′ Parliament is a contemporary fantasy novel by John Crowley, published in 1981. It won the World Fantasy Award in 1982.
WRonia, the Robber's Daughter is a children's fantasy book by the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, first published in 1981.
WThe Time of the Ghost is a supernatural English-language children's novel by Diana Wynne Jones, published by Macmillan in 1981. Set in the English countryside, it features a teenage ghost who is one of four sisters, and observes the family, unable to remember which one she is. She is from seven years in the future, in the aftermath of her "accident", so it is a kind of a time slip story, but she has no memories of those seven years.
WThe War Hound and the World's Pain is a 1981 fantasy novel by English writer Michael Moorcock, the first of the "von Bek" series of novels.
WThe White Hotel is a novel written by the Cornish poet, translator and novelist D. M. Thomas. It was first published in January 1981 by Gollancz in Great Britain and in March 1981 by The Viking Press in the United States. It won the 1981 Cheltenham Prize. It was also short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1981. The narrative is told principally in the form of an erotic journal, letters between the female narrator and a fictionalized Sigmund Freud, and Freud's case history analysis of the narrator.
WWindhaven is a science fiction fix-up novel co-written by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle. The novel is a collection of three novellas compiled and first published together in 1981 by Timescape Books. It was published as a mass market paperback in 1982 by Pocket Books. Both editions featured cover art by Vincent Di Fate. It was later reprinted by Bantam Spectra in hardcover in 2001, and paperback in 2003 and 2012, with cover art by Stephen Youll. The novel was also published in paperback form in the UK by New English Library in 1982 and Gollancz in 1988.