Authors change genres, characters travel through time and between worlds, and readers will find elements of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and the comedic and surreal all mixed together in these boundary-busting works.

Top 10

Autonomous

Annalee Newitz. Tor, Sept. 19

A rakish pharmaceutical pirate named Jack traverses the world in her submarine, bringing cheap drugs to the poor. On Jack’s trail are an unlikely pair: an emotionally shut-down military agent and his partner, a military robot, who fall in love against all expectations.

The Beautiful Ones

Silvia Moreno-Garcia. St. Martin’s/Dunne, Oct. 24

A telekinetic woman making her debut in high society becomes enthralled with a performer who teaches her to hone and control her gift.

The Bedlam Stacks

Natasha Pulley. Bloomsbury USA, Aug. 1

In this witty, entrancing novel, set in 1859, an injured Cornish smuggler is recruited to collect quinine from deep within Peru, but strange forces are protecting the quinine woods.

The City of Brass

S.A. Chakraborty. Harper Voyager, Nov. 14

In this debut novel, a con artist in 18th-century Cairo accidentally summons a djinn warrior who brings her into a world of magic and dangerous politics.

Iron Angels

Eric Flint and Alistair Kimble. Baen, Sept. 5

This is the first foray into urban fantasy from alternate historian Flint. A bizarre kidnapping case in the Chicago suburbs leads FBI Special Agent Jasper Wilde to confront an ancient evil.

Jade City

Fonda Lee. Orbit, Nov. 7

In YA author Lee’s first novel for adults, magical jade has helped Green Bone warriors defend their island from foreign invasion. Now, the war is over and a new generation vies for control of Kekon’s bustling capital city.

Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr

John Crowley. S&S/Saga, Oct. 24

In fantasy legend Crowley’s long-awaited new novel, a man tells the story of a crow named Dar Oakley and his impossible lives and deaths in the land of Ka.

A Plague of Giants

Kevin Hearne. Del Rey, Oct. 17

Urban fantasist Hearne turns to epic fantasy with this novel of humans mastering a lost magic to call upon the world’s wondrous beasts in a battle against an army of giants.

The Stone Sky

N.K. Jemisin. Orbit, Aug. 15

In this gripping conclusion to Jemisin’s highly acclaimed trilogy, a mother and daughter, both tremendously gifted, come face to face at last. One is determined to save and heal the world; the other feels the only way to cleanse its corruption is to destroy it.

Year One

Nora Roberts. St. Martin’s, Dec. 5

Roberts, best known for romantic fiction and thrillers, turns to the apocalyptic. After a fast-spreading disease kills over half the world’s population, the power of science and technology recedes, and magic rises up.

SF, Fantasy & Horror Listings

Ace

Blackwing by Ed McDonald (Oct. 3, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-399-58779-5) is a gritty fantasy debut about a man’s desperate battle to survive on the edge of a blighted frontier filled with malevolent magic.

Akashic

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (Oct. 3, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-61775-588-0). The HSS Matilda is a generation ship organized much like the antebellum South. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer and sowing the seeds of civil war, sharecropper Aster learns there may be a way off the ship if she’s willing to fight for it.

Amazon/47North

Song of Edmon by Adam Burch (Sept. 1, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-4778-0535-0). In this series debut, a young man on a strange planet is torn between his parents’ cultures: the peaceful Daysiders, who thrive in endless sunlight, and the violent Nightsiders, who survive in eternal darkness.

Angry Robot

Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng (Oct. 3, mass market, $7.99, ISBN 978-0-85766-727-4). Victorian missionaries are traveling into the heart of the newly discovered land of the Fae, Arcadia. When Catherine Helstone’s brother disappears in Arcadia, she goes looking for him and runs afoul of the vicious queen of the Fae.

Baen

Iron Angels by Eric Flint and Alistair Kimble (Sept. 5, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-1-4814-8256-1) is the first foray into urban fantasy from alternate historian Flint. A bizarre kidnapping case in the Chicago suburbs leads FBI Special Agent Jasper Wilde to confront an ancient evil from another world.

The Spark by David Drake (Nov. 7, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-1-4814-8276-9). In a rare standalone novel from longtime SF/F author Drake, an idealistic young warrior from the countryside sets out to become a champion of law and order in a world of monsters, politics, and ancient technology.

Berkley

Seventh Decimate by Stephen R. Donaldson (Nov. 14, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-0-399-58613-2) launches a trilogy about a prince who embarks on a desperate quest to find a sorcerous library in order to save his people and help his kingdom survive a devastating magical war.

Bloomsbury USA

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley (Aug. 1, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-62040-967-1). In this witty, entrancing novel, set in 1859, an injured Cornish smuggler is recruited to collect quinine from deep within Peru, but strange forces are protecting the quinine woods.

Boutique of Quality Books

Reality: The Struggle for Sternessence by Daniel A Liut (Sept. 1, trade paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-939371-52-2). A college student is recruited by an alien interstellar navy and embarks on a journey across the cosmos in search of love and purpose.

Chicago Review

Monday Starts on Saturday by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, trans. by Andrew Bromfield (Oct. 1, trade paper, $15.99, ISBN 978-1-61373-923-5). A young computer programmer from Leningrad picks up a couple of hitchhikers who persuade him to take a job at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy. This inventive comic novel from the Strugatsky brothers was first published in Russia in 1965.

Crown

Paradox Bound by Peter Clines (Sept. 26, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-553-41833-0). Once upon a time, Eli met a woman who was driving a 100-year-old car, clad in Revolutionary War–era clothes, and wielding an oddly modified flintlock rifle. She revealed strange things about him and his world before disappearing. When she returns, she leads Eli into a dangerous chase through time and space.

Del Rey

A Plague of Giants by Kevin Hearne (Oct. 17, hardcover, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-345-54860-3). Urban fantasist Hearne turns to epic fantasy with this novel of humans mastering a lost magic to call upon the world’s wondrous beasts in a battle against an army of giants.

Doubleday

The Clockwork Dynasty by Daniel H. Wilson (Aug. 1, hardcover, $26.95, ISBN 978-0-385-54178-7). When a young anthropologist specializing in ancient technology uncovers a terrible secret concealed in the workings of a 300-year-old mechanical doll, she is thrown into a hidden world that lurks just under the surface of our own.

ECW

Beforelife by Randal N.M. Graham (Sept. 5, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-77041-317-7). This satirical novel follows the postmortem adventures of Ian Brown, a man who finds himself in an afterlife where no one else believes in “pre-incarnation.” Scouring the afterlife for any sign of his wife, Ian accidentally winds up on a quest to prove that the beforelife is real.

Gallic

The White City by Roma Tearne (Oct. 10, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-910709-33-7). A frozen London is the setting for this tale of survival in a dystopian near-future. As the thaw begins after years of glacial winter, artist Hera tries to track down her elusive lover, Raphael.

Gollancz

The Hangman’s Daughter: The Bastard Legion, Book 1 by Gavin G. Smith (Jan. 2, trade paper, $13.99, ISBN 978-1-4732-1725-6). Four hundred years in the future, dangerous criminals are kept in suspended animation aboard prison ships. Miska Corbin, a thief and hacker, steals one of these ships, and its cargo of thieves, gangsters, murderers, and worse become her indentured army.

Hachette/Orbit

Jade City by Fonda Lee (Nov. 7, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-316-44086-8). In YA author Lee’s first novel for adults, magical jade—mined, traded, stolen, and killed for—has helped Green Bone warriors defend their island from foreign invasion. Now, the war is over and a new generation vies for control of Kekon’s bustling capital city.

Provenance by Ann Leckie (Sept. 26, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-316-38867-2) is a novel of power, theft, privilege, and birthright set in the world of Leckie’s renowned Ancillary series. 100,000-copy announced first printing.

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin (Aug. 15, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-0-316-22924-1). In this gripping conclusion to Jemisin’s highly acclaimed trilogy, a mother and daughter, both tremendously gifted, come face to face at last. One is determined to save and heal the world; the other feels the only way to cleanse its corruption is to destroy it. 75,000-copy announced first printing.

Hachette/Redhook

A Secret History of Witches by Louisa Morgan (Sept. 5, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-0-316-50855-1). From early 19th-century Brittany to London during WWII, five generations of witches fight the battles of their times, deciding how far they are willing to go to protect their family, their heritage, and the world. 75,000-copy announced first printing.

Harper

The Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker (Aug. 1, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-256369-9). A young Viking warrior is betrayed and left for dead by men in the pay of his greedy stepfather. Rescued by a fisherman, Ragnvald is determined to avenge his stepfather’s betrayal, claim his birthright and the woman he loves, and rescue his beloved sister. 50,000-copy announced first printing.

Harper Perennial

It Devours! A Welcome to Night Vale Novel by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor (Oct. 17, hardcover, $21.99, ISBN 978-0-06-247605-0) is a mystery exploring the intersections of faith and science, the growing relationship between two young people who want desperately to trust each other, and the terrifying, toothy power of the Smiling God. 150,000-copy announced first printing.

Harper Voyager

The Bloodprint by Ausma Zehanat Khan (Oct. 3, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-0-06-245919-0). The author of The Unquiet Dead delivers her debut fantasy novel, the first of four stories about religion, oppression, political intrigue, and heroism. 50,000-copy announced first printing.

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty (Nov. 14, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-0-06-267810-2). In this debut novel, a con artist in 18th-century Cairo accidentally summons a djinn warrior who brings her into a world of magic and dangerous politics. 75,000-copy announced first printing.

An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King (Sept. 12, trade paper, $15.99, ISBN 978-0-06-266255-2). In King’s thoughtful, heartbreaking debut, China’s one-child policy and its cultural preference for male heirs have created a near-future society overrun by 40 million unmarriageable men. One of them becomes a family’s fourth spouse and learns to value love and togetherness over his duty to the authoritarian state. 35,000-copy announced first printing.

HMH/Mariner/Adams

Creatures of Will and Temper by Molly Tanzer (Nov. 14, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-328-71026-0) is a Victorian urban fantasy featuring duelists, demons, and the dark arts, inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray. 20,000-copy announced first printing.

Huntington

The House Always Wins by Brian Rouff (Oct. 10, trade paper, $16.95, ISBN 978-1-944877-06-4). Reporter Anna moves to Las Vegas, gets married and pregnant, and moves into a big fixer-upper haunted by a racketeer. When a corrupt casino owner wants to knock down her house for a parking lot, she fights the system with the help of her tough-guy ghost.

Inkshares

Kill Creek by Scott Thomas (Oct. 31, trade paper, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-942645-82-5). In this literary horror novel, four horror authors who agree to spend Halloween in a haunted house find their publicity stunt turning into a fight for survival.

Insight Editions

The Last Winter by Samwise Didier (Oct. 3, hardcover, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-60887-924-3). Upon the death of Sprign, goddess and creator of all the beasts in Mistgard, the island comes under attack from ruthless frost and fire giants. Didier, Blizzard Entertainment’s art director, also illustrates the novel.

Kensington/Lyrical/Underground

Savage Woods by Mary SanGiovanni (Sept. 26, e-book, $4.99, ISBN 978-1-60183-750-9). Nilhollow—600 acres of haunted woods in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens—is rumored to contain tree spirits and all-powerful forest gods. Julia Russo flees there when her violent ex-boyfriend runs her off the road, and vanishes without a trace.

Library of America

The Hainish Novels and Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin (Sept. 5, hardcover, $80, ISBN 978-1-59853-537-2) is the definitive two-volume edition of Le Guin’s groundbreaking Hainish works. The eight novels and collected stories include The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), The Dispossessed (1974), and “Five Ways to Forgiveness,” a cycle of five stories presented complete here for the first time.

Little, Brown

The Power by Naomi Alderman (Oct. 10, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-316-54761-1). Teenage girls now have immense physical power: they can cause agonizing pain and even death. With this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets. 25,000-copy announced first printing.

Microcosm/Blue

Biketopia: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories in Extreme Futures, edited by Elly Blue (Aug. 8, trade paper, $9.95, ISBN 978-1-62106-206-6). Twelve writers tackle utopias, dystopias, and the gray areas in between in the fourth volume of the Bikes in Space series of feminist science fiction stories about bicycling.

Morrow

Strange Weather: Four Short Novels by Joe Hill (Oct. 24, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-266311-5) explores classic horror themes in tales of a man who can erase memories, an adventure gone awry, a surreal apocalypse, and a mall cop whose moment of heroism leads to his undoing. 200,000-copy announced first printing.

Omnidawn

Missives from the Green Campaign by David Michael Armstrong (Oct. 3, trade paper, $6.95, ISBN 978-1-63243-044-1). In a future short on fossil fuels and flora, the military compels its soldiers to carry plants everywhere. The new recruit narrator protects his frailest comrade from the hazing of basic training before a botched invasion of the rainforests of South America.

Pegasus

In the Footsteps of Dracula: Tales of the Un-Dead Count by Stephen Jones (Oct. 3, hardcover, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-68177-534-0) contains more than 30 stories and novellas featuring Dracula, including a long-lost version of Bram Stoker’s original story.

Penguin

The Dying Game by Asa Avdic (Aug. 1, trade paper, $16, ISBN 978-0-14-313179-3) is a locked-room mystery set in a near-future Orwellian state. Seven people are brought to a remote island to compete in a 48-hour test for a top-secret intelligence position, and one woman must stage her own death.

Peter Owen

Nona’s Room by Cristina Fernández Cubas, trans. by Simon Deefholts and Kathryn Phillips-Miles (Sept. 1, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-0-7206-1953-9) is an award-winning collection of gothic and uncanny stories in which the everyday fantasies of women slowly turn into nightmares, delusions, and paranoia.

Prime

The Promise of Space and Other Stories by James Patrick Kelly (Oct. 3, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-60701-495-9) collects visionary stories that enhance classic science fiction concepts with a profound understanding of human psychology.

Pyr

The Nine by Tracy Townsend (Nov. 14, trade paper, $18, ISBN 978-1-63388-341-3). In a fantasy world where theology is a science and three sentient species live in an uneasy truce, the fate of humankind rests on the shoulders of nine unsuspecting individuals.

Quirk

William Shakespeare’s The Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher (Oct. 3, hardcover, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-59474-985-8) reworks The Force Awakens as a Shakespeare play, complete with Elizabethan verse, monologues, and theatrical stage directions. Woodcut-style illustrations place Star Wars characters into an Elizabethan milieu.

Random/Hogarth

The Sky Is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith (Jan. 23, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-0-451-49626-3) is a sprawling, genre-defying debut set in a dystopian metropolis plagued by dragons. Three young people—a reality star, a death-obsessed heiress, and a near-feral ruffian—wander toward the scalded heart of the city, facing fire, conspiracy, mayhem, unholy drugs, dragon-worshippers, and the monsters lurking inside themselves.

She Writes

Clara at the Edge by Maryl Jo Fox (Nov. 21, trade paper, $16.95, ISBN 978-1-63152-250-5). Eccentric widow Clara Breckenridge is on a last-ditch journey to reconcile with her estranged son, confront the guilty secrets tied to her daughter’s death, and maybe find love again, all with the help of a rowdy spirit guide in the form of a purple wasp.

Simon & Schuster

Zero-G: Green Space by William Shatner and Jeff Rovin (Sept. 19, hardcover, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-5011-1158-7). In the second Zero-G novel, an investigator must identify a mole sabotaging the top-secret NASA project aboard the U.S. space station Empyrean while also fighting a fast-replicating virus that threatens all human life.

S&S/Gallery

Urban Enemies, edited by Joseph Nassise (Aug. 1, trade paper, $16, ISBN 978-1-5011-5508-6), collects stories told by the villains of 17 popular urban fantasy series. Contributors (and their series) include Jim Butcher (the Dresden Files), Kelley Armstrong (Cainsville), Seanan McGuire (InCryptid), Carrie Vaughn (Kitty Norville), and Faith Hunter (Jane Yellowrock).

S&S/Saga

Above the Timberline by Gregory Manchess (Oct. 24, hardcover, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-4814-5923-5). Wes Singleton leaves the academy in search of his father, a famed explorer, who was searching for a lost city. Celebrated artist Manchess illustrates his novel with over 120 full-page artworks depicting a future Earth where the poles have shifted and civilization is buried under 1,500 years’ worth of snow.

Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley (Oct. 24, hardcover, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-4814-9559-2). In fantasy legend Crowley’s long-awaited new novel, a man tells the story of a crow named Dar Oakley and his impossible lives and deaths in the land of Ka.

Quillifer by Walter Jon Williams (Oct. 3, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-4814-8997-3) is an adventurous epic fantasy about a man who is forced to leave his comfortable life and find his fortune among goddesses, pirates, war, and dragons.

Skyhorse/Night Shade

Firewalk by Chris Roberson (Oct. 3, trade paper, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-59780-904-7). A vodounista FBI agent and a Polynesian homicide detective find that their pasts are the key to unlocking the supernatural secrets of a West Coast city shrouded in mystery. 10,000-copy announced first printing.

Skyhorse/Talos

Sleep Over: An Oral History of the Apocalypse by H.G. Bleackley (Jan. 2, trade paper, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-940456-69-0) is a scrapbook of stories from those trapped in a world where people can no longer sleep. The pillars of society are crumbling, and madness is slowly descending on a planet without rest. 10,000-copy announced first printing.

SparkPress

The Infinite Now by Mindy Tarquini (Oct. 24, trade paper, $16.95, ISBN 978-1-943006-34-2). Sixteen-year-old Fiora, newly orphaned by the 1918 influenza epidemic, has little money, a lot of attitude, and the formidable reputation of her fortune-teller mother. When her mother’s magical curtain shows her that her one protector will soon die, Fiora panics and casts her neighborhood into stagnant time.

St. Martin’s

Glass Town by Steven Savile (Dec. 5, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-250-07783-7). U.K. author Savile makes his U.S. debut with this novel of love and magic in London, where a man attempts to unravel the mystery that destroyed his grandfather’s life.

Year One by Nora Roberts (Dec. 5, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-12295-7) is an apocalyptic novel from Roberts, best known for romantic fiction and thrillers. After disease kills over half the world’s population, the power of science and technology recedes, and magic rises up. A witch and her lover leave a wrecked New York City, seeking a stable future in a devastated land.

St. Martin’s/Dunne

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Oct. 24, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-09906-8). A telekinetic woman making her debut in high society becomes enthralled with a performer who teaches her to hone and control her gift. She thinks he has marriage in mind, but he’s hiding a devastating secret.

Subterranean

Bubba and the Cosmic Blood-Suckers by Joe R. Lansdale (Oct. 31, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-1-59606-841-4) is the novel-length prequel to Lansdale’s story “Bubba Ho-Tep,” which inspired the film of the same title.

Tachyon

The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen, (Nov. 14, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-61696-273-9) transforms the heroines of childhood stories for modern readers. In Neverland, Wendy leads a labor strike; Dorothy Gale returns from Oz as a sophisticate with unusual gymnastic abilities; and a talented apprentice, forging her first sword, is suddenly left to the mercies of Merlin.

The New Voices of Fantasy, edited by Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman (Aug. 8, trade paper, $16.95, ISBN 978-1-61696-257-9), spotlights 19 breakout writers who are reinventing fantasy. Their works include childhood stories gone wrong, magical creatures in heat, a building that’s alive and full of waiters, love, ducks, and vampires.

Titan

The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley (Nov. 7, trade paper, $12.95, ISBN 978-1-78565-574-6). In the Valley of the Rocks, men and boys gather around the fire each night to listen to the tale of the death of all women. One night, the storyteller brings secrets from the woods: peculiar mushrooms are growing from the ground where the women’s bodies lie buried.

Tor

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz (Sept. 19, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-9207-7) features a rakish pharmaceutical pirate named Jack who traverses the world in her own submarine, bringing cheap drugs to the poor. On Jack’s trail are an unlikely pair: an emotionally shutdown military agent and his partner, Paladin, a military robot, who fall in love against all expectations.

Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu, trans. by Joel Martinsen (Nov. 21, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-9407-1). Chen’s quest to crack the secret of mysterious natural phenomena takes him to stormy mountaintops, an experimental military weapons lab, and an old Soviet science station. He makes discoveries in a new frontier in particle physics, but soldiers and other scientists want his work for their own.

Iraq + 100: The First Anthology of Science Fiction to Have Emerged from Iraq by Hassan Blasim (Sept. 12, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-250-16132-1) poses a question to Iraqi writers still in Iraq and those in exile: what might Iraq look like in 2103? These stories are born of exhaustion, fear, and despair, yet fueled by themes of love, family, and endurance.

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson (Nov. 14, hardcover, $34.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-2637-9). In this hefty third volume of the Stormlight Archive epic fantasy series, the War of Reckoning comes to a sudden and destructive close as a new, far greater threat appears on the field of battle, kindled by the deadly Everstorm.

Tor.com

The Ruin of Angels: A Novel of the Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone (Sept. 5, trade paper, $24.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-9589-4). In the new city of Agdel Lex, dead deities litter the surrounding desert, and the foreign Iskari Rectification Authority keeps strict order. Treasure seekers, criminals, combat librarians, nightmare artists, angels, demons, dispossessed knights, and grad students gather, hungry for the next big score.

Transworld

Wings of the Storm by Giles Kristian (Sept. 1, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-0-552-17133-5). Fighting in Sweden for an ambitious warlord, Sigurd Haraldarson and his small but loyal band of oath-sworn warriors are winning fame and reputation. But Sigurd knows that to take on his hated enemy, the oath-breaker King Gorm, he must earn riches enough to build an army.

Word Horde

She Said Destroy by Nadia Bulkin (Aug. 29, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-939905-33-8) is the debut collection from weird fiction author Bulkin, whose stories are dreamlike, poignant, and unabashedly political.