Witches, superheroes, and spacefaring adventurers feature heavily in this fall’s offerings, headlined by splashy debuts and long-awaited titles from heavy hitters.
Top 10
Black Sun
Rebecca Roanhorse. Saga, Oct. 13 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-5344-3767-8)
Bestseller Roanhorse launches an epic fantasy series about the warring matriarchs of two cities, both based on indigenous civilizations of the pre-Columbian Americas.
A Deadly Education
Naomi Novik. Del Rey, Sept. 29 ($27, ISBN 978-0-593-12848-0)
The coming-of-age fantasy that kicks off Novik’s Scholomance series follows a dark sorceress determined to buck the expectations of her classmates at a monster-ridden magical school.
The Four Profound Weaves: A Birdverse Book
R.B. Lemberg. Tachyon, Sept. 1 ($14.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61696-334-7)
Lemberg explores gender identity and human connection in their full-length debut, starred by PW, which sees two Birdverse elders searching for an exiled master weaver.
Hench
Natalie Zina Walschots. Morrow, Sept. 22 ($27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-297857-8)
Walschots’s debut, starred by PW, introduces a world dominated by reckless superheroes, in which disaffected millennial Anna Tromedlove pays the bills by temping as a “hench” for supervillains. What does this entail? Data entry, mostly.
The House of Styx
Derek Kunsken. Solaris, Aug. 18 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-78108-805-0)
The human colonies drifting above the atmosphere of Venus battle harsh living conditions as a storm brews on the planet below in Kunsken’s character-driven work of hard science fiction, starred by PW.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
V.E. Schwab. Tor, Oct. 6 ($26.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-8756-1)
Addie LaRue makes a deal with the devil, who grants her immortality but curses her with loneliness, ensuring that no one she meets will ever remember her—until, some 300 years later, someone miraculously does.
The Ministry for the Future
Kim Stanley Robinson. Orbit, Oct. 6 ($28, ISBN 978-0-316-30013-1)
Bestseller Robinson returns with a near-future science fiction tale of climate change and technology that offers a hopeful vision for humanity’s future.
Remote Control
Nnedi Okorafor. Tor.com, Jan. 19 ($19.99, ISBN 978-1-250-77280-0)
Sankofa, the adopted daughter of Death, walks the world searching for an alien object that fell to Earth in a meteor shower in this dark fantasy from Hugo and Nebula Award winner Okorafor.
The Space Between Worlds
Micaiah Johnson. Del Rey, Aug. 4 ($27, ISBN 978-0-593-13505-1)
Johnson’s debut uses the concept of the multiverse to explore privilege, oppression, and belonging, as a young woman with the exceptional ability to travel between worlds discovers a threat to her homeland.
We Hear Voices
Evie Green. Berkley, Oct. 6 ($26, ISBN 978-0-593-09830-1)
Green’s horror debut, set in the aftermath of a global pandemic, follows a little boy who recovers from the virus only to be plagued by an increasingly controlling imaginary friend.
Listings
Ace
Battle Ground by Jim Butcher (Sept. 29, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-19930-5). The 17th Dresden Files urban fantasy from bestseller Butcher sees wizard Harry Dresden facing off against his most formidable foe yet to save the city of Chicago and possibly the world.
Angry Robot
The Rush’s Edge by Ginger Smith (Nov. 10, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-85766-864-6). In Smith’s debut, a genetically engineered super-soldier learns to cope with civilian life with the help of his scrappy salvage crew—until the discovery of an alien presence on their ship throws the crew’s lives into chaos.
Baen
The Valkyrie Protocol by David Weber and Jacob Holo (Oct. 6, $25, ISBN 978-1-982124-90-8). Weber and Holo’s follow-up to The Gordian Protocol sees the crew of the Kleio on a desperate quest to save the multiverse from a “temporal implosion.”
Berkley
The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry (Oct. 6, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-451-49230-2). Dark fantasy author Henry turns to all-out horror with this tale of a small town plagued by a murderous monster, the desensitized populace unwilling to put a stop to its violence, and the one teenage girl who cares enough to fight back.
BHC
A Witchly Influence by Stephanie Grey (Oct. 1, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-64397-139-1). Witch Carmen Devereaux returns to her North Carolina hometown after finalizing her divorce and teams up with an eclectic cast of other supernatural beings to help lost souls find their way.
Black Balloon
Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Stories of Horror, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto (Oct. 13, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-948226-62-2). Michel and Nieto bring together 40 new works of flash fiction from Kevin Brockmeier, Brian Evenson, Samantha Hunt, Stephen Graham Jones, Rion Amilcar Scott, and others, to explore horrors both psychological and supernatural.
Black Spot
A Flood of Posies by Tiffany Meuret (Sept. 8, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64548-026-6). Two sisters navigate apocalyptic floods and the murky waters of their own complicated relationship in Meuret’s debut dark fantasy.
Blackstone
White Trash Warlock by David R. Slayton (Oct. 13, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-09-406796-4). Slayton’s debut fantasy follows backwoods magician Adam Binder as he comes to terms with his identity in order to save his brother from an ancient spirit.
Bloomsbury
The Mask Falling by Samantha Shannon (Jan. 26, $26, ISBN 978-1-63557-032-8). In Shannon’s fourth urban fantasy set in the world of Scion, Dreamwalker Paige Mahoney teams up with a former enemy to incite a rebellion against an expanding empire.
Daw
This Virtual Night by C.S. Friedman (Oct. 13, $27, ISBN 978-0-7564-0988-3). Returning to the universe of her 1998 novel, This Alien Shore, Friedman spins a far-future space opera about the political turmoil between the mutated descendants of humanity’s long-established galactic colonies and the inhabitants of newly launched space stations.
Del Rey
The Shattered Stars by John Birmingham (Jan. 12, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-984820-55-6). In the sequel to Birmingham’s The Cruel Stars,
a team of unlikely heroes rebuilds civilization following a devastating attack by a group of “species purists” intent on wiping out anyone with cybernetic enhancements.
The Somebody People by Bob Proehl (Sept. 1, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5247-9900-7). The events of Proehl’s The Nobody People left millions of humans with superpowers. The sequel sees the rise of a villain with the ability to manipulate these newly minted superheroes into using their powers for his own gain.
Ecco
The Blade Between by Sam J. Miller (Dec. 1, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-06-296982-8). In this ghost story from Nebula Award–winner Miller, a man returns to his family home in upstate New York and finds the town plagued by restless spirits and the specter of gentrification.
ECW
Afterlife Crisis by Randal Graham (Sept. 8, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77041-470-9). Graham returns to the world of Beforelife in this metafictional sci-fi comedy that follows Rhinnick Feynman’s attempts to keep Isaac Newton from altering the course of history.
Flame Tree
The Sentient by Nadia Afifi (Sept. 8, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-78758-434-1). In Afifi’s debut, a brilliant scientist with a troubled past unravels a conspiracy surrounding a controversial cloning experiment, using her special ability to read people’s memories.
Grand Central
The Effort by Claire Holroyde (Jan. 12, $27, ISBN 978-1-5387-1761-5). A comet hurtles toward Earth’s skeptical and underprepared populace in Holroyde’s apocalyptic debut. When the comet’s impending impact becomes undeniable, the rules of society fall apart and humans come together in unlikely groups to weather the disaster.
The Invention of Sound by Chuck Palahniuk (Sept. 8, $27, ISBN 978-1-5387-1800-1). The Fight Club author delivers a horror novel about a Hollywood sound designer turned serial killer who records the screams of her victims, a father’s desperate search for his missing daughter, and a contagion that sweeps the country. 100,000-copy announced first printing.
Griffin
A Snake Lies Waiting: The Definitive Edition by Jin Yong (Sept. 8, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-250-25012-4). The third Legends of the Condor Heroes fantasy combines kung fu and magic as Guo Jing, his teachers, and his fiancé face grave danger at the hands of Apothecary Huang.
Harper Voyager
Ballistic Kiss: A Sandman Slim Novel by Richard Kadrey (Aug. 25, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-267257-5). The battle between angels rages in the background of Kadrey’s 11th Sandman Slim novel, which sees James Stark dealing with an infestation of malevolent ghosts. To exorcise the spirits, he’ll have to solve a cold case from the 1970s.
The Bladebone by Ausma Zehanat Khan (Oct. 6, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-245925-1). The last installment to Khan’s Khorasan Archives epic fantasy series pits the warrior women of the Citadel of Companions against the tyrannical One-Eyed Preacher in a final confrontation.
The Burning God by R.F. Kuang (Nov. 17, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-06-266262-0). The final installment to Kuang’s Poppy War epic fantasy trilogy picks up where The Dragon Republic left off, with Rin more determined than ever to save her beloved homeland from all those who would suppress their shamanic arts.
Head of Zeus
The House of a Hundred Whispers by Graham Masterton (Jan. 1, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-78954-424-4). The former governor of Dartmoor Prison leaves his Tudor mansion to his estranged family after his death, in crime writer Masterton’s return to the horror genre.
Meerkat
Speculate: A Collection of Microlit by Eugen Bacon and Dominique Hecq (Jan. 19, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-946154-55-2) explores speculative fiction concepts through a collaborative collection of flash fiction, fragments, and prose poetry.
MIRA
We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen (Jan. 26, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-7783-3139-1). A superheroine strikes up an unlikely friendship with a supervillain she meets at an anonymous support group in this standalone fantasy.
MIT
Entanglements: Tomorrow’s Lovers, Families, and Friends, edited by Sheila Williams (Sept. 15, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-262-53925-8). Mary Robinette Kowal, Nancy Kress, Ken Liu, Annalee Newitz, Xia Jia, and others explore technology’s effects on human connection in this anthology of near-future science fiction shorts.
Mobius
Lost Acre by Andrew Caldecott (Nov. 10, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-78747-376-8). An Elizabethan mystic uses magic to return from the dead, transporting himself into the present day, where he attempts to consolidate political power, in Caldecott’s third Rotherweird fantasy.
Orbit
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart (Sept. 8, $28, ISBN 978-0-316-54142-8). The first epic fantasy in Stewart’s debut series introduces an Asian-influenced world ruled by a tyrannical emperor more interested in dark magic than in helping his people, and the revolution brewing among his subjects.
Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen (Nov. 17, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-316-43065-4) launches a space opera trilogy with this tale of a young man’s single-minded quest for vengeance against the slavers who murdered his family and destroyed his home planet.
The Tower of Fools by Andrzej Sapkowski (Oct. 27, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-316-42369-4). The first in a new epic fantasy series from the author of The Witcher follows a young healer magician who flees the wrath of a noble family—straight into the Tower of Fools, an asylum for those crazy enough to speak their minds.
PM
The Planetbreaker’s Son by Nick Mamatas (Jan. 1, $14 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-62963-834-8). Mamatas’s collection of speculative short stories travels from the halls of an unnamed spaceship, where the “planetbreaker” dutifully destroys worlds, through the vast dome of space, to an animal rescue shelter, and beyond.
Quirk
Secret Santa: A Horror for the Holidays Novel by Andrew Shaffer (Nov. 10, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68369-205-8). Bestseller Shaffer sets his latest comic horror story at a publishing house in the 1980s as the company’s newest horror editor realizes the creepy gnome doll she received in the holiday gift exchange may be more than meets the eye.
Redhook
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow (Oct. 13, $28, ISBN 978-0-316-42204-8). In an alternate 1800s New England, witchcraft is real, illegal, and has all but died out—but three sisters are determined to bring it back.
Saga
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher (Oct. 6, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5344-5112-4). A portal appears in the wall of an eccentric museum, opening to a strange otherworld comprising islands and willow trees, and occupied by a mysterious threat, in Kingfisher’s sophomore supernatural chiller.
Machine by Elizabeth Bear (Oct. 6, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-5344-0301-7). This standalone sci-fi novel, set in the same universe as Bear’s White Space series, follows Jens, a doctor working to cure alien diseases aboard a space station, as she stumbles upon an ancient, extraterrestrial mystery.
Skybound
The Residence by Andrew Pyper (Sept. 1, $26, ISBN 978-1-982149-05-5). President Franklin Pierce’s recently deceased son haunts the White House in this alternate history horror story. When the first lady brings in a group of spiritualists for a séance, the barrier between the living and the dead may be lowered for good.
SMALL BEER
Reconstruction: Stories by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Nov. 10, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61873-177-7). Nebula Award-winner Johnson uses speculative and supernatural elements to explore the lives of the disenfranchised in her debut collection.
Solaris
The Black Coast by Mike Brooks (Sept. 1, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78108-824-1). When a demonic tyrant seizes control of Iwernia, the citizens must turn to their old enemies in Black Keep for refuge. With the entire continent headed toward war, the formerly opposing nations will have to work together to survive.
Grave Secrets (The Lavington Windsor Mysteries #1) by Alice James (Sept. 1, $11.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78108-861-6). Estate agent Toni Windsor’s desire for a quiet life is complicated by the wave of zombies rising from their graves, the murder mystery she’s itching to solve, and the dashing vampire she can’t resist.
St. Martin’s
Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick by David Wong (Oct. 13, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-19579-1). The second sci-fi thriller in bestseller Wong’s Zoey Ashe series sees the eponymous heroine struggling to adjust to her new role as the leader of a sprawling empire as nightmarish villains and creepy crime bosses work to undermine her.
Subterranean
In the Shadows of Men by Robert Jackson Bennett (Aug. 31, $40, ISBN 978-1-59606-987-9). Two brothers purchase a West Texas motel that had once been owned by their distant relative and slowly discover its sinister past in the latest dark fantasy from Bennett.
Seven of Infinities by Aliette de Bodard (Oct. 31, $40, ISBN 978-1-59606-976-3). Vân, a tutor pretending to be someone she’s not, teams up with The Wild Orchid in the Sunless Wood, a sentient spaceship with secrets of her own, to solve a murder.
Tachyon
Kitty’s Mix-Tape by Carrie Vaughn (Oct. 16, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61696-325-5). The final adventures of werewolf talk-show host Kitty Norville play out in this collection of urban fantasy short stories, featuring a wide cast of returning characters, including vampire Rick, detective Jessi, bounty hunter Cormac, and others.
The Midnight Circus by Jane Yolen (Oct. 1, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61696-340-8). This new collection of dark fairy tales and poems from Yolen invites readers into supernatural worlds populated by cruel witches, voracious angels, and morally ambiguous shape-shifters.
Titan
From the Neck Up by Aliya Whiteley (Nov. 3, $14.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78909-475-6). These 16 short stories range from sci-fi tales of first contact to fairy tale retellings, featuring the struggles of farming in the face of a second Ice Age, secret cities inside human bodies, and delicate glass creatures coming to life.
Tor
Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson (Nov. 17, $34.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-2638-6). The second epic fantasy in Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series follows what happens after the two sides of a protracted war enter into a desperate arms race. 500,000-copy announced first printing.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini (Sept. 15, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-76284-9). A woman hungry for adventure travels to a distant planet and discovers an alien relic that could spell the end of humankind in bestseller Paolini’s latest epic. 2,000,000-copy announced first printing.
Tor.com
Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston (Sept. 8, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-26054-3) draws on African folklore to craft a dark fantasy about an empire devastated by climate changes and its citizens fighting for the survival of their homeland. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
Over the Woodward Wall by A. Deborah Baker (Oct. 6, $17.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-9927-4). Two children discover an impossible world populated by talking animals and terrifying supernatural creatures in this standalone portal fantasy from bestseller Seanan McGuire, writing as Baker. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark (Oct. 13, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-250-76702-8). Maryse Boudreaux, a whiskey bootlegger in Prohibition-era Georgia, uses a magic sword to fight off demonic monsters called Ku Kluxes in this dark fantasy novella from Nebula Award–winner Clark. 75,000-copy announced first printing.
WordFire
The Humans in the Walls by Eric James Stone (Sept. 9, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-68057-062-5). This collection of 27 short stories from Hugo Award–winner Stone ranges broadly in genre and tone, encompassing supernatural thrillers, space operas, superhero stories, and fairy tales.
This article has been updated with new metadata for some titles.
