This fall is a season for beginnings and endings, with grand finales for several blockbuster sci-fi and fantasy series, new endeavors from big-name authors, and a selection of splashy debuts.
Top 10
Daughter of the Moon Goddess
Sue Lynn Tan. Harper Voyager, Jan. 11 ($27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-320905-3)
Tan’s fantasy debut and series launch draws on the Chinese myth of moon goddess Chang’e and sends young heroine Xingyin on a quest to free her mother from the Celestial Emperor.
The Death of Jane Lawrence
Caitlin Starling. St. Martin’s, Oct. 19 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-27258-4)
A woman’s marriage of convenience is not what it seems, plunging her into a world of spirits, secrets, and strange medicine in Starling’s “intricately plotted, deliciously bonkers” gothic fantasy, per PW’s starred review.
The Escapement
Lavie Tidhar. Tachyon, Sept. 21 ($16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61696-327-9)
World Fantasy Award–winner Tidhar chronicles in his genre-bending latest the journey of a lone gunman through the wildly unpredictable dreamland of the Escapement.
Goliath
Tochi Onyebuchi. Tordotcom, Jan. 25 ($26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-78295-3)
Onyebuchi’s first full-length work for adults transplants the biblical story of David and Jonathan to a future New Haven, Conn., in a mosaic sci-fi novel that sees violence in the streets, bureaucrats working to save the dying planet, and an extraterrestrial hoping to reconnect with his lover.
How High We Go in the Dark
Sequoia Nagamatsu. Morrow, Jan. 18 ($27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-307264-0)
Nagamatsu’s debut, a sci-fi epic in which an ancient virus is released from the Arctic ice, chronicles humanity’s response to climate change across continents and centuries.
Leviathan Falls
James S.A. Corey. Orbit, Nov. 16 ($30, ISBN 978-0-316-33291-0)
The blockbuster Expanse series comes to its conclusion with this ninth space opera adventure for James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante.
A Marvellous Light
Freya Marske. Tordotcom, Nov. 2 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-78887-0)
Baronet Robin Blyth inadvertently stumbles on a magical secret society—and into the orbit of surly Edwin Courcey—in the alternate Edwardian England of Marske’s queer fantasy debut.
My Heart Is a Chainsaw
Stephen Graham Jones. Saga, Aug. 31 ($26.99, ISBN 978-1-9821-3763-2)
A slasher-film-obsessed teen is the only one who recognizes the warning signs as her town teeters on the brink of a mass slaughter in Jones’s latest horror extravaganza, starred by PW.
No Gods, No Monsters
Cadwell Turnbull. Blackstone, Sept. 7 ($26.99, ISBN 978-1-9826-0372-4)
Turnbull launches his Convergence Saga series with what our starred review called a “powerhouse contemporary fantasy,” an indictment of police brutality and social injustice that begins when the shooting of an unarmed Black man reveals to the world that monsters are real.
Noor
Nnedi Okorafor. DAW, Nov. 9 ($27, ISBN 978-0-7564-1609-6)
Hugo and Nebula award winner Okorafor’s latest takes readers to a near-future Nigeria, where AO, a woman whose body has been majorly and necessarily augmented after a devastating accident, is forced on the run with a Fulani herdsman named DNA.
SF/Fantasy/Horror Listings
47North
Innate Magic by Shannon Fay (Nov. 9, $14.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5420-3203-2). In an alternate postwar London where magic is commonplace, ambitious mage Paul Gallagher puts his trust in the wrong man—his crush, Capt. Hector Hollister—in Fay’s debut and Marrowbone Spells series launch.
AK Press
Grievers by Adrienne Maree Brown (Sept. 7, $15 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-84935-452-3). A strange illness sweeps through Detroit, sending the city into quarantine and its populace into mourning. It’s up to Brown’s heroine, Dune, to discover the cause of the plague and stop it.
Andrews McMeel
The Fox’s Tower and Other Tales by Yoon Ha Lee (Oct. 5, $14.99, ISBN 978-1-5248-6813-0). Locus Award–winner Lee brings together a collection of flash fiction fairy tales featuring fox spirits, robots, riffs on mythology, and LGBTQ love stories.
Angry Robot
Swashbucklers by Dan Hanks (Nov. 9, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-85766-938-4). As a boy, Cisco Collins saved his hometown from an ancient pirate ghost. Years later, the threat returns, and Cisco, now a single father, must rally his friends, a talking fox, and an enchanted forest to save the day.
Baen
Jekyll & Hyde Inc. by Simon R. Green (Sept. 7, $25, ISBN 978-1-9821-2528-8). The world of London cop Daniel Carter is upended by a monster attack, opening his eyes to the city’s supernatural underbelly. To get revenge, he turns to Dr. Jekyll’s Elixir and the super-strong monster hunters known as Hydes.
Berkley
A Terrible Fall of Angels by Laurell K. Hamilton (Aug. 17, $28, ISBN 978-1-9848-0446-4) launches an urban fantasy series as Det. Zaniel Havelock, who can communicate with angels, investigates a murder case involving demonic possession.
BHC
Cry of the Firebird by Amy Kuivalainen (Oct. 14, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-64397-189-6). The birth of a mystical firebird opens a gate between the human world and the world of monsters in Kuivalainen’s Firebird Faerie Tales series launch.
CamCat
They Met in a Tavern by Elijah Menchaca (Aug. 10, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-7443-0383-4). A band of bounty hunters who parted on the worst of terms must put the past behind them when a mysterious foe places a price on their heads in Menchaca’s fantasy debut.
Daw
Absynthe by Brendan Bellecourt (Dec. 7, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7564-1678-2). Writing as Bellecourt, fantasist Bradley P. Beaulieu makes his sci-fi debut, set in an alternate 1920s Chicago where shell-shocked veteran and telepath Liam Mulcahey investigates a crime that may involve the U.S. president.
Del Rey
Child of Light by Terry Brooks (Oct. 12, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-35738-5) opens a new fantasy series with the story of Auris Afton Grieg, who escapes captivity, stumbles into the magical world of the fae, and discovers a shocking secret about her own origins.
The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik (Sept. 28, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-12886-2) returns to the dangerous magical school introduced in A Deadly Education as dark sorceress El and her friends, now seniors, stare down the barrel of graduation—a rite few survive.
Dutton
Holdout by Jeffrey Kluger (Aug. 3, $26, ISBN 978-0-593-18469-1). After an accident, astronaut Walli Beckwith refuses to evacuate the damaged International Space Station with her colleagues, determined to use the abandoned station’s resources to stop a humanitarian crisis back on Earth.
ECW
The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed (Sept. 28, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77041-593-5). On a devastated future Earth where a parasitic fungus threatens the dwindling human population, an infected woman must decide between a rare shot at safety and the slim hope of rebuilding her ravaged community.
Erewhon
The Beholden by Cassandra Rose Clarke (Nov. 9, $18.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64566-025-5). The destitute De Malena sisters make a deal with a river goddess to improve their fortunes. Five years later, the goddess comes to collect, sending the sisters on a dangerous quest through the rainforest.
Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura, trans. by Philip Gabriel (Sept. 28, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-64566-040-8). Seven reluctant students are transported from modern Tokyo to a fairy tale kingdom. To survive in this strange new land, they’ll have to share their life stories.
Flame Tree
Of Kings, Queens and Colonies by Johnny Worthen (Nov. 9, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-78758-598-0) kicks off the Coronam series, which posits that humanity’s far-future space colonies will retread the history of 16th-century Europe, complete with an all-powerful church, brewing rebellions—plus the discovery of alien life.
Grand Central
Feral Creatures by Kira Jane Buxton (Aug. 24, $28, ISBN 978-1-5387-3524-4). The sequel to Hollow Kingdom revisits the postapocalyptic future where crow protagonist S.T. works to protect the last remaining unmutated human. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
Griffin
Requiem of Silence by L. Penelope (Aug. 17, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-250-14813-1) sends out the Earthsinger Chronicles series as civil unrest plagues Elsira in the wake of a refugee crisis, and former assassin Kyara prepares to take down the power hungry True Father once and for all.
Harper Voyager
King Bullet by Richard Kadrey (Aug. 17, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-295157-1). Bestseller Kadrey’s 15th and final Sandman Slim urban fantasy finds half-angel, half-human James Stark contending with a viral pandemic, a dangerous gang leader, and his own floundering personal life.
The Seventh Queen by Greta Kelly (Nov. 2, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-295699-6). Starred by PW, the epic conclusion to Kelly’s duology finds Queen Askia imprisoned by Emperor Radovan, who intends to steal her magic. To survive, she’ll need the help of the murdered witch queens who came before her.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Adams
The Undertakers by Nicole Glover (Nov. 9, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-358-19710-2). Glover’s second Murder & Magic historical fantasy returns to Reconstruction era Philadelphia, where magic wielding married couple Hetty and Benjy Rhodes investigate a series of arsons.
Knopf
Revelator by Daryl Gregory (Aug. 31, $27, ISBN 978-0-525-65738-5). In 1933, nine-year-old Stella encounters Ghostdaddy, the object of her family’s worship, near her Grandmother Motty’s Smoky Mountains town. Years later, Stella returns for Motty’s funeral—and learns some surprising secrets about the strange child Motty adopted in her later years.
MCD X Fsg Originals
This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno (Oct. 12, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-374-53923-8). Moreno’s horror debut, starred by PW, explores the nature of grief and the perils of technology as widower Thiago Alvarez encounters an evil lurking within his Alexa-esque smart speaker.
Mira
Light Years from Home by Mike Chen (Jan. 25, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-7783-1173-7). An alien abductee reappears 15 years after his disappearance, throwing his two polar-opposite sisters’ lives into chaos, reigniting old sibling rivalries, and putting them all in danger from both the FBI and an extraterrestrial army.
MIT
The Truth and Other Stories by Stanislaw Lem, trans. by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Sept. 14, $39.95, ISBN 978-0-262-04608-4), assembles 12 sci-fi shorts, nine of which are translated into English for the first time, into a “treasure trove of a collection” per our starred review.
Morrow
The Brides of Maracoor by Gregory Maguire (Oct. 12, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-309396-6) spins off Maguire’s bestselling Wicked Years series into a new trilogy following Elphaba’s green-skinned granddaughter, Rain, who washes up in remote Maracoor and must find her way home.
Orbit
The Body Scout by Lincoln Michael (Sept. 21, $27, ISBN 978-0-316-62872-3). Against the backdrop of a pandemic and climate change–ravaged future in which genetic modification is the norm, sports scout Kobo works to solve his best friend’s murder.
Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson (Oct. 26, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7595-5791-8) takes readers aboard the Ragtime, a colony ship transporting thousands of sleeping passengers to the Lagos system. When the sleepers refuse to wake, the ship’s crew is thrust into a mystery with systemwide repercussions.
The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie (Sept. 14, $30, ISBN 978-0-316-18724-4) concludes the bestselling Age of Madness grimdark fantasy trilogy as the sprawling cast contends with political and personal upheaval in the midst of bloody revolution.
PM
Utopias of the Third Kind by Vandana Singh (Jan. 4, $15 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-62963-915-4). A climate activist imprisoned in Russia, a sentient space station, and the citizens of an ancient culture are a few of the characters introduced in this sci-fi collection from Singh.
Rare Machines
Yume by Sifton Tracey Anipare (Oct. 12, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4597-4737-1). Anipare debuts with a contemporary fantasy following a Canadian teacher in Japan who gets caught up in supernatural chaos as the veil between the human and demon worlds grows thin.
Redhook
Sistersong by Lucy Holland (Oct. 19, $28, ISBN 978-0-316-32077-1). The three children of ancient Britain’s King Cador inherit nature-based magic as the Saxons threaten invasion in Holland’s historical fantasy, a riff on the murder ballad “The Twa Sisters.”
Saga
Among Thieves by M.J. Kuhn (Sept. 7, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-9821-4214-8). Ryia Cautella and the rest of the Saints of the Wharf crime syndicate find themselves in over their heads when they attempt to steal a magical quill from the Guildmaster of Thamorr.
The Veiled Throne, Vol. 3 by Ken Liu (Nov. 2, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-4814-2433-2). In Liu’s third Dandelion Dynasty epic fantasy, Princess Théra, having breached the Wall of Storms, continues onward to war while back home in Dara the Lyucu leaders and remaining members of the Dandelion Court vie for power.
Santa Fe Writer’s Project
Strange Folk You’ll Never Meet by A.A. Balaskovits (Oct. 1, $14.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-951631-13-0) brings together 21 fabulist stories in a collection PW calls “a unique must-read for fans of Angela Carter, Maria Dahvana Headley, and A.S. Byatt.”
Skybound
The Second Rebel by Linden A. Lewis (Aug. 24, $27, ISBN 978-1-9821-2702-2). Lewis’s second First Sister space opera finds First Sister Astrid fighting to stay in power, Hiro val Akira navigating a deep-space outlaw colony, and Lito sol Lucious adapting to his role as leader of the Aster rebellion.
Soho
Malefactor by Robert Repino (Aug. 24, $27, ISBN 978-1-64129-098-2) concludes the War with No Name series. In the wake of a decade-long war, human and animal soldiers must find a way to survive and build peace in the world their fighting destroyed.
Solaris
The Carnival of Ash by Tom Beckerlegge (Oct. 18, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-78618-500-6). The adult debut from YA author Beckerlegge takes readers to Cadenza, a city steeped in literature and ruled by poets, where a young wordsmith sets out to make a name for himself amid political turmoil and the looming threat of war.
St. Martin’s
The Becoming: The Dragon Heart Legacy, Book 2 by Nora Roberts (Nov. 23, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-27270-6). Former schoolteacher Breen embraces her newfound powers and status in the magical realm of Talamh even as her grandfather, a wrathful god, rallies his forces against her.
Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff (Sept. 14, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-24528-1) launches a new dark fantasy series centered on a war between vampires and humanity in a world where the sun hasn’t risen for 27 years.
Subterranean
Square³ by Mira Grant (Dec. 31, $40, ISBN 978-1-64524-053-2). Sisters are stranded on opposite sides of a rift in the fabric of reality in the latest from bestseller Seanan McGuire, writing as Grant.
Tachyon
Body Shocks, edited by Ellen Datlow (Oct. 19, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61696-360-6). This star-studded anthology, starred by PW, brings together 29 short stories that consider the horrific potential of the human body.
Titan
From the Neck Up by Aliya Whiteley (Sept. 14, $14.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78909-475-6) includes 16 speculative shorts exploring ecological horrors, human connection, gender, and aging.
Tor
Destroyer of Light by Jennifer Marie Brissett (Oct. 12, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-250-26865-5). The refugees of a destroyed Earth scrape by on the extremely stratified planet Eleusis, where the fates of an abducted girl, a set of twins searching for a missing half-alien child, and a powerful insurgent will soon collide.
The Last Shadow by Orson Scott Card (Oct. 19, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-0495-7) brings both the Ender series and the Ender’s Shadow series to their close, pitting the three intelligent species cohabitating Lusitania against a viral threat that would devastate the system if it were to breach containment.
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (Sept. 28, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-250-78906-8). A violin teacher must fulfill a Faustian bargain by delivering the soul of Katrina Nguyen, a transgender runaway and musical prodigy, to the devil in this contemporary fantasy.
Tordotcom
Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente (Oct. 26, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-250-81621-4). The heroine of bestseller Valente’s latest lives a picture-perfect life with her picture-perfect husband—until cracks start to form in the facade.
Tor Nightfire
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes (Jan. 25, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-81999-4). Twenty years after the luxury Aurora star cruiser disappeared, a salvage crew is shocked to receive a distress call from its wreckage—but horrors, not treasures, await them onboard. 100,000-copy announced first printing.
Unbound
Help the Witch by Tom Cox (Oct. 12, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78352-839-4). This collection of 10 spooky short stories draws inspiration from the folklore and landscapes of rural England.
WordFire
Neodymium Exodus by Jen Finelli (Oct. 20, $36.99, ISBN 978-1-68057-187-5). Teenage Lem’s electromagnetic powers give her a leg up in a topsy-turvy universe—until she’s captured by a zealot and forced to choose between saving the universe and the people she loves.
