Authors this season use speculative fiction to address urgent social justice issues and climate collapse, but also offer escapism in tales of dragons, deities, and derring-do.
Top 10
Bitter Medicine
Mia Tsai. Tachyon, Mar. 14 ($18.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61696-384-2)
Chronicling the romance between a descendant of a Chinese god and a half-elf secret agent, Tsai’s urban fantasy debut is “refreshing and enchanting,” per PW’s starred review.
Camp Damascus
Chuck Tingle. Nightfire, July 18 ($25.99, ISBN 978-1-250-87462-7)
Tingle, a two-time Hugo Award finalist, turns from meme-based erotica to earnest horror in his first traditionally published novel, which reveals the demonic secret beneath the surface of a conversion therapy camp. 150,000-copy announced first printing.
A Day of Fallen Night
Samantha Shannon. Bloomsbury, Feb. 28 ($35, ISBN 978-1-63557-792-1)
Set centuries before Shannon’s bestselling The Priory of the Orange Tree, this standalone prequel follows four characters whose lives are changed by the resurgence of dragons. 300,000-copy announced first printing.
Flux
Jinwoo Chong. Melville House, Mar. 21 ($26.99, ISBN 978-1-68589-034-6)
Chong’s mind- and genre-bending debut explores the Asian American experience, time travel, and pop culture.
Lone Women
Victor LaValle. One World, Mar. 21 ($27, ISBN 978-0-525-51208-0)
World Fantasy Award winner LaValle’s weird western tracks homesteader Adelaide Henry’s trek from California to Montana. With her is a mysterious trunk that must never be opened.
Our Share of Night
Mariana Enriquez, trans. by Megan McDowell. Hogarth, Feb. 7 ($28.99, ISBN 978-0-451-49514-3)
A powerful Argentine family strives to discover the secret of eternal life in Enriquez’s full-length debut, which PW’s starred review deemed “a masterpiece of literary horror.”
The Road to Roswell
Connie Willis. Del Rey, June 27 ($28, ISBN 978-0-593-49985-6)
SFWA Grand Master Willis blends extraterrestrial conspiracy theories with screwball comedy in this sci-fi romance between skeptical alien abductees.
The Ten Percent Thief
Lavanya Lakshminarayan. Solaris, Mar. 28 ($26.99, ISBN 978-1-78618-853-3)
Lakshminarayan’s mosaic debut takes readers into the heavily stratified “meritocratic technocracy” of Apex City—a dystopian world that falls apart after a thief launches a revolution.
The Thick and the Lean
Chana Porter. Saga, Apr. 18 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-66800-019-9)
Two women rebel against a cruel religion that preaches hungriness as godliness, guided by a mysterious cookbook written centuries before the start of Porter’s latest dystopian novel.
Witch King
Martha Wells. Tordotcom, May 30 ($28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-82679-4)
After the long-dead demon Kai is resurrected by a foolish lesser mage, Kai works to understand how the world has changed in his absence in Hugo Award winner Wells’s first fantasy in a decade. 200,000-copy announced first printing.
SF, Fantasy & Horror Listings
Ace
The Weaver and the Witch Queen by Genevieve Gornichec (July 25, $27, ISBN 978-0-593-43824-4). A prophecy links the lives of two very different women in the next Norse mythology–inspired historical fantasy from Gornichec.
Anchor
Sucker by Daniel Hornsby (July 11, $27, ISBN 978-0-593-46967-5). Chuck Gross, the wayward scion of a weapons tycoon, reluctantly takes a job with a biotech start-up that aims to disrupt the medical field by selling immortality-granting technology, in Hornsby’s satirical horror novel.
Angry Robot
The Judas Blossom by Stephen Aryan (July 11, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-915202-19-2). This magic-infused alternate history follows Genghis Khan’s grandson, Hulagu, on his vicious campaign to conquer the world.
World Running Down by Al Hess (Feb. 14, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-915202-23-9). Transgender salvager Valentine struggles to get by in the wasteland surrounding a utopian near-future Salt Lake City—until handsome android Osric offers him a high-risk, high-reward job retrieving runaway AI escorts.
Astra House
Uranians: Stories by Theodore McCombs (May 30, $25, ISBN 978-1-66260-194-1). The six stories in McCombs’s genre-bending debut span both centuries and worlds to offer a kaleidoscopic view of queerness through time and space.
Atria
Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling (Apr. 4, $28, ISBN 978-1-66800-756-3) unravels the interconnected mysteries of a strange new building development and a nearby research station helmed by secretive female soldiers in a climate change–ravaged near-future Canada.
Baen
For Love of Magic by Simon R. Green (May 2, $25, ISBN 978-1-982192-61-7). To save the present from the dangerous magics of the past, magic expert Jack Damian teams up with art historian Amanda Fielding and travels back in time.
Ballantine
Perilous Times by Thomas D. Lee (May 23, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-593-49901-6). In Lee’s debut, immortal figures from Arthurian legend live through centuries of human development and progress only to face a dystopian near future world plagued by ecological collapse—and dragons.
BHC
Rise of the Firebird by Amy Kuivalainen (Mar. 21, $28, ISBN 978-1-64397-334-0) sends out the Firebird Faerie Tales series as heroine Anya leads an army of rebels against darkness itself.
Blackstone
The Infinite Miles by Hannah Fergesen (June 20, $27.99, ISBN 979-8-20085008-2). A superfan of fictional TV show Infinite Voyage learns that its protagonist, the Argonaut, is real—and he’s not the hero she thought he was—in Fergesen’s debut, an ode to Dr. Who.
Brain Lag
True Reflections, edited by Catherine Fitzsimmons (Apr. 14, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-928011-94-1), brings together an array of genre-spanning short stories from transgender authors aged 25 or younger.
CamCat
The Meister of Decimen City by Brenna Raney (Mar. 7, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-7443-0770-2). Brilliant but morally gray mad scientist Rex is pulled in multiple directions when Decimen City’s superheroes try to convince her to join the fight for good even as supervillain Last Dance pressures her to embrace evil.
Daw
Dragonfall by L.R. Lam (May 2, $27, ISBN 978-0-7564-1841-0) opens an epic fantasy trilogy with the return of godlike dragons to a world in peril. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
Del Rey
The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro (Apr. 18, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-49969-6). A depressed woman learns that her family line has been cursed by the Mexican folk legend La Llorona in this intergenerational horror novel.
Thief Liar Lady by D.L. Soria (June 6, $27, ISBN 978-0-593-35805-4) recasts Cinderella as a clever con artist working with her stepfamily to seize wealth and power from the throne using illegal magic.
ECW
The Marigold by Andrew F. Sullivan (Apr. 18, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77041-664-2). Toxic mold spreads through a near-future Toronto, connecting the lives of a public health inspector, a rideshare driver, a 13-year-old girl, and a real estate developer attempting to tap into ancient magic.
Flatiron
The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei (July 18, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-87533-4). Humanity flees the devastated Earth for a fresh start in the stars—but a terrorist attack aboard the generation ship ferrying them to their new home derails the mission and fractures the crew.
Grand Central
The Carnivale of Curiosities by Aimee Gibbs (July 11, $29, ISBN 978-1-5387-2393-7). The magical proprietor of a Victorian era circus is forced into a Faustian bargain in Gibbs’s debut. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
Harper
The Destroyer of Worlds: A Return to Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff (Feb. 21, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-325689-7) continues the story of a Black family of travel writers living in an alternate Jim Crow era U.S. that teems with cosmic horrors. 75,000-copy announced first printing.
Harper Voyager
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty (Mar. 7, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-296350-5). A retired pirate reunites her crew for one last adventure—saving a kidnapped girl from a powerful sorcerer—in this swashbuckling historical fantasy.
The Blood Gift by N.E. Davenport (Apr. 18, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-305853-8) concludes the Blood Gift duology as fugitive warrior Ikenna sets out to kill the Blood Emperor and put an end to his oppressive reign.
Head of Zeus
Quantum Radio by A.G. Riddle (Mar. 2, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-80328-169-8). Scientist Ty Vogel discovers a mysterious coded message within CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Riddle’s latest sci-fi thriller.
MCD X Fsg Originals
The Insatiable Volt Sisters by Rachel Eve Moulton (Apr. 4, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-374-53832-3). Estranged sisters reunite for their father’s funeral on the mysterious island where they spent their eccentric childhoods, in Moulton’s sophomore horror novel.
Meerkat
The Merry Dredgers by Jeremy C. Shipp (Mar. 21, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-946154-46-0). Seraphina’s investigation into her sister’s coma leads her to a cult that operates out of an abandoned amusement park. To find answers, she’ll have to infiltrate its upper echelons.
Morrow
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi (Feb. 14, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-320650-2). The unnamed narrator of bestselling YA author Chokshi’s first adult fantasy marries an ethereal woman with a mysterious past that comes back to haunt the couple—literally.
Psyche and Eros by Luna McNamara (May 30, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-329507-0). McNamara’s debut riffs on Greek mythology to deliver a love story between a mortal warrior woman and a jaded elder god.
Mythic Delirium
Like Smoke, Like Light: Stories by Yukimi Ogawa (June 20, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-956522-00-6). Ogawa debuts with a collection of interconnected speculative shorts drawing on Japanese folklore and legend.
Nightfire
Maeve Fly by CJ Leede (June 6, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-85785-9). The eponymous heroine of Leede’s debut goes from her day job as an amusement park princess to far gorier nighttime pursuits inspired by her favorite literary killers. 125,000-copy announced first printing.
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw (May 2, $21.99, ISBN 978-1-250-83091-3) follows a murderous mermaid and a mysterious doctor as they stumble on a strange village with a bloody local tradition. 125,000-copy announced first printing.
Orbit
The Bone Shard War by Andrea Stewart (Apr. 18, $29, ISBN 978-0-316-54151-0) sends out the Drowning Empire trilogy with an epic final battle that sees Emperor Lin desperate to keep her family’s dynasty from falling.
The Sun and the Void by Gabriela Romero Lacruz (July 25, $29, ISBN 978-0-316-33644-4). Servant girl Reina makes a deal with an ancient deity to stay in the proximity of the person she loves—young noblewoman Celeste—in Lacruz’s epic fantasy debut.
Penguin Books
The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson (June 6, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-14-313715-3) expands on the world of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven as the returning cast of witches navigate both contemporary British politics and their shifting relationships with one another.
Polis
Killing It by Mike Bockoven (May 23, $28, ISBN 978-1-957957-19-7). Four up-and-coming comedians become trapped in a haunted New York City comedy club, in the latest from Bockoven.
Raw Dog Screaming
Vial Thoughts by Van Essler (May 11, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-947879-54-6) combines horror and steampunk tropes to take readers into the Age of Awareness, a time of knowledge and enlightenment that hides a dark secret.
Redhook
The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill by Rowenna Miller (Apr. 11, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-316-37847-5). Alaine Fairborn makes a deal with the Fae to save her sister from an abusive marriage, in this standalone historical fantasy from the author of the Unraveled Kingdom series.
Saga
The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud (Mar. 21, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-5344-4995-4). Set on Mars in an alternate 1931, Ballingrud’s full-length debut follows a young girl on a quest for vengeance against the gang that tore apart her family.
Scribner
The Curator by Owen King (Mar. 7, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-982196-80-6). Bestseller King takes readers to a Victorianesque fantasy city in the midst of revolution. There, Dora takes a job at a mystical museum, hoping to use the position to investigate her brother’s death.
Seagull
24 Hours with Gaspar by Sabda Armandio, trans. by Lara Norgaard (May 6, $24.50, ISBN 978-1-80309-204-1). A mystery novelist seeks inspiration for his next work in the submerged near-future Jakarta, Indonesia, in this sci-fi crime novel.
Small Beer
Lost Places: And Other Stories by Sarah Pinsker (Mar. 21, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61873-199-9). The second genre-bending collection from Hugo and Nebula award winner Pinsker explores music, memory, and magic.
Solaris
And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Mar. 28, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-78618-879-3). Television presenter Harry Bodie is sucked into the shockingly dark world of his grandmother’s bestselling children’s books in this portal fantasy from the Arthur C. Clarke Award winner.
Tachyon
The Legend of Charlie Fish by Josh Rountree (July 25, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61696-394-1). Rountree’s weird western debut follows Floyd Betts as he works to protect the two mystical orphans and one monstrous fish man that he’s reluctantly taken under his wing.
Thomas & Mercer
Mothered by Zoje Stage (Mar. 1, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-66250-624-6). The relationship between a mother and her adult daughter dissolves as they’re forced to quarantine together during a pandemic in Stage’s latest horror novel.
Titan
Unquiet by E. Saxey (July 18, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-80336-446-9). A man returns from the dead in 1893 London, setting his sister-in-law on a quest to uncover the truth of what happened to him.
Tor
Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini (May 16, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-86248-8) takes readers to Talos VII, where a team of misfit researchers set out to understand who—or what—created a mysterious chasm in the planet’s surface. 400,000-copy announced first printing.
He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan (June 20, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-62182-5) concludes the story of Zhu Yuanzhang—which began with She Who Became the Sun—as she vies to become emperor of China. 200,000-copy announced first printing.
Tordotcom
The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon (June 27, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-82154-6). The prodigal chosen child of a mad robot god is forced back into the fold in Candon’s first Downworld Sequence novel. 125,000-copy announced first printing.
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (July 11, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-84738-6). In a city full of unopenable mystical doors, a man raised to be a weapon against his sainted father rejects his calling to walk a different path. 100,000-copy announced first printing.
Unbound
Lost & Found by Elizabeth Garner, illus. by Phoebe Connolly (Mar. 7, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-80018-123-6), retells 15 lesser-known folk and fairy tales.
Univ. of Massachusetts
The Songs of Betty Baach by Glenn Taylor (Mar. 31, $20.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-62534-730-5). Presented as the memoir of the eponymous immortal heroine, Taylor’s latest travels from colonial West Virginia to a near-future America facing both climate collapse and political upheaval.
WordFire
Opening Wonders by Rajnar Vajra (May 2, $21.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-68057-465-4) takes readers to the Crossroads World, a place where myriad alternate universes overlap, alongside Prof. David Goldberg, who’s been tasked by Earth’s governments with observing the Crossroads’ rulers, an extremely advanced species called the Common.
