New & Notable, February 2025
Samantha Allen, Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet (Zando 12/24). In this paranormal romance novel, protagonist Adam, who’s out and proud but also down on his luck, is commissioned to write the autobiography (and coming-out) of Hollywood hunk Roland Rogers. The twist is that Rogers is already dead, communicating frantically through his kitchen speaker. Adam must complete the project before Rogers’ body is found.
Kelley Armstrong, Schemes & Scandals (Subterranean Press 12/24). The popular series A Rip Through Time continues in this time-travel mystery novella. Mallory Atkinson (a traveler from the present day) spends the holiday in Victorian-era Scotland. As the Hogmanay holiday ramps up, and with a cast of characters including Charles Dickens, Mallory has to help a troublesome woman who’s being blackmailed.
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Maurice Broaddus, Breath of Oblivion (Tor 11/24). This is an afrofuturist space opera SF novel, epic in scope and second in the Astra Black trilogy. Characters across the Muungano Empire—a collection of city-states throughout the solar system—struggle against extraterrestrial forces and human evil, taking on challenges from alien ships to a Panopticon prison to the Dreaming City on the moon. Nedine Moonsamy’s review highlights its complexity and themes of how Black culture “endures to build community and to bring levity and hope into a troubled universe.”
Ellen Datlow, ed., The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Sixteen (Night Shade 11/24). Noted horror editor Datlow brings us her year’s best anthology, with 19 stories by authors including Ramsey Campbell, Tananarive Due, Brian Evenson, Christopher Golden, Stephen Graham Jones, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Priya Sharma, Steve Rasnic Tem, E. Catherine Tobler.
Nalo Hopkinson, Blackheart Man (Saga 8/24). Veycosi is a student training as a griot (a kind of bard-historian-scholar) in a Caribbean-inspired fantasy. On his island of Chynchin, things aren’t good – ancient armies imprisoned in tar are awakening, led by an entity known as the Blackheart Man. Gary K. Wolfe’s review calls it “downright magical” and praised the error-prone Veycosi. Locus profiled Hopkinson last year.
Miye Lee, The Dallergut Dream Department Store (Hanover Square 7/24). Sandy Joosun Lee translates this charming Korean fantasy novel. This magical, surreal novel follows Penny, an enthusiastic new worker at the
titular store. She learns how dreams are made and meets other employees, from the dream makers to the boss himself, as well as customers searching for just the right dream.
Jeff Noon & Steve Beard, Ludluda (Angry Robot 12/3). The weird urban world of Ludwich is back in this sequel to Gogmagog. Fresh off past adventures, ship captain Cady has to find a ten-year-old girl who seems to be entangled in dark prophecies, the city itself, and the great dragon Haakenur. Paul di Fillipo’s review says it has the “primo taste” of New Weird fiction; Ian Mond’s review of Gogmagog commended the worldbuilding as “disorienting,” “fun,” and “brazen.”
Lora Senf, The Losting Fountain (Union Square Kids 12/24). YA dark portal fantasy novel about three kids from different times, who are all called the Losting Fountain. The Fountain is a gateway to a parallel dimension, in which lost things can be found and strange entities roam and punish evildoers. But the balance between worlds has been upset, and the kids have to stop the Fountain world from breaking through.
Aiden Thomas, Celestial Monsters (Feiwel and Friends 9/24). Inspired by Mexican lore, this YA fantasy adventure concludes The Sunbearer duology. In this adventure, young hero Teo has to team up with his friends and crush as the young semidioses try to stop the Obsidian Gods and return the sun
to the sky.
Ursula Whitcher, North Continent Ribbon (Neon Hemlock (8/24). Six interconnected stories (the author’s first collection) take us to a strange version of the far future. They deal with questions of humanity, precarity, and AI, much of it centered on contract ‘‘ribbons’’ and the ‘‘consciences’’ of machines.
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