New & Notable

David Afsharirad, ed., The Year’s Best Military & Adventure SF, Volume 5 (Baen 6/19) Exactly what it says on the tin, with a dozen thrilling tales from the top writers in the field, including Suzanne Palmer, Christo­pher Ruocchio, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and others, and an introduction by David Weber. Plus, readers choose one story from the anthology for The Best Military and Adventure Science Fiction Readers’ Choice Award, presented at ...Read More

Ted Chiang, Exhalation (Knopf 5/19) The second collection (after 2002’s Stories of Your Life and Oth­ers) by one of our most celebrated and award-winning writers features nine stories (a third of them Hugo Award winners), including originals “Omphalos” and “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom”. These stories “have much the same kind of appeal of Borges’s most provocative tales – not without feeling and empathy, but, fundamentally, explorations of ...Read More

Nathan Ballingrud, Wounds (Saga 4/19) This collection – “Six Stories from the Border of Hell” – gathers some of the author’s best dark work, including original story “The Butcher’s Tale” and “The Visible Filth” (2015), adapted as 2019 horror film Wounds. His first collection, North American Lake Monsters (2013), won a Shirley Jackson Award and was nominated for British Fantasy, Stoker, and World Fantasy Awards.

Ashok K. Banker, ...Read More

Elizabeth Bear, Ancestral Night (Saga 3/19) A thrill­ing space adventure from the Hugo Award-winning author, following salvagers Connla and Haimey Dz (and their cats) from the black hole at the center of the Milky Way to the galactic fringes as they encounter pirates, the corpse of a giant space-dwelling alien, and agents of the galaxy-spanning Synarche. The first in the new White Space series.

Zen Cho, The True Queen ...Read More

Charlie Jane Anders, The City in the Middle of the Night (Tor 2/19) Charlie Jane Anders’s new SF novel about humans who colonize the narrow temperate zone of a tidally locked planet is a change of pace from her Nebula Award winning debut, All the Birds in the Sky, but still showcases one of Anders’s main strengths – complex characterization. “The real energy of the novel derives from the ...Read More

Katherine Arden, The Winter of the Witch (Del Rey 1/19) In the concluding volume of the Winternight Trilogy, following The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower, a young witch named Vasilisa Petrovna and Morozko the winter-king battle evil forces in order to save a magical 14th-century Russia.

Josiah Bancroft, The Hod King (Orbit 1/19) Third in the Books of Babel quartet in which a ...Read More

M.R. Carey, Someone Like Me (Orbit 11/18) From the author of The Girl with All the Gifts, this psychological thriller follows Liz Kendall, a mother-of-two with a violent alter ego, and Fran Watts, a sixteen-year-old with the ability to see both of Liz’s personalities at the same time.

Scott Edelman, Tell Me Like You Done Before: And Other Stories Written on the Shoulders of Giants (Lethe 12/18) Collection ...Read More

Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping (DAW 11/18) Detective Constable (and apprentice wizard) Peter Grant has to deal with some major new developments as he hunts the Faceless Man and ends up confronting an old (very old) foe in this thrilling seventh book in the Rivers of London urban fantasy series. (Published simultaneously in the UK by Gollancz.)

Aliette de Bodard, In the Vanishers’ Palace (JABberwocky Literary Agency 10/18) “Beauty and ...Read More

Dale Bailey, In the Night Wood (John Joseph Adams 10/18) This tale of literary horror concerns Erin, the descendant of a famous children’s book author, who inherits the family estate. In mourning with her husband over the loss of their daughter, things get worse when they begin to see a grim figure from her ancestor’s book. “The prose is genuinely good, the setting is genuinely creepy, and the hints of ...Read More

Peter F. Hamilton, Salvation (Del Rey 9/18) Space opera, intrigue, and complex worldbuilding fill this first novel in the Salvation Sequence, a trilogy following three timelines ranging from less than 200 years ahead to the far future, this time focusing on investigators studying a crashed alien spaceship with a sinister cargo discovered in 2204 at the edge of human space.

Joanne M. Harris, The Testament of Loki (Saga Press ...Read More

Robert Jackson Bennett, Foundryside (Crown 8/18) Bennett’s new fantasy series, The Founders, focuses on the powerful city of Tevanne, controlled by four merchant houses using a imperfectly understood magic system. Sancia, a young thief with strange powers, steals a talking key that can open any door, and mayhem (sometime spectacular) ensues, revealing more of the fascinatingly complex magic system along the way.

Michael Bishop, The Sacerdotal Owl and Three ...Read More

B. Catling, The Cloven (Vintage 7/18) The final volume in the dark historical fantasy Vorrh trilogy (after The Vorrh and The Erstwhile) brings this ambitious and unpredictable series to a moving conclusion. Afrikaner socialite Cyrena Lohr mourns the death of her cyclops lover Ishmael and has a dalliance with naturalist Eugène Marais, who gives her a gift that allows her visions of another world… while Nicholas the Erstwhile senses ...Read More

Rachel Armstrong, Origamy (NewCon Press 4/18) Science taken to extremes – with a hint of Italo Calvino – infuses this fascinating and thoroughly unconventional tale of Mobius, an adolescent be­ing forced by an accident to re-learn the art of weaving spacetime, during which she uncovers something that threatens the fabric of the universe. “Origamy is larded thickly with real science – albeit speculatively extended along semi-gonzo vectors – it’s ...Read More

Michael Blumlein, All I Ever Dreamed (Valancourt 5/18) Blumlein’s latest collection offers 18 varied stories from 1993-2016, with notes on each by the author, who stretches the boundaries of SF, fantasy, and horror, frequently using his knowledge of medicine to address the possibilities and consequences of new biological technology.

Lara Elena Donnelly, Armistice (Tor 5/18) Glamorous film stars, revolutionaries, and spies mix in a lush tropical country on the ...Read More

Alex Bledsoe, The Fairies of Sadieville (Tor 4/18) This is the sixth and final volume of the Tufa series, begun with The Hum and the Shiver (2011), about a hidden community of people descended from fairy folk living the modern Appalachian mountains. Film students Justin and Veronica discover a silent film that’s more than a century old, depicting a young woman transforming into a winged creature, and set off on ...Read More

Tomi Adeyemi, Children of Blood and Bone (Holt 3/18) West African lore infuses this young-adult fantasy novel, the first book in the Legacy of Orisha trilogy and a first novel gathering considerable acclaim. Zélie fights to reclaim her people’s magic and stop the monarchy’s ruthless efforts to eradicate it.

Elizabeth Bear, Stone Mad (Tor.com Publishing 3/18) The steampunk Old West fantasy adventures of Karen Memory continue in this rollicking ...Read More

Kelly Barnhill, Dreadful Young Ladies (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2/18) Newbery Medal winner Barnhill’s first collection presents nine fantastic stories for adults, infused by her very distinctive, poetic voice, with tales full of fairytale elements, interesting insects, and ladies who refuse to follow the rules, including the title character of the quirkily dystopian novella, “The Unlicensed Magician”.

Paolo Bacigalupi & Tobias S. Buckell, The Tangled Lands (Saga 2/18) ...Read More

Nick Harkaway, Gnomon (Knopf 1/18) The world of Gnomon is the ultimate panopticon surveillance state, with every word and action recorded, and the overarching authority of the System can even access the memories and thoughts of its citizens. When an alleged dissident dies during an interrogation, a state inspector delves into the victim’s mind, and discovers impossible memories of various lives… and a cipher that could reveal world-altering secrets. Harkaway ...Read More

Katherine Arden, The Girl in the Tower (Del Rey 12/17) This enchanting follow-up to the stunning debut The Bear and the Nightingale continues the Winternight series, inspired by Russian folk tales and legends. Heroine Vasilia rejects the acceptable paths of marriage or the convent in favor of an unlikely third option: dressing as a boy and setting off on horseback for adventure, and in the process, she comes to the ...Read More

Chris Brookmyre, Places in the Darkness (Orbit 11/17) A novelist noted for his mysteries and crime novels (as Christopher Brookmyre), the author here mixes plenty of hard SF with mystery in a complex tale of murder and memory manipulation set on a space station where rival groups build test designs for the great colony ship that will carry mankind to the stars.

S.A. Chakraborty, The City of Brass (Harper ...Read More

Paolo Bacigalupi, Tool of War (Little, Brown 10/17) This concluding volume in the series begun with Ship Breaker focuses on Tool, the bioengineered “aug­ment” half-man, half-beast from earlier in the series, who broke his obedience conditioning to lead a pack of soldier boys in a war against his wealthy masters. “Grandly concludes a trilogy which is as thrilling and thought-provoking as anything in recent young-adult SF.” [Gary K. Wolfe]

  ...Read More

Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust (Harper Voyager US/Gollancz UK 9/17) Robots rule the world in this action-filled, post-apocalyptic SF novel, a “robot western” set in a world where robots wiped out mankind years before. Brittle scavenges the wastelands for parts, one of a dwindling few determined not to join the shared consciousness of the One World Intelligences warring for dominance.

Jeffrey Ford, The Twilight Pariah (Tor.com Publishing 9/17) College ...Read More

Nina Allan, The Rift (Titan US 7/17) Allan explores the difficulty of sifting truth from tales and memories in this novel, mingling elements of tantalizing mystery and SF in the story of a woman who hears from a sister who disappeared 20 years previously, and now claims to have traveled by rift to another world. Parts of her story are told as pure SF, while glimpses of the past show ...Read More

Michael Bishop, Other Arms Reach Out to Me: Georgia Stories (Fairwood Press/Kudzu Planet Productions Jun 2017)

One of our most lyrical and literary authors has collected his stories set in Georgia, or about Georgians, with work reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor. This has an author’s note; an introduction by professor Hugh Ruppersburg, ‘‘Beyond Regionalism’’; and 15 stories, including Nebula Award finalist ‘‘Rattlesnakes and Men’’ and two originals.

Eric Brown, Binary System ...Read More

Callie Bates, The Waking Land (Del Rey Jul 2017)

This fantasy first novel by a promising new talent begins a new trilogy, following teenage Lady Elanna, who flees her home after being accused of murdering the king, dis­covers her own wild nature magic, and joins a rebellion.

Curtis C. Chen, Kangaroo Too (St. Martin’s/Dunne Jun 2017)

This sequel to funny SF novel Waypoint Kangaroo continues the tale of the title ...Read More

Kelley Armstrong, Lost Souls (Subterranean Press Mar 2017)

Armstrong returns to the world of her popular Cainsville series for this novella of lawyer Gabriel Walsh, investigating a report of what sounds like a typical tale of a “disappearing hitchhiker,” hoping to dig up enough to intrigue and smooth things over with his investigator Olivia Taylor-Jones – only the story isn’t exactly the old urban legend he expected. A spirited tale ...Read More

Alex Bledsoe, Gather Her Round (Tor Mar 2017)

The latest novel in the Tufa series continues to reveal largely unexplored corners of American fantasy, with the fae Tufa living alongside people in remote areas of the Appalachians. When Tufa woman Kera Rog­ers is found dead and half devoured, followed soon by the death of her secret lover, the other Tufa have to unravel the mystery and stop a monstrous force ...Read More

Gwenda Bond, Girl in the Shadows (Amazon/Skyscape Jul 2016)

In the second volume in the Cirque American series, after Girl on a Wire, aspiring magician Moira Mitchell defies her father, a stage illusionist who disapproves of her career dreams, by using a purloined invitation to trick her way into joining the Cirque American. Ten­sions rise as her skills are tested, and Moira discovers there may be more to her ...Read More

Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale (Ballantine Del Rey Jan 2017)

This thoroughly enchanting debut fantasy draws on Russian folklore and history. Vasilia lives with her father in the Russian wilder­ness, but when her new stepmother forbids the family to honor household spirits, things begin to go disastrously wrong, and it’s up to Vasilia to save the family using gifts long kept secret. ‘‘A particularly enchanting version of an ...Read More

Lauren Beukes, Slipping: Stories, Essays & Other Writing (Tachyon Publications Nov 2016)

Beukes’s first collection presents a lively mix of 19 stories, a set of Twitter mash-up stories, a poem, and five non-fiction pieces. ‘‘Beukes writes with passion and a hot immediacy, employing demotic prose that often attains a gritty poetry…. the book can only enhance her reputation in the field.’’ [Paul di Filippo]

Michael Chabon, Moonglow (Harper Nov 2016) ...Read More