Everything old is new again as descendants of legendary authors reboot, revisit, and reimagine their predecessors’ works, and long-running series get sequels and prequels.
Top 10
Ball Lightning
Cixin Liu, trans. by Joel Martinsen. Tor, Aug. 14
Liu, a star of Chinese science fiction whose The Three-Body Problem was the first translated novel to win a Hugo, pulls out all the stops for this dramatic story of technological innovation and moral conundrums.
Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat
Anne Rice. Knopf, Oct. 2
Rice returns to the series that made her name with a new novel of Prince Lestat reminiscing about his early years and how he came to rule the vampire world.
Dracul
Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker. Putnam, Oct. 2
Stoker, assisted by novelist Barker, entertainingly novelizes the origin story of Dracula, suggesting that it was based on Bram Stoker’s personal experiences with a terrifying supernatural entity.
Dragon’s Code: Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern
Gigi McCaffrey. Del Rey, Oct. 2
Fans of the late Anne McCaffrey’s beloved Dragonriders of Pern series, a mix of SF and fantasy that had tremendous influence on the genre, will be very pleased to see her daughter reviving it for the 21st century.
The Fall of Gondolin
J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, illus. by Alan Lee. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Aug. 30
The younger Tolkien continues assembling his late father’s manuscripts into stories that form the backbone of the legendary Middle-Earth books.
Foundryside
Robert Jackson Bennett. Crown, Aug. 21
Iconoclastic fantasist Bennett is in top form for this fantasy heist novel, which digs into social issues around industry, labor, wealth, and power while also being a cracking good yarn.
I Am Behind You
John Ajvide Lindqvist. St. Martin’s, Oct. 16
A horror novel from Lindqvist is always a treat, and this one ventures deep into the metaphysical and metaphorical as four ordinary families are whisked away to a strange artificial world.
Noumenon Infinity
Marina J. Lostetter. Harper Voyager, Aug. 14
Lostetter follows the acclaimed Noumenon with a dramatic shift from generation-ship saga to space opera, demonstrating that she remains at the forefront of “big ideas” SF.
Timeless: A Drizzt Novel
R.A. Salvatore. Harper Voyager, Sept. 18
Salvatore’s tales of dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden were major works of late-20th-century fantasy, and this prequel brings Drizzt and the Underdark to a new generation of readers.
Uncompromising Honor
David Weber. Baen, Oct. 2
Weber’s fans will be thrilled to see the first Honor Harrington book in five years, continuing one of the all-time favorite military SF series.
SF, Fantasy & Horror Listings
47North
The Guardian by Sarah Fine (Oct. 23, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-5039-0483-5). Ernestine “Ernie” Terwilliger is a fairly normal young woman with an almost normal life. Then she’s hurled into a land where the Immortal Dealers are waging a battle between good and evil, and the inexperienced Ernie places the wrong bet on the right guy at the worst time.
Abaddon
Green Jay and Crow by DJ Daniels (Dec. 11, trade paper, $9.99, ISBN 978-1-78108-644-5). Eva, the Green Jay, is a “body double”—disposable and printed from plant matter. She has managed to stay alive past her expiration date, but her life is still precarious, and her survival hangs on someone she may not be able to trust.
Ace
Breach by W.L. Goodwater (Nov. 6, trade paper, $16, ISBN 978-0-451-49103-9) is the first novel in an alternate Cold War fantasy series in which the Berlin Wall is made entirely of magic. When a breach unexpectedly appears in the wall, spies from both sides swarm to the city as WWIII threatens to spark.
Mecha Samurai Empire by Peter Tieryas (Sept. 18, trade paper, $16, ISBN 978-0-451-49099-5) follows United States of Japan with the story of a young man in Japan-occupied California who dreams of piloting a giant robot.
Angry Robot
Time’s Children by D.B. Jackson
(Oct. 2, trade paper, $12.99, ISBN 978-0-85766-791-5). A teenage time traveler trapped in an adult body in his world’s violent past must protect the orphaned child of a murdered sovereign and find a way home.
Arcade
City of Ash and Red by Hye-Young Pyun, trans. by Sora Kim-Russell (Nov. 6, hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-62872-781-4). A rat killer is sent to C, a country descending into chaos and paranoia, swept by a contagious disease, and flooded with trash. Suspected of murder, he must struggle to survive in the streets of this foreign city gripped with fear of contamination.
Atria
The Mansion by Ezekiel Boone (Dec. 4, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-5011-6550-4). A family moves into a home equipped with the world’s most intelligent, cutting-edge, and intuitive computer ever—but a buried secret leads to terrifying and catastrophic consequences.
Baen
Uncompromising Honor by David Weber (Oct. 2, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-1-4814-8350-6) is the long-awaited latest Honor Harrington novel, in which Honor takes on the corruption at the heart of the interstellar Solarian League. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
Berkley
Serpentine by Laurell K. Hamilton (Aug. 7, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-0-425-25568-1). Anita Blake and her fellow vampire hunters reunite for a destination wedding, only to have it interrupted by someone murdering hotel guests.
Blackstone
100 Fathoms Below by Steven L. Kent and Nicholas Kaufmann (Oct. 9, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-5385-0763-6). In 1983, a U.S. nuclear submarine embarks on a classified spy mission. Trapped in enemy territory and hunted by Soviet submarines, tensions escalate and crew members turn on each other. Then the lights go out, and horror fills the corridors.
Chicago Review
Snail on the Slope by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, trans. by Olena Bormashenko (Aug. 1, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-61373-754-5), is the first English translation based on the complete manuscript. The Strugatskys’ Kafkaesque novel is intentionally confusing and disorienting, throwing standard narrative techniques and conventions out the window in favor of wild experimentation.
Chizine
Broken Sun, Broken Moon by Brent Hayward (Jan. 15, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-77148-476-3) is horror and fantasy author Hayward’s first short story collection, containing 10 stories spanning his career and a new novella.
Crown
Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett (Aug. 21, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-1-5247-6036-6). Bennett’s stunning new fantasy, the first in a series, is set in a world where the wheels of industry are powered by scrivers who use sigils to make augmented devices that defy reality—and the world’s fate now rests on one young thief’s diminutive shoulders.
DAW
Night and Silence by Seanan McGuire (Sept. 4, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-7564-1476-4) is the first hardcover installment of the bestselling Toby Daye urban fantasy series. In Toby’s 12th adventure, her fragile self-made family is on the verge of coming apart—and then she’s accused of kidnapping her own child.
Del Rey
Dark Age: Book 5 of the Red Rising Saga by Pierce Brown (Sept. 11, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-0-425-28594-7) continues the story of revolution and upheaval on near-future Mars.
Dragon’s Code: Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern by Gigi McCaffrey (Oct. 2, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-1-101-96474-3). McCaffrey reboots her late mother’s foundational science fiction series with a tale of social unrest on Pern, where the working classes are starting to resent the dragonriders.
Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton (Sept. 4, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-0-399-17876-4) is a hard SF series launch set in 2204. As linked jump gates allow human expansion into the wider galaxy, the discovery of a crashed alien spaceship with strange cargo sets dramatic events in motion.
Doubleday
Bad Man by Dathan Auerbach (Aug. 7, hardcover, $26.95, ISBN 978-0-385-54292-0). A young man is forced to take a job at the store where his kid brother disappeared into thin air, and strange and creepy events soon escalate into terror.
Exterminating Angel
Report to Megalopolis by Tod Davies, illus. by Mike Madrid (Aug. 25, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-935259-31-2). The fourth History of Arcadia novel explores the drama of Aspern Grayling, whose obsession with creating a new life form could destroy his whole world.
Gollancz
Austral by Paul McAuley (Oct. 9, trade paper, $13.99, ISBN 978-1-4732-1732-4). In this near-future eco-thriller, the Antarctic Peninsula is home to Earth’s newest nation. Austral, a posthuman “husky” adapted to the cold, takes a teen hostage and now must evade a gang so she can collect the ransom.
Harper Perennial
Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink (Oct. 30, hardcover, $19.99, ISBN 978-0-06-284413-2). Welcome to Night Vale coauthor Fink goes solo for a fast-paced supernatural thriller about a truck driver searching across America for the wife she had long assumed to be dead.
Harper Voyager
Hollywood Dead: A Sandman Slim Novel by Richard Kadrey (Aug. 28, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-06-247417-9). James Stark, also known as Sandman Slim, is partially back from the dead and hoping to earn his way all the way back to life in his terrifically over-the-top 10th magical slugfest.
Noumenon Infinity by Marina J. Lostetter (Aug. 14, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-0-06-249786-4). The ambitious and effective sequel to Noumenon spans thousands of years, generations of people, and experiences outside human understanding in a virtuoso piece of plotting.
Timeless: A Drizzt Novel by R.A. Salvatore (Sept. 18, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-268859-0) opens a prequel fantasy trilogy that explores the history of the Underdark and the backstory of Salvatore’s fan-favorite creation, dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden.
Head of Zeus
False Lights by K.J. Whittaker (Oct. 1, trade paper, $12.95, ISBN 978-1-78669-536-9). Napoleon has won the Battle of Waterloo, and England is under French occupation. A half-drowned girl washes up on a Cornish beach, escaping French soldiers. An aristocratic soldier-spy plans to spring the Duke of Wellington from captivity. Together, they become enmeshed in a web of treachery and espionage.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The Fall of Gondolin by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, illus. by Alan Lee (Aug. 30, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-1-328-61304-2). Following Beren and Lúthien, Christopher Tolkien uses the same “history in sequence” mode to write what J.R.R. Tolkien called “the first real story of this imaginary world.” 250,000-copy announced first printing.
HMH/Adams
Creatures of Want and Ruin by Molly Tanzer (Nov. 13, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-328-71025-3). Amityville baywoman Ellie West fishes by day and bootlegs moonshine by night. When wealthy strangers ask her to procure libations for an extravagant party, Ellie sells them everything she has—including booze distilled from foul mushrooms by a cult of diabolists.
In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey (Oct. 9, hardcover, $23, ISBN 978-1-328-49443-6). In this contemporary fantasy, the grieving biographer of a Victorian fantasist finds himself slipping inexorably into the supernatural world that consumed his subject.
Inkshares
Violet by Scott Thomas (Oct. 9, trade paper, $15.99, ISBN 978-1-947848-36-8). When Kris Parker was 10 years old, her unearthly imaginary friend, Violet, comforted her after her mother’s death. Twenty years later, Kris brings her young daughter to the lake house to recover from another family tragedy—and learns to her horror that Violet has been waiting years to play with her again.
Kensington
Epidemic of the Living Dead by John Russo (Aug. 28, trade paper, $12.95, ISBN 978-1-4967-1666-8). Russo, screenwriter of the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, writes of a zombie plague spread through infected needles and passed along to the next generation in the womb.
Knopf
Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat by Anne Rice (Oct. 2, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-5247-3264-6) continues the saga of Prince Lestat as he tells how he came to rule the vampire world and recalls his eternal struggle to find a place in the universe for the undead. 250,000-copy announced first printing.
Lake Union
Daughters of the Lake by Wendy Webb (Nov. 1, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-5039-0082-0). After the end of her marriage, Kate Granger retreats to her parents’ home on Lake Superior—only to discover the body of a murdered woman, whom Kate recognizes from her dreams. As Kate is drawn into a 100-year-old tragedy, she promises to right the wrongs of the past.
Library of America
The Future Is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women, from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin, edited by Lisa Yaszek (Sept. 25, hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-59853-580-8). Space opera heroines, gender-bending aliens, postapocalyptic pregnancies, changeling children, and much more populate this collection of 1920s–1960s science fiction by American women. 25,000-copy announced first printing.
Lyrical
Rattus New Yorkus by Hunter Shea (Aug. 21, e-book, $1.99, ISBN 978-1-5161-0794-0). A rodenticide intended to sterilize New York’s rats instead leads them to grow bigger and more deadly, until they form a hive mind and threaten the city from their massive lair beneath Grand Central Station.
Mandel Vilar
Zion’s Fiction: A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature, edited by Sheldon Teitelbaum and Emanuel Lottem, illus. by Avi Katz (Sept. 25, trade paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-942134-52-7), showcases the best Israeli science fiction and fantasy literature published since the 1980s, with some stories written in English and some translated from Hebrew and Russian.
MCD
The Bus on Thursday by Shirley Barrett (Sept. 18, trade paper, $15, ISBN 978-0-374-11044-4). A woman diagnosed with breast cancer goes on a postsurgical retreat to a remote Australian town and learns that demons may be responsible for her illness.
Mira
Cast in Oblivion by Michelle Sagara (Jan. 29, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-0-7783-0784-6). In the 14th Chronicles of Elantra fantasy, series heroine Kaylin is sent to the West March to rescue captives, and accidentally starts a war. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
New York Review Books
Moderan by David R. Bunch (Aug. 14, trade paper, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-68137-254-9) collects chilling and prescient stories about ecological apocalypse, artificial intelligence, and the merging of human and machine in an effort to survive.
Night Shade
Not One of Us: Stories of First Contact and Aliens on Earth, edited by Neil Clarke (Nov. 6, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-59780-957-3). Humans come face to face with extraterrestrial life in this reprint anthology that collects tales of first contact, assimilation, fear of the other, group identity, and human nature.
Orbit
Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri (Nov. 13, trade paper, $15.99, ISBN 978-0-316-44971-7) is a debut fantasy inspired by Mughal India. In an empire built on the dreams of enslaved gods, a nobleman’s daughter with magic in her blood comes to the attention of the emperor’s most feared mystics. If she fails to resist them, the gods may come seeking vengeance.
Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson (Oct. 23, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-0-316-26237-8). It is 25 years since China established the first colony on the moon, and the lives of three people collide in events that reverberate all the way to Earth.
Tiamat’s Wrath by James S.A. Corey (Dec. 4, hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-0-316-33287-3) is the eighth novel in the bestselling interplanetary thriller series.
PM
The Beatrix Gates by Rachel Pollack (Nov. 1, trade paper, $14, ISBN 978-1-62963-578-1) collects four stories, including queer cult favorite “The Beatrix Gates” and the original “Trans Central Station,” and an interview with longtime boundary-pushing author Pollack.
Putnam
Dracul by Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker (Oct. 2, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-0-7352-1934-2) is a supernatural historical thriller in which a young Bram Stoker locks himself inside a desolate tower to face off against a vile and ungodly beast, and scribbles notes that become the legendary Dracula.
Pyr
No Sleep Till Doomsday by Laurence MacNaughton (Oct. 9, trade paper, $18, ISBN 978-1-63388-496-0). An inexperienced sorceress must retrieve a priceless artifact from the enchantress who stole it, break the curse on her half-demon boyfriend, and stop her friends from turning on one another before the enchantress calls down doomsday.
Quirk
We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix (Sept. 18, hardcover, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-68369-012-2). Faust meets heavy metal in this novel of supernatural horror and pop culture.
Raw Dog Screaming
Garden of Eldritch Delights by Lucy A. Snyder (Oct. 18, trade paper, $13.95, ISBN 978-1-947879-08-9) is Stoker-winner Snyder’s third collection and contains tales of Lovecraftian madness, unusual protagonists, and new twists on traditional monsters.
Saga
A Cathedral of Myth and Bone: Stories by Kat Howard (Sept. 25, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-4814-9215-7) gathers fantastical tales of myths, saints, and King Arthur.
Mage Against the Machine by Shaun Barger (Oct. 9, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-1-5344-0304-8) is set in the year 2120, after the world was ravaged by weaponized magical technology. While mages are safe within protective domes, a war rages between the last enclaves of free humans and vast machine intelligences.
Skybound
The Electric State by Simon Stalenhag (Sept. 4, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-1-5011-8141-2). A teen girl and her robot embark on a cross-country mission in this illustrated science fiction story set in an alternate version of 1997 America.
Solaris
The Quantum Magician by Derek Kunsken (Oct. 2, trade paper, $11.99, ISBN 978-1-78108-570-7). Belisarius is an engineered Homo quantus who fled his dangerously addictive quantum senses. He finds a precarious balance eking out a living as a con man, but when a client offers him untold wealth to move a squadron of warships across an enemy wormhole, he must embrace his birthright to even try.
St. Martin’s
I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Oct. 16, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-08657-0). Four families wake up one morning in their trailer on an ordinary campsite—but everything outside the camping grounds has disappeared. As the holiday-makers try to come to terms with what has happened, they are forced to confront their deepest fears and secret desires.
Subterranean
Rock Manning Goes for Broke by Charlie Jane Anders (Sept. 30, hardcover, $40, ISBN 978-1-59606-878-0). Hugo- and Nebula-winner Anders (All the Birds in the Sky) glances sideways at current political and social issues in this jittery, vigorous science fiction novella set in a near-future United States.
Tachyon
The Last Unicorn: The Lost Journey by Peter S. Beagle (Nov. 12, hardcover, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-61696-308-8) brings together Beagle’s wry musings about his early writing career alongside the rediscovered origin story of fantasy’s most famous unicorn.
Talos
Pinnacle City: A Superhero Noir by Matt Carter and Fiona J. Titchenell (Aug. 14, trade paper, $15.99, ISBN 978-1-945863-16-5). In this skillfully constructed secondary-world noir novel, having superpowers isn’t always so super, and everyone has something to hide. By allowing everyone to be a little morally gray, Carter and Titchenell spin a superhero story with staying power.
Titan
The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School by Kim Newman (Oct. 23, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-78565-883-9) is the second novel starring Amy Thomsett, who flies on moth wings and is confident she can solve any mystery. As Amy takes part in the Great Game among magic schools, she has nightmares about a terrifying ghost called the Broken Doll.
Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan (Sept. 4, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-78565-798-6). An angel with mysterious origins chases a killer who’s wearing another man’s body and carrying a briefcase that’s at the heart of a global conspiracy—and that determines the nature of reality.
Tor
Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu, trans. by Joel Martinsen (Aug. 14, hardcover, $25.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-9407-1). In this thoughtful techno-thriller, Liu pits the quest for theoretical knowledge against the push for practical, if deadly, applications. A Chinese man whose parents were killed by ball lightning looks for ways to harness the phenomenon into weapons to use in a conflict with America.
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders (Jan. 15, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-7996-2). On a planet that has fully definitive, never-changing zones of day and night, with ensuing extreme climates, humans find ways to survive—and to inflict misery on one another through bureaucracy.
The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi (Oct. 16, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-8897-1) follows The Collapsing Empire with a further exploration of how an interstellar empire survives the erosion of the extradimensional conduit it depends on for travel between planets.
