History and folklore animate this spring’s fantasies, while socially conscious sci-fi and dystopian fiction reflect the present moment.
Top 10
Bacchanal
Veronica Henry. 47North, May 25 ($24.95, ISBN 978-1-5420-2781-6)
A traveling carnival harboring a soul-devouring demon makes its way across the Depression-era U.S. South in Henry’s debut fantasy. The newest performer may be the only hope of defeating the monster.
The Chosen and the Beautiful
Nghi Vo. Tor.com, June 1 ($26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-78478-0)
Vo’s full-length debut, a speculative riff on The Great Gatsby, reimagines golfer Jordan Baker as a queer, Asian American adoptee navigating the Jazz Age while learning to control her elemental magic.
The Final Girl Support Group
Grady Hendrix. Berkley, July 13 ($26, ISBN 978-0-593-20123-7)
Horror master Hendrix’s latest asks what comes next for the last girl standing at the end of the slasher story. For Lynnette Tarkington, the answer is group therapy.
The Freedom Race
Lucinda Roy. Tor, July 13 ($27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-25890-8)
Roy sets this dystopian novel in a near-future U.S. struggling through the aftermath of a second civil war. Slavery has been reinstated in the Homestead Territories, and Ji-ji Lottermule hopes to win her freedom by running in the annual Freedom Race.
The Kingdoms
Natasha Pulley. Bloomsbury, May 25 ($26, ISBN 978-1-63557-608-5)
Amnesiac Joe Tournier’s quest to remember his identity takes him across 19th-century France, England, and Scotland and may alter the future in Pulley’s time-bending alternate history.
Machinehood
S.B. Divya. Saga, Mar. 2 ($27, ISBN 978-1-9821-4806-5)
In a dystopian vision of 2095, pharmaceutically enhanced humans compete with artificial intelligences in a dog-eat-dog gig economy—until a terrorist group demands that pill production be halted.
On Fragile Waves
E. Lily Yu. Erewhon, Feb. 2 ($25.95, ISBN 978-1-64566-009-5)
In Yu’s fabulist debut, siblings Firuzeh and Nour make their way from a war-torn Afghanistan to Australia, propelled by the fairy tales they invent about their destination along the way.
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir. Ballantine, May 4 ($28.99, ISBN 978-0-593-13520-4)
Astronaut Ryland Grace is all that stands between humankind and extinction after his crew dies mid-mission, in the latest sci-fi thriller from bestseller Weir.
The Tangleroot Palace: Stories
Marjorie Liu. Tachyon, June 15 ($15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61696-352-1)
Hugo- and Eisner-winning graphic novelist Liu makes her prose debut with this collection of dark magic and fairy tale–infused short stories.
The Unbroken
C.L. Clark. Orbit, Mar. 23 ($16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-316-54275-3)
Clark debuts with a political epic set in a North Africa–inspired fantasy world, where a soldier must decide whether her orders to stop a rebellion outweigh her loyalty to her blood.
SF, Fantasy & Horror Listings
Ace
The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec (Feb. 9, $26, ISBN 978-0-593-09994-0). Gornichec’s debut, starred by PW, draws from Norse mythology to tell the story of a witch who must decide how far she’s willing to go to protect her children.
Ad Astra
The Best of World SF, edited by Lavie Tidhar (June 1, $39.95, ISBN 978-1-83893-764-5), brings together 26 sci-fi shorts from 21 countries, including new work from Aliette de Bodard, Karin Tidbeck, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Zen Cho, and more.
Akashic
A River Called Time by Courttia Newland (Apr. 6, $32.95, ISBN 978-1-61775-926-0). In Newland’s post-
apocalyptic latest, have-not Markriss Denny, a man secretly capable of astral projection, is allowed access to the elite safe zone of the Ark—where he soon discovers a threat to humanity.
Angry Robot
1% Afterglow: A Nyquist Mystery by Jeff Noon (May 11, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-85766-898-1). Set in an alternate 1960, Noon’s fourth weird fiction mystery sends PI John Nyquist on the hunt for a rock star through a surreal cityscape.
Baen
Tyger Bright by T.C. McCarthy (Feb. 2, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-9821-2517-2). San Kyarr joins a mission to infiltrate the home world of the alien Sommen, pitting her against her own brother, who fears her actions will spark war on Earth.
BHC
Sirgrus Blackmane Demihuman Gumshoe and the Dark-Elf by William Schlichter (May 27, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-64397-183-4). In an alternate 1923, the eponymous, PTSD-wracked supernatural detective investigates the murder of his partner.
Blackstone
Reset by Sarina Dahlan (May 25, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-0940-8630-9). Every four years, the citizens of the Four Cities have their memories wiped clean to promote peace by eradicating learned prejudice—but when scientist Aris begins dreaming in memories, she discovers both dangerous secrets and love.
Bloomsbury
A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas (Feb. 16, $28, ISBN 978-1-68119-628-2) continues the Court of Thorns and Roses series with the tale of High Fae Nesta Archeron as she struggles to find her place in her sister’s court and find love with warrior Cassian. 500,000-copy announced first printing.
Brain Lag
Rose by Mike Bryant (Apr. 16, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-928011-48-4). A suburban housewife befriends a young zombie, pulling her and her husband into the mystery of the girl’s death.
British Library
Visions of the Vampire: Two Centuries of Blood-Sucking Tales, edited by Sorcha Ni Fhlainn and Xavier Aldana Reyes (Apr. 1, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-7123-5392-2). Beginning with John Polidori’s 1819 tale “The Vampyre” and culminating in contemporary takes on the creatures, this anthology of horror shorts showcases the evolution of the vampire story.
CAEZIK
Power Challenges by Ben Bova (Apr. 13, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64710-018-6). America works to establish a base on the moon in the face of political opposition and public apathy in this hard SF novel from Hugo- and Nebula-winner Bova.
Daw
Angel of the Overpass by Seanan McGuire (May 11, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7564-1689-8). McGuire’s third Ghost Roads urban fantasy sees ghostly hitchhiker Rose Marshall make significant strides in her quest for revenge against her immortal killer, Bobby Cross.
The Councillor by E.J. Beaton
(Mar. 2, $27, ISBN 978-0-7564-1699-7). In poet Beaton’s debut novel, palace scholar Lysande Prior must appoint the next monarch while working to solve the previous queen’s murder—and becomes wrapped up in her own quest for power along the way.
Del Rey
The Desert Prince by Peter V. Brett (May 11, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-9848-1708-2) opens a new series set 15 years after the conclusion to Brett’s Demon Cycle series.
The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik (July 6, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-12886-2) follows A Deadly Education as dark sorceress El and her allies face their final year at the Scholomance, where graduation often means death.
Malice by Heather Walter (Apr. 13, $27, ISBN 978-1-9848-1865-2). Starred by PW, Walter’s debut puts a fresh spin on Sleeping Beauty, focusing not on the fairy tale princess but on the evil witch who loves her.
Dutton
Beneath the Keep: A Novel of the Tearling by Erika Johansen (Feb. 2, $27, ISBN 978-1-5247-4272-0). Johansen’s prequel to her Queen of the Tearling trilogy sees the land of Tearling threatened by famine and inequality. But hope lies in the unlikely trio of an assassin, a farm girl, and a crown princess.
Erewhon
The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw (June 22, $25.95, ISBN 978-1-64566-020-0). A crew of female criminals reunites to rescue a former comrade on the planet of Dimmuborgir—but a race of advanced artificial intelligences will do anything to stop them.
Folklorn by Angela Mi Young Hur (Apr. 27, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-64566-016-3). Hur’s debut mixes science and Korean folklore, as cynical physicist Elsa Park realizes the truth of the implausible family curse her mother warned her about as a girl.
Flame Tree
The Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro (June 22, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-78758-603-1) blends urban legend and Aztec mythology into a horror novel set in 2018 and 1950s Texas.
Jo Fletcher
Play of Shadows by Sebastien De Castell (Mar. 16, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-78747-147-4) launches an epic fantasy series as Damelas Shademantaigne flees a deadly duel and finds safety in a life in the theater—until politics, lies, and violence catch up with him.
Harper Voyager
The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid (June 8, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-297312-2). Reid draws on Jewish folklore and history in her debut fantasy about a pagan woman, unaware of her own power, who manages to form an alliance with a disgraced prince after her village betrays her.
HMH/Adams
A Dark Queen Rises by Ashok K. Banker (Apr. 20, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-328-91629-7). Banker’s second Burnt Empire fantasy follows Queen Aqreen and her young daughter on their epic trek across the Red Desert to escape the political machinations of power-hungry King Jarsun.
Questland by Carrie Vaughn (June 22, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-358-34628-9). Billionaire Harris Lang brings classic fantasy stories to life on his private island using advanced technology. When his engineers mutiny, Lang brings in literature professor Addie Cox to help him retake the island.
Mariner
The Ninth Metal by Benjamin Percy (June 1, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-328-54486-5). An otherworldly metal with the capacity to serve as an energy source crashes on Earth in a meteor shower, leading to a new “gold rush” with unexpected consequences in rural Minnesota. 50,000-copy announced first printing.
Meerkat
Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons: Stories by Keith Rosson (Feb. 23, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-946154-52-1). Grieving families, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, fortune tellers, cults, and ghosts are among the colorful characters occupying the pages of this speculative collection.
MIT
Make Shift: Dispatches from the Post-pandemic Future, edited by Gideon Lichfield (May 4, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-262-54240-1). The next entry in the Twelve Tomorrows anthology series brings together 12 speculative shorts imagining a way forward from Covid-19.
Orbit
For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten (June 15, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-316-59278-9). Whitten’s debut sees a young woman sacrificed to the Wolf of the Wood—only to discover that the wolf is really a man, the gods have become monsters, and she herself harbors powerful magic.
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri (Apr. 27, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-316-53851-0) launches the Burning Kingdoms trilogy as an exiled princess joins forces with a powerful servant who wields forbidden magic to reshape an empire.
Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa (May 11, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-316-42894-1). A Bassan scholar meets a warrior from the mythical Nameless Islands, and together they uncover a vast political conspiracy in this series launch.
Quirk
Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman (Apr. 6, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-68369-215-7). During the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, preschooler Sean allows his parents to believe that his teacher is abusing him. Thirty years later, the lie comes back to bite him.
Random House
Scorpion by Christian Cantrell (May 25, $27, ISBN 978-1-9848-0197-5). In a technologically advanced near future, CIA agent and suburban mom Quinn Mitchell must rely on the Epoch Index, a database capable of revealing the future, to track down a serial killer.
Redhook
The Light of the Midnight Stars by Rena Rossner (Apr. 13, $28, ISBN 978-0-316-48346-9). Rabbi Isaac and his three daughters perform miracles in the Hungarian woods, but when they’re accused of witchcraft they’ll have to renounce their magic and adapt to new lives in Rossner’s folklore and history–infused sophomore fantasy.
The World Gives Way by Marissa Levien (June 1, $28, ISBN 978-0-316-59241-3). An indentured servant struggles to gain her freedom in the dystopian world of Levien’s debut—but freedom comes at a dangerous price.
Saga
The Veiled Throne, Vol. 3, by Ken Liu (June 29, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-4814-2433-2). Liu sends out his silkpunk Dandelion Dynasty series as the conquerors and conquered of Dara adjust to the new world order.
Scout
The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon (Apr. 6, $27, ISBN 978-1-9821-5392-2). In the present, a social worker investigates her sister’s drowning on their grandparents’ estate and discovers the property’s chilling past, while in 1929, a young couple seeks out a natural spring believed to grant wishes.
Small Beer
Never Have I Ever: Stories by Isabel Yap (Feb. 9, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61873-182-1). A debut collection of 13 stories includes magic, legend, and immigrant families.
Spirits Abroad: And Other Stories by Zen Cho (Apr. 13, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61873-186-9) brings together 10 previously published speculative shorts and nine new works from Hugo Award–winner Cho.
Solaris
A Broken Darkness, Vol. 2, by Premee Mohamed (Mar. 2, $11.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-78108-875-3). A year and a half after the events of Beneath the Rising, the Ssarati Society works to protect humanity from the lingering threat of Them.
One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Mar. 2, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-78108-874-6). In Tchaikovsky’s latest, the battles of the Causality War are fought across time as well as space—until time itself ends.
St. Martin’s
The Devil’s Dictionary by Steven Kotler (July 20, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-20209-3) follows Last Tango with another near-future thriller as empathy tracker Lion Zorn fights to save Earth from a sixth extinction.
Tachyon
Unity by Elly Bangs (Apr. 13, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61696-342-2). A tech genius separated from the vast collective consciousness to which she once belonged struggles to make her way back with the help of her lover and an ex-mercenary guide in Bangs’s postapocalyptic debut.
Tor
A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (Mar. 2, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-18646-1). Starred by PW, Martine’s sequel to the Hugo Award–winning A Memory Called Empire sees a diplomatic envoy attempting to communicate with mysterious alien invaders. 75,000-copy announced first printing.
The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu (June 1, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-76776-9). High school dropout Ropa works as a medium in contemporary Edinburgh. But when the dead inform her of a conspiracy against the city’s children, her investigation thrusts her into a world of magic and mayhem. 75,000-copy announced first printing.
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (July 20, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-62180-1). An orphaned girl destined to die young takes on the identity of her brother, who is said to be destined for greatness, in order to survive in 1345 China. 125,000-copy announced first printing.
Tor.Com
Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells (Apr. 27, $19.99, ISBN 978-1-250-76537-6). The second full-length Murderbot Diaries adventure sees the cynical AI hero assisting in a murder investigation on Preservation Station.
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark (May 11, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-250-26768-9). Clark’s full-length debut, set in an alternate Cairo, follows Fatma el-Sha’rawi as she investigates a murder on behalf of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities.
The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente (July 20, $20.99, ISBN 978-1-250-30113-0). A teenage girl comes of age in Garbagetown, one of the few habitable spots remaining on a flooded future Earth, in Valente’s postapocalyptic satire.
Vesuvian
Dark Country by Monique Snyman (June 15, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64548-073-0). Occult detective Esmé Snyder travels to South Africa to investigate a serial killer who hopes to use his paranormal powers to transform himself into a god.
WordFire
Hold Your Fire: Stories Celebrating the Creative Spark, edited by Lisa Mangum (Feb. 19, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-68057-176-9), brings together 19 speculative shorts exploring the moment of inspiration and the act of artistic creation.
