With a new year comes the promise of new books hitting bookstores. 2018 is shaping up to have plenty of adventures to delve into — taking readers to distant planets, fantastical realms, and beyond. We’ll meet some authors publishing their first-ever novels, and we’ll become reacquainted with familiar writers well into their careers.

And who knows? We might even get the long awaited and overdue tomes from George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss, The Winds of Winter and The Doors of Stone, but we’re not holding our breath. Here are some of the books that we’re most excited for this year.

Winter

We’ve already put up a list for what’s coming out this January, but there are a bunch of books to keep an eye out for after that.

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch, February 6th

In Tom Sweterlitsch’s new novel, a time-traveling investigator visits 1997 to solve a grisly murder, and realizes that the killers are a team of black ops soldiers who have also gone back in time. The book has earned some rave reviews, and has already been snapped up for adaptation by District 9 director Neill Blomkamp. Sweterlitsch has also been collaborating with Blomkamp’s Oats Studios for some of his short films, so we’re excited to see how his next adventure turns out.

Jagannath by Karin Tidbeck, February 6th

Karin Tidbeck published her short story collection Jagannath a couple of years ago through a small press, but she’s leveled up to a major publisher, which is re-issuing the book in February. The book contains a variety of fantastic stories, ranging from one about a mysterious woman from a forest marries into a family, or about a new employee starts work at a strange call center. It’s a book to snap up right away, especially if you like dark, surreal, and creepy stories.

The Armored Saint by Myke Cole, February 20th

I actually read this book late last year, and it took my breath away. Myke Cole has made a name for himself with his military fantasy series Shadow Ops, and with The Armored Saint, he’s written a grim, heartbreaking piece of epic fantasy. Cole explained to my colleague Chaim Gartenberg last year that he was “inspired by the tone of books by authors like Mark Lawrence and Joe Abercrombie, Robin Hobb, Peter V. Brett, and to some extent, George R.R. Martin,” and The Armored Saint is shaped by the darker post-9/11 world that we live in.

Spring

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente, April 3rd

The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction defines the term “space opera” as a “science fiction with an interplanetary or galaxy-wide setting, especially one making use of stock characters and situations.” But what if an author took the “opera” part literally? In Catherynne Valente’s new book, the galactic diaspora uses an interstellar musical contest called the Metagalactic Grand Prix as a way to solve their problems, and it’s humanity’s first time competing.

Head On by John Scalzi, April 17th

John Scalzi’s next novel is a sequel to his 2014 novel, Lock In. A virus infected people across the planet, leaving one percent of its victims “locked in” to their bodies. Years later, they can experience the world with the help of robotic avatars, and their future is a hot-button political issue. In the first book, locked-in agent Chris Shane and partner Leslie Vann teamed up to solve an unlikely murder. In Head On, they team up once again when the player of a particularly brutal game drops dead on the field.

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells, May 8th

The first installment of Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, All Systems Red, made our best science fiction and fantasy books of 2017 list. So we’re pretty excited for the next one, Artificial Condition, where the eponymous protagonist Murderbot gets brought back to the place where it murdered its original crew. Wells told us that we’ll find out a bit more about the world and Murderbot’s past in this installment. But it won’t be the end of Murderbot’s story: a third installment, Rogue Protocol, is out in August.

The Outsider by Stephen King, May 22nd

It seemed that 2017 was the year of Stephen King for film and TV, with big adaptations such as The Dark Tower, It, and 1922 coming out. Now, King has a new novel hitting bookstores in May. In The Outsider, an 11-year-old boy is found murdered, and evidence points to one of Flint City’s popular citizens, Terry Maitland. But as Detective Ralph Anderson begins his investigation, the nature of the crime becomes even more horrifying, and it’s clear that there’s more to this murder than meets the eye.

Summer

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, June 26th

Paul Tremblay’s recent two horror novels, A Head Full of Ghosts and The Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, were each masterpieces of the genre, deconstructing popular tropes with subtle and effectively horrifying tales of exorcisms and abductions. With his latest book, The Cabin at the End of the World, Trambley is taking on a new theme: home invasion.

Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn, June 26th

Last year, Timothy Zahn wrote the definitive origin story for one of the Star Wars Expanded Universe’s (and now Rebels’) iconic villains: Grand Admiral Thrawn. At the 2017 New York Comic Con, he announced that he was returning to the character with another novel called Thrawn: Alliances, and that Thrawn would team up with another iconic villain: Darth Vader.

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, July 3rd

Mary Robinette Kowal published a short, audio-first story called The Lady Astronauts of Mars in Audible’s 2013 anthology Rip-Off!, which she described as “punchcard punk”. She’s now turned the story into a pair of novels, The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky (due out in August). They’re set in an alternate history where a cataclysmic meteor strike accelerates the race to space. Elma York is an experienced WASP pilot and mathematician, and she joins the space program to become the first astronaut to land on the moon.

European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman by Theodora Goss, July 10th

Another favorite read from 2017 was Theodora Goss’s debut novel, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, a fantastic mashup of classic characters like Frankenstein’s monster and Sherlock Holmes. Goss is returning to her classical world with European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman, with her heroines traveling to the Austro-Hungarian Empire to rescue another young woman: Professor Van Helsing’s daughter, Lucinda.

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers, July 24th

If I had to pick my favorite space opera published in the last couple of years, it would be Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, or its followup, A Closed and Common Orbit. They’re delightful books about unlikely characters making their way in the universe. In the next installment, Record of a Spaceborn Few, Chambers takes us to the Exodus Fleet — an aging fleet of ships that bore humanity away from Earth centuries ago. As the inhabitants have left for other worlds, those who remain are left to ponder the future and if their way of life is worth maintaining.

Luna: Moon Rising by Ian McDonald, July 31st

Ian McDonald’s Luna: Wolf Moon was one of our picks for the best science fiction novels of 2017, and he wraps up his lunar trilogy with Luna: Moon Rising. The five powerful families that control the Moon have waged a brutal war that decimated one of their numbers. From those ashes rises one son, Lucas Cortas, who wants to seize control of everything. And only his sister, Ariel, stands in his way.

Thin Air by Richard K. Morgan, July 31st

Richard K. Morgan is best known for Altered Carbon, a noir-cyberpunk novel that is being adapted by Netflix in February. But Morgan is known for other brutal science fiction novels. In 2008, he published Thirteen (Black Man in the UK), set in a near-future US that experimented with genetically enhanced soldiers. The Thirteens, as these soldiers were called, were banished to Mars. In Thin Air, Morgan follows a mercenary named Hakan Veil, who’s tasked with guarding a colonial audit team investigating the disappearance of a missing person on Mars. When his charge vanishes, Hakan finds that there’s more to the story than meets the eye.

Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu, August 14th

Chinese author Cixin Liu blew everyone away with his novel The Three-Body Problem and its sequels, The Dark Forest and Death’s End. Another of his novels is now being translated into English: Ball Lightning, a military science fiction story about a young man who is looking to solve the mystery behind his parents’ deaths, and uncovers an experimental weapons program.

Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden, August 14th

Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale was on our best books of 2017 list, and the second installment of the trilogy came out in December. She’ll be wrapping up her trilogy in August with Winter of the Witch, in which protagonist Vasya works to protect Russia and the spirit realm from real and magical foes.

Fall and beyond

The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-first-century Chinese science Fiction edited by Mingwei Song and Theodore Huters, September 4th

Cixin Liu isn’t the only Chinese author breaking into the United States. Columbia University Press is releasing The Reincarnated Giant, an anthology of contemporary science fiction from the country, which includes everything from space operas to cyperpunk. The table of contents includes Liu, as well as others such as Dung Kai-cheung, Han Song, and Chen Qiufan.

Mutiny at Vesta by R.E. Stearns, October

One of my absolute favorite books of 2017 was R.E. Stearns’ Barbary Station, a fantastic space opera set on a derelict space station. Adda and Iridian escaped from the station in that book, and now they’re part of Captain Sloane’s crew, headed to the crew’s base on the asteroid Vesta. Once there, they discover that they’re locked into a contract with a megacorporation called Oxia, which tasks them with jobs raiding the poor and disadvantaged they never would have undertaken on their own.

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi, October 16th

John Scalzi also has a second book hitting stores this year: The Consuming Fire, the sequel to 2017 novel The Collapsing Empire. Humanity’s interstellar empire is about to collapse as The Flow, a mysterious force that connects its various planets, is fading. Ruler Emperox Grayland II is taking steps to ensure the survival of her subjects, while others are preparing to take advantage of the chaos.

Update: Scalzi noted on his blog that the book’s name is changing from The Widening Gyre to The Consuming Fire, and that it’ll be the second installment of a trilogy.

Unknown release dates

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman, October

When he released the first installment of his long-overdue Book of Dust trilogy, Philip Pullman told The Guardian the next installment in the trilogy, The Secret Commonwealth, was already finished. The book will be set two decades after the events of La Belle Sauvage, and a decade after His Dark Materials, and will follow series protagonist Lyra Silvertongue. We’re not totally sure when the book will hit stores, but if it’s like the last book, we’re looking for it to arrive in October.

Expanse #8 by James S.A. Corey

The last Expanse novel, Persepolis Rising, came out in December, and it kicked off a grim start to the final arc of the series. We don’t have a title or synopsis just yet, but it’s likely that the book will hit stores in December. It will pick up with the Laconian Empire working to cement its control over the Solar System, as everyone else contends with the forces that decimated the last galactic empire.

Updated February 1st, 2018: Updated with changes to John Scalzi’s Widening Gyre.