Look, guys. This fall’s offering of books is huge. Huge. We’re not even going to suggest reading all of these, unless you yourself are some kind of alien or wizard capable of stopping time. However, we’ve gathered a stellar assortment for readers of all tastes to choose from, including a wide range of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and short stories.




September


Acadie by Dave Hutchinson

The latest from Hutchinson (author of the Fractured Europe Sequence series) imagines that after a group of colonists engage in genetic tinkering across the galaxy, humans back on Earth decide they won’t stand for that kind of enhanced evolution—and go on the attack. (September 5)



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The Brightest Fell by Seanan McGuire

The Hugo-winning author returns with the 11th entry in her urban fantasy series about half-human, half-fairy October Daye. “Toby” is finally enjoying some downtime, until her fairy mother appears and forces her to take on a seemingly impossible quest: tracking down her long-lost sister. (September 5)





The Bronze Skies by Catherine Asaro

When an elite soldier murders a government official, military policewoman-turned-private eye Major Bhaajan takes the case—which is complicated by the fact that the suspect’s spinal-node implant should have made the crime impossible. She’ll have to return to the tough neighborhood where she grew up and find the killer before another victim falls. (September 5)





Clade by James Bradley

A scientist in Antarctica and his partner back in Australia pray their IVF treatment will be a success—but what kind of a world will await their child? In Clade, there’s both an apocalyptic storm and a terrible pandemic lurking in the future, as well as a young man obsessed with bringing people (virtually) back from the dead. (September 5)




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The End of the World Running Club by Adrian Walker

The world is ending, and a man who’s been a bit of an absentee dad realizes nearly too late how much his family means to him. So he undertakes the ultimate long-distance race across a wasteland and against time as the apocalypse looms. (September 5)





MJ-12: Shadows by Michael J. Martinez

The author’s second novel in his series about a covert, Cold War-era program called MAJESTIC-12 explores the world of “Variants,” government agents with paranormal abilities. Their secret missions are dangerous enough, but a shadowy new enemy lurks that’s way scarier than the Soviet Union. (September 5)





The Ruin of Angels by Max Gladstone

The sixth novel in Gladstone’s Craft Sequence urban fantasy series picks up in the city of Adgel Lex, where priestess/investment banker Kai Pohala’s plan to start a nightmare startup is derailed when she’s pulled into her sister’s troubled life of crime. (September 5)





The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones

A scorched border protects what’s left of the United States from a plague of deadly ticks—but a group of tourists, hungry for adventure, pay top dollar to take a tour of the wasteland. The adrenaline junkies soon come to find that disease-ridden bugs are just one among many things they have to fear in the outer zone. (September 5)





Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill

It’s been 15 years since the robot apocalypse annihilated all of humankind. Most of the robot population feeds into the same AI, but a few resist—including scavenger Brittle, a kind of lone mechanical cowboy who wanders the ruins of the Midwest, grappling with an unfamiliar feeling: guilt. (September 5)





Sourdough by Robin Sloan

The author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore returns with this tale of an overworked San Francisco software engineer who gets into baking when she’s given a special sourdough starter. But the local food market proves hard to crack, and she’s tempted by an offer that involves a strange new fusion of food and tech. (September 5)





The Uploaded by Ferrett Steinmetz

In this cyberpunk tale, the invention of “digital Heaven” enables those who’ve passed on to live virtually forever, though maintaining the network becomes an all-consuming effort for those still breathing. When one rebel decides being tech support for the dead isn’t how he wants to spend his days, he soon learns he’s not alone in that desire. (September 5)





An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King

This debut novel imagines a not-too-distant future for China, where the One Child Policy—and a culture that prizes sons over daughters—has created a population that’s almost entirely male. As women take on multiple husbands out of necessity, one man still hopes to find love despite the seemingly insurmountable odds. (September 12)



Infinity Wars, edited by Jonathan Strahan



Nope, it’s got nothing to do with Marvel heroes. This is actually a collection of military science fiction stories by Carrie Vaughn (Bannerless), Elizabeth Bear (Shoggoths in Bloom), Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom), Genevieve Valentine (Persona), and many others. (September 12)





Landscape with Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson

Alien invaders bring advanced technology to Earth, but humans still struggle under their new rulers. A young couple figures out a creative way to capitalize on the aliens’ love of nostalgia (it involves 1950s-style romance and pay-per-view), but their survival is less assured the more they realize how much they actually dislike each other. (September 12)





The Man in the Tree by Sage Walker

A colony ship is preparing to flee a dying Earth when a man is found hanging in a tree. What at first appears to be an obvious suicide soon gets very complicated. Is it a murder? If so, whodunnit? And will it completely derail the mission, potentially threatening the survival of the human race? (September 12)





Taste of Marrow by Sarah Gailey

The sequel to Gailey’s whimsical debut River of Teeth continues the tale of an alternate American past, where herds of feral hippos roam the South. After the catastrophic events of the first book, the ragtag survivors set about putting their lives back together—a task far easier said than done. (September 12)





The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford

Three college kids sneak into a creepy mansion and test their drunk-archaeology skills on an old outbuilding, where they discover a skeleton that seems to belong to... a horned child? The trio soon very much regrets their shenanigans, because while disturbing a haunted skeleton is one thing, disturbing a skeleton of something demonically haunted is way worse. (September 12)





Warcross by Marie Lu

In a world obsessed with an immersive video game called Warcross, a talented teenage hacker takes on the lucrative task of bounty-hunting people who place illegal bets on its players. Her life takes a very strange turn when the game’s creator hires her to go undercover at the global Warcross tournament—a gig that soon turns more perilous than she’d ever imagined. (September 12)


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Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

The first novel from the co-founder of io9 is set on Earth, circa 2144, and follows a “drug pirate” who pilots a submarine around the globe, making prescription drugs for people who can’t otherwise afford them. But her creations aren’t without dangerous side effects, so a military agent and his robot partner head out in pursuit. (September 19)



New Fears, edited by Mark Morris

This collection features 19 brand-new stories by some of today’s most intriguing horror writers, including Alison Littlewood (A Cold Season), Josh Malerman (Bird Box), and Ramsey Campbell (Demons by Daylight). (September 19)



Null States by Malka Older

The sequel to Older’s Infomocracy—a scifi thriller about a world without nations, where global elections are controlled by a powerful search engine called Information—explores the election’s alarmingly volatile aftermath. Read an excerpt here. (September 19)



A Poison Dark and Drowning by Jessica Cluess

The sequel to A Shadow Bright and Burning follows Henrietta, a female sorcerer who travels to London with an action-packed agenda. Passing herself off as the “chosen one” who can defeat the menacing Ancients is task number one, but she’s also trying to save her best friend, who’s slowly turning evil thanks to his poisoned blood. (September 19)



The Corporation Wars: Emergence by Ken MacLeod

MacLeod wraps up his Corporation Wars trilogy with this installment, in which the story’s conscious robots must take matters into their own hands to defeat the corporations that want to enslave them once and for all. (September 26)



Horizon by Fran Wilde

The city filled with soaring, living bone towers has collapsed in the final Bone Universe book, and the estranged Kirit Densira and Nat Brokenwings will need to put aside their grief and anger to help their community rise up and survive. (September 26)



Oceans: The Anthology, edited by Jessica West

This collection contains speculative fiction short stories inspired by the ocean. Contributors include Hugo and Nebula winner Ken Liu, Rysa Walker (the Chronos Files series), and Daniel Arthur Smith (Tales From the Canyons of the Damned). You can pre-order the e-book now, with a print edition coming soon. (September 26)


Amazon link


Paradox Bound by Peter Clines

Eli Teague lingers in his dead-end hometown, waiting for the mysterious, Model-A Ford-driving time traveler he’s met twice before to make another visit. He’s dying to know more about her, but his curiosity drags him into a high-stakes world of ever-changing American history (and present, and future). (September 26)



Provenance by Ann Leckie

After springing a thief from a notorious prison planet, a woman returns home expecting fame and a social-status upgrade. Instead, she finds political upheaval has pushed things to the brink of interstellar war—and she’ll need that ex-con’s help if she wants to save the world. (September 26)


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The Red Threads of Fortune and The Black Tides of Heaven by J.Y. Yang

These interconnected (yet standalone) “silkpunk” fantasy novellas follow the lives of twins, one of whom is a prophet who loses an arm and gets a lizard appendage as a replacement. Author Yang describes the books as “Dragon Age meets Jurassic World meets Star Wars meets Mad Max,” and we really can’t do better than that. See both gorgeous book covers up close and read an interview with the author here. (September 26)



Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King

Stephen King fever has gripped us all anew, so there’s no better time for him to release a new novel. This one, a collaboration with his son Owen, is a scifi tale that imagines a world where almost all women have retreated into permanent dream states, safe in protective cocoons. How will men handle an all-male world—and how will they react to the one woman left on Earth who’s still awake? (September 26)



An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard

In this urban fantasy tale, New York City runs on magic. But there’s a darkness looming that’s caused the magic to weaken, and the one person whose gifts are powerful enough to stop it isn’t sure she’s willing to step up and help. (September 26)


October


The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017, edited by John Joseph Adams and Charles Yu

This anthology contains 20 of the year’s best science fiction and fantasy short stories, culled from places like Lightspeed and Tor.com. Notable authors include Peter S. Beagle, N.K. Jemisin, Catherynne M. Valente, and Genevieve Valentine. (October 3)



The Genius Plague by David Walton

A mysterious fungal infection spreads across South America, and those who don’t die become super-smart parts of a hive mind working toward a sinister goal. Justifiably concerned, a man fights to save his brother from what certainly feels like a covert alien takeover in the making. (October 3)



Haunted Nights edited by Lisa Morton and Ellen Datlow

Halloween season kicks off with 16 new horror tales exploring the most horrifically wonderful time of the year. Authors in the trick-or-treat mix include Seanan McGuire, Jonathan Maberry, Garth Nix, Jeffrey Ford, Brian Evenson, and Stephen Graham Jones. (October 3)



Machine Learning: New and Collected Stories by Hugh Howey

This collection of short fantasy and science fiction tales from the best-selling author of Wool includes three stories set in that book’s world, as well as two brand-new pieces written just for this release and 15 previously-published works. Every entry includes a note from the author explaining its genesis. (October 3)



The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson

Every time Molly Southbourne bleeds, another Molly enters the world—and this new version of her always wants the old version of her to die. Molly number one has learned how to evade her murderous clones, but how long will she really be able to hide from herself? (October 3)



Quillifer by Walter Jon Williams

In this epic fantasy set in a world of goddesses and dragons, a young student returns home to find his city beset by pirates. After barely surviving and seeing his family in chains, he sneaks off to gather a crew of friends and new allies, determined to fight back. (October 3)



Satellite by Nick Lake

Three teens who’ve spent their entire lives on a space station, raised by surrogate-parent astronauts, get ready to visit Earth for the first time. But there’s no real way to prepare the kids for the incredible amounts of culture shock they’re about to face. (October 3)


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The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera

Two goddess-warriors aim to fulfill their destiny by joining together to save their land—but it won’t be easy, as a long-held magic border wall has begun to crack and dauntingly evil forces will soon be upon them. (October 3)



What the Hell Did I Just Read by David Wong

The third book in the comedy-horror-scifi-weirdness series that kicked off with John Dies at the End follows the trio of Dave, John, and Amy, as their latest case morphs from investigating a shape-shifting child predator into something way, way, way more bizarre. (October 3)



The Best of Richard Matheson by Richard Matheson

The hugely influential author, who died in 2013, gets a new “greatest-hits” collection of his iconic short stories, curated by rising horror talent Victor LaValle (The Ballad of Black Tom). (October 10)



The Book of Swords, edited by Gardner Dozois

The big draw here is a new A Song of Ice and Fire story by George R.R. Martin, intriguingly titled “The Sons of the Dragon.” But! There are also stories by Robin Hobb, Ken Liu, C.J. Cherryh, Ellen Kushner, and many more, all weaving swashbuckling tales of fantasy. (October 10)



The Fissure King: A Novel in Five Stories by Rachel Pollack

The author and tarot-card expert’s four existing novellas about mischievous shaman-for-hire Jack Shade come together in a single volume, with a final tale to wrap up his occult-themed adventures. (October 10)



Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao

A beautiful teenager with a royal destiny is haunted by dark magic in this East Asian fairy tale, a debut novel that offers a rich retake on the origin story of Snow White’s Evil Queen. (October 10)





Ironfoot by Dave Duncan

In medieval England, a stable boy lucks his way into attending, then eventually teaching at, a school of magic. He’s always been a bit of an outcast, but he suddenly becomes the royal family’s greatest hope when he stumbles upon an ancient spell that could help thwart an assassination plot. (October 10)



A Long Day in Lychford by Paul Cornell

In the third Witches of Lychford book, Brexit has just passed and the forest witches aren’t quite sure what the future brings. Of more immediate concern, however, is the fact that a smartphone-app glitch has started allowing random wanderers into their magical realm. (October 10)



A Lot Like Christmas by Connie Willis

Yep, it’s a book of Yuletide tales arriving a tad early, but seeing as how it’s from 11-time Hugo winner Connie Willis, we’ll allow it. This volume is actually an expanded edition of Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, adding five newly-collected stories to the speculative bunch. (October 10)



Infinite Stars, edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Both new and reprinted stories fill this collection of space opera and military scifi tales, including new works set in the universes of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet, and Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Dune. (October 1)



A Plague of Giants by Kevin Hearne

The author of the Iron Druid Chronicles kicks off a new fantasy series that begins as an army of giants invades a kingdom, and follows the mostly ordinary people (a mother, a scholar, and, uh, a kid who can talk to animals) who must become extraordinary heroes to fend them off. (October 17)



Six Months, Three Days, Five Others by Charlie Jane Anders

The co-founder of io9 collects six of her short stories here, including the Hugo-winning “Six Months, Three Days,” and the brand-new “Clover,” a cat-centric coda to her Nebula-winning novel All the Birds in the Sky. (October 17)



The Stone in the Skull by Elizabeth Bear

The Hugo winner returns to the world of her Eternal Sky series with this first book in a new fantasy series, about an automaton whose wizard creator made him partly human, and his sidekick, an ex-bodyguard known as “the Dead Man.” They make an unlikely duo, but they stick together as war looms. (October 17)



The Two of Swords: Volume One by K.J. Parker

Various battle-weary characters intersect in this first book in a new series, about a war that’s been going on so long there are few still alive who remember why it even started. (October 17)



The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

Fans of The Golden Compass, take note. This first entry in a new three-part work is set 10 years before the best-selling His Dark Materials series begins, and covers the early life of Lyra Belacqua and her daemon Pantalaimon. (October 19)



Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters by Kim Newman

After they’re exiled from Victorian England, a group of vampires moves to Japan, where they don’t exactly fit in with the local blood-sucking population. Making matters worse, there’s a murderer in their midst—and the Temple of One Thousand Monsters threatens to unleash something even more terrifying. (October 24)



Strange Weather: Four Short Novels by Joe Hill

The author of The Fireman presents four terrifying tales, exploring such horrors as: a Polaroid camera with supernatural powers; a skydiver who gets trapped by a hostile cloud; a storm that dumps a deluge of deadly glass nails instead of rain; and a near-miss mass shooting in a shopping mall. (October 24)



Barbary Station by R.E. Stearns

Unable to find legitimate work in their war-torn solar system, a pair of engineers decide to join up with a ragtag group of space pirates—but they’ll need to take down a sinister AI to earn their place with the crew. (October 31)



Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi

In this debut fantasy adventure, a talented young sin-eater believes he’ll be able to overcome the inevitable side effect of his livelihood: madness. So far he’s doing a decent job at it, until he becomes pulled into a royal conspiracy that threatens his love, his life, and his world. (October 31)



Bubba and the Cosmic Blood-Suckers by Joe R. Lansdale

The gods of rock and roll monsters have blessed us with a prequel to Bubba Ho-Tep, and it sounds like a hoot. Elvis Presley joins a ragtag crew (other members include “a strategic wizard” and a wannabe pop star) to take on a group of shape-shifters who’ve brought evil to New Orleans, led by the King’s notorious manager, Colonel Tom Parker. (October 31)


Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker by Gregory Maguire

The author of Wicked and After Alice takes on another fantastical literary realm: the magical land of the Nutcracker. Here, he gives a backstory to toymaker Drosselmeier, first introduced in the 1816 story by E.T.A. Hoffmann and later made famous for making Christmas trees grow in countless performances of the classic ballet. (October 31)


November


Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor

In the sequel to Akata Witch, a Nigerian-American girl continues to develop her magical powers as she prepares for a predestined showdown that will decide the fate of the world. ( November 7 )


Correction: the publication date is October 3.


All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault by James Alan Gardner

A science experiment gone awry transforms college kid Kim and her three roommates into superheroes, but while they decide what their super alter-egos should be named, and gleefully design their costumes, they also find themselves being pulled into a serious fight between light and darkness. (November 7)



Jade City by Fonda Lee

The official description of this multigenerational saga—set in a world where jade is prized for its ability to enhance the powers of those who know how to use it—likens it to “The Godfather with magic and kung-fu.” Make your own “offer you can’t refuse” joke here, because you know that sounds awesome. (November 7)



The Overneath by Peter S. Beagle

This short-story collection includes a callback to the author’s classic, The Last Unicorn, along with several other new fantasy tales. (November 7)


Renegades by Marissa Meyer

In the post-apocalypse, humans with special abilities helped bring justice and order back to a chaotic world. But where there are super-humans, there are always super-villains, including a young woman joins a revenge scheme that could end the world for good. (November 7)





Strange Music: A Pip and Flinx Adventure by Alan Dean Foster

The author’s latest in his extensive Commonwealth series brings a new adventure for Flinx and his venomous pal Pip. They head to a primitive planet teetering on the brink of war, but their plan to help calm the waters becomes complicated when Flinx realizes he’s unable to use his empathetic abilities on the locals, who sing instead of speak. (November 7)



Terminal Alliance by Jim C. Hines

The Hugo winner launches a humorous new series about the scrappy humans who’ve survived the apocalypse on Earth to become janitors—proof that there’s one job that will always need doing, even in space. (November 7)



The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt

The Hugo winner’s latest sounds perfect for fans of the Alien films (and maybe Event Horizon, too). It starts with a deep-space salvage crew discovering a seemingly long-abandoned ship that turns out to have one occupant—who, once revived, warns them of an alien race that mixes advanced technology with pure evil. (November 7)



Artemis by Andy Weir

Weir’s follow-up to The Martian is about a heist on the moon. This would already be an awesome premise even without the story’s other details, like the fact that the protagonist is a female smuggler who’s grown tired of serving the inhabitants of the very posh, apparently very corrupt moon city of Artemis. Can’t wait to read it... and watch the inevitable movie, too. (November 14)



Creatures of Will and Temper by Molly Tanzer

In Victorian London, a pair of sisters—a fencer and a wannabe art critic—living on the outer rim of high society become unwittingly entangled with a supernatural cult. Only one sister takes up the side of fighting demons, while the other is drawn into worshiping them. (November 14)



Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

A dystopian novel about a world that somehow starts evolving backwards, and the young pregnant woman who is determined to keep her unborn baby safe amid all the rampant paranoia and terrifying chaos that surrounds her. (November 14)



Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson



The sequel to Worlds of Radiance continues the author’s epic Stormlight Archive fantasy series, as humankind once again faces certain destruction from the vengeful Voidbringers. (November 14)





Sweet Dreams by Tricia Sullivan

In 2022, a “dreamhacker”—someone who can enter your dreams and help you shape them—is a very popular thing to be, especially since there’s only one person in all of London who has the right skills. Or so she thinks, until her clients start having nightmares she can’t control. (November 21)


Winter of Ice and Iron by Rachel Neumeier

A dark fantasy tale set in a land ruled by two cruel kings, where a princess and a duke who both long for freedom very reluctantly join forces to plot a revolution. Supernatural forces and a bleak midwinter forecast won’t make their grand scheme any easier. (November 21)


December


Mississippi Roll: A Wild Cards Novel, edited by George R.R. Martin

No Winds of Winter will blow for us this year, but fans of GRRM’s scifi/superhero mosaic novels can at least enjoy this latest volume. It’s set on and around the Mississippi River and features contributions by Stephen Leigh, David D. Levine, John Jos. Miller, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Cherie Priest, and Carrie Vaughn. (December 5)



No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin

Drawn from the legendary author’s blog, this book is described as “a collection of thoughts—always adroit, often acerbic—on aging, belief, the state of literature, and the state of the nation.” It might not be fiction, but it sounds like essential reading. (December 5)



Persepolis Rising (The Expanse) by James S.A. Corey

The excellent space opera series returns with its seventh novel, which will make for perfect holiday-season reading if you’re all caught up on the books but are waiting anxiously for season three of the kick-ass TV adaptation. Not a lot of advanced plot information for this one, but that’s to be expected. (December 5)



The Will to Battle by Ada Palmer

The third book in Palmer’s Terra Ignota series follows the events of Too Like the Lightning and Seven Surrenders, furthering the tale of the wandering convict Mycroft, the spiritual counselor Carlyle, and young Baxter, whose secret power is that he can bring objects to life. (December 5)



Survival by Ben Bova

The third book in the Star Quest series is, as its title suggests, a tale of survival. Human scouts discover an advanced civilization of sentient machines who’ve survived the galaxy’s devastating “death waves,” but they have no interest in helping anyone else—or letting their new human prisoners return home to tell anyone they exist. (December 26)