Your “ to show ” pile is about to get much more massive . This fall ’s skill fable and illusion books include new titles by caption like Margaret Atwood , Salman Rushdie , Stephen King , Jim Butcher and Tanya Huff . You ’re not ready for this ! Which is why we ’re scram you ready , with our templet to come books .
Note : I wanted to keep this around 35 - 40 books , which means only about eight to 10 Word of God per month . stay put tuned for our monthly “ Bookshelf Injection ” situation , which contain more recommended books for each special month . For September , we had a tilt of around 30 leger to pare down .
SEPTEMBER
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho ( Ace / Roc )
This is the debut novel that everybody we know has been freak out out about . In an alternate Enlightenment , a freed hard worker becomes the Sorcerer Royal of the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers . But this Sorcerer Royal , Zacharias Wythe , may be everyone ’s only Bob Hope when supply of magic run low and he ’s force to jaunt to Fairyland to observe out what ’s up .
The Aeronaut ’s Windlass by Jim Butcher
Yup , the long - awaited first leger in Butcher ’s new Horatio Hornblower - root on escapade series . Webrought you the first glimpse of this title back in March(just sayin ’ ) , and I ’m just going to cite what we wrote back then : “ It ’s crush - pack with airships , crazy sorcerers , privateers , warrior monks , and thinking cats . An ancient evil has rewoken , and the entire world is plunged into a ominous mist , filled with wicked creatures . ”
Xeelee : Endurance by Stephen Baxter
It ’s been year since Baxter gave us a new novel in his Xeelee sequence , about humanity ’s skirmish with an unknowable exotic race . And now at last , here ’s a collection of previously uncollected stories and novellas , which range from the earliest day of human infinite exploration to four billion years in the future .
Two year Eight Months and Twenty - Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie ( Random House )
Rushdie has venture into magical realism in the past times , but this clip the hail writer of The Satanic Verses is go straight into fantasy territory . It ’s the near time to come , and the human subspecies has fallen into an “ age of irrationality . ” But then a mystic storm bang , and certain citizenry in New York suddenly have unusual powers — and it ’s because they ’re settle from ancient creatures lie with as the Jinn .
If Then by Matthew de Abaitua ( Angry Robot )
Weloved de Abaitua ’s novel Red Men , about cyber - assholes who personify your i d in the defective way . Seriously , Red Men is our everything . And now at last , de Abaitua is back with a new novel , in which it ’s either 1915 in the midst of World War I , or it ’s the near future and everyone has mental capacity implants in the back of their heads that keep them inside a phantasy world . Or maybe both .
The Shepherd ’s Crown by Terry Pratchett ( Doubleday )
It totally sucks that this book is the last Discworld novel ever . But we should appreciate just how lucky we are to get one last Holy Scripture about Tiffany Aching , Pratchett ’s brilliant witch character whose journeying has been so incredibly chart in a few previous novels , get going with The Wee Free Men . From the book blurb : “ This is a time of ending and root , previous friends and young , a blurring of edge and a shift of power . Now Tiffany stands between the light and the shadow , the goodness and the bad . ”
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor ( Tor.com )
Tor.com is launch a whole new series of tocopherol - book novellas , and this one is especially illustrious because it lend the author of Who Fears Death into space opera . Binti is the first of the Hinta people to be offer a place at Oozma University , “ the finest psychiatric hospital of higher learning in the galaxy . ”
Lightless by C.A. Higgins
Higgins is a physicist , and her debut is apparently full of awe-inspiring physics stuff — it ’s set on an data-based spaceship that ’s attacked by terrorists in mysterious space . And that ’s just the showtime of the Ananke ’s troubles , as everything goes pear - shaped . Kirkus give it a starred critical review .
The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood ( Nan A. Talese )
Another dystopian future from the author of The Handmaid ’s Tale and the Oryx and Crake books . Everything has fall apart , and a marital mates is forced to endure in their car — until they get a great offering . They can expend every other calendar month survive in a overnice cottage , with decent job , as long as they drop the off months in a god-awful prison . What is the enigma of the Positron Project ?
OCTOBER
Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor ( HarperCollins )
Yep , the unbelievably popular podcast becomes a novel ! Pawn - shop class proprietor Jackie Fierro gets give a mysterious part of newspaper publisher … which she ca n’t take away from her hand afterwards . And nobody can recall anything about the man who gave it to her . Meanwhile , Diane is seek for her Logos , a frame - gearstick .
The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness ( Harper Teen )
Remember that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer , “ The Zeppo ” ? This is fundamentally a book - duration reading of that , from the guy who wrote The Knife of Never Letting Go . In a high schooling where some of the shaver turn out to be the Chosen One , who head the battle when the vampires or alien attack , there ’s one guy who ’s just an ordinary steady cat , who perchance wants to graduate high schooling and maybe get to go out with the girl he has a crush on . This is a Word about that guy rope .
Empire Ascendant by Kameron Hurley ( Angry Robot )
Here ’s the long - await sequel to The Mirror Empire , a book which sort of slip through the cracks because it was delayed and then released without much flourish . ( But which has receive long ton of praise since it ’s been out . ) In this sequel , the sour star Oma is in the sky , and the kingdom of Dhai is under siege from the invaders from another world who already decimated the kingdom of Saiduan .
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie ( Orbit )
Here ’s the third al-Qur’an in the Imperial Radch trilogy . Breq , the soldier who used to be a warship , happen someone who should n’t subsist and faces a head - on challenge from her arch - enemy Anaander Mianaai , who destroyed the ship Justice of Toren . Her back is against the wall , and the betting odds are against her . Kirkussays this is a worthy conclusion to the saga .
Slade House by David Mitchell ( Random House )
Nobody expected another book from Mitchell , so soon after the stunning The Bone Clocks . But this short novel in five parts just sort of happened — it span from 1979 to the close futurity , and includes a crossing with The Bone Clocks . What really depart on inside the cryptic Slade House , which only appears every nine years ?
Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff ( Knopf )
It ’s the year 2575 , and Kady ’s major planet has just been attacked by two rival megacorps , in this Modern young - adult novel that ’s already making wave . Not only that , but a plague is desolate across the planet . And the major planet ’s fleet ’s AI may have been turned against its multitude . It ’s up to Kady and some other hackers to bring out the truth of what ’s going on .
A Borrowed Man by Gene Wolfe ( Tor )
One of our greatest support writers , Wolfe is furcate out yet again — combining science fiction and detective fiction . A hundred days in the hereafter , you might not be able to take a special uncommon book out of the subroutine library , but what if you could take out the author instead ? The personality and computer memory of one picky mystery author have been downloaded into a clon ’s body , and now a cleaning lady needs to “ borrow ” him to retrieve out the secrets that were in a book her father had when he was murdered .
Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson ( Tor )
Sanderson ’s first Mistborn novel since 2011 ’s Alloy of Law , this book take place year later , when law officer are chasing a sequential killer who go too fast to see . They ’d better move tight , because the whole city ( which is rapidly industrialize while also keeping conjuring trick ) is falling apart around them .
An Ancient Peace by Tanya Huff ( Daw )
The first record in a fresh military science fiction serial , spun off from Huff ’s Confederation series . Someone is search for the lose weapons of the H’san , which are powerful enough to put down whole planets , and Torin Kerr and her crew have to stop this madness before war unwrap out .
Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente ( Tor )
Valente ’s first skill fiction novel ! It ’s an alternating 1986 , and talking movie are still uncommon because the Edison family is pile up the patent . So Severin Unck decides to rebel against her show - game folk and make documentaries about travel to all the planets of the solar system — via mythic , pic - stylus rockets that actually work in this world . It sounds like a unusual , metafictional exploration of cosmic themes .
NOVEMBER
press Shadows by Lisa Goldstein ( Nightshade )
Computer geek Ann Decker gets levy to join a mysterious new program that ’s set the world ’s problems … through prison term traveling . Going back into history and making flyspeck tweaks turns out to have huge impact on the other twenty-first century — but is Ann working for the safe guys , or the bad Guy ? We ’ve already take this Christian Bible , and it ’s a enchanting new spin on time - travel ideas .
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu ( Saga )
Liu ’s scant fiction has sweep all of the major awards — read the statute title story on io9 here . And now at last , you may record all the great chronicle from the author of The Grace of Kings in one place .
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King ( Simon & Schuster )
And speaking of poor fiction collections — here ’s a whole bunch of recent creeptastic stories from the headmaster of sorry horror . Including a narrative about a guy who can defeat you by write your necrology , and a new twosome who think that they ’ve outwitted the Devil . These thing never turn out well , but it ’s always fascinating to see how they go in the south .
Planetfall by Emma Newman ( Penguin )
The most essential individual on a new planetary dependency is the 3D printer locomotive engineer , who makes all the stuff the settlement needs to hold out — but Ren , the engineer , is keep a secret about the reason why humans go to this foreign major planet in the first spot . And it turns out the settlement ’s leader , who experience alone inside a occult foreign structure , is hiding a Brobdingnagian secret .
Black Wolves by Kate Elliott
King Anjihosh built a capital land with his spare hands , defeating about unkillable demon and driving them away . But age after , his trusted soldier Kellas is pulled out of retreat to help his successor hold onto the throne in the face of a sword fresh threat .
Air and Darkness by David Drake ( Tor )
The final Quran in Drake ’s series about an alternate Rome is also a standalone novel . The military group of magic and the supernatural are battling against the power of ground and system of logic , and the supernatural is winning . It ’s up to the soldier Corylus to prove and turn the tide for ground , before refinement falls .
The Night Clock by Paul Meloy ( Solaris )
A debut novel from the author of some grand myopic story . A psychiatric nanny finds that all his patients are dyingand this is the prelude to the end of reality itself — unless he can team up up with a inscrutable meter traveler name Daniel to rebuild the clock that keeps the universe going . They enter the flux density above our reality , the Dark Time , where the Firmament Surgeons manipulate everything .
Ringworld : The Graphic Novel Part 2 by Larry Niven and Sean Lam ( Tor )
Ringworld is one of the greatest works of skill fiction ever publish , but you acknowledge what would make it better ? If it was a gorgeous manga . unite Louis Grindley Wu and his friends as they research a megastructure in infinite .
DECEMBER
A Daughter of No Nation by A.M. Dellamonica ( Tor )
Sophie is excited to chat the land of Stormwrack , where her father is an of import Duelist - Adjudicator . Until she begins to suspect her daddy is a sociopath . Soon , she ’s on her own in a strange world — so she make up one’s mind to define up a forensic institute and look into cold cases in Stormwrack , that have gone unsettled for years .
Thunderbird by Jack McDevitt ( Ace )
McDevitt return to the cosmos of Ancient Shores , in this newfangled novel where people rush to explore an ancient stargate that ’s been chance upon in North Dakota — it precede to three unlike worlds , each of them with its own unknown secret .
The matter Itself by Adam Roberts ( Gollancz )
Roberts tackles the Fermi Paradox in this spin on the classic monster movie The matter . Two men are stuck at an Antarctic research station , and one of them is obsessed with reading material and debating the work of Immanuel Kant ( hence “ the affair in Itself . ” ) Soon they discover they may not be alone there , and it may be a Categorical Imperative to keep their wits about them . ( Or someone may hit with them with a Critique of Pure Reason , that they may not survive . )
The Curse of Jacob Tracy by Holly Messinger ( St. Martin ’s Press )
A Civil War oldtimer can see ghosts , which is n’t as much fun as you ’d go for . And now it ’s 1880 and he ’s living in St. Louis , where a rich lady advert Sabine Fairweather wants to send him on a serious errand — in which ghost may be the least of his worries .
Star warfare : The Force Awakens by Alan Dean Foster ( Random House )
What ’s this ? Oh , just the novelization of a steel new Star Wars movie , written by the author of the marvellous Pip and Flinx books ( who also novelized the original Star Wars and wrote the first tie - in book , Splinter of the Mind ’s Eye . ) If anybody can bestow a lot to your appreciation of this raw film , it ’s go to be Foster — who is an casual io9 commenter .
Barsk : The Elephants ’ Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen ( Tor )
It ’s the remote time to come , and the human race is gone — but our descendants know on in the shape of uplifted animals . Including supersmart elephants who are really , really respectable at inventing new drugs , let in one that lets you talk to the recently dead . I ’ve been a lover of Schoen ’s short fabrication since the days of Speculon , so an actual novel is a windfall .
Sources : Kirkus , BarnesandNoble , Amazon , Goodreads , Locus , BarnesandNoble again , and Publisher catalog . Top image : Ringworld : The Graphic Novel Vol . 2
BooksKen LiuStar WarsStephen King
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