It’s been an amazing year in books, particularly for Sci-Fi readers. From fun, breezy reads to murder mysteries that make you think, 2018 has brought something new and exciting for every kind of Sci-Fi books fan. Check out these new titles and tell us what you think!
1.Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds
Elysium Fire is the latest installment in Alastair Reynolds’ Revelation Space universe. A sequel to Aurora Rising, the novel follows Prefect Tom Dreyfus, into a world of murder, secret cults, tampered memories, power, and corruption.
The story takes place in a world of city-states, orbiting the planet Yellowstone. Imagine a sort of paradise, a democratic utopia. But even perfect places need police. Prefect Tom Dreyfus is an operative in a law-enforcement agency called Panoply. But when citizens begin to suddenly die at random, victims of a strange malfunction of their neural implants, only Dreyfus can follow the clues to the surprisingly sinister cause of their deaths.
Follow one of Sci-Fi’s most enduring characters on a sprawling saga. Add it to your must-read list!
Check it out here.
2. Tell the Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams
Katie Williams’ debut follows the story of Pearl, a technician who operates a machine that tells you what you need to be happy. Pearl’s boss tells her she’s good at her job. He says she’s successful. But how do you measure an emotion? Then there’s Rhett, Pearl’s teenage son. Rhett seems to want to be miserable. In fact, rejecting joy is his own “pursuit of happiness.” Naturally, Pearl wants to help Rhett. That would make her happier. But, tending to her son’s emotional life isn’t a part of her job description–not as a happiness technician or as a mother.
Arranged as a series of short stories, Williams invites readers to meditate on our obsession with technology and its effect on our lives. If you liked the show Black Mirror, you’ll love Tell the Machine Goodnight. And, at 280 pages, you’ll breeze through it!
Check it out here.
3. Gate Crashers by Patrick S. Tomlinson
The universe is infinite. So too is humanity’s unquestionable ability to make horrible decisions. In Gate Crashers, humankind ventures deeper into the galaxy than ever before… and immediately causes a disaster. The crew of the exploration vessel Magellan decides to bring a newly discovered alien structure back to Earth. However, the aliens are pretty satisfied with the status-quo on their structure.
In Gate Crashers, a planet full of mistake-prone, highly evolved primates puts itself on a collision course with a hostile galaxy. This book is a funny, tongue-in-cheek read that reminds us that the universe may be stranger than we think.
Check it out here.
4. Head On by John Scalzi
Head On is a murder mystery with a sort of buddy-cop whodunit charm, wrapped in the context of a robot fighting league. Creative enough for you? The book begins in the near-future as a police procedural. FBI agents Chris Shane and Leslie Vann are investigating the death of a robot-fighting sports star. Hilketa is a violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers.
Is the athlete’s death an accident or murder? Shane and Vann search for the truth and uncover the dark side of the fast-growing sport, where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.
Check out Head On here.
5. Last Shot by Daniel José Older
In Last Shot, Daniel José Older reunites Han Solo and Lando Calrissian on the Millennium Falcon in a wonderful, galaxy-spanning novel inspired by Solo: A Star Wars Story. The crew of the Millennium Falcon have a long and infamous history. Twice they’ve sought to find and claim the prize/reward for a mysterious transmitter. But the device’s creator, the criminal Fyzen Gor, hasn’t wanted to share. Now, ten years since young hotshot Solo’s last encounter with Gor, Lando shows up at Han’s doorstep in the middle of the night, fleeing Fyzen’s assassins. Without Han’s help, Lando—and all life on Cloud City—could be wiped out.
Prepare for an action-packed journey across the stars—and into the past—where our heroes must find Gor’s prized device before the villain can use it to forever reshape the galaxy.
Check out this fun, funny, and totally breezy read here.
6. Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson
In 2267, Earth has only just begun to recover from a major ecological disaster. Much of humanity fled underground, but Minh is part of a younger generation that’s moved back up to Earth’s surface to reclaim humanity’s original home. She’s spent her life restoring ecosystems, but, recently, her work has been stalled due to the invention of time travel. So, when Minh gets the opportunity take a team to 2000 BC to survey Earth’s original rivers, she’s quick to accept the challenge. Along the way, she’ll uncover the secrets of the shadowy think tank that controls time travel technology.
Closely connected to today’s realities of climate change denial, Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach takes readers to what may well be our future 250 years from now. It’s a sci-fi novella that challenges and delights.
Check it out here.
7. Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente
Can surviving extermination be funny? Catherine M. Valente proves the answer is yes! After the galaxy has been torn apart and intelligent life is nearly destroyed, an odd tradition takes hold. Once every cycle, the civilizations assemble to compete in a competition of song, dance, and entertainment. Imagine an intergalactic America’s Got Talent performed by the weirdest creatures in the universe. And the stakes? If you win, your species are elevated and celebrated. If you lose…no big deal…your species is exterminated.
In Space Opera, humankind discovers a vast universe. But it’s not filled with the space aliens and gun ships we’d imagined. Instead, it’s more lipstick and glitz, colored hair and electric guitars. A universe where humankind doesn’t fight for it’s survival–it dances.
We love Space Opera and think you will too!
Find it here.
8. The Book of M by Peng Shepherd
In a dangerous near future world, people begin losing their shadows and gaining strange new powers—but at the cost of their memories. The Book of M introduces us to Ory and his wife Max who escape the Forgetting by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life nearly becomes normal, until, one day, Max’s shadow disappears too.
This is a story of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe. People who risk everything to save the ones they love. A sweeping debut of survival and hope, illuminating the power that memories have on the heart and on the world itself.
Get the book here.
9 . The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch
In a future world, the military develops a covert space and time-travelling program. Shannon Moss, is a special agent with NCIS (Naval Space Command), tasked with investigating murders across time. But when she takes a case to find the killer of a Navy SEAL’s family and locate the SEAL’s missing daughter, Agenty Moss must make connections with her own troubled past and travel ahead in time to explore terrifying and cataclysmic versions of the future.
Ready for a science fiction thriller of staggering scope where past meets present and the future of humanity hangs in the balance? The Gone World is hard to put down.
Check it out here.
10. Vicious by V.E. Schwab
Vicious is a tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpower gone wrong. The first entry in Schwab’s new series, Villians, the story follows college roommates, Victor and Eliot, who share an intellectual fascination with adrenaline and near-death experiences. But when their senior thesis exploring the potential human development of extraordinary abilities moves from theoretical to experimental, the story takes a surprising twist and allegiances are called into question.
A gritty, comic book style novel, Vicious will pull you in from page one and cause you to reexamine what it means to be a hero and a villain. You’ll be thinking about this one long after you’re done reading it!
Check it out here.
Do you have a favorite Sci-Fi book that you’ve picked up this year? I’d love to hear about it!
Best,
Marquina
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