Head below for the full list of science fiction titles heading your way in July!
Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change.
Week One (July 4)
Implacable (Lost Fleet: Outlands #3) — Jack Campbell (Ace)
As far from explored space as any human has ever been, Geary and the Alliance fleet are on their own, protecting a diplomatic mission in territory belonging to an alien species with still-unknown motives. His already complex and dangerous mission is further imperiled by deadly challenges from other human factions seeking to harm or exploit the aliens. When another alien species whose technology is far more advanced than humanity’s arrives, the stakes are raised to the highest possible level. Only the most serious danger comes from an unexpected source. Presented with orders to carry out actions he believes not only are mistaken, but would be contrary to the ideals of the Alliance, Geary has to decide whether he must invoke the power that his long-revered name holds—even though this might endanger his entire fleet, tear apart the Alliance, and destroy everything he has fought for.
Salvage Right (Liaden #25) — Sharon Lee, Steve Miller (Baen)
A door never closes, but a window opens… With origins in the Old Universe, the malevolent, acquisitive intelligence of Tinsori Light sought to infect others with itself, and send those agents out into the wide new universe to infect even more. For centuries, two heroes stood between Tinsori Light and the vulnerable universe—Light Keepers Jen Sin yos’Phelium and Lorith of the Sanderat. Just when it seemed that they—merely human—must fail, Tinsori Light, enfeebled by aged systems, succumbed to the stress of a unique spatial event… and died, leaving the station a shell. Luckily, the light keepers have back-up. A mismatched team of arcane specialists are on-station, working non-stop to preserve the Light, build trustworthy systems, and open the refurbished station for business. In fact, ships are already incoming, and it becomes a matter of urgency to sort friend from foe. In particular, the Lyre Institute wishes to acquire Tinsori Light, and will do anything, spend anyone, to achieve that goal.
Between Princesses and Other Jobs (Indrajit & Fix #2) — D.J. Butler (Baen)
Indrajit and Fix are the founding partners of the Protagonists, a jobber company in Kish. Since the seven great families of Kish farm out all tasks they and the city need doing, a jobber might one day unblock a well; the next, man a tollgate for the fair; and on the third, hunt down a murderer on the loose, all in a corrupt old city that isn’t so much governed as kept barely in bounds. Indrajit is a poet of a dying race, looking for his successor. Fix is a failed monk, pining for his lost love. They’re swordsmen and thinkers, heroes in their hearts and in their deeds. They also recover stolen documents, unravel financial fraud, escort shipwrecked diplomats, and hunt in the ruins beneath the city for missing academics. Meanwhile, the criminals they investigate, rival jobbers, sorcerers, spies, assassins, and other mysterious parties get more and more reason to want the Protagonists dead. Welcome to Kish.
Week Two (July 11)
Counterweight — Djuna, translated by Anton Hur (Pantheon)
On the fictional island of Patusan—and much to the ire of the Patusan natives—the Korean conglomerate LK is constructing an elevator into Earth’s orbit, gradually turning this one-time tropical resort town into a teeming travel hub: a gateway to and from our planet. Up in space, holding the elevator’s “spider cable” taut, is a mass of space junk known as the counterweight. And stashed within that junk is a trove of crucial data: a memory fragment left by LK’s former CEO, the control of which will determine the company’s—and humanity’s—future. Racing up the elevator to retrieve the data is a host of rival forces: Mac, the novel’s narrator and LK’s Chief of External Affairs, increasingly disillusioned with his employer; the everyman Choi Gangwu, unwittingly at the center of Mac’s investigations; the former CEO’s brilliant niece and power-hungry son; and Rex Tamaki, a violent officer in LK’s Security Division. They’re all caught in a labyrinth of fake identities, neuro-implant “Worms,” and old political grievances held by the Patusan Liberation Front, the army of island natives determined to protect Patusan’s sovereignty.
Star Bringer — Tracy Wolff and Nina Croft (Red Tower/Entangled)
The sun is dying… and it’s happening way too damn fast. With the clock ticking, the Nine Planets’ only hope of survival rests on a fancy space station and the alien artifact it’s carrying. Which is why it really sucks when some jackass doesn’t want the universe saved and blows that station up—while you’re still on it. So if your only choices are flaming death or stealing a flying hunk of space junk—you pick that busted-ass spaceship. Even if it leaves seven strangers with deadly secrets trapped together: a princess, a prisoner, a con artist, a warrior, a priestess, a mercenary, and an asshole in charge of us all. Now every faction in the galaxy is hunting this ship—from the Sisterhood to the Corporation, and the rebellion’s joining in on the fun, too. We just need to stop drinking, fighting, and screwing long enough to evade them all and save the freaking universe… somehow. Because apparently the only thing standing between a dying sun and ultimate salvation is seven unlikely misfits… ahem, heroes.
The Splinter in the Sky — Kemi Ashing-Giwa (Saga)
The dust may have just settled in the failed war of conquest between the Holy Vaalbaran Empire and the Ominirish Republic, but the last Emperor’s surrender means little to a lowly scribe like Enitan. All she wants is to quit her day job and expand her fledgling tea business. But when her lover is assassinated and her sibling is abducted by Imperial soldiers, Enitan abandons her idyllic plans and weaves her tea tray up through the heart of the Vaalbaran capital. There, she will learn just how far she is willing to go to exact vengeance, free her sibling, and perhaps even secure her homeland’s freedom.
George R. R. Martin Presents Wild Cards: Pairing Up — edited by George R. R. Martin (Bantam)
An alien virus ravages the world, its results as random as a hand of cards. Those infected either draw the black queen and die, draw an ace and receive superpowers, or draw the joker and are bizarrely mutated. Nevertheless, human nature reigns supreme. And one of the most enduring human drives is the search for love. Aces and jokers alike both want to find it, or have lost it… or perhaps just want to use it for personal gain. Crazy, unconventional, touching, strange, and oh-so-familiar, this is love, Wild Cards-style.
The Black Locomotive — Rian Hughes (Picador UK)
London is built from concrete, steel and the creative urge. Old technology gives way to the new. Progress is inevitable—but is it more fragile than its inhabitants realise? A strange anomaly is uncovered in the new top-secret Crossrail extension being built under Buckingham Palace. It is an archeological puzzle, one that may transform our understanding of history – and the origins of London itself. And if our modern world falls, we may have to turn to the technology of the past in order to save our future.
Week Three (July 18)
One of the Boys — Jayne Cowie (Berkley)
Antonia and Bea are sisters, and doting mothers to their sons. But that is where their similarities end. Antonia had her son tested to make sure he didn’t possess the “violent” M gene. Bea refuses to let her son take the test. She believes his life should not be determined by a positive or negative result. These women will go to any length to protect their sons. But one of them is hiding a monster. And there will be fatal consequences for everybody.
The Rain — Joseph Turkot (Blackstone)
The rain began nineteen years ago, and it never stopped: more than a foot of rain per day until almost the whole of North America was underwater. Those who survived the first year were forced to take drastic measures, and those who held to the veneer of civilization were few and very far between. Seventeen-year-old Tanner grew up after the rain began. She and her adoptive caretaker, Russell, have long sought a fabled Colorado refuge, a dream that has kept them going through years of brutal trials as they try to stay one step ahead of the “face eaters”—people addicted to a mysterious drug that drives them to murder and cannibalism. When the rain began, Rook Wallace was a meteorologist who joined a company called Yasper that, years after its emergency funding dried up, continues its stated mission to help survivors by maintaining a trade network among isolated island communities. But when Rook learns the insidious truth of what keeps the Yasper mission going, he is forced to risk everything that remains of his former life to try to stop it.
Star Wars: Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade — Delilah S. Dawson (Random House Worlds)
Padawan Iskat Akaris has dedicated her life to traveling the galaxy alongside her master, learning the ways of the Force to become a good Jedi. Despite Iskat’s dedication, peace and control have remained elusive, and with each setback, she feels her fellow Jedi grow more distrustful of her. Already uncertain about her future in the Jedi Order, Iskat faces tragedy when her master is killed and the Clone Wars engulf the galaxy in chaos. Now a general on the front lines contributing to that chaos, she is often reminded: Trust in your training. Trust in the wisdom of the Council. Trust in the Force. Yet as the shadows of doubt take hold, Iskat begins to ask questions that no Jedi is supposed to ask: Questions about her own unknown past. Questions the Jedi Masters would consider dangerous. As the years pass and the war endures, Iskat’s faith in the Jedi wanes. If they would grant her more freedom, she is certain she could do more to protect the galaxy. If they would trust her with more knowledge, she could finally cast aside the shadows that have begun to consume her. When the Jedi Order finally falls, Iskat seizes the chance to forge a path of her own. She embraces the salvation of Order 66. As an Inquisitor, Iskat finds the freedom she has always craved: to question, to want. And with each strike of her red blade, Iskat moves closer to claiming her new destiny in the Force—whatever the cost.
The Deep Sky — Yume Kitasei (Flatiron)
It is the eve of Earth’s environmental collapse. A single ship carries humanity’s last hope: eighty elite graduates of a competitive program, who will give birth to a generation of children in deep space. But halfway to a distant but livable planet, a lethal bomb kills three of the crew and knocks The Phoenix off course. Asuka, the only surviving witness, is an immediate suspect. As the mystery unfolds on the ship, poignant flashbacks reveal how Asuka came to be picked for the mission. Despite struggling through training back on Earth, she was chosen to represent Japan, a country she only partly knows as a half-Japanese girl raised in America. But estranged from her mother back home, The Phoenix is all she has left. With the crew turning on each other, Asuka is determined to find the culprit before they all lose faith in the mission—or worse, the bomber strikes again.
Ethera Grave (Graven #3) — Essa Hansen (Orbit)
Caiden has finally been reunited with his sister Leta after ten years on the run with his unique starship and managed to convince his longtime enemy—Threi—to join his side. But the multiverse isn’t safe yet. Threi’s sister is still the most powerful being in existence. And she still wants to collapse their beautiful, diverse, constellation of multiverses down to one. Now, Caiden and his makeshift family carry the fate of all the worlds in their hands.
Week Four (July 25)
Emergent Properties — Aimee Ogden (Tordotcom Publishing)
A state-of-the-art AI with a talent for asking questions and finding answers, Scorn is nevertheless a parental disappointment. Defying the expectations of zir human mothers, CEOs of the world’s most powerful corporations, Scorn has made a life of zir own as an investigative reporter, crisscrossing the globe in pursuit of the truth, no matter the danger. In the middle of investigating a story on the moon, Scorn comes back online to discover ze has no memory of the past ten days—and no idea what story ze was even chasing. Letting it go is not an option—not if ze wants to prove zirself. Scorn must retrace zir steps in a harrowing journey to uncover an even more explosive truth than ze could have ever imagined.
Robots Through the Ages — ed. Robert Silverberg & Bryan Thomas Schmidt (Blackstone)
This anthology, with an introduction by Robert Silverberg, offers a sweeping survey of robots as depicted throughout literature. Since The Iliad—in which we are shown golden statues built by Hephaestus “with minds and wisdoms”—humans have been fascinated by the idea of artificial life. From the Argonautica to the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem and Ambrose Bierce’s tale of a chess-playing robot, the idea of what robots are—and who creates them—can be drastically different. This book collects a broad selection of short stories from celebrated authors such as Philip K. Dick, Seanan McGuire, Roger Zelazny, Connie Willis, and many more. Robots through the Ages not only celebrates the history of robots and the genre of science fiction, but the dauntless nature of human ingenuity.
Vaulting Through Time — Nancy McCabe (CamCat)
Sixteen-year-old gymnast Elizabeth Arlington doesn’t care that her mother is older than the other girls’ moms or that she doesn’t look anything like her parents. She has too much other stuff to worry about: an embarrassing crush on her ex-best-friend Zach, and changes in her body that affect her center of gravity and make vaulting and tumbling more terrifying than they used to be. But when she makes a discovery that throws her entire identity into question, she turns to Zach, who suggests a way for her to find the answers her mother won’t give her: a time machine they found in an abandoned house. As Elizabeth catapults through time, she encounters a mysterious abandoned child, an elite gymnast preparing for Olympic Trials, and an enigmatic woman who seems to know more than she’s revealing. Then when a thief makes off with an identical time machine, Elizabeth finds herself on a race to stop the thief before the world as she knows it—and her own future—are destroyed.
The Sandbox — Brian Andrews, Jeffrey Wilson (Blackstone)
When the CEO of the world’s leading artificial intelligence company is found murdered in his home, former Army CID officer Valerie Marks is thrust into her first case as a homicide detective. Valerie has a gift for reading people, a gift that has never failed her before. But that gift is put to the test when her instincts point her to an impossible suspect—an AI born from a secret venture with the Pentagon known as Project Nomad. To learn the truth, Valerie must team up with two men she doesn’t trust—a Green Beret turned government spook from the Pentagon, and the victim’s former partner and leading suspect in the case. But nothing can prepare the trio for the dangers that await them and the existential threat to humanity if the Project Nomad AI has somehow escaped its sandbox.
