In Hugo and Nebula award winner Chu’s smart, funny, and intricate debut, a Gaia-like presence lies comatose, and it’s up to her daughter Ellie to rescue her. Complicating this quest are physics student Ellie’s fears that saving her mom will mean tampering with the “skunkworks,” the liminal plane that underpins the multiverse, and her vicious older sister, Chris, who, since childhood, has been staging daily attacks against Ellie with the pretext of honing her survival skills. Meanwhile, their cousin Daniel serves as a fact-checker for the skunkworks. Whenever a glitch in the laws of physics is reported—such as a beach ball going through a wall instead of bouncing off it—he manifests repair plans. When Daniel and Ellie are summoned to a meeting with the multiverse’s chief architect, Mary, the cleverly unfolding plot gets a new crease. To save their universe and many others, Daniel and Ellie must wrangle with a renegade posse of physicists who are warping the laws of nature to keep Ellie’s mom alive. Chu loads his tale with wordplay and cultural and scientific references that read like inside jokes for an audience of engineers. It’s as rollicking as it is thought-provoking. (Apr.)

Correction: An earlier version of this review misidentified the location where Ellie’s mom lies comatose and misdescribed Mary as Taiwanese. The review has been further updated for clarity.

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Kim makes her English-language debut with this exceptional collection of speculative shorts about scientific advancement and human limitations. The protagonists of these seven show-stopping pieces take great risks to achieve the impossible, only to butt up against humanity’s self-imposed barriers. In “Spectrum,” for instance, a scientist survivor of a space accident lands on an uncharted planet and spends four decades in the company of aliens. Upon returning to Earth, she refuses to reveal the planet’s coordinates and is ridiculed by colleagues who accuse her of lying about her encounter. The title story follows a once famous cryogenicist who is evicted from a defunct space station where she has been living, partly in self-imposed deep freeze, while waiting for a space shuttle that will never come. In “Symbiosis Theory,” an orphan’s drawings of an ancient alien civilization become the subject of a neurological study theorizing that an extraterrestrial life-form was able to penetrate human infant brains and teach them morality. Kim makes futuristic science both believable and accessible to the layperson while crafting plots that branch out in genuinely unexpected directions. Most arresting is the author’s refreshingly blunt prose, beautifully translated by Hur, which renders complex and wildly imaginative concepts with precision and realism. With its profound concern for humanity and masterful command of craft, this is a stunner. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

McCarty’s elegant and melancholy fantasy debut follows Poppy Hill, who in 1880, at the age of five, was abducted by faeries and taken to their world, called Otherside, where she grew up and became a cook for the Wild King. She was then returned to the human world in the modern day as a woman in her late 20s. Poppy now works as a consultant for the Montana branch of law firm Carter Lane, which negotiates contracts between humans who want extraordinary abilities and Otherside agents, who grant them—for a price. Her specialty is scrutinizing contracts for loopholes that Otherside can exploit. The plot kicks into gear when Poppy botches a case involving German anthropologist Gabriele Albrecht, who wants to trade her sense of taste for the ability to speak every human language, not catching a loophole that results in Gabriele being bound to serve seven years in Otherside. Now Poppy must return to Otherside to rescue Gabriele, risking her safety, her job, and her friends in both worlds. This desperate quest leads her into negotiations with her former lover, Elan, and a plot to depose a king. Wistful and witty with exquisite worldbuilding, McCarty’s sprawling epic challenges notions of identity, loyalty, and the places one calls home. It’s a thrilling start. Agent: Jennie Goloboy, Donald Maass Literary. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

A duo races to understand a threat to their city in Francis’s ambitious but underbaked queer dark academia debut. In a world where scholarship is punishable by death, bookish noble Roy Dawnseve, 25, is given a choice by the despotic governor: either join the fight against the unstoppable Old Ones or be given six months in the haunted Orphic Basilica, an ancient library, to discover some way to defeat this fearsome enemy. When Roy discovers that another scholar, Percival Atherton, has been given the same task, he hopes they might work together, only to be snubbed and condescended to. Still, as the building itself seems to direct their efforts by blowing important documents their way, the two men, each haunted by traumas, start to work together. The narrative leans increasingly into fantasy as ghosts, powerful swords, and a never-ending snowstorm raise the stakes. While Francis builds a rich world and has a flair for high fantasy language, the plot vacillates between plodding and confusing and the eventual romance feels rushed. This has the atmosphere and trappings of an exciting tale but never quite coalesces. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

More than a mere retelling, this darkly enchanting sequel to “The Little Mermaid” from Lewis (The Dead Withheld) conjures an expansive underwater world while keeping much of the original tale intact. Years before the start of the book, Arielle left the sea to be with her prince, giving up her tail for legs and abandoning her kingdom of Mer for the kingdom of Men. Now, her granddaughter, Yemaya Blackgate, aka Yemi, must deal with the consequences of Arielle’s actions as she prepares to take the throne of Ixia. Her fearsome mother is dying of a curse that’s slowly turning her to stone and her kingdom is in crisis, spurred by the grumblings of those who would prefer not to have Arielle’s bloodline on the throne. When an uprising leaves Yemi exiled, her determination to take back the throne leads her to Ursla. Yemi’s drive for bloody vengeance is strong, and she’s tempted into a deal with the sea witch just as her grandmother was before her. But Ursla has her own motivations for helping Yemi and the throne Yemi so strongly desires to retake won’t come without a price. Lewis’s worldbuilding impresses, seamlessly blending magic and mythology with burgeoning technology. Fans of grim fairy tales will be excited to see where Lewis takes things next. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

Set in the aftermath of WWI, in a world where Faeries are known but thought to have abandoned England, Corrigan’s quaint historical fantasy debut offers a gentle love story. Mouse Dunne is the inheritor of Faerie-blessed Thistlemarsh Hall, but her hateful uncle has left some conditions. To keep the house, Mouse must either marry or completely renovate the crumbling manor within the month. If she doesn’t, the entire inheritance goes to her awful cousin, Carlyle. Desperate to provide for her disabled brother, Mouse makes an ill-advised deal with a Faerie, Thornwood, who shocks her by appearing on the property. He agrees to use his magic to restore Thistlemarsh to its former glory. As the two work together, a soft and sweet romance takes root. Despite their diametrically opposed worldviews, Mouse and Thornwood go from entertaining disagreements to slowly earned respect. The duo’s dynamic keeps the novel afloat, even when their investigation into the estate’s magic underwhelms, suffering from a few too many convenient turns. A sense of isolation, stemming from a lack of interaction with the surrounding town of Tithe, makes the world of the novel feel somewhat limited and flat but gives the small cast more time to shine. H.G. Parry and Heather Fawcett fans should take a chance on this one. Agent: Sarah Landis, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

Reed (The Fortunate Fall) explores a vibrant, far-future galaxy in this wild feat of worldbuilding. John Maraintha, an Essian, is forced to relocate to the struggling colony world of Scythia. There, multi-planetary cultures collide: Zandaheans, Ischnurans, and Terrans live alongside enigmatic aliens known as basket-men, whose language and biology defy understanding. John, who is especially thrown by what he sees as the barbaric practice of marriage, which is common on Scythia, travels with Sudharma Jain, a gifted translator attempting to communicate with the basket-men. Together they strike up uneasy alliances with biologist Piro Torres and his wife, Laura, as well as Iren, a Jess, or chosen third gender. Looming over everything is aiyi, a pervasive artificial intelligence that Earth became so enthralled by that it ceased sending aide to its colonies, leaving Scythia isolated. Aiyi has now merged completely with humans like Vo, blurring definitions of life, death, and autonomy. As tensions rise over the possible exploitation of the basket-men, violence erupts. Reed expertly examines themes of queerness and colonialism and offers a thought-provoking critique of marriage amid the barrage of worldbuilding innovations, including plants that birth animals and a soul inhabiting a bag strap. Add in the sprawling cast, and it can be difficult to get a foothold in this unfamiliar world. Still, sci-fi fans who stick with it will be richly rewarded. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/30/2026 | Details & Permalink

With this decadently dark gothic romance, White (Lucy Undying) delivers another gripping pseudo-sequel to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Anneke van Helsing is intent on avenging the death of her father, the famed vampire hunter, whom she hero-worshipped despite their distant relationship. She had caught a glimpse of a mysterious, immensely beautiful woman standing over his body and believes her to be his murderer. Now, with the help of three friends, trained detective Anneke strives to track down this woman, following a string of unusual and gruesome deaths across the continent. It’s a pleasure to be immersed in late-19th-century Europe, even as the death and gore piles up, and it’s delicious to witness Anneke and Diavola (the mystery woman’s name, as revealed in the teasing letters she leaves for Anneke) draw ever closer together, pulled as much by lust as hate. Horror and romance lovers alike will find much to enjoy—as long as they have strong stomachs. Agent: Michelle Wolfson, Wolfson Literary. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

In gorgeous prose, Dong (Liar, Dreamer, Thief) crafts a jam-packed, genre-bending story of murder, captivity, ghosts, monsters, and a harrowing escape to freedom. Hee-Jin is an undocumented woman living in South Korea in perpetual fear of being discovered. Her sister, Hee-Young, has long since disappeared to America for an artist residency, but suddenly she shows up at Hee-Jin’s doorstep, horrifically transformed and on the brink of death. When Hee-Jin finds Hee-Young’s immaculately forged U.S. passport, she makes the desperate choice to steal it and flee to the U.S. In Pittsburgh, she assumes her sister’s identity and rejoins a mysterious mentorship program for impoverished young female artists from unstable parts of the world. Soon, however, Hee-Jin realizes she’s more prisoner than volunteer, and it becomes clear the program is far more sinister and dangerous than she could have ever imagined, full of perils both real and imagined, and plenty of ghosts to light the way. Dong’s exquisite descriptions of Hee-Jin’s isolation and loneliness are haunting, and the nods to Korean folklore add to the lush, almost dreamlike experience. Some questions go frustratingly unanswered and the thematic explorations of Korean diasporic identities, female exploitation, and the nature of art jostle for space. Still, this grisly and tragic tale should win plenty of fans. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink

Ballard’s lackluster sophomore outing (after Sugar) is a gory and intense attempt at feminist horror that doesn’t have much new to say. Protagonist Gia, fired from her accounting job, estranged from her alcoholic father, and apparently with only one friend in the world, college bestie Kennedy, is desperate for cash and signs up for a sugar baby app. She meets Nathan, who appears to be a relatively normal, moderately good-looking, middle-aged man, and agrees to a meeting. Unfortunately, Nathan’s appearance is deceptive: his very specific tastes lean toward degrading pet play, and his hidden violent streak emerges the first time Gia tries to say no to him. The resulting plot reads as a simplified blend of Emma Donoghue’s Room and Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch, presenting the horror of Gia’s lost autonomy without any particularly insightful or complex commentary. The vivid, visceral descriptions of escalating violence are hard to look away from, but readers will long for more depth. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/06/2026 | Details & Permalink