June is a busy month for publishers looking to provide readers with the perfect summer read. What better way to escape than the pages of science fiction and fantasy?
Here's a look at 12 science fiction and fantasy books being published this month that you don't want to miss...
Read the last SF Signal on social science fiction.
Amped by Daniel H. Wilson
Wilson wowed audiences last year with his novel Robopocalypse. Once again he leverages his scientific background to create a believable near-future thriller. Amped depicts the division of humanity resulting from a device implant that gives some people superhuman abilities.
Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds
Master storyteller Reynolds begins an epic new series (Poseidon's Children) that traces generations of a single family across more than 10,000 years of future history. In Blue Remembered Earth, Africa is a world power and a virtual Utopia...and mankind has settled the moon, Mars and small colonies across the solar system. Against this background, a young man who wants nothing to do with his family's business empire is sent to the moon to protect the family name when a fascinating discovery is made.
Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey
Caliban's War is the second book in The Expanse space opera series, so if you haven't already read the widely acclaimed first book, Leviathan Wakes, you'll want to...just so you dig into the sequel which involves killer supersoldiers, looming war, political intrigue, alien biological pandemics, a missing child and an alien invasion.
Doctor Who: Shada: The Lost Adventure by Douglas Adams by Gareth Roberts
Douglas Adams achieved literary immortality with his much-loved sf comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so the publication of Shada is a treat not just for Adams fans, but also fans of Doctor Who as well. Shada is the novelization of a script Adams wrote for the original Doctor Who TV series that was never aired. In it, the Doctor's old friend calls upon him to protect a valuable artifact from his home planet that's being sought by malevolent forces.
Existence by David Brin
In Existence, Futurist Brin tackles some puzzling questions: With so many habitable planets in the universe, where is everybody? Did alien species become extinct? Those questions may be answered when an astronaut finds a crystal orbiting Earth. But here's a new question: Is the alien artifact a friendly invitation or a dire warning?
Osiris by E.J. Swift
In the future, the grandson of the Architect of Earth's last city—the ocean city of Osiris—disappears, leaving his estranged socialite twin sister to form an uneasy alliance with a wannabe-activist (and a third-generation refugee). Osiris begins The Osiris Project, a bold new trilogy set amidst a climate-ravaged future.
Permeable Borders by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
With more than 200 short stories to her credit, the award-winning Hoffman has proven her mettle in a field marked by imagination, style and vision. This terrific collection of her recent fiction will show you why.
Rasputin's Bastards by David Nickle
Nickle surprised readers with the haunting prose of Eutopia. Now, he returns with Rasputin's Bastards, the story of psychic Cold War spies possessing the ability to enter other people's minds and control them as if they were mere puppets. Rasputin's Bastards are the beautiful dreamers...and they will remake the world.
Terminal Point by K.M. Ruiz
Terminal Point, the sequel to Mind Storm, continues the story of sci-fi heroine Threnody Corwin, a psion with the ability to channel electricity through anything she touches. Here, it's up to Threnody and a rogue group of psions to prevent the extinction of mankind.
The Long Earth by Stephen Baxter & Terry Pratchett
Take two great writers like Baxter and Pratchett and what do you get? You get a premise that is both wondrous and thought provoking. A device is discovered that reveals countless alternate Earths. Perhaps even more startling than that discovery is that in all of them, the human race never existed. Is this a chance (or many?) for mankind to start over?
The Shadowed Sun by N.K. Jemisin
The Shadowed Sun is the second book in the Dreamblood series. Wait—wasn't the first book, The Killing Moon, on last month's list of can't miss books? Why yes, it was! That's because book publisher Orbit wisely realized that some readers don't want to wait years between books. Now, readers who enjoyed the first book can dive right into this sequel, where two outcasts attempt to eradicate the deadly "killing dreams" plaguing the city of Gujaareh.
Worldsoul by Liz Williams
The start of Williams' new series asks an interesting question: What if being a librarian was the most dangerous job in the world? That's the idea behind Worldsoul, named after the city at the nexus point between Earth and the many dimensions known as the Liminality; a magical place where books, or rather the creatures in them, literally jump out of the pages and come alive.
...Please, Sir, May I have Some More?
Should the above list not satisfy your literary appetite, insatiable reader, here are a bunch more that are just as worthy.
- A Bad Day for Voodoo by Jeff Strand
- A Stark and Wormy Knight by Tad Williams
- Alt.Human by Keith Brooke
- Bared Blade by Kelly McCullough
- Besieged by Rowena Cory Daniells
- Byzantium Endures: The First Volume of the Colonel Pyat Quartet by Michael Moorcock
- Dust Girl by Sarah Zettel
- False Covenant by Ari Marmell
- Gods of Opar by Philip Jose Farmer & Christopher Paul Carey
- How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick's Robotic Resurrection by David F. Dufty
- Hunter and Fox by Philippa Ballantine
- Hush: The Dragon Apocalypse by James Maxey
- Midsummer Night by Freda Warrington
- Obsession: Tales of Irresistible Desire edited by Paula Guran
- Redshirts by John Scalzi (Tor Books)
- Talulla Rising by Glen Duncan
- The Broken Universe by Paul Melko
- The Craving by Jason Starr
- The Devil Delivered and Other Tales by Steven Erikson
- The Hammer and the Blade by Paul S. Kemp
- The Spirit War by Rachel Aaron
- The Sword & Sorcery Anthology edited by David G. Hartwell & Jacob Weisman
- The Third Gate by Lincoln Child
- Time's Last Gift by Philip Jose Farmer
- Wayne of Gotham by Tracy Hickman