Here are 9 new sci-fi and fantasy books to pick up this April
The start to a flood of new titles headed your way this spring
How can I be expected to do anything while four people are currently zipping around the Moon?
I’ve been watching the Artemis II mission since it launched on April 1st, and it definitely feels different than any of the shuttle launches or live space walks that I’ve seen over the years. This is the most ambitious mission NASA has mounted in half a century, and as I noted the other day, hopefully it'll be the start to a new age of space exploration.
Watching the astronauts hurtle towards the Moon made me think of two books about our closest celestial neighbor. The first is In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969 by Francis French and Colin Burgess. It's the second installment of a much longer (and growing) series from the University of Nebraska Press, Outward Odyssey: A People’s History of Spaceflight. It's a detailed, exhaustive, and absorbing exploration of how we took the steps to get to the Moon across the Gemini and Apollo programs.
The second is Oliver Morton's The Moon: A History for the Future, which is less of a technical history of space exploration than it is an exploration of humanity's relationship to it. It's a beautiful, well-written portrait that's well worth picking up.
April is primed to kick off a flood of books: first with a trickle, and then with a ton. I’ll have a second list later in the month, and then we're in to May, where we'll get absolutely slammed. It’s time to get ready: you're going to need to weed out your TBR and bookshelves to make space.
Okay, here are 9 books to start off April with:
The Demon King by Peter V. Brett (April 7th)
Peter V. Brett brings his Nightfall Saga to an end, picking up after the events of The Desert Prince and The Hidden Queen. Alagai Ka is the Demon King, and while humanity has long waged and been triumphant in their war against the demons, Alagai has escaped and has begun looking for a new queen to start a new dark hive. The bad news is that he thinks he's found one.
The good news is that two of humanity's heroes, Olive Paper and Darin Bales are after him, and they have followed him to the distant shores of a new land to bring the war to an end. What they discover is a world completely unexpected: one where humans and demon not only live alongside one another, but one where humans have found a way to rule over the demons. Together, they have to find a way to convince this civilization of the danger that the Demon King represents, before it's too late.
Audiofuturism: Science Fiction Radio Drama and the Black Fantastic Imagination by andré carrington (April 7th)
andré carrington brings out a new, fascinating-looking history: the story of African American creators who turned to radio for their creative outlets. He examines the audio dramas and radio programs that brought Black speculative fiction to life for audiences, surveying the scripts, recordings, files, and lives of the authors to look at how these storytellers changed pop culture.
Writing for the Ancillary Review of Books, Sullivan Summer says "This is more than simply a comparison between two modes of storytelling. It is, rather, a multiplication of sorts, of the ways in which to “read” the authors, their texts and, by extension, the Black experience. In carrington’s hands, the whole is more than the sum of its parts."
The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu (April 7th)
John Chu has earned a considerable amount of acclaim for stories like "The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere" and "If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You", and now has his debut novel coming out: The Subtle Art of Folding Space.
This is one of my more anticipated books of the year: it follows a woman named Ellie whose universe is coming apart at the seams, along with her family. Her mother is in a coma, her sister is undermining her (while also dodging assassination attempts), and a group of engineers are trying to take over the skunkworks, the engine that is keeping the universes working like they should.
When her cousin discovers a device in the skunkworks: it's keeping her mother alive while also injecting bugs into the fabric of the universe, and Ellie is forced to confront her family's past while also trying to preserve the skunkworks.
Library Journal gave the book a starred review, saying "Chu finds a delightful and poignant intersection between the multiverse, family dysfunction, and dim sum in his debut novel."
The Faith of Beasts by James S.A. Corey (April 14th)
James S.A. Corey is the author of one of my favorite book series: The Expanse, and I was pretty sad to see it come to an end a couple of years ago. But they delivered a really excellent first installment to follow it up with: the 2024 novel The Mercy of Gods, which introduced readers to a new world and new conflict. A human-inhabited world called Anjiin is attacked by an alien civilization called the Carryx, who roll in and quickly take over and take thousands of people from their homes to evaluate whether or not they're worth adding to their larger collective as they work to take over the galaxy.
Andrew Liptak
One of the books that I've been looking forward to the most is the next installment, The Faith of Beasts, which looks to amp up the stakes. The humans who were collected managed to pass their initial tests to gauge whether they were worthy or not, led by Dafyd Alkhor, who was forced to make some extremely difficult decisions to ensure humanity's survival, and he's dedicated himself to ensuring that humanity won't be wiped out, even as the costs become apparent.
At the same time, one of their number has been taken over by The Swarm, an alien symbiote whose mission is to find a way to take down the Carryx from within, only to find that the longer it remains hidden within the humans, it's beginning to forget its primary purpose: its a weapon. As humanity is spread out amongst the Carryx Empire, they begin to fully comprehend the terrible power that has subjugated them, and the lengths that they'll go to destroy them.
I've been reading this and I've been loving sinking back into this world. In the meantime, Publishers Weekly has given it a starred review, saying "The authors continue to expertly balance character and plot development, setting the stage effectively for the series’ denouement. This wows."
The Killing Spell by Shay Kauwe (April 14th)
Shay Kauwe sets her debut fantasy novel almost two centuries in the future, when the Hawaiian islands were submerged in an incident that unleashed magic upon the world. She follows a young Hawaiian woman named Kea Petrova is the youngest of the island's five clan leaders living in Los Angeles.
In the aftermath, the clans came together and created a treaty with the city to form a new homeland, and that treaty is about to run out. As the clans struggle to make ends meet, Kea works odd jobs and crafts her own spells, only to find her life thrown into chaos when a prominent activist named Angelo Reyes is murdered with a death spell, something that could have only come from the refugee community. Kea finds herself the prime suspect, and to clear her name, she has to figure out who really killed him.
Publishers Weekly awarded this a starred review, saying "Fascinating linguistic-turned-magical theory, electrifying moments of intimacy, and a thrilling whodunit set this apart from the pack."
Year of the Mer by L.D. Lewis (April 7th)
Lewis reimagines the legend of The Little Mermaid. In it, Arielle's granddaughter Yemi is having a difficult time after her father was assassinated, and her mother is being slowly poisoned. She had been raised and prepared to protect their kingdom and ascend to the thrown, but she can't comprehend how the Ixia have treated her family after all they've sacrificed. As discontent within the kingdom has reached an all-time high and a coup erupts, Yemi has to turn to one person she'd never imagine going to before: a sea witch named Ursula.
Publishers Weekly says "Lewis’s worldbuilding impresses, seamlessly blending magic and mythology with burgeoning technology."
The Hive by Ronald Malfi (April 14th)
After a storm sweeps across the coast and scatters all sorts of random objects across a neighborhood, the inhabitants are overcome with an obsession of tracking down something that speaks to them: these items are calling out to people, and when they find their objects, they become obsessed with it, and will do anything to protect them.
Over on Grimdark Magazine, Ed Crocker says "The Hive is a puzzle box, slowburn nightmare of a community gone weird whose endless disquieting horror keeps you in a frozen state of lingering unease all the way to its apocalyptic finale."
Blindside by Michael Mammay (March 24th)
Michael Mammay adds a new installment to his Planetside series (Planetside, Spaceside, Colonyside, and Darkside), which finds Colonel Carl Butler returning to his homeworld, hoping to finally enjoy some time off. But when two people connected to his recent mission on Taug, he realizes that he's also a target.
Meanwhile, his fellow soldier Mac gets into trouble when a friend's daughter goes missing, and he jumps in to help, only to begin to wonder if this disappearance is connected to Butler's troubles. The two begin to see connections to an older enemy, and decide to head off across the galaxy to confront them.
What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed (April 7th)
30 years ago, Cameron Reed published her debut novel The Fortunate Fall and followed up with a short story a couple of years later before vanishing from the SF/F publishing scene for decades. Now, she's back with a new novel, What We Are Seeking, set on a dangerous planet called Scythia. A doctor named John Maraintha has been left on the planet, along with his friend and translator, Sudharma.
They find a world with very different cultural norms. Where a sort of polyamory (known as visiting) is common on his planet, John finds that the two societies, the Ischnurans and Zandaheans have very different attitudes and practices, and they're at odds with one another, all while Earth watches from afar.
Writing for The New Yorker, Stephanie Burt says that"it’s a cracking, fast-moving adventure story, with a wilderness-survival plot, love stories, coming-out stories, and a whodunnit. It’s about desert botany and zoology, and reproductive freedom, and new tech, and religious faith. And it asks us to sleuth out—in its world, and our own—connections among all those things."
That's all for now: thanks for reading. As always, let me know what's on your to-read list and what you're excited to check out.