13 new SF/F books to check out in August 2026

So, a quick announcement off the bat: I'm going to WorldCon at the end of the month! I'll be interviewing the folks behind the MAYA narrative universe, which includes a novel, MAYA: Seed Takes Root, which is coming out at the end of the month.

I've never been to WorldCon, and I'm looking forward to it! If you're going to be there, let me know. I won't be there the whole time, but I should be around on the 27th and 28th.

As always, you can find the prior book lists in the always find prior lists linked in the Book List tag. And if you find these lists useful, consider signing up as a supporting subscriber?

Okay, here are 13 books to check out this month:

A Fugitive's History of the Known Universe by Nadia Afifi (August 11th)

Nadia Afifi follows up her novel A Rebel’s History of Mars. In that book, a performer named Kezza planned to seek out revenge on the person who exiled her on Mars, only to find a buried secret. A millennia later, a historian named Azad learned the truth behind some secrets of his own.

Now, Azad is a fugitive and he’s being hunted across the galaxy by the Vitruvius Authorities. He and his crew work to enlist the help of a space pirate to begin fomenting a revolution.

Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury by Isaac Asimov (August 11th)

Next installment in Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr series, following David Starr, Space Ranger, Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids and Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus. This is a reprint of a series that he wrote back in the 1950s, and which had originally been designed to underpin a science fiction TV show that was never made.

This latest adventure, the fourth in the series, takes the heroes out to Mercury, where agent David Starr is dispatched to investigate a series of accidents.

A Trade of Blood: An Ana and Din Mystery by Robert Jackson Bennett (August 4th)

It's the third installment of his fantastic Ana and Din series (preceded by The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption). These novels are set in a fantastical empire that's besieged by giant leviathans, with lots of weird science and biological stuff. It follows Ana Dolabra, an imperial Iudex investigator and her assistant, Dinios Kol, who's had his brain altered to remember everything.

They're dispatched to the canton of Sapirdad, where the heir to one of the empire's powerful families has been accused of murder. It looks like he did it: he literally has the victim's blood on his hands, and he can't deny the crime or explain what happened. If he's convicted and hanged, the canton might break out into open war, and as the breadbasket of the Empire, that's unacceptable.

As with the other novels, there's more to the crime than meets the eye, and Ana and Din find that the murder is just the tip of the iceberg.

Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, saying "The case is as clever and fairly clued as ever, and it’s a pleasure to revisit these sharply drawn characters. This series shows no signs of slowing down."

A Plagued Sea by Kim Bo-Young and translated by Sophie Bowman (August 11th)

A bodyguard named Mu-young is at the train station with her niece waiting for their train to the seaside village of Haewon when she gets an alert: there’s a massive earthquake taking place on the coast, and decides to leave, rather than leave the girl with her mother.

Just a couple of years later, she’s haunted by the choice. Her niece is dead and the earthquake unleashed a horrifying plague that transforms its victims into monsters. Mu-young’s only job is to hunt down the survivors who’ve broken quarantine. When a bureaucrat arrives from the capitol, he causes even further trouble, all while Mu-young is trying to decide if she even deserves to survive.

Whalesong by Miles Cameron (August 4th)

Miles Cameron brings a new installment of his space opera series (preceded by Artifact Space and Deep Black), Arcana Imperii. In the first, we follow a young woman named Marca Nbaro, who's long dreamed of escaping from her meager upbringing and heading into space via the city-sized Greatships that ferry humanity's cargo across space, where she joins one of the crews. In the second, she her crewmates are aboard the Greatship Athens, and something has been attacking them

Now, Marca and her allies have been growing in power to counter the distant alien threat, they're attacked, and she appears to have been killed. One single ship is all that stands between humanity's survival and its extinction.

Them by W.H. Chizmar (August 11th)

In this debut, a scientific program has cracked the code for transporting matter across space, and it's brought back something alive and dangerous. The threat is contained until it's being transported across New England, and when it crashes, something is unleashed that decimates humanity.

Years later, a man comes out of the ruins and begins looking for other survivors, encountering monsters and other threats. The unearthly monsters aren't the only things that have spelled the end of humanity.

Meat Bees by Dane Erbach (August 4th)

When Scarlett Sutton heads out to the Smoky Mountains to her father's isolated cabin, she's trying to escape her family's issues: her mother has checked herself into a hospital, and she has to go out to live with her father for the summer. He insists that she gets a job, and after finding work at an outdoor sports store, she is shocked when she comes across a skeleton on the job.

Little did she know, a couple of people have been killed that summer in the mountains, and as the sheriff's office races to figure out what's behind the killings, one of Scarlett's coworkers goes missing. She and her friends are horrified to find his body, with a host of yellow jackets consuming him, and now, they have to figure out how to save themselves and their home.

The Dungeon Book by Gareth Hanrahan (August 11)

A woman named Bait is trapped in a dungeon, and doesn't know any other world beyond that. She was stolen from her bed by a dragon, who gave her over to the horrifying residents of the dungeon, who ended up raising her in a large, adoptive family, rather than eating her.

The dungeon, with its mysterious corridors and treasures, proves to be a powerful draw for hunters and dungeon crawlers, and as Bait's home is invaded, she has to figure out where her loyalties really lie.

Star Wars Legends: Cloak of Deception and Labyrinth of Evil by James Luceno (August 11th)

Two of the better prequel-era novels, Cloak of Deception and Labyrinth of Evil, are getting the Star Wars re-release treatment. The former sets up some of the events that lead into The Phantom Menace, while the latter sets up the fall of Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith. They might not be part of the official canon anymore, but they're still intriguing reads.

The Wandering Inn by pirateaba (August 11th)

If you've been itching for another LitRPG novel series after reading Dungeon Crawler Carl, another series is getting the trad-publishing treatment: pirateba's Wandering Inn series. It's a massive series (this volume is the first part of book one, weighing in at 640 pages), and introduces us to a woman named Erin Solstice. She runs the Wandering Inn, and once came from our world. She's adapted to this fantasy realm, where dragon and monster attacks are common. The longer she's there, she learns that she's part of a much larger game, one in which other humans are pulled from our world and made to fight for survival.

The Infinite State by Richard Swan (August 4th)

This first installment of a new series, The Decurion Saga, introduces us to Katherine Fuller, who just lost her husband. He was a major part of the Pater Aeternus, a governing party in the oppressive Decurion Empire, and he's left behind a fortune to her.

Spanning a galaxy, Pater Aeternus rigorously controls its subjects, and with this new wealth and resources at her disposal, Katherine has an opportunity: purchase an entire world and start up a new society on it. But while she has ambitious plans, the empire isn't willing to let them play out, and she's forced to work in secret and recruit allies that she's not sure she can trust as she works to build a fledgling democracy.

Preaching to the Choir by Adrian Tchaikovsky (August 11th)

Adrian Tchaikovsky has a new novella, in which a woman named Elena Mendes knows that her rich boyfriend Ross fled England for the United States so that he could escape his insufferable family. Now, he's been summoned home to the family estate for a strange family fathering that only happens once every generation. While she wasn't invited, he asked her along, and when they arrive, she realizes that there are some deep, ancient secrets hiding out on the estate that give the term "old money" an entirely new meaning.

I'll have another list for you later in the month. As usual, let me know in the comments what catches your eye!