Here's another giant stack of books to check out in October 2026

24 new science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels to page through

Image: Andrew Liptak

Quick announcement in case you missed it earlier: if you're in the Burlington, Vermont area, there are two events at Phoenix Books that you should come to! The first is tonight (October 14th): Chuck Wendig and Delilah Dawson will be speaking at 7PM (I'll be introducing them), while Annalee Newitz and myself will be speaking about their new book, A Wall Is Also A Road. That's also at 7PM. You should come!

Okay: new books. October is packed, so I've split this month's list into three parts. In case you missed it, here is the first list for the month:

There's another huge pile dropping this month, and here's what caught my eye:

Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn by Isaac Asimov (October 13th)

Blackstone Publishing has reached the final installment of their reprint series of Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr series (they started earlier this year with David Starr, Space Ranger, Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids, Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus, Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury, and Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter.)

Asimov originally published the series in 1952 as the basis for a proposed TV series and it's set in the distant future in our solar system, where it's controlled by the Council of Science, which utilizes agents to keep everything in order. Over the series, one agent, David Starr, tangles with space pirates and conspiracies that have threatened various settlements throughout the solar system, and in this adventure, he's headed after a Sirian spy known as Agent X, who's stolen a spaceship and jettisoned some important documents into Saturn's rings. Now Starr and his allies have to find them before the Sirian war fleet does.

The Forever Dead by John Birmingham (October 13th)

Birmingham finishes up his Cruel Stars trilogy (which includes The Cruel Stars and The Shattered Skies) with The Forever Dead. The Sturm have returned – they're on a quest to rid the galaxy of anyone who's been cybernetically or genetically enhanced, and they've been winning in their war against humanity.

A small force of humans have been continuing the fight. Commander Lucinda Hardy, Admiral Fraser McLennan, Sephina L’trel, Booker3 and Princess Alessia have been battered and face terrible odds, but they're persisting, gathering up what few allies and weapons they can, and to win, they're going to have to force a confrontation with the Sturm – a confrontation that will cost them dearly.

The Thrice-Bound Fool by Christopher Buehlman (October 13th)

I've heard lots of good things about this series (it's preceded by The Daughters' War and The Blacktongue Thief). This installment is set after The Blacktongue Thief, and follows a criminal named Kinch Na Shannack, who loves to read, but has to figure out a sentient book that tries to kill him anytime he opens it.

He's guarded by Galva, a veteran of the Goblin Wars and has vowed to protect Kinch as he tries to figure out the book, which might hold the key to keeping the people who're trying to kill the queen she loves and serves.

I've had these books on my TBR, and this sounds like a really fun read.

As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers (October 13th)

A new Becky Chambers novel is always a reason to celebrate. As You Wake, Break the Shell is the first of a two-parter, and it starts off on a planet called Fortune, which has few resources of its own. Two inhabitants, Signy (a botanist) and Cora (a pilot) have decided to leave their home for better harbors

The two come together when Cora begins experiencing a condition known as "mindbleed" – the result of her bond with her rorqual ship Colibri, and when she arrives in Signy's shop, it puts her in danger and threatens to upend their lives.

Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, saying "Chambers’s clear-eyed cultural critique pairs beautifully with the palpable tenderness between her characters, who are animated by rage and grief at the thought of a better world being so possible yet so far away. Infuriating and inspiring in equal measure, this is Chambers at her best."

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (October 13th)

Earlier this summer, the Folio Society released a special omnibus edition of Liu Cixin's phenomenal Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy – The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End – which sold out quickly. For their Christmas release, the publisher is releasing a standard edition of the volume. It featured 15 illustrations by Matt Griffin and a new introduction by Liu. It looks like a really beautiful edition of the entire trilogy.

Truth to Power: A Luke Cage Marvel Crime Novel by S. A. Cosby (October 13th)

I've really loved S.A. Cosby's crime novels Blacktop Wasteland, Razorblade Tears, All the Sinners Bleed, and King of Ashes, and I was excited and intriguing to see that he's dipping his toes into the tie-in world with a new novel set in the Marvel universe. It's part of a lineup of superhero crime novels (it's following the Jessica Jones-led Breaking the Dark by Lisa Jewell and Daredevil-led Enemy of My Enemy by Alex Segura) and features Luke Cage.

In this adventure, Luke is hired to check out a company that's building medical devices in Virginia, and soon finds that his cousin, who was watching the plant, has turned up dead. While the official report says it was an accident, Luke believes differently, and works on finding out what happened. He ends up finding a conspiracy that goes far beyond the rural Virginia factory.

Horde of the Counterwind: An Epic Voyage to the Upper Reaches: The Cult Classic That Inspired Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 by Alain Damasio (October 13th)

The video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 came out last year and has earned a number of awards and acclaim and won this year's Hugo Award for Best Game or Interactive Work, as well as the Nebula for Best Game Writing. The game is inspired in part on a French novel, Horde of the Counterwind, which is being published in English for the first time.

It follows 23 adventurers who've been trained in specific skills since their birth to fight against the wind that has overcome their homeland, climbing against it to find the source. Over the centuries, 33 hordes have attempted the journey, and all have failed.

Monstera by Delilah S. Dawson (October 13th)

Delilah Dawson's latest follows Lucy McClintock, who's moved into a Victorian-era home in Savannah, Georgia, escaping from years of oppression living with her grandfather. She's elated at the freedom, but now has to contend with a creepy landlord. The house also has a mysterious green space in the backyard, and when she asks her neighbor Saskia, about it, she finds that she's drawn to her in unexpected ways.

Writing for SFF World, Rob H. Bedford called it "another page-turning, character driven, thrilling, dark story" from Dawson.

Japanese Supernatural Tales: Encounters with Yokai, Ghosts, Demons, and Other Strange Phenomena, from the Kojiki and The Tale of Genji to Dazai and Murakami edited by Michael Dylan Foster (October 13th)

Just in time for Halloween: Michael Dylan Foster brings together a handful of stories about demons, spirits, shapeshifters, ghosts, and other monsters that have appeared throughout Japanese folklore – including 24 that have never before been published in English.

Unspeakable Things by Elizabeth Hand (October 13th)

Set in the 1920s, Olivia and Tamsin are two women who've been living a quiet life in the English countryside. They're an odd-couple: Tamsin comes from a working-class family, while Olivia comes from society's upper classes. When a body turns up along with an unexpected visitor, the pair are forced to go on the run, where they find safety at an estate called The Ledges, owned by a mysterious Rex de Voil. At first, they're relieved to find a new place to stay, but soon find that their new host extracts a cost from everyone around him.

Kirkus Reviews says that it's "a slow-to-simmer but glimmering gothic pleasure."

The End of Everything by M. John Harrison (October 13th)

M. John Harrison's latest has already earned some considerable acclaim: it was shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize, an enormous honor. It follows Phillip Tennent, who searches the coastline for artifacts that wash up with the tide. The world has been affected by a mysterious crises: entities known as iGhetti (they may or may not be aliens) have arrived, prompting the widespread collapse of the world's governments, a continent has gone missing, and the oceans are full of new, strange creatures. (It's expanded from a shorter story he wrote, "The Crisis")

When he discovers a new artifact – a shapeshifting creature, he has to take it inland before it upend everything in his world.

Writing in The Guardian, Michael Faber says "All of which indicates that despite its SF elements, The End of Everything, as its title suggests, is about everything. Unlike most novels with such ambitions, it ticks no hot-topic boxes and appears uninterested in our daily news feeds."

Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert (October 13th)

The Folio Society continues its run of Frank Herbert's Dune novels with the fifth installment, Heretics of Dune (It's already released Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and God Emperor of Dune).

This one is set in the distant future (1500 years) after the events of God Emperor of Dune, with Leto Atreides long since dead, and the empire he built collapsed across known space. Arrakis, once a lush paradise, has reverted back to a desert, and the sandworms that inhabited it are dying. This edition comes with seven color illustrations by Matt Griffith.

Redwall: The Collector's Edition by Brian Jacques (October 13th)

One of the most formative books for me as a younger reader was Brian Jacques' Redwall series. I devoured these novels, and have plenty of fond memories of them, decades later. This month marks the 40th anniversary of the first installment's publication, and to commemorate it, Philomel Books is releasing a special edition. This hardcover has a cloth-bound, foil-stamped cover, gilded edges, and a ribbon bookmark, as well as a new foreword from Jacques' longtime editor, Patti Gauch.

Off the Reservation by Stephen Graham Jones (October 13th)

Stephen Graham Jones follows up his 2020 novel The Only Good Indians with Off the Reservation. I really enjoyed that that novel, four kids from a Blackfoot reservation kill a elk, and are haunted by its ghost, which lashes out in revenge. One of the survivors, Nathan Yellow Tail, survived, only to find himself in a hospital years later after an accident that nearly killed him and a friend, Sebby.

To try and find some balance in his life, and maybe a fresh start, he sets off in a broken-down van along with three friends to try and find the remains of a Blackfeet boy who was killed at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and bring them home. They find the bones, but they've brought something back with them.

The Forest Bleeds by Rachel Kitch (October 13th)

Arcane Bioengineering student and witch, Saige Chambers, is overworked and constantly anxious about it, and she's been planning for a conference along with her fellow doctoral candidates for ages. Everything's going smoothly until things take a turn – literally. While traveling to the conference, their bus takes a turn and drops them off at a mansion in the Appalachian, where they're greeted by Arius Medea with a demand: help fix his leg, or he'll kill them.

It's a gruesome injury: his flesh is peeling off the bone, emitting some sort of magic that's messing with Saige. Her colleagues want to fight and escape, but she'd rather deal with the issue quickly and get out. All the while, she's been dealing with her feelings towards a poison witch named Vaishnavi Sri, and soon, their companions start vanishing, and they have to figure out what's going on, and quickly.

The Complete Earthsea, Volume One and Volume Two / Boxed Set by Ursula K. Le Guin (October 20th)

Library of America has been collecting a number of Ursula K. Le Guin's works for its series of great American literature, including Always Coming Home, Annals of the Western Shore, her Collected Poems, Five Novels, and Hainish Novels & Stories Volume One, and Volume Two.

Now, another major part of her work is joining the collection: The Complete Earthsea, her epic fantasy series. This is a two-volume set: the first volume contains the original three novels, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, and two stories, while the second volume contains the second three novels, Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea, The Other Wind, as well as two stories and six essays. While these are a whole bunch of editions of this series out there from publishers like Saga Press and The Folio Society, these two volumes are fantastic: they're compact, have some beautiful art in the endpapers, and bring together all of the novels in a nice, compact package.

The Death and Birth of Iliana Marek by David Liss (October 13th)

Dan Gibson once had a promising future, but everything fell apart after a woman named Faye Kristic committed suicide, something he was blamed for but can't remember a decade later. He's now living in an apartment owned by his estranged parents, is addicted to pills, and has to deal with an abusive boss.

When a mysterious woman named Iliana Marek shows up, she believes that he wasn't responsible, and some bad people in the town start ending up dead. To figure things out, he has to remember what happened to Faye and learn just who – and what Iliana really is.

Publishers Weekly says that "the ensuing tale, fast-paced if somewhat over-the-top, runs a bloody gamut of police interrogations, death threats, and pistol battles, and is helmed by a winning human-android sleuth duo."

The Blood of the Vampire by Florence Marryat (October 13th)

Bram Stoker's Dracula gets most of the credit when it comes to literary vampires, but he was far from the only author utilizing them. Florence Marryat published The Blood of the Vampire around the same time in 1897, featuring a biracial and bisexual vampire named Harriet Brandt, who feeds off of one's life force rather than their blood.

In it, Harriet arrives in Europe from a Jamaican convent and tries to find her place in European society. This new edition from Penguin Classics features an introduction by Rachel Stewart.

As We Fall Through Time by Claire North (October 13th)

A time traveled named Cal ends up observing the French Revolution, and ends up falling for a soldier – he knows that this man will die, and ends up saving his life, even at the risk of the enormous paradoxes in time that he could create. Meanwhile, in 2018, Cal's coworker Fadimatu discovers her own mummy and sets off on a quest to figure out who killed her. Another rupture in time further complicates their lives, and together, they have to untangle the paradoxes and reckon with love, loss, and fate.

Library Journal gave the book a starred review, saying "North’s writing feels like sinking into a dream, fully immersing readers in Cal’s race to save his lover, outrun grief, and stop a growing paradox from obliterating a massive chunk of time and space."

Frankenstein Rex by Adam Roberts (October 15th)

I'm a big fan of Adam Roberts' writing: he's a scholar of the genre and his fiction often explores and interrogates its tropes and works in interesting ways. His latest takes on Frankenstein's monster. It's been designed and created to be superior to humanity, and it's stature and appearance exude power. It's used that to its advantage, and it's quickly taken over Europe and the rest of the world.

Over the years as generations come and go, the creature has begun to realize that it's dying, and has begun delving into the secrets of its creation to try and figure out how to prolong its life, but also create an heir.

Serling: A Journey into the Twilight Zone with TV’s First Visionary by Alan Sepinwall (October 13th)

This is a new biography of Rod Serling and the role he played in shaping some of television's greatest stories. Sepinwall goes back through Serling's life to look at his childhood, his experiences during World War II, his entry into the television industry and his work on The Twilight Zone. He also examines how his work was influential amongst today's best-known creators like J.J. Abrams, Jordan Peele, and Guillermo del Toro.

It looks like a fascinating read for anyone who's interested in television history. Kirkus Reviews says that it's "thorough, illuminating, and above all deeply empathetic."

D: Heavy Water by Neal Stephenson (October 13th)

This is the next installment of Stephenson's Bomb Light series (it follows Polostan), a historical fiction series about the construction of the atomic bomb during the Second World War. In 1943 in Europe, a British journalist named Owen Crisp-Upjohn is assigned to Moscow, where he finds himself in the midst of a spy campaign. He soon finds that there's a plot underway for the Soviets to take control of a supply of heavy water (deuterium), before Germany can. It's a mission that takes him and others throughout Europe, from a war-torn Barcelona to London and to Norway.

Kirkus Reviews gave the book a starred review, saying "Stephenson gives his readers credit for being smart enough to follow his robust prose style and, as always, those readers are in for something truly remarkable."

The Gates of Midnight: A Novel of the Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (September 15th)

Somehow, this completely slipped past my radar last month. I really loved Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Jinni when I read it back in 2013, and I've had a copy of her followup, The Hidden Palace, on my longer to-read list. Now, she's got a third (and final installment of the trilogy), The Gates of Midnight.

In The Hidden Palace Ahmad the Jinni traveled to Syria and defeated the wizard Yehudah Schaalman, trapping him in a copper flask and burying him in the desert. By 1930, Ahmad has returned to the United States and settled in Chicago, while the golem Chava remains in Brooklyn where she's been working to create a refuge for other magical creatures.

Someone has discovered Schaalman's flask, who's been possessing the people who come into its possession, and he's arrived in America, hoping to get Chava to free him. At the same time, all is not well in the country: the economy has plunged into the great depression, and Ahmad has lost his job. Soon, everybody in their lives have begun to converge on the city.

Kirkus Reviews says "there’s a lot of cat-and-mouse here, to say nothing of spirit possession, metempsychosis, and eldritch spells. Wecker’s story is more mystery than fantasy, though, with some gently delivered theology to boot."

Thanks for reading. The month is still packed: I'll have a third and final list for you in the next week or so. Let me know in the comments what caught your eye and what you're currently reading.