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Spring 2025
Forthcoming SF Books
The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Andrew Harlan’s job is to range through past and present centuries monitoring and even altering Time’s myriad cause-and-effect relationships. A Technician with the Allwhen Council, he must be dispassionate. Then Harlan meets Noÿs and falls victim to a phenomenon older than Time itself – love. Years of self-discipline are cast aside as Harlan uses the techniques of the Eternals to twist Time so that he and Noÿs might survive… together.
Gold by Isaac Asimov, Harper Fiction, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
The last Isaac Asimov science fiction collection which contains all of his previously uncollected stories. Gold is Isaac Asimov's last science fiction collection‚ one containing all of his uncollected SF stories that had never before appeared in book form. Gold is the final and crowning achievement of the fifty-five year career of science fiction's transcendent genius‚ the world-famous author who defined the field of SF for its practitioners‚ for its millions of readers‚ and for the world at large.
Magic by Isaac Asimov, Harper Fiction, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
A final collection of original short fantasy stories assembles previously uncollected tales, stories about the two-centimeter demon Azael, several fairy tales, and a humorous adventure about Batman's old age from the grandmaster of science fiction. These stories are fascinating musings of a wide-ranging intelligence, discussing everything from Tolkien to Spielberg, from unicorns to King Arthur. Magic is the last word on fantasy by the renowned science fiction author.
The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear, Gollancz, £18.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-473-23354-6.
Dr Sunyata Song has left the comfort of her home and family thousands of light-years behind, as she takes on the greatest challenge of her career: translating and preserving a vast and intelligent, ancient treasure-trove of information. Only to discover her worst nightmare when she arrives: not the star threatening to destroy everything when it goes supernova, but her deceitful, thieving, professional rival, and ex…
City of Jackals by Aman J. Bedi, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-60991-3.
A hardboiled fantasy filled with mobsters, necromancers and bone-crunching battles Kavi’s people were once warriors who acted as the vanguard to an imperial invasion. Now, they drive steam rickshaws. But the shadow of the Kraelish Empire still hangs over the city, and as conspiracies unfold on the Azraayan border and dark truths come to the surface, Kavi fi nds an insidious new desire slither its way into her heart. One that she cannot ignore. One that will leave blood flowing through the gutters of her city. Vengeance.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Ray was always lauded as and SF author but he himself said he wrote fantasy. I>Fahrenheit 451 is his only firmly SF novel. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
A welcome reprint of a classic collection of SF stories. Ray was always lauded as and SF author but he himself said he wrote fantasy. While many of his novels were fantasy, he did write a good number of SF shorts. Here we have a collection of varied SF shorts all linked by a fantasy of a heavily tattooed man (the illustrated man of the book's title) whose tattoos seem to come to life…
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Though centred around a firmly SF conceit – the exploration and colonisation of Mars – this is a collection of what is arguably best described as science fantasy. And it is arguably New Wave, though neither Bradbury or the New Wave champion authors of the time would probably describe it as such. In these stories psychology, perception and characterization come to the fore with rockets (though there) taking a back seat. This is a classic collection that every SF book aficionado should have on their shelves.
Slaying the Vampire Conqueror by Carissa Broadbent, Bramble, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-05173-1.
She was commanded to kill him with a single strike to the heart. She didn’t expect her own to betray her. Sylina has sacrificed everything for her goddess – her soul, her freedom, her eyes. Life in service to the Arachessen, a cult of the Goddess of Fate, has turned Sylina from orphaned street rat to disciplined killer, determined to overthrow Glaea’s tyrannical king. But when a brutal vampire conqueror arrives on their shores, Sylina faces an even deadlier adversary. She’s tasked with a crucial mission: infiltrate his army, earn his trust… and kill him. The conqueror Atrius is a terrifying warrior, carving an unstoppable path through Glaea. When Sylina becomes his seer, however, she glimpses a dark and shocking past – and a side of him that reminds her far too much of parts of herself she’d rather forget. Sylina’s orders are clear. The conqueror cannot live. But as the blood spilled by Glaea’s tyrant king runs thicker, her connection with Atrius only grows stronger. A connection forbidden by her vows. A connection that could cost her everything.
Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow, Ad Astra - Head of Zeus, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-804-54783-0.
Money-laundering, cyber-knavery and shell-company chicanery: Marty Hench is an expert in them all. He's Silicon Valley's most accomplished forensic accountant and well versed in the devious ways of Fortune 500s, divorcing oligarchs, and international drug cartels alike (and there’s more crossover than you might imagine). Picks and Shovels explores Marty's first adventure after he comes west to San Francisco and ends up working for the bad guys. The villains are an affinity scam PC company called 'Three Wise Men' that's run by a Mormon bishop, a Catholic priest and an orthodox rabbi who fleece their faithful with proprietary, underpowered computers and peripherals, and front for some very bad, very violent money-men…
The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi, Orbit, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52308-8.
How do you fight for someone you love if they don’t exist? Scientist Beth Darlow is at the peak of her career when she discovers a way for human consciousness to travel through time – to any point in the traveller’s lifetime – and relive moments of their life. An epic breakthrough to be sure, but it’s not perfect: the traveller has no way to alter, or control, the outcome; they can only observe. After Beth’s husband, Colson, the co-creator of the machine, dies in a tragic car accident, Beth is left to raise Isabella – their only daughter – and continue the work they started. Mired in grief, Beth decides to travel back in time to find Colson and prove the value of the machine. But with each trip she takes, her own timeline begins to warp. Beth continues the experiments at a rapid pace, pushing herself to the limit. But after one fateful experiment, Beth returns to find her reality altered to a horrifying extent. Isabella has ceased to exist. Beth must do whatever it takes, pushing the limits of science and the hidden rules of the universe itself, to change her reality once more, and bring Isabella back before she is lost to her forever…
Star Wars: The Mask of Fear by Alexander Freed, Del Rey, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-91942-4.
Before the Rebellion, the Empire reigned. The first book in a new trilogy, from the New York Times bestselling author of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. ‘In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganised into the first Galactic Empire! For a safe and secure society!’ With one speech, and thunderous applause, Chancellor Palpatine brought the era of the Republic crashing down. In its place rose the Galactic Empire. Across the galaxy, people rejoiced and celebrated the end to war – and the promises of tomorrow. But that tomorrow was a lie. Instead, the galaxy became twisted by the cruelty and fear of the Emperor’s rule. During that terrifying first year of tyranny, Mon Mothma, Saw Gerrera and Bail Organa face the encroaching darkness. One day, they will be three architects of the Rebel Alliance. But first, each must find purpose and direction in a changing galaxy, while harbouring their own secrets, fears and hopes for a future that may never come, unless they act.
Metro 2035 by Dmitry Glukhovsky, Gollancz, £10.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62810-5.
The third in the post-apocalyptic series that began with Metro 2033 set in the aftermath of a nuclear war with the survivors being in Moscow's underground system while powerful monsters and mutations roam outside… This series has been a big seller in Eastern Europe, and – until recently – Russia. The author currently lives outside Russia and, in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has been denounced by Putin.
The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths, Quercus, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-529-43162-9.
Ali Dawson works on cold cases, crimes so old, the joke goes, that they are almost frozen. What most people don’t know is that they travel back in time to complete their investigations. So far the team has only ventured a few years or decades back, but Ali’s boss has a new assignment for her. He wants her to step back to 1850, the heart of the Victorian Age, to clear the name of Cain Templeton, the eccentric ancestor of Tory MP Isaac Templeton. Duly prepared, she arrives in London in January 1850 – the middle of a freezing winter. She is directed to a house inhabited by artists and is greeted by a dead woman at her feet. Soon she finds herself in extreme danger. Even worse, she appears to be stuck, unable to make her way back to the present, to the life she loves and home to her son, Finn. Set your clocks to February 2025 and get ready for an new crime novel. Billed by the publisher as perfect for those missing the Dr Ruth Galloway series and for any crime and historical fiction fans.
The Way by Cary Groner, Canongate, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-837-26352-3.
The world has been ravaged by a lethal virus and, with few exceptions, only the young have survived. Cities have been destroyed and the natural world has reclaimed the landscape in surprising ways, with herds of wild camels roaming the American West and crocodiles that glow neon green lurking in the rivers. Against this perilous backdrop, Will Collins, the de facto caretaker of a Buddhist monastery in Colorado, receives an urgent and mysterious request: to deliver a potential cure to a scientist in what was once California. So Will sets out, haunted by dreams of the woman he once loved, in a rusted-out pickup truck pulled by two mules. A menacing thug is on his tail. Armed militias patrol the roads. And the only way he’ll make it is with the help of a clever raven, an opinionated cat and a tough teenage girl who has learned to survive on her own.
Star Wars: The Acolyte: Wayseeker by Justina Ireland, Del Rey, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-91947-9.
Vernestra Rwoh must find her place in the Jedi Order. Vernestra Rwoh has spent over a decade exploring the Outer Rim as a Wayseeker, answering to no other authority but the Force itself. When a request from the Jedi Council orders her back to Coruscant, Vernestra initially refuses, feeling that her first priority should be to the beings she’s already serving. But after Jedi Master Indara arrives to ask for Vernestra’s aid in person, Vernestra finds herself pulled back into Coruscant’s complicated world of Republic politics and underworld crime. As the two delve further into their investigation, and the lines between Jedi and Republic business blur, Vernestra must reconsider what it means to serve for Light and Life.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, Faber, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-571-39086-1.
Anniversary edition to mark twenty years of Kazuo Ishiguro’s modern classic, with a new introduction from the Nobel Prize-winning author. In his multimillion-copy bestseller, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of 1990s England. Narrated by Kathy H, as she tries to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, it is a story of love, friendship and memory, charged throughout with a sense of life’s fragility.
The Rule of Chaos by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-473-23425-3.
Trapped inside the mysterious Order of Legends, Asha is struggling to become the hero that the hundred worlds need. Her sister is dead, her mother won’t wake up, Obi is gone and Xavior keeps visiting her dreams. Unable to reach through the realm of heroes, she sets off to find the fabled gauntlet of Chasca, and meets new friends and old enemies… As three timelines begin to converge, Asha must decide exactly what she’s willing to sacrifi ce in order to save the universe.
The Stardust Trail by Yume Kitasei, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artefacts to alien civilisations – until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life, but she's haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future. Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can't refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction. Except no one has seen it in living memory. And they aren't the only ones hunting for it.
Some Body Like Me by Lucy Lapinska, Gollancz, £15.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62303-2.
Billed by the publisher as Never Let Me Go meets The Sea of Tranquility, exploring our capacity for love at the end of the world. Abigail Fuller spends humanity’s final days looking after her husband David. Abigail isn’t David’s wife. She’s not even human. She’s a replacement of the real Abigail, who died sixteen years ago. In three weeks, when the law changes, she’ll be free to go where she likes…
Star Wars: Dark Lord – The Rise of Darth Vader by James Luceno, Penguin, £10.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-804-95191-0.
The newly created Darth Vader flexes his Force-muscle as the Emperor’s enforcer to maintain order and obedience in a galaxy reeling from civil war and the destruction of the Jedi Order. Once the most powerful Knight ever known to the Jedi order, he is now a disciple of the dark side, a lord of the dreaded Sith, and the avenging right hand of the galaxy’s ruthless new Emperor. Seduced, deranged and destroyed by the machinations of the Dark Lord Sidious, Anakin Skywalker is dead… and Darth Vader lives.
Black Friday: Speculative stories from Africa by Cheryl S. Ntumy, Flame Tree Press, £16.99 / Can$34.99 / US$26.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62302-2.
The author is part of the Sauutiverse Collective, which created a shared universe for Afro-centric speculative fiction, and Petlo Literary Arts, an organisation that develops creative writing in Botswana.
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62296-7.
A sweeping story about a writer of a science fiction novel that becomes a global phenomenon… at a price. The future of storytelling is here. A book-within-a-book that blends the line between writing and being written. This is at once the tale of a woman on the margins risking everything to be heard and a testament to the power of storytelling to shape the world as we know it.
Marvel: Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda by Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Del Rey, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-91427-6.
Across the galaxy, the Black Panther answers the call of rebellion in this thrilling adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ graphic novel. Lost to time, space and legend, Wakanda’s rightful king must answer the call of rebellion… On Earth, Wakanda is a beacon of prosperity and a bastion of freedom. But across the expanse of space, thousands of lightyears away, lies another Wakanda. One that has grown to hold five galaxies in its iron grip. One that steals the memories of those it enslaves. One that has abandoned the values of its forbearers and seeks only the glory and power of Empire. Lost amongst unfamiliar stars, a man finds himself trapped in an imperial mining camp – one of the countless Nameless violated by the Empire. He knows not how he got there, who he is, or even his name. Only a haunting vision of a woman who he must have known once, imploring him to ‘Come back to me.’ The only thing he does know, in his bones, is that he must fight the oppression that binds him and the others around him.
Utopia by Thomas More and editorial analysis by Joanne Paul, Oxford University Press, £8.99 / US$11.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-198-86020-4.
Retains the ancillary and marginal material from the first English translation of Utopia, allowing readers into the ‘conversation’ that the translator had with More’s original Text. Includes a new introduction based on recent research and scholarship, as well as an updated bibliography and revised explanatory notes. Provides novel insights into More’s context and proposes fresh arguments about his intentions in the text Thomas More’s Utopia presents an account of an idealised fictional society that has fascinated readers since its first publication in Latin in 1516. It is a scathing critique of More’s contemporaries and a hopeful portrait of a better world; a ridiculous satire of the rich and powerful, and a personal exploration of what constitutes a good life. This edition is based on the first English translation of Utopia, produced in the mid-sixteenth century, allowing readers to understand how More was read on publication and the effects of the translator’s changes upon the book’s legacy. The introduction by Joanne Paul explores why this work has been so influential in modern utopian literature and in political theory through the ages.
The Perfect Stranger by Brian Pinkerton, Flame Tree Press, £12.95 / Can$21.95 / US$16.95, pbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58896-7.
When Linda hires Alison, a remote employee, she grows suspicious her rising star is not the person she claims to be. While the rest of the company adores Alison, Linda goes on a mission to reveal the truth – and discovers Alison might not be human at all, but an AI infiltration programmed to carry out a terror attack of catastrophic consequences.
The Expanded Earth by Mikey Please, Corsair, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-472-15834-5.
Billed by the publisher as SF, One sunny Sunday, without warning, humankind is reduced to the height of a handspan – an unsightly transformation as potentially fatal as it is inconvenient. On a remote coastal path, Giles awakes in his new body to discover a world reshaped and magnified into a place of astounding abundance and deadly peril. Desperate to reconnect with his loved ones, he seeks the help of fellow survivors, and together they embark on a quest across the altered landscape. But as their journey unfolds, the more the question persists – are they still truly human, or has their reduction in size marked the beginning of a descent into savagery, an evolution into something other? Elsewhere, one week earlier, Professor Elizabeth Goodwin makes a monumental discovery – God is alive and physically among us, but not in the form we’ve been taught to expect. As Goodwin prepares to make first contact with the omnipresent ocean-spanning creature, forces conspire in the wings, and the spectre of immanent catastrophe inches closer and closer still.
Fable For the End of the World by Ava Reid, Del Rey, £19.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-94830-1.
Billed by the publisher as The Last of Us meets The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in this stand-alone dystopian romance about survival, sacrifice and love that risks everything. By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society. Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt – enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus’s live-streamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb’s Gauntlet. Melinoe is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. She is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks. And this is a game she can’t afford to lose. The Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But Inesa’s had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother, she might stand a chance of staying alive. As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything they once knew. And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love…
Blightfall by Brandon Sanderson & Janci Patterson, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61729-1.
The last of mankind fought their way out of an interstellar prison to reclaim the stars. They united their enemies, to take on an impossible threat – and won. But the battle is only beginning…
Star Wars: Tempest Breaker (High Republic) by Cavan Scott, Del Rey, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-91936-3.
Lourna Dee is not a villain. She’s not a hero. She’s a survivor. The former Tempest Runner, wanted by both her Nihil allies and the Republic, has evaded imprisonment and death from both more times than she can count. But even Lourna Dee cannot outrun the mysterious blight that devours everything wherever it appears. And Marchion Ro, the Eye of the Nihil, has announced that only he knows the secret to stopping it. Desperate, the Republic and Jedi turn to Lourna Dee with an offer. Help the Jedi stop the blight and in return, Lourna will have a clean slate and the chance to decide her own future. Teamed with Avar Kriss and Keeve Trennis, the same Jedi who once hunted her, Lourna Dee leads the search for the Nihil’s chief scientist, Baron Boolan, the one being who may have answers to the mystery of the blight, as well as Marchion Ro’s true plans. Lourna weighs the Republic’s offer of true freedom against her own instincts for survival as her team heads deeper into Nihil territory, straight toward the very dangers Lourna has worked for so long to elude. And when the opportunity arises to face off against Marchion Ro himself, even Lourna Dee may be willing to sacrifice everything to fulfill a quest for revenge.
The Revelation Space Collection: Volume 1 by Alastair Reynolds, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61192-3.
Along with the likes of Iain Banks, Paul McAuley and Ken MacLeod, Alastair Reynolds is up there with the leaders of Britain's late 20th century space opera revolution. In the early 21st century, he is still going strong. If you have missed out on some of his earlier work – set in a hard-SF-ish future in which humanity has reached the stars but is still constrained by the difficulty (but not impossibility) of interstellar travel – then this is an opportunity for a catch-up and a teaser for you to seek out his novels: his back-list is still very much in print.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Flame Tree Press, £9.99 / Can$16.99 / US$11.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62276-6.
Victor Frankenstein is a man of science obsessed with creation. However, on achieving a miracle, he finds himself horrified by the creature of his own making. The horror classic, with a
new introduction, two short stories, a biography and Glossary of Gothic, Victorian & Literary terms.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Flame Tree Press, £9.99 / Can$16.99 / US$11.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62276-6.
A suspense-filled masterclass of horror. A repulsive creature stalks the streets and he’s becoming harder to control by the charming Dr Jekyll who couldn’t be more different to the violent, depraved Mr Hyde – until, that is, he takes a potion of his own concoction. New introduction with three dark-themed companion tales.
Dracula by Bram Stoker, Flame Tree Press, £9.99 / Can$16.99 / US$11.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62277-3.
The classic Gothic tale that led to the birth of a legend and stoked the imagination of filmmakers, artists and novelists. When Jonathan Harker visits the remote Transylvanian castle of Count Dracula, little does he know he’ll become a captive of the undead. Gorgeous edition, with a new introduction and the short story ‘Dracula’s Guest’.
Bee Speaker by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Ad Astra - Head of Zeus, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-90145-6.
The end of the world has been and gone. There was no one great natural disaster, no all-consuming world war, no catastrophic pandemic. Rather scores of storms, droughts and floods; dozens of vicious, selfish regional conflicts. No single finishing stroke for Earth’s great global human society, but you can still bleed to death from a thousand cuts. The Red Planet fared better. Where Earth fell apart, Mars pulled together. Engineered men and beasts, aided by Bees, an outlawed distributed intelligence, survived through cooperation. There was simply no alternative. Fast forward to the present day. A signal – "For the sake of what once was. We beg you. Help." – reaches Mars. How could they not help? And now here they are – three hundred million kilometres from home. And it has all already gone horribly wrong…
Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-01379-1.
After two scientists crash on a hostile moon, they must use every tool at their disposal to survive. They looked into the darkness. The darkness looked back… A commercial expedition to a distant star system discovers a pitch-black moon alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is deadly to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud. Under no circumstances can a human survive Shroud’s inhospitable surface – but a catastrophic accident forces Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne to make an emergency landing in a barely adequate escape vehicle. Alone, and fighting for survival, the two women embark on a gruelling journey across land, sea and air in search of salvation. But as they travel, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s unnerving alien species. It also begins to understand them. If they escape Shroud, they’ll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all.
Teachers vs Aliens vs the Kids! by Steve Williams, Farrago, £8.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-788-42537-7.
When a school assembly is interrupted by an ALIEN INVASION, bookworm Finley Swinnerton finds himself catapulted into an unlikely quest to save the planet, humanity and even Derek the school Guinea Pig! Join Finley for an OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD adventure as he grapples with alien assassins, cowardly headmasters and intergalactic overlords in a tale of slime, grime and PE teachers past their prime. Get ready for the cosmic clash of the century... It’s TEACHERS versus ALIENS... versus THE KIDS!
Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto, Gollancz, £14.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-61680-5.
Welcome to the space heist of the century… And the science fiction debut of 2024… Edie is done with crime. Eight years in prison changes a person. Particularly when you’re only there because your partner sold you down the river. Even getting Edie out on early parole doesn’t earn Angel any forgiveness. That’s why Edie knows they’ll turn down Angel’s offer of a job. One last, big score. A chance to take down the man who put them away: Joyce Atlas. And if they pull it off, the 1.25 billion payout might just soothe some old wounds…
Star Wars: Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn, Penguin, £10.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-804-95193-4.
Atarring Han Solo, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian and more favourites!
The Death Star has just been destroyed and Han Solo still needs the money to pay off the bounty on his head. Now the opportunity to make that money and then some has walked into his life in the form of the perfect heist. With nine like- minded scoundrels, he and Chewbacca just might be able to pull it off and live to tell the tale!
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Spring 2025
Forthcoming Fantasy Books
Modern Divination by Isabel Agajanian, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-04998-1.
The colour of magic was gold… Twenty-three-year-old witch Aurelia Schwartz has always had to carefully balance her human life with her secret magical one. With a place at an elite Cambridge university college, she almost has everything she could possibly want within her grasp. Just so long as she follows the rules: Make no promises. Tell no one what you are. And never stay the night. Except Aurelia’s gift of green magic has begun to fade. Worse still, someone is hunting witches – and stealing their powers. Reluctantly, Aurelia needs the help of fellow witch – and dreadfully arrogant classmate – Theodore Ingram. Together, they seek refuge among his family in the remote corners of an already-desolate town. But as she grows closer to Theodore, the power-hungry witch-killer, too, draws nearer. And they threaten to destroy everything Aurelia holds dear…
Death’s Successor by Brad Abdul, Flame Tree Press, £12.95 / Can$21.95 / US$16.95, pbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58899-8.
This chronicles the fallout of the invasion of Hell as Brian struggles to balance the life he always wanted, while navigating the demands of his chaotic personal relationships on a near-apocalyptic scale. A darkly comic, satirical tale.
The Devils by Joe Abercrombie, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-60357-7.
Europe stares into the abyss. Plague and famine stalk the land, monsters lurk in every shadow and greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions. Only one thing is certain: the elves will come again, and they will eat everyone. Sometimes, only the darkest paths lead towards the light. Paths on which the righteous will not dare to tread . . . When you’re headed through hell, you need the devils on your side.
A Song of Legends Lost by M. H. Ayinde, Orbit, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52530-3.
In the Nine Lands, only those of noble blood can summon the spirits of their ancestors to fight in battle. But when Temi, a commoner from the slums, accidentally invokes a powerful spirit, she finds it could hold the key to ending a centuries-long war. But not everything that can be invoked is an ancestor. And some of the spirits that can be drawn from the ancestral realm are more dangerous than anyone can imagine. M. H. Ayinde was born in London’s East End. She was the 2021 winner of the Future Worlds Prize, which was created to discover new writers of science fiction and fantasy from ethnically diverse backgrounds.
October by Gregory Bastianelli, Flame Tree Press, £12.95 / Can$21.95 / US$16.95, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58923-0.
An aged magician arrives in a small New England town in 1970 to recreate a magic trick that had tragic results years prior. When he accidentally opens a doorway to sinister evil just in time for the Halloween season, four boys on the cusp of becoming teenagers and a reclusive horror writer attempt to save the town from unimaginable horrors..
Dissolution by Nicholas Binge, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
A mind-bending speculative thriller about a woman who dives into her husband’s memories to uncover a decades-old threat to reality itself. Maggie Webb has lived the last decade caring for elderly husband, Stanley, as memory loss gradually erases all the beautiful moments they created together. When a mysterious stranger named Hassan appears at her door, he reveals a shocking truth: Stanley isn’t losing his memories. Someone is actively removing them to hide a long-buried secret from coming to light. If Maggie does what she’s told, she can reverse it. She can get her husband back. Led by Hassan, Maggie breaks into her husband’s mind, probing the depths of his memories in an effort to save him. The deeper she dives, the more she unravels a mystery spanning continents and centuries, each layer more complex than the last. . But Hassan cannot be trusted. Not just memories are disappearing, but pieces of reality itself. If Maggie cannot find out what Stanley did all those years ago, and what Hassan is after, she risks far more than her husband’s life.
Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-01137-7.
Where there’s a will, there’s a war. Thayer Wren, the brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech and so-called father of modern technology, is dead. Any one of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children would be a plausible inheritor to the Wrenfare throne. Or at least, so they like to think. Meredith, textbook accomplished eldest daughter and the head of her own groundbreaking biotech company, has recently cured mental illness. You're welcome! If only her father's fortune wasn't her last hope for keeping her journalist ex-boyfriend from exposing what she really is: a total fraud. Arthur, second-youngest congressman in history, fights the good fight every day of his life. And yet, his wife might be leaving him, and he's losing his re-election campaign. But his dead father’s approval in the form of a seat on the Wrenfare throne might just turn his sinking ship around. Eilidh, once the world's most famous ballerina, has spent the last five years as a run-of-the-mill marketing executive at her father’s company after a life-altering injury put an end to her prodigious career. She might be lacking in accolades compared to her siblings, but if her father left her everything, it would finally validate her worth – by confirming she'd been his favourite all along. On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins – but which Wren will come out on top?
The Hidden Queen by Peter V. Brett, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
The second book in the 'Nightfall Saga', the epic fantasy series set in the world of the Demon Cycle.
Humanity thought the war with demonkind was over. Now, after less than a generation to rebuild, the demon corelings have returned with a vengeance.
The Outcast Mage by Annabel Campbell, Orbit, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52418-4.
In the glass city of Amoria, magic means everything, and Naila risks exile if she can’t master hers. She must trust unlikely allies if she wants to survive: the most powerful wizard in Amoria and a priest sworn to kill mages. But when war threatens the continent, it seems Naila’s power is behind it. With her life and her friends in danger, Naila must find out if she’s meant to save the world – or destined to destroy it.
The Incubations by Ramsey Campbell, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$32.95 / US$24.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58929-2.
Leo Parker’s stay in Alphafen seems idyllic, but after he leaves, the nightmares begin: an airport turns into a labyrinth, his own words become treacherous if not lethal, and what are those creatures in the photographs he took? Perhaps he’s roused an ancient Alpine legend. Even once he understands what he brought back, worse is to come… Ramsey Campbell has been given more awards almost any other contemporary horror writer including: the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association, the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Once Was Willem by M. R. Carey, Orbit, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-356-51944-9.
This is the tale of Once Was Willem, who – eleven hundred and some years after the death of Christ, in the kingdom that had but recently begun to call itself England – rose from the dead to defeat a great evil facing the humble village of Cosham. Pennick for all its beauty was ever a place with a dark reputation. The forests of the Chase were said to be home to nixies and boggarts, and there was a common belief, passed down through many generations, that the castle housed an unquiet ghost of terrible and malign power. These rumours I can attest were all true; indeed they fell short of the truth by a long way.
The Stones of Landane by Catherine Cavendish, Flame Tree Press, £12.95 / Can$21.95 / US$16.95, pbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58890-5.
When Jonathan accompanies Nadia to Landane, he soon discovers she’s obsessed by the village’s Neolithic megaliths, and Jonathan becomes entangled in a legacy with its roots deep in prehistory. What are the secrets of the stones of Landane? And why does an ancient piece of folklore ring so true?
The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier, Borough Press, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives learning to handle. Women are not meant to work with glass, but Orsola Rosso flouts convention to save her family from ruin. She works in secret, knowing her creations must be perfect to be accepted by men. But perfection may take a lifetime. Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola as she hones her craft through war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.
The Rebel Witch by Kristen Ciccarelli, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
A witch… A witch hunter… An impossible choice… When Rune makes Gideon an offer he can’t refuse, the two must pair up to accomplish dangerous goals. The more they’re forced into each other’s company, the more Gideon realizes the feelings he had for Rune aren’t as dead and buried as he thought. And now he’s faced with a terrible choice: sacrifice the girl he loves to stop a monster taking back power, or let Rune live and watch the world he fought so hard for burn.
The Ragpicker King by Cassandra Clare, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-00143-3.
Kel Saren, body double to Conor, the crown prince of the dazzling city of Castellane, is caught between two worlds. In order to protect his beloved prince, Kel must find the culprits responsible for a massacre at the royal palace – and the only clues are held by the Ragpicker King, the notorious criminal who rules Castellane’s underworld. The trail Kel follows leads back to the Hill, where among decadent nobles and glittering parties a dark conspiracy to destroy the royal family has taken hold – a conspiracy headed up by the monstrous Artal Gremont, the man engaged to marry the woman Kel adores. Meanwhile, Lin Caster must face the aftermath of the greatest risk she’s ever taken. To save the life of a dying friend, Lin has falsely claimed to be the Goddess Reborn, the legendary heroine destined to save her people. Now the terrifying – but strangely magnetic – leader of her people has arrived to test her powers. The price of failure is exile, and only through her alliance with the Ragpicker King can she continue to access the magic that may save her. Then Prince Conor reappears in her life, demanding that she use her healing powers to cure the madness of his father, the king. Lin soon realizes the king is gripped by an ancient and terrible magic, one whose lure she cannot deny any more than she can deny her growing passion for Conor. As the simmering tensions in Castellane reach a fever pitch, Lin and Kel must decide who to trust when any false move means death – or worse.
A Harvest of Hearts by Andrea Eames, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Billed by the publisher as Howl's Moving Castle meets The House in the Cerulean Sea in Andrea Eames’ debut cosy fantasy: a cheeky butcher's daughter, a befuddlingly handsome sorcerer, and his clever talking cat unlock magical secrets in the dark heart of their kingdom – and just might discover the meaning of true love.
Cursebound by Saara El-Arifi, Harper Voyager, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Yeeran was born for war but is unprepared for love. She has left her new lover, the Queen of the fae, to return to her homeland, only to find that her former lover now threatens war against the fae. Left behind, her sister Lettle is determined to break the curse that binds the fae to their realm. When a stranger appears in the city, Lettle is convinced he’s the key. But the Fates that once spoke to her have fallen silent. Can Lettle and Yeeran discover the secret behind the curse – and unite these two worlds before they destroy each other?
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix, Nightfire, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-03087-3.
'I did an evil thing to be put in here, and I’m going to have to do an evil thing
to get out.' They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened. Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. There, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to keep her baby and escape to a commune. Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And Holly, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who. Every moment of their waking day is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid . . . and it’s usually paid in blood.
The Bloodstained Doll by John Everson, Flame Tree Press, £12.95 / Can$21.95 / US$16.95, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58887-5.
When Allyson’s mom dies, she thinks her world has hit rock bottom. But that’s before she goes to live with her estranged uncle in Germany. After a child’s casket is unearthed during a storm, people start turning up dead. Soon Allyson and her boyfriend’s lives are at stake if they don’t discover why each body is decorated with a Bloodstained Doll.
The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig, Orbit, £19.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52296-8.
Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from seven unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams. Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she’d rather avoid Rodrick’s dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.
A Reign of Rose by Kate Golden, Quercus, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-529-43414-9.
Arwen Valondale began life as no one. But now she’s risen to unimaginable heights, done astonishing deeds and fallen in love… with her arch-nemesis, Kane Ravenwood. Yet only by working with Kane will she be able to save her kingdom.
The Antlered King by Marianne Gordon, Harper Voyager, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Hellevir’s gift to raise the dead once thrust her into a dangerous web of court politics where she was bound to protect Princess Sullivain, the sole heir to the kingdom’s throne. But the more Hellevir risked to keep Sullivain alive and the more deeply she fell in love with her, the greater the cost became. Lives can only be granted by the strange figure who rules the afterlife, and there is always a price to pay. Now, as Sullivain’s hunger for power grows and the threats to her reign become only too real, Hellevir is faced with the choice, either to help the Princess in her fight for the Crown, or stand against her. Cast out to the fringes of a country on the verge of civil war, Hellevir must unravel the last of Death’s riddles and decide, once and for all, who deserves to live, and what a life is worth.
The Voice of the Wretched by Kester Grant, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
A reimagining of Les Miserables billed by the publisher as perfect for anyone who knows that Eponine deserved so much more.
The Drowning Sea by David Hair, Arcadia, £30, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-43314-2.
The Falcons are Vestal Knights who have shed blood to uphold the Triple Empire against the Vyr Rebellion. But the Empire has betrayed them. Now scattered throughout the land and on the run from their former allies, the Falcons must find a way to band together again. But speaking truth to power is perilous and the forces arrayed against them seem insurmountable. If the Falcons can’t save their world, who can?
Helm by Sarah Hall, Faber, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-571-38355-9.
Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind – a subject of folklore and awe, who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time. Through the stories of those who’ve obsessed over this phenomenon, Helm’s extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate Helm, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish Helm, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture Helm – and the farmer’s daughter who loved Helm. But now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by infinite clouds and measuring instruments in her observation hut, fears that human pollution is killing Helm.
The Sirens by Emilia Hart, Borough Press, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
2019: Lucy awakens in her ex-lover’s room in the middle of the night with her hands around his throat. Horrified, she flees to her sister’s house on the coast of New South Wales, hoping Jess can help explain the vivid dreams that preceded the attack – but her sister is nowhere to be found. As Lucy waits for her return, she starts to unearth strange rumours about Jess’s town. Tales of missing men, spread over decades. A baby abandoned in a sea-swept cave. Whispers of women’s voices on the waves... 1800: Mary and Eliza are torn from their loving home in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship heading for Australia. As the boat bears them further and further from all they know, they begin to notice changes in their bodies that they can’t explain. The Sirens is a novel about sisterhood
and the indefinable magic of the sea.
Life Number 9 by Joe Heap, Borough Press, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Jem and Mika have never met. Jem and Mika's lives have intertwined, again and again, across lifetimes. Have you ever locked eyes with a stranger and felt that you know them? When perfect strangers Mika and Jem first meet by chance, they recognise each other – not from life, but from a shared dream. Both are wary of forming new connections and have their demons to fight: Jem is in recovery from a near-fatal accident, and Mika is undocumented and under scrutiny from the authorities. As their dreams – or are they memories? – grow in intensity, they are forced to consider the possibility that they have known and loved each other over and over, across the centuries. Will they find happiness together this time?
Sycorax by Nydia Hetherington, Quercus, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-43107-0.
Born of the sun and moon, shaped by fire and malady, comes a young woman whose story has never been told… Outcast by society and all alone in the world, Sycorax must find a way to understand her true nature. But as her powers begin to grow, so too do the suspicions of the local townspeople. For knowledge can be dangerous, and a woman's knowledge is the most dangerous of all… With a great storm brewing on the horizon, Sycorax finds herself in increasing peril – but will her powers save her, or will they spell the end for them all?
Sun Rising: Short stories edited by Ravit Helled, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$40 / US$30, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-804-17808-9.
Mainly Gothic fantasy. Stories from modern writers and ancient tales of myth, the rising of the Sun has fascinated cultures throughout the world since humankind first looked to the stars and wondered about the origins of the world around us..
The Articulations by Eliza Henry-Jones, September, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-914-61385-2.
Aged six years old, Lucien goes to live with his mother’s best friend in her flat above the flower shop. His father, a writer, awaits trial for the murder of his mother. Feral and frightened but now with a loving, if eccentric, home, Lucien seems to be forging a life of his own. Until the day his father is due to be released from prison, when the truth about his mother’s death will out and a self-styled gang of vampire hunters gather at the gates of Luc’s childhood haunt, Highgate Cemetery.
I Kissed A Werewolf and I Liked It by Cat Hepburn, Wildfire, £10.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-035-41988-3.
The howling doesn’t stop after the full Moon. My first term of university: bad grades and worse seΧ. After losing my sister/best friend Grace and spending my teenage years suffering for it, I thought academia could be my saviour. So, I buried my head in as many books as I could find. But it turns out you can’t just turn the page on years of guilt. Still, the university library has become something of a haven away from the darkness.
Until a werewolf bit me in the romance section. And to my surprise, I kinda liked it. I should have died - but instead, in true me form, I fell in love with the mysterious wolf that nearly tore me to shreds. Now I feel myself changing, experiencing urges like never before. Maybe I should run for my life, but suddenly a dark bond is pulling me in closer. Am I making a terrible mistake? Could they be luring me in to finish what we started? Or could becoming a werewolf be the best thing that ever happened to me?
What Monstrous Gods by Rosamund Hodge, Magpie, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Centuries ago, the heretic sorcerer Ruven raised a deadly briar around Runakhia's palace, casting the royal family into an enchanted sleep – and silencing the kingdom's gods. Born with a miraculous gift, Lia's destiny is to kill Ruven and wake the royals. But when she succeeds, she finds her duty is not yet complete, for now she must marry into the royal family and forge a pact with a god – or die.
Cursed Under London by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch, Farrago, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-788-42505-6.
In an alternative Elizabethan London, Fang and Lazare awake from their deaths to discover they are not quite human anymore. In fact, despite having acquired the power of immortality, they’re also not like any of the other supernatural beings that reside in the underground city of Deep London. As they set out to reverse the curse, they find themselves at the centre of a dangerous plot. And when in grave danger, surely the worst thing they could do would be to fall in love...
The Gentleman and His Vowsmith by Rebecca Ide, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-05288-2.
Lord Nicholas Monterris is the only heir of Monterris Court, a crumbling ducal house. Bored and trapped, Nic spends his days crafting new automatons and his nights enticing handsome rogues into his bed, fiercely ignoring the fact that one day he must marry to save his family from complete decline. One day comes swiftly when his father selects his intended, Lady Leaf Serral. Tradition dictates the two families be locked in together while the marriage contract is magically drawn up, which Nic assumes will be the worst part. Until he learns the Serrals’ head negotiator is Dashiell sa Vare, an old flame he has neither forgiven nor forgotten, a man their rigid class structure forbids him to love. Locked in the moldering grandeur of Monterris Court, tension is thick and that’s before the first dead body turns up. The second body seems to be a warning that someone doesn’t want the contract to go ahead. As things become more precarious, Nic will have to team up with his former lover and his future bride to uncover the mastermind behind the murders before it’s too late.
The Damnations: M. R. James Short Stories by M. R. James, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$32.95 / US$24.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58940-7.
With his subtle sense of dread and use of modern settings, M.R. James’ ghost stories formed a firm foundation for the modern horror story with his presence felt in all forms of literature and media. This edition of stories features a new introduction by the greatest current inheritor of the Jamesian mantle, Ramsey Campbell.
A Curse Carved in Bone by Danielle L. Jensen, Del Rey, £218.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-91646-1.
A shield maiden fights to break the shackles of prophecy – and to overcome the betrayal of the man who broke her heart – in this searing conclusion to the Norse-inspired fantasy romance duology that began with the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling A Fate Inked in Blood. With the secret of her divine heritage revealed, Freya finds herself on a path that could see thousands of lives lost to the magic in her blood. Desperate to avoid this dark fate, she risks an alliance with Skaland’s greatest enemy – the same seer who sent Bjorn to kill her. While Freya still seethes with rage over Bjorn’s betrayal, the blood oaths that bind her demand that she keep him close as she hunts for a way to avert the looming war. Her magic draws her to the front lines of an old enmity, and the king she was raised to fear; the same king who, unlike Bjorn, is now willing to fight at her back. As war approaches, gods and mortals must choose their weapons. Yet the fiercest battle will be the one Freya wages within herself. With the magic of two goddesses burning in her veins, she must weave the threads of destiny to decide her own fate: will she be the shield that protects her people or the curse that destroys them?
Folk Horror edited by Paul Kane & Marie O’Regan, Flame Tree Press, £16.99 / Can$34.99 / US$26.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-804-17732-7.
Horror anthology. Authors include Neil Gaiman, John Connolly, Adam L. G. Nevill, Alison Littlewood and Jen Williams. The books have foiled covers, printed edges and published only in hardcover
Faithbreaker by Hannah Kaner, Harper Voyager, £20, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
War has come. The fire god Hseth is leading an unstoppable army south, consuming everything in her path. Middren’s only hope of survival is to unify allies and old foes against a common enemy. Elo navigates an uneasy alliance with Arren; his friend, his enemy, and his king. Now they each must decide how much they're willing to sacrifice to turn the tides of war. Meanwhile, Inara joins her mother on their ship, the Silverswift, to seek aid. Still grappling with her powers, Inara must reconcile who she is and where she belongs, while Skediceth has to question if their bond will be enough to keep them safe. Kissen has no allegiance to the old ways of Middren. But, as she tries to find her family, she is forced to question what, and whose, future she is fighting for.
Sunbringer by Hannah Kaner, Magpie, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
In the aftermath of a devastating revolution, witches have been diminished from powerful rulers to outcasts ruthlessly hunted due to their waning magic, and Rune must hide what she is. Gideon loathes the decadence and superficiality Rune represents, but when he learns the Crimson Moth has been using Rune’s merchant ships to smuggle renegade witches out of the republic, he inserts himself into her social circles by pretending to court her right back. Except, what if she’s the very villain he’s been hunting?
Sunbringer by Hannah Kaner, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Godkiller Kissen sacrificed herself to save her friends. But gods cannot be destroyed so easily – and neither can godkillers. Young noble Inara and her little god of white lies, Skedi, seek answers to the nature of their bond. But secrets they uncover could determine the outcome of the war. Meanwhile, Elogast has been charged with destroying King Arren, the man he once called friend, who has now entered into an unholy pact with the most dangerous of them all. The kingdom is on the brink of destruction. What will they each sacrifice to save it?
Paladin’s Faith by T. Kingfisher, Orbit, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52437-5.
Marguerite Florian is a spy with two problems: a former employer wants her dead, and one of her new bodyguards is a far-too-good-looking paladin with a martyr complex. Shane is a paladin with three problems: his god is dead, his client is much too attractive for his peace of mind, and a powerful organisation is trying to have them both killed. Add in a brilliant artificer with a device that may change the world, a glittering and dangerous court, and a demon led cult, and Shane and Marguerite will be lucky to escape with their souls intact, never mind their hearts.
Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher, Orbit, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52431-3.
Whilst foraging for startleflower, perfumer Grace finds herself pursued by ruffians and rescued by a handsome paladin in shining armour. Only, to outwit her hunters they had to pretend to be doing something very unrespectable in an alleyway. Stephen, a broken paladin, spends his time knitting socks and working as a bodyguard, living only for the chance to be useful. But that all changes when he saves Grace and witnesses an assassination attempt gone wrong. Now, Stephen and Grace must navigate a web of treachery and poisoners, while a cryptic killer stalks one step behind.
Paladin’s Hope by T. Kingfisher, Orbit, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52435-1.
Piper is a lich-doctor, a physician who works among the dead, determining causes of death for the city guard’s investigations. It’s a peaceful, if solitary profession… until the day when he’s called to the river to examine the latest in a series of mysterious bodies, mangled by some unknown force. Galen is a paladin of a dead god, lost to holiness and no longer entirely sane. He has long since given up on any hope of love. But when the two men and a brave gnole constable are drawn into the maze of the mysterious killer, it’s Galen’s job to protect Piper from the traps that await them. He’s just not sure if he can protect Piper from the most dangerous threat of all.
Paladin’s Strength by T. Kingfisher, Orbit, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52433-7.
He’s a paladin of a dead god, tracking a supernatural killer across a continent. She’s a nun from a secretive order, on the trail of the raiders who burned her convent and kidnapped her sisters. When their paths cross at the point of a sword, Istvhan and Clara will be pitched headlong into each other’s quests, facing off against enemies both living and dead. But Clara has a secret that could jeopardise the growing trust between them, a secret that will lead them to the gladiatorial pits of a corrupt city, and beyond.
The Bones Beneath My Skin by T. J. Klune, Tor, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-002290.
A supernatural road-trip thriller featuring an extraordinary young girl and her
two unlikely protectors on the run from cultists and the government. He lost everything. Then he found himself… In the spring of 1995, Nate Cartwright has lost everything: his parents are dead, his older brother has disowned him, and he’s been fired from his job. Looking for a new direction, he returns to his family’s summer cabin in the mountains of Oregon. The cabin should be empty. But it’s not. Inside is a man named Alex - and an extraordinary little girl who calls herself Artemis Darth Vader. But there’s far more to her than meets the eye. Soon, it becomes clear that Nate must make a choice: drown in the memories of his past, or fight for a future he never thought possible. Because the girl is special. And forces are descending upon them who want nothing more than to control her.
Morgana: New and ancient Arthurian tales edited by Pamela Koehne-Drube, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$40 / US$30, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62263-6.
Anthology. A witch, a healer, Morgana le Fay has deep roots in Celtic mythology and offers a fascinating canvas for the many writers in this new book. Created through open submissions and supported by an extensive introduction examining the origins of Morgana le Fay.
Tales of Fire and Freedom: Gael Song Stories by Shauna Lawless, Ad Astra - Head of Zeus, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-90948-3.
A collection of three novellas. These thrilling tales are set in a medieval Ireland where magical beings do eternal battle, mortal kingdoms vie for control over bloodstained lands, and secrets and sorcery disguise the lines between friend and foe. 'Dreams of Fire' introduces us to the two magical races who long controlled Ireland: the Descendants, whose magic comes in many shapes, and their arch-enemies the Fomorians, who practice destructive fire-magic. 'Dreams of Sorrow' tells the story of Senna, a young woman born of a 'giftless' Descendant: one without magic. Yet Senna herself is magically gifted - and attracts the attention of Tomas, a wise and ambitious Descendant.... And in 'Dreams of Chaos', we encounter Murchad, mortal hero of many battles and son of legendary king Brian Boru. A fearless warrior of great renown and a dutiful heir to his powerful father, years of bloodshed have left Murchad filled with regrets as he helps shape the future Ireland.
Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Gabriel de León has saved the Holy Grail from death, but his chance to end the endless night is lost. After turning his back on his silversaint brothers once and for all, Gabriel and the Grail set out to learn the truth of how Daysdeath might finally be undone. Pursued by children of the Forever King, drawn into wars and ravaged by his own rising bloodlust, Gabriel may not survive to see the truth of the Grail revealed.
The Book That Broke The World by Mark Lawrence, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
The Library Trilogy is about many things: adventure, discovery, and romance, but it's also a love letter to books and the places where they live. The focus is on one vast and timeless library, but the love expands to encompass smaller more personal collections, and bookshops of all shades too.
The Book That Held Her Heart by Mark Lawrence, Harper Voyager, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Library Trilogy, following The Book That Broke the World. The secret war that defines the Library has chosen its champions and set them on the board.
The fate of an infinite library hangs on one book, a book that holds the power to break the unbreakable. In the face of such forces, fragile things like hearts, family, and the world seem certain to fail. The end threatens and no one, not characters, readers, or even the author, will emerge unscathed.
Sheridan Le Fanu: Horror stories by Sheridan Le Fanu, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$40 / US$30, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62254-4.
A collection of the master of early Victorian Gothic, horror and ghost stories. Le Fanu’s
influence on a later generation of horror writers is clear, from vampire story ‘Carmilla’ informing fellow Irishman Bram Stoker’s Dracula some 20 years later to the styling of many of M. R. James’s finest work. Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic mystery tales, who was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era.
Spellbound by Georgia Leighton, Transworld, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-0-857-50591-0.
In a remote castle perched atop a windswept island, a long-awaited royal heir is born. In accordance with ancient custom, a blessing ceremony takes place to bestow the princess with magical gifts – along with a terrible curse. Except this is not the love story you may think you know. There is no enchanted sleep for the princess, and no handsome prince to save the day. Just three women, who together concoct a desperate plan of misdirect that changes the course of all their lives. But dark magic cannot be tricked, and as the end of the curse edges closer, each of the women has a choice to make. They can wait to find out if the worst will happen, or they can turn to face the coming storm.
Iceborn: Book 2 of the Seaborn Cycle by Michael Livingston, Ad Astra - Head of Zeus, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-035-90580-5.
portal that broke the world. Shae, the ship-less Bone Pirate, stands with a Windborn exile before an arms of remorseless metal beings. And Alira, the huntress, faces the revelation of what the Bloodborn are, and the truth of their horrible magicks. In desperation, in determination, and in hope, every step they take reveals new secrets about their past – and new fears for their future.
The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62100-7.
A retelling of a medieval Celtic folktale about a newly crowned king and the cursed knight who falls in love with him. Bisclavret, cursed to take a wolf’s shape involuntarily, has always dreamed of knighthood, so when a new king is crowned, Bisclavret travels to swear fealty to him. The king, having inherited a crown he never wanted, is fascinated by his newest knight. When Bisclavret is seemingly killed by a wolf, the king seeks vengeance but his hunt leads him to an animal that seems too intelligent to be the beast he seeks. One might even say it has the mind of a man.
The Invocations: H. P. Lovecraft Short Stories by H. P. Lovecraft, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$32.95 / US$24.95, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58942-1.
H. P. Lovecraft, the inventor of cosmic horror, weird fiction and the Cthulhu mythology, inspired a generation of writers to explore the horrors that lurk along the corridors, at the edges of perception. This special edition of Lovecraft’s short stories features a new introduction by Ramsey Campbell along with one of his own tales.
H. P. Lovecraft: The Call of Cthulu by H. P. Lovecraft, Flame Tree Press, £8 / Can$15.99 / US$11.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62275-9.
H. P. Lovecraft was the inventor of cosmic horror, weird fiction and the Cthulhu mythology. His stories flourished in the fertile earth of pulp fiction where he inspired many other writers from Robert E. Howard to Clark Ashton Smith. This is a companion volume to the many Gothic horror writers in the series. Author: H.P. Lovecraft was a master of horror and gothic fiction, influencing a generation of writers and creating dark worlds that still haunt the speculative fiction of today. In the 1920s he began to sell to the
popular pulp magazines of the day, like Weird Tales and Astonishing Tales.
Elphie: A Wicked Childhood by Gregory Maguire, Headline, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-41639-4.
The prequel to Wicked, the novel that inspired the stage show. Young Elphaba is destined to be a witch, she bears the markings from childhood. But what happened before her powers took hold? Elphie is a girl like any other and no other. Nothing like her parents - one beautiful, the other pious - nor her saintly sister, Nessarose. Her skin is green, her mind is cunning. One day she will command this strange and wonderful world. For now, her journey is just beginning. The road ahead is full of lessons and heartbreak, the first bruising attempts at friendship - and tantalising whispers of magic. It will lead Elphie to the doors of Shiz University, and to the girl who will change her life forever. This is the coming-of-age story of the most iconic witch in Oz.
Dragon Rider by Taran Matharu, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Jai has spent his life forced to serve the cruel empire that killed his family and now rules his people. To grow ever more powerful, the emperor’s young son is betrothed to Princess Erica of the Dansk Kingdom. An unconquerable realm, where ancient beasts roam. The princess brings with her a priceless gift: dragons. Only Dansk Royalty can bond with these magical beasts to draw on their power and strength. Until now. When the betrothal goes wrong, a bloody coup leads to chaos at court. Finally, Jai has a chance to escape. He flees with a fierce Dansk warrior, Frida, but not before stealing a dragon egg. To vanquish the empire, he must do the impossible: bond with a dragon.
The Tainted Khan by Taran Matharu, Harper Voyager, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Jai dreams of being a dragon rider. He dreams of freedom from the Sabine Empire and a world in which he can lead his people, the Kidara, to freedom. But even though he has his dragon, Winter, she is still growing, just as he’s still growing in his own power. And the road to victory is even more fraught than he had hoped… Because even when he finds a tribe on the Great Steppe, they are not his people. He is a stranger amongst his own kind, for Jai’s uncle rules, and is loath to cede power to his nephew. But the legionaries and Gryphon Guard of the Sabine Empire are wreaking havoc against the other tribes of the Great Steppe, and Jai is forced to learn a lifetime’s worth of knowledge in a matter of months. From levelling up his magic, to becoming a true warrior, saving the woman he loves, and strengthening his bond with Winter, Jai is a dragon rider with a massive weight on his young shoulders. And his greatest hope is that the shoulders of Winter will soon be strong enough to help carry him.
Dance of Shadows by Gourav Mohanty, Ad Astra - Head of Zeus, £25, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-90027-5.
A season of peace is the finest time to plant the seeds of war. A pirate-queen discovers the only gold around is in the bars of her cage. A temple-courtesan's heart dances for the archer she was tasked to destroy. A librarian learns how to steal to save the world from an ancient plague. As the Conclave of Peace dawns in the Tree Cities of the East to decide the future of the realm, deaf swordswomen and exiled snakelings, spoilt heroes and lovesick princes, immortal assassins and their apprentices will find no sun to light their path. For the Son of Darkness rises, boiling over with a wrath that all the oracles in the world cannot hope to stop. After all, seeing the future is one thing, changing it is quite another… ...Unless it is through a heist.
Moon Falling: Short Stories edited by Ben Moore, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$40 / US$30, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-804-17809-6.
Mainly Gothic fantasy. This brings ancient and modern perceptions of the Moon, as it falls in surrender to the Sun. In some traditions, the Moon chases its fiery sibling, in others, it’s being chased, but for many it has a more intimate, supernatural connection, reflected in its gentle, shimmering light.
Elemental Forces edited by Mark Morris, Flame Tree Press, £9.95 / Can$21.95 / US$16.95, pbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58866-0.
Horror. The fifth volume in the ABC of Horror, a non-themed series of original stories, showcasing the short fiction the genre has to offer, and edited by Mark Morris.
A Sky of Emerald Stars by A. K. Mulford, Harper Voyager, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Wolf-shifter Calla’s journey and explores a new story – Sadie’s – as kingdoms clash with war on the horizon and pack politics threatens to disrupt what Calla and Grae have built.
Gods & Monsters Book 4 by Amber V. Nicole, Headline Eternal, £10.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-035-41459-8.
As the rebellion intensifies, Dianna discovers more of her past and soon finds herself immersed in a tumultuous family history that she and Samkiel never saw coming. Forced to venture through the Otherworld, Dianna and Samkiel start to comprehend the real power of the medallion, as figures and threats from the past surface once again to threaten their future together, and Samkiel finds himself faced with a choice: will he truly become the World Ender once again? And what does that mean for Dianna?
In Universes by Emet North, Penguin, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-804-95407-2.
A kaleidoscopic literary debut about love and self, set across parallel universes.
Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill, Orbit, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52262-3.
Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle-sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce… Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake by an angry mob, something makes Jenny decide she’s worth saving. Temperance doesn’t know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor. All she wants is to return to her husband and children, still trapped under his baleful influence. Though they have nothing in common, these two unlikely companions must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Temperance’s family, Jenny’s lake, and possibly the very soul of Britain.
Homegrown Magic by Jamie Pacton, Penguin, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-804-95111-8.
Yael might be an indifferent warlock, but as the only heir to an obscenely wealthy banking family, they’re poised to have their fingers in every pie in the realm. But on the precipice of a predetermined life, a loveless political marriage, and children who’ll be raised exactly as they were, they flee in search a grand adventure. Margot – talented plant witch, tea lover and stressed greenhouse owner – has never felt further from adventure in her life. She’s been on her own since her parents lost the family fortune, so when her childhood friend – and former crush – gallops back into her life, she offers Yael a job in the greenhouses. And, in amongst harvesting strawberries for heartbreak jam, tending the greenhouse and some totally, absolutely harmless flirting between friends, they form a plan to take back everything that was stolen from Margot. But can any plan survive a swiftly-blooming mutual attraction, not to mention the machinations of a set of parents determined to get their heir back – no matter the cost?
The Oxenbridge King by Christine Paice, Harper 360, £8.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-460-76749-8.
Imagine, if you will: the lost soul of King Richard III; a talking raven; a lonely angel; and a young woman called Molly Stern, who is heartbroken, grieving, and a bit stroppy. When their worlds collide, anything can happen. Richard III is trapped in the afterlife, waiting with his guide, Raven, for an angel to take his soul to Heaven. Up in the real world it’s 2013 and Molly Stern has a broken heart from losing her father and a recent breakup. Leaving London, Molly goes home to seek solace from her Aunt and Uncle in Oxenbridge. But there are strange noises in the basement of her childhood house, and nothing feels right. When the angel encounters Molly – and Raven at last finds the angel – life and the afterlife meet, with surprising and unexpected consequences. Inspired by the discovery of the bones of Richard III beneath a car park in Leicester, award-winning poet Christine Paice has fashioned a beautiful, singular, warm, and funny novel that weaves in and out of time, space and possibility.
When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
As an assassin for the rebellion, Raeve’s job is to complete orders and never get caught. When a rival bounty hunter shatters her world, Raeve finds herself captured by the Guild of Nobles. Crushed by the loss of his great love, dragon rider Kaan Vaegor
is on a tireless quest. A clue lures him into the capital’s high-security prison where he stumbles upon the imprisoned Raeve… Together, they seek truths that threaten to unravel everything they knew about their world – and each other.
The Night is Defying by Chloe C. Penaranda, Wildfire, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-41533-5.
Vicious Nightmares Need Peaceful Dreams. Shaken from the aftermath of the Libertatem, the newly found star-maiden Astraea is determined to keep her freedom, even at the cost of betraying her heart. But time is running out to recover her memories with the hole it will unveil her killer. Embarking on a journey to discover her past, Astraea’s awakening power spins the hourglass on a history threatening to repeat itself. While Nyte tries to regain control of the vampires hungry for bloodshed, a sinister plan by his brother to overthrow him sparks a dangerous feud. But are they willing to wear the blood of their kin to see it through? For nothing in the past ever stays buried. Friends have turned into foes, brothers have turned into enemies, and what was written in the stars long ago ignites again in two hearts that were never meant to be. Letting Astraea go would save the world from darkness, but Nyte is no hero. It seems no monster is heartless, and no angel is without sin.
The Never List by Jade Presley, Arcadia, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-44506-0.
When Rylee sneaks into the royal palace in search of her missing sister, she doesn’t expect to attract the notice of Lusteros’s princes. But to reach their full power, the four princes need to find their mate, and when they choose Rylee as their potential, she’ll need to make them all fall in love with her to survive… without falling in love herself in the process.
Six Wild Crowns by Holly Race, Orbit, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52266-1.
The king has been appointed by god to marry six queens. Those six queens are all that stand between the kingdom of Elben and ruin. Or so we have been told. Each queen vies for attention. Clever, ambitious Boleyn is determined to be Henry’s favourite. And if she must incite a war to win Henry over? So be it. Seymour acts as spy and assassin in a court teeming with dragons, backstabbing courtiers and strange magic. But when she and Boleyn become the unlikeliest of things – allies – the balance of power begins to shift. Together they will discover an ancient, rotting magic at Elben’s heart. A magic that their king will do anything to protect.
Spells, Strings and Forgotten Things by Breanne Randall, Aria - Head of Zeus, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-035-91220-9.
For as long as history can remember, there have been three Petridi sisters, whose legacy is to protect the town from dark magic and other covens of ill-intent. It’s a thankless task for a town that knows nothing of magic. But the price of the sisters' magic is high: memories. The more powerful the magic, the greater the memory required. Luckily, all Calliope Petridi wants to do is forget. Forget her judgmental oldest sister, Thalia, who refuses to do magic because of the cost. Forget how her other sister, Eurydice, only uses small magic, yet her spells are still more powerful. Forget about her absent parents, the cost of her magic, and the love of her life who shattered her heart. But something is coming. Something that is slowly fraying the strings of protections that generations of Petridi sisters have put in place... Breanne Randall is a freelance writer by trade and an author by vocation. She graduated with honours with degrees in English Literature, Psychology, and Religious Studies, A seasoned traveller, she imbues her stories with the magic and culture collected from the over forty countries she’s visited. Breanne lives in Northern California with her husband and two daughters.
The Legend of Meneka by Kritika H. Rao, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
A re-imagination of an Indian myth about a celestial dancer who is tasked with seducing a mortal sage, but when she begins to fall in love with her mark she will be forced to choose between loyalties and being true to herself. An exploration of female identity, our inner cosmic power, and finding love within ourselves…
North Is The Night by Emily Rath, Arcadia, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-43649-5.
In the harsh interior of the Finnish wilderness, best friends Aina and Siiri are inseparable despite their opposite natures: Aina is gentle and cautious while Siiri is headstrong and brave. When Aina is kidnapped by a death goddess and taken to the mythical underworld Tuonela, Siiri decides to save her friend herself. Siiri embarks on a dangerous quest north to seek the only human who has ever travelled to Tuonela and returned, the shaman Väinämöinen. But finding him is only the beginning. Siiri must then convince him to teach her his magic so she can sneak into Tuonela and save Aina. In the underworld, Aina’s life is not the only one at stake. She’s being held captive with several other mortal girls…. and the king of the underworld himself. All are being forced to play the sadistic games designed by the cruel goddesses of death who took them, and it’s soon clear that no one will survive. It’s up to Aina to make an extraordinary, irrevocable sacrifice. One that may bind her to the underworld forever.
Lore of the Tides by Analeigh Sbrana, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
The conclusion to Lore of the Wilds as Lore navigates Fae magic amid looming dangers that threaten to destroy her world.
The Complete Peanuts: Vol. 1: 1950–1952 to Vol. 26… by Charles M. Schultz, Canongate, £20 each, hrdbk, ISBNs various.
OK, so it is not really genre… Well, a dog that 'thinks' in English? Possibly fantasy? Genre adjacent? These volumes cover over half a century of Peanuts cartoons… And Canongate are also releasing over a dozen thematic collections of Peanuts cartoons in paperback and nearly all under £10 each.
A Thousand Blues by Cheon Seon-ran, Transworld, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-529-93802-9.
2035: In the shadow of a race course, two sisters grow up, helping their mother at their local canteen that serves renowned ramen. Family life is fractious especially when one of them loses their day-job to a humanoid. What makes the sisters' hearts sing is their friendship with Today, a nationally famous racehorse. But Today is now heading for the knackers' yard - she has been pushed too hard. With the help of a malfunctioning robot, the sisters hatch a special plan for the horse to compete in another race. Because it is only when she is running that she is truly happy. But it will be no ordinary race- they will train her to run the slowest time of her life…. This novel won the 4th Korea SF Literature Award.
Love And Other Paradoxes by Catriona Silvey, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
The year is 2024. The city is Cambridge. The poet-to-be is Joe. Joe has waited all his life to find the right words that will unlock his future – the words that will make him the writer he knows he could be. A chance encounter with a beautiful and uninterested girl in a teashop changes everything. For Esi, yesterday has always been more important than tomorrow: unmoored from her own time in the future, Esi is looking for her mother in the past. Bearing clues as to Joe’s possible future as a literary star, the two decide to put aside their differences and help one another. Esi will help Joe become his future self, Joe will help Esi discover where she comes from. But with them both looking to the future and to the past, who is minding the present? One thing is for sure… It will be timeless.
Salka: Lady of the Lake by Francesca Simon, Faber, £8.99, pbk, ISBN 978-0-571-37806-7.
A passionate retelling of a Welsh myth in which a faerie falls madly in love with a young farmer. When Salka, a faerie, falls in love with Owain, a human who fishes in her lake, they are married, and over time his farm prospers and he experiences nothing but good luck. But what haunts them both is her fateful prophecy that if he ever strikes her three times then she will disappear from his life forever. Owain is not a violent man, but as prejudice and suspicion breeds in the town, Owain finds himself wishing his beautiful wife was more ordinary and tried harder to fit in. In fact, he wishes that she was other than she is, not realising that these heart blows will tear the couple apart forever…
The Hatter’s Daughter by W. A. Simpson, Flame Tree Press, £12.95 / Can$21.95 / US$16.95, pbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58911-7.
There is more to the Vine than mortals and immortals know. It reaches its branches and tendrils into realms beyond the Riven Isles. On the night Faith was born, her mother perished, but not before sending her to safety, in Underneath. Discovered by The Mad Hatter, he raises her as his own. When the Rot invades, Faith decides to fight. She won’t be alone.
Archangel’s Ascension by Nalini Singh, Gollancz, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62599-9.
A standalone novel, part of the Guild Hunter series, set in the dangerous world of archangels, vampires and mortals.
The Dark Feather by Anna Stephens, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Rebellion rages in every land as the Empire of Songs battles to maintain control, but nowhere more fiercely than in the Singing City. In the great pyramid at its heart, Shadow Tayan faces the awful consequences of his actions, and their seductive possibilities. In the city streets, Xessa and Lilla lead their warriors in increasingly desperate battles, their unity riven by betrayal and deception, while Whisper Ilandeh discovers the freedom – and obligation – in making her own choices. But war is fickle, and so are people. Sometimes, the only peace possible is that bought with blood.
Kiss of the Basilisk by Lindsay Straube, Arcadia, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-44583-1.
Twenty-year-old Temperance has never been kissed. But that’s what the basilisk is for. Along with thirteen other contestants, Tem must learn the power of seduction from her half-man, half-snake lover to win the prince’s hand in marriage. But as her bond with her basilisk deepens, so does her connection with the prince, and Tem soon finds herself torn…
A Conventional Boy by Charles Stross, Orbit, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52464-1.
Publishing just ahead of the final 'Laundry Files' novel (The Regicide Report, summer 2025), this collection includes the short Laundry Files novel A Conventional Boy – set during the 1980s Satanic Panic – and two other short stories in this joyous celebration of all things Laundry Files.
Grave Empire by Richard Swan, Orbit, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52386-6.
Blood once turned the wheels of empire. Now it is money. A new age of exploration and innovation has dawned, and the Empire of the Wolf stands to take its place as the foremost power in the known world. Glory and riches await. But dark days are coming. A mysterious plague has broken out in the pagan kingdoms to the north, while in the south, the Empire’s proxy war in the lands of the wolfmen is weeks away from total collapse. Worse still is the message brought to the Empress by two heretic monks, who claim to have lost contact with the spirits of the afterlife. The monks believe this is the start of an ancient prophecy heralding the end of days – the Great Silence. It falls to Renata Rainer, a low-ranking ambassador to an enigmatic and vicious race of mermen, to seek answers from those who still practice the arcane arts. But with the road south beset by war and the Empire on the brink of supernatural catastrophe, soon there may not be a world left to save…
Immortal by Sue Lynn Tan, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Liyen, heir to Tianxia, has grown up knowing she must serve the immortals who once protected her and her kingdom from a vicious enemy. When she is poisoned, her grandfather steals an enchanted lotus to save her life. Enraged at his betrayal, the immortal queen commands the powerful God of War to attack Tianxia. Upon her grandfather’s death, Liyen ascends a precarious throne, vowing to end her kingdom’s obligation to the immortals. When she is summoned to the Immortal Realm, she seizes the opportunity to learn their secrets and to form a tenuous alliance to safeguard her people, all with the one she should fear and mistrust the most: the ruthless God of War. As they are drawn together, a treacherous attraction ignites between them – one she has to resist, to not endanger all she is fighting for. But with darker forces closing in around them, and her kingdom plunged into peril, Liyen must risk everything to save her people from an unspeakable fate.
Tales of the Celestial Kingdom by Sue Lynn Tan, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Collection of shorts.&bnbsp; Filled with magic and mythology, friendship and love, these stories intertwine through the past, present, and future of the two novels, told from the perspectives of multiple characters, including Chang’e, Shuxiao, Liwei, and Wenzhi. With beautiful illustrations from Kelly Chong throughout.
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh, Orbit, £20, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-356-52564-8.
From the author of Hugo, Locus and Arthur C. Clarke Award-short-listed Some Desperate Glory. Dr Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school’s boundaries from demonic incursions. Walden is good at her job – no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. But it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from is herself.
Roverandom by J. R. R. Tolkien, Harper Fiction, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
The adventures of a bewitched toy dog, written before The Hobbit. While on holiday in 1925, four-year- old Michael Tolkien lost his beloved toy dog on the beach at Filey in Yorkshire. To console him, his father, J. R. R. Tolkien, improvised a story about Rover, a real dog who is magically transformed into a toy and is forced to seek out the wizard who wronged him in order to be returned to normal.
Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura, Transworld, £14.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-0-857-52965-7.
Is there anyone you wish to see? So asks the smart young man, Ayumi, to his clients who have come to him for a reunion with the person who once changed their life. But it is no ordinary reunion The people they ask to see have passed away. Calling himself the go-between, Ayumi lays down strict rules around the meetings between the living and the dead: the deceased cannot have been summoned by anyone else; they may refuse; and they
must meet under a full moon. - Anxious Hirase asks to see the celebrity who showed her kindness at a critical moment; - An arrogant family man wants clarity about a will from his beloved mother; - After a bike accident, a school girl has a question for her former
best friend; - A salary man wants to ask the only woman he ever loved what
caused her to run away….
Fallen Gods by Rachel Van Dyken, Bramble, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-035-05074-1.
The legends of the past are never truly dead and buried… Liv Olson has been drawn to Norse mythology her entire life. After earning her degree and working as a curator at one of New York’s most prestigious museums, she gets an unexpected offer for her dream job in Norway – the same place her brother disappeared months ago – after a cryptic message about finding their long-lost father. Finding herself surrounded by superstitious townspeople who refuse to even look at the water, Liv soon realizes that the small town of Vonn is nothing like it seems. Shops close before dark, and things she’s only read about seem to suddenly exist. To top it off, Tristan, her new boss, is insultingly mean and engagingly beautiful – and, as part of the job, she must live with him in his mansion. As her life quickly unravels into chaos, she’s left wondering who’s pulling the strings in this mysterious place where nothing makes sense, yet everything feels familiar. Her studies have always told her the gods are who you trust. But what happens when the man who’s destined to kill you… is your saviour?
The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig, Del Rey, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-529-10104-1.
A group of friends investigate the mystery of an inexplicable staircase found deep in the woods in this mesmerising horror novel from the Sunday Times bestselling master of horror. ‘Don’t go near them. Don’t touch them. And never, ever, go up them.’
Five high-school friends, bonded by an oath to protect each other no matter what.
On a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere. One friend walks up – but never comes back down. Now, twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared, and the friends return to find the lost boy – and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods…
Dungeons & Dragons: Spelljammer: Memory’s Wake by Django Wexler, Penguin, £9.99, pbk, ISBN 978-1-804-95247-4.
Set sail for the stars in this official Dungeons & Dragons novel set in the worlds of Spelljammer: Adventures in Space! In the colossal void of Shatterspace, besieged by bloodthirsty marauders and brimming with monstrous aberrations, the only constant is power: the deft will escape the slow. The clever will outwit the naïve. The strong will take from the weak.
The Prince Without Sorrow by Maithree Wijesekara, Harper Voyager, £18.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
This draws on inspiration from the Mauryan Empire of Ancient India. Welcome to the Ran empire. Where winged serpents fly through the skies. Giant leopards prowl the Earth. And witches burn blue as they die. Shakti is a witch, a mayakari trained to commune with nature and never to cause harm. But her people have been hunted by Emperor Adil’s brutal reign for decades. Will she betray their most sacred laws and choose violence to save them? Prince Ashoka was raised by his father, the emperor, to rule the world with cruelty and fear. And yet he can’t even kill a deer and detests his father’s brutality. He must find a way to tear apart his father’s violent legacy before succumbing to it. Together they are powerful. But can the son of an oppressor and the oppressed fix a broken world? Before they are crushed by it...
The Whisper of Stars by Cristin Williams, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62132-8.
An alternate history set in 1920s Russia. The Whisper of Stars follows three people who are sent to prison on Solovetsky Island: Katya is an anarchist whose words hold power, Dima is a shape-shifting aristocrat and Natasha is the witch who has been sent to spy on them. Their fates are inextricably linked together through an age-old secret magic on the island, and they soon learn there are others who are also desperately seeking it.
Kingdom of Claw by Demi Winters, Gollancz, £16.99, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-399-62818-1.
Silla Nordvig survived the Road of Bones, but only just. Reeling from the revelation of her true name, she flees with Reynir, leader of the Bloodaxe Crew. But Silla soon discovers Rey has been keeping secrets of his own, and she’s forced into hiding with the murderous man she thought she knew. Silla forms a plan to master the magic flowing through her veins to save her sister, but before she can do that, Silla must face her most formidable opponent yet – her own inner demons.
Celtic Myths and Legends edited by Juliette Wood, Flame Tree Press, £10.99 / Can$19.99 / US$14.99, hrdbk, ISBN 978-1-835-62278-0.
Populated by gods, High Kings, wilful Queens, noble warriors, fairies, goblins and wizards, the Celtic myths are unsurpassed in their variety and power. This new book is a dazzling collection of the most Celtic tales, retold, gathering together the legends and sagas of this ancient culture.
The Gaia Chime by Johnny Worthen, Flame Tree Press, £12.95 / Can$21.95 / US$16.95, pbk, ISBN 978-1-787-58893-6.
Patricide, an echo of Zeus rising up against Cronos, the young gods replacing the titans. Now, a public murder televised live and across the world prompts filmmakers Seth and Charlotte to trace the threads of blood to the rich and powerful, and the horror of global destruction. Can they stop the Gaia Chime? But what is the Gaia Chime?
The Monsters We Are by Suzanne Wright, Piatkus, £22, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-349-43463-6.
Romantasy.
Song of the Mysteries by Janny Wurts, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
In the final battle of Light against Shadow, warring factions prepare to meet the bare fist of Arithon’s fury, sparked by the execution of the innocent murdered by divine decree. As the Fellowship Sorcerers clash with rebellious dragons bent on catastrophic annihilation, those faithful to the True Sect raise armies to extinguish the clans and fight a last, bloody conquest of the free wilds. All while the Prime Matriarch courts reckless power to seize charge of Mankind’s destiny.
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros, Piatkus, £25, hrdbk, ISBN 978-0-349-43706-4.
Romantasy.
The Scorpion and the Night Blossom by Amélie Wen Zhao, Harper Voyager, £16.99, hrdbk, ISBN not provided.
Dark romantasy based on Chinese mythology. In a world falling into eternal night, Àn’ying is desperate to protect her family from the demons that hunt mortals. Armed with her crescent blades, she decides to enter a magical tournament, in the fabled immortal
realm, with the hopes of winning a pill of immortality that will save her mother, who is dying after a vicious demon attack. But first, An’ying must survive the ruthless practitioners she's up against… and guard her heart from an irresistibly wicked rival.
Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White by Amélie Wen Zhao, Harper Voyager, £9.99, pbk, ISBN not provided.
Years ago, the Elantian colonizers invaded Lan's homeland and killed her mother in their search to uncover the legendary four Demon Gods. Lan is determined to destroy the Gods and yet, there are others searching for them, too. Zen knew his soul was forfeit the moment he made a deal with the Demon God known as the Black Tortoise, but he's willing to lose himself if it means saving the Kingdom – and the girl – he loves. The Elantians may have stolen their throne, but the battle for the Last Kingdom has only begun.
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Spring 2025
Rest In Peace
The last season saw the science and science fiction communities sadly lose…
Bob Blackwood, the US fan and film critic, has died aged 82. He notably co-authored (with John Flynn) Future Prime: The Top 10 Science Fiction Films (2015). This was based on a very useful survey of thousands of fans over a few Worldcons. (As such it was one of the things used for helping decide which films to include in Essential Science Fiction: A Concise Guide, of which publishers Porcupine say they have only two boxes left…)
Bruce Boston, the US writer and SF poet, has died aged 81. He had had published over a hundred short stories and the novels Stained Glass Rain and The Guardener’s Tale, the latter was short-listed for a Bram Stoker Award. He was a seven times Rhysling Award winer from the Science Fiction Poetry Association.
John I. Brauman, the US organic chemist, has died aged 86. He made critical contributions to the understanding of gas-phase ions, their structures, and their reactivity. He served as the chair of the Stanford Department of Chemistry from 1979 to 1983 and again from 1995 to 1996. He garnered the American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry in 1973, the National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences in 2001, and the National Medal of Science in 2002.
Howard Brazee, the US fan, has died aged 73. Colarado based, he was a regular at the annual MileHiCon.
Linda Bushyager, the US fan and writer, has died aged 77. A chemistry graduate, in 1966 she co-founded (with Suzanne (Suzle) Tompkins) the Carnegie Mellon (college) SF Club. Then in 1967 the pair founded the Western Pennsylvania SF Association (with Ginjer Buchanan). Arguably her best known fanzine, Granfalloon (with partner Ron Bushyager, 1968-'76) was twice short-listed for a Hugo Award, 1972 and '73. Along with Linda Lounsbury, she revised Bob Tucker's Neo Fan's Guide in the mid-’70s. Her fantasy novels include Master of Hawks (1979) and Spellstone of Shaltus (1980). She is also know for her final novel, the SF Pacifica (2002).
John Cassaday, the US comics artist, writer, television director, has died aged 52. He is arguably best known for his work on Planetary with writer Warren Ellis. he also worked on Astonishing X-Men with Joss Whedon, Captain America with John Ney Rieber, and Star Wars with Jason Aaron. His art has been used to style Marvel Comics-based animated films. He has won two Eisner Awards (2005, 2006).
Ward Christensen, the US computer scientist, has died aged 78. He is best know for co-devising (with Randy Suess) the CBBS bulletin board, the first online bulletin board system (BBS).
Pierre Christin, the French comics creator and writer, has died aged 86. He is especially noted for co-creating the science-fiction series Valérian and Laureline. He also wrote SF novels.
Esther (Es) Cole, the US fan, has died aged 100. She is perhaps best known for oco-chairing the 1954 Worldcon in San Francisco with her husband Les. They were members of the US West Coast The Elves’, Gnomes’ and Little Men’s Science Fiction, Chowder, and Marching Society.
William (Bill) Desmond, the US fan, has died aged 83. A founding member of NESFA (New England SF Association). He chaired Boskone 8 (1971).
Ron Ely, the US actor, has died aged 86. He is best known for playing the lead in the TV series Tarzan (1966-'68). He also starred in the spoof SFnal film Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975).
Peter Goodfellow, the British artist, has died aged 72. Much of his work was for SF book covers for authors that include Arthur C. Clarke (most notably for Tales form the White Hart), Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Stephen R. Donaldson and Olaf Stapledon. He also illustrated the pieces Horsell Common and Parson Nathaniel for the musical album Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. Moving to Scotland in 1985, he became a landscape artist in 1995.
David Graham, the British actor and voice actor, has died aged 99. He is most famous for voicing Aloysius ('nosey') Parker, Lady Penelope's chauffer in the Gerry Andersoneries Thunderbirds, but he also voice many other Anderson series characters including: Brains (real name unknown, alias "Hiram K. Hackenbacker"), Kyrano and Gordon Tracey (again in Thunderbirds); Dr. Beaker, Zarin and Mitch the Monkey in Supercar; Prof. Matthew Matic and Lieutenant Ninety in Fireball XL5, among others. His voice and as an actor appeared in 36 episodes of Doctor Who (1963-'79, 2023) mainly as one of the voices of the Daleks, and also in seven episodes of Timeslip (1970-'71). He reprised his role as Parker in the Thunderbirds re-boot series Thunderbirds Are Go (2015-'20). (See also a 90 seconds video of Parker on form.
Jonathan Haze, the US actor,
producer, and screenwriter, has died aged 95. He is best known for his
work in Roger Corman films, especially the 1960 black comedy cult classic The Little Shop of Horrors, in which he played florist's assistant Seymour Krelboined.
Greg Hildebrandt, the US artist and one half of the brothers Hildebrandt, has died aged 85. The brothers had worked collaboratively as fantasy and science fiction artists for many years, produced illustrations for comic books, film posters, children's books, posters, novels, calendars, advertisements, and trading cards. They are especially noted for their The Lord of the Rings calendar illustrations, the poster promoting the British release of Star Wars. Greg himself painted cover artwork for Omni and Heavy Metal, and illustrated a number of books including Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Aladdin, Robin Hood, Dracula and The Phantom of the Opera. he also illustrated editions of Alice in Wonderland, Dracula, and Poe: Stories and Poems among much else. He was also one of over three dozen artists in 2022 who contributed to Comics for Ukraine: Sunflower Seeds. In 2010 he garnered a Chesley Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists.
Fredric Jameson, the US academic, has died aged 90. Much of his work had a genre focus including Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (2005).
James Earl Jones, the US astronaut, has died aged 93. At university he was initially a pre-medical major but turned to drama. He had a distinguished acting career. Of SFnal note, his cinematic feature debut was Dr Strangelove (1964) but was most famous for his voice role as Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise (1977-1983). Also of fantasy note he voiced Mufasa in The Lion King (1994) and a supporting role in Conan the Barbarian (1982). He appeared in many non-genre films and TV including in an episode of the genre-adjacent The Big Bang Theory as a quasi-version of himself.
Francisco Lopera, the Colombian neurologist, has died aged 73. He is best known for elucidating some of the genetic origins of Alzheimer’s disease, including a mutation responsible for early-onset Alzheimer’s. He went on to establish the brain bank in Medellin that now has more than 500 brains.
Bryan Lovell OBE, FGS, the British geologist, has died aged 82. He was the son of Bernard Lovell who established the Jodrell Bank radio telescope (hence radio astronomy) which is now a UNESCO world heritage site Following a degree from Oxford University, Bryan spent a period of postgraduate studies at Harvard in the US working on sandstones. On his return to the UK, he worked first as a University Lecturer in Geology at Edinburgh and then for British Petroleum as a sedimentologist. He became a BP exploration manager for Ireland and then the Middle East. He received an OBE for services to British commercial interests in Ireland and to Anglo-Irish relations. After leaving BP, he became a Senior Research Fellow in Cambridge Earth Science, working (with Nicky White) on controls exercised by mantle convection on the elevation of Earth's surface. He became interested in climate change and the role carbon-capture might play in reaching net zero and was an effective advocate of an energy transition away from fossil fuels. He once wrote: [Having worked for the oil industry,] “I might perhaps be expected to be in the ranks of those who have resisted the Anti-carbon Army. I’m not in those ranks, because I trust messages from the rocks.” He served a term as President of the Geological Society (2010-2012) where he instigated the Society's first formal policy position on climate change, the first geoscience learned & professional society to do so. ++++ One of our editors, Jonathan FGS, MIBiol, notes with gratitude how tremendously supportive Bryan was of his convening a joint symposium on the early Eocene, greenhouse-amplified climate event for the Geological Society and British Ecological Society.
David A. McIntee, the writer, has died aged 56. He is known for his Doctor Who spin-off novels. He has also written Final Destination and Space: 1999 spin-offs.
Lynn Maners, the US fan, has died. He graduated in Cultural Anthropology from UCLA. He later moved to Tucson, Arizona and taught at Pima Community College. He was a long-time Los Angeles SF Society (LASFS) member.
John Marsden, the Australian author, has died aged 74. He wrote for the children and teenage readerships beginning with beginning with The Journey (1988). SFnally, he is arguably best known for his 'Tomorrow' sequence of books that are set in a near-future Australia. One of his SF works from this sequence was adapted into film, Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010). He also wrote several stand-alone fantasy novels.
Barry Malzberg, the US author, has died aged 85. His novel Beyond Apollo won the inaugural John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1973. His non-fiction works have garnered two Locus Awards: The Engines of the Night (1983), and Breakfast in the Ruins: Science Fiction in the Last Millennium (2008). He collaborated with Mike Resnick on many advice columns for the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Tony Meadows, the British fan, has died aged 76. He grew up and lived in Pemberton, Wigan, and this gave him access to both BaD and MaD (Bolton and District and Manchester and District) SF fans. Though he was very much centred in the north-west (of England) he had genre film aficionado friends from far away, including one Forrest (4E) Ackerman who showed Tony some of the local sights when he visited the US. Tony was such an avid fan of SF/F films that he amassed a substantive celluloid collection. He used to show 16mm films back in the day when all conventions worth their salt had film screenings, and for many years up to 2015 he ran one of the 16mm film streams at the Festival of Fantastic Films (4E was a Guest of Honour at the 2001 Fest). Tony would even screen, between features, old 1960s cinema announcements such as no smoking in the right half of the cinema, or Perl & Dean adverts such as the Gerry Anderson Fireball XL5 Zoom ice lolly advert. He continued showing films after the passing of the Fest's founder, Harry Nadler, in 2002, and as such helped keep the Fest's original spirit going. Following 2015, he stopped screening at the Fest to spend more time with his wife, Gwen, who sadly died the next year. He never did return to the Fest but did continue to organise the Wigan Fantastic Film Society. In recent years, his health declined and he had a nasty fall in 2022. He had had a long illness before he passed in October a week before the 2024 Festival of Fantastic Films.
Paul Morrissey, the US director, has died aged 86. His films include: Flesh for Frankenstein (1973), Blood for Dracula (1974) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978).
John Nielsen-Hall, the British fanzine fan, has died. He joined fandom via the BSFA in the 1960s. He produced first fanzine, Zine, in late sixties - two issues. Along with Roy Kettle and Greg Pickersgill he became part of Ratfandom. He gafiated in 1978 but returned in 2005.
Jodie Offutt, the US fan, has died aged 87. The Kentucky based fan was a GoH at Rivercon II and BYOB-Con 6 (1976), Artkane 2 (1977), MidSouthCon 5 (1986), Transcendental ConFusion (1993), and LibertyCon 9 (1995). She was a regular contributor to the US daily fanzine blog File770 in its early years.
Christopher Penfold, late news in… the British scriptwriter and editor, has died aged 83. He was a principal scriptwriter and story writer consultant for the first series of Gerry Anderson's Space 1999. He also worked on the second season of John Christopher's The Tripods.
Robert J. Randisi, the US author, has died aged 73. He is the more than 650 published books and has edited more than 30 anthologies of short stories. He is more known for his crime, mystery and western novels than he is SF/F but has written some fantasy. He co-founded The American Crime Writers League; co-founded Western Fictioneers, and co-created the Peacemaker Award..
Andrew Schally, the Polish-born US endocrinologist, has died aged 98. he came to the US by the way of Romania and then several years in Britain and a short spell in Canada. He is known for elucidating (independently with Roger Guillemin) the structure of thyrotropin-releasing factor (TRF), which is secreted by the hypothalamus to regulate the release of thyrotropin. He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1977 with Rosalyn Yalow and Roger Guillemin.
Fred Smith, the Scottish fan, has died aged 97. He was active in fandom in the 1950s, when he helped found New Lands SF Club and was a member of OMPA, before gafiating, then again active from the 1990s. He did though attend Scotland' first convention, Faircon (1978) (which also saw a couple of SF² Concatenation founding editors present). He was largely based in Glasgow before moving th Edinburgh for his final months.
Timothy Sullivan, the US writer, filmmaker and fan, has died aged 76. As a writer, his short story 'Zeke' was short-listed for a Nebula and went on to write several novels. He was a member of the Washington ScienceFiction Association but he (and Somtow Sucharitkul) left in the 1980s following a fan feud (reportedly primarily due to the way passes were allocated to a promotional screening of a David Lynch film) and set up the Washington Alternative SF Association. He wrote and directed Vampyre Femmes (1999) and appeared in straight-to-video releases such as The Laughing Dead (1989), Eyes of theWerewolf (1999), The Mark of Dracula (2000), Hollywood Mortuary (2000)and Deadly Scavengers (2001).
Jeri Taylor, the US television show-runner, has died aged 86. She was the show-runner for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager, the latter she co-created.
Larry S. Todd, the US writer and artist, has died aged 76. He contributed stories and artwork to Imagination, Galaxy and Worlds of Tomorrow. He is possibly better known for comics work, including his own creation in the early 1970s of Dr. Robot and for work in Epic Illustrated and Heavy Metal.
Bruce Townley, the US fan, has died aged 70. In the 1960s and '70s he was based in Alexandria, Vancouver, before moving to San Francisco, California. He was also a fan artist noted – and controversial to some – for its simplistic style. His fanzines included: Le Viol (mid-'70s), Oblong (1995-98), Phiz (1970-'80s) and View Two (mid-70s).
Lyudmila Trut, the Russian biologist, has died aged 90. She famously ran an experiment, that began in 1952, for decades. It selectively bred silver foxes for tameness for nearly 60 generations. The foxes fur became more mottled and more dog like.
Kazuo Umezu, the Japanese artist, has died aged 88. He is best known as a giant of Manga and horror comics with classics like The Drifting Classroom, My Name is Shingo, Cat Eyed Boy and God’s Left Hand, Devil’s Right Hand. In 2019, Umezu received the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs award from the Agency for Cultural Affairs. It is an award for "individuals who have made distinguished accomplishment in artistic and cultural activities". It is rarely awarded to people in the Manga industry
Valery Verkhovsky, the Ukrainian SF writer, has died aged 55. His real name was Valerii Stryzheus and he was a native of Crimea. His authorial debut was with the novelette The Insatiable (2002). He was the editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian Science Fiction Review magazine (2008-2010). He was also the Ukrainian editor for the Fandango SF project in Crimea (2012-2013). He is known as journalist, writer and translator: for example, he translated Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and co-translated (with Iryna Saviuk) The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. In Ukrainian fandom he was known for his opinionated views. He died in Western Ukraine at a refugee facility.
Marc Wells, the US fan, has died. He was based in Portland and provided tech at conventions. He was a member of the Portland Science Fiction Society. He was married to fellow fan Patty Wells
George Zebrowski, the US author, has died aged 78. He wrote over a dozen novels including Macrolife (1979). He also co-authored five Star Trek novels with his wife, Pamela Sargent. Three of his short stories – 'Heathen God', 'The Eichmann Variations' and 'Wound the Wind' – were short-listed for the Nebula Award In addition to being an author he was also a former editor of The Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Trent Zelazny, the US author, has died aged 48. His novels include: To Sleep Gently, Fractal Despondency, The Day the Leash Gave Way and Other Stories, Destination Unknown, Butterfly Potion, Too Late to Call Texas, People Person and Voiceless. He was the son of Roger Zelazny. He had a stroke a couple of months before he died but then suffered liver disease.
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