S.C. Bandreddi, The Game of Oaths (Candlewick 6/26) Bandreddi’s debut outing is a young-adult historical dark fantasy novel about a magical circus in 1896 Paris. Performers trapped by contracts are forced to compete in a deadly tournament to entertain the elite while promising freedom for the winner – but one competitor is more interested in revenge. Full of magic and brutal action, with a diverse cast dealing with issues of colonialism that add a serious touch.

 

 

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Maurice Broaddus, A City Dreaming (Tor 6/26) The third and final volume in the Astra Black trilogy offers a complex mix of political intrigue and action, as a signal from a wormhole promises new arrivals, triggering conflicts across the solar system that threaten the Muungano Empire.

 

 

 

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Ellen Datlow, ed., Lovecraft’s Brood (Tachyon 7/26) A new anthology by noted editor Datlow offers 19 stories of cosmic dread from the last 20 years, with new takes on Lovecraftian themes. Authors include Laird Barron, Elizabeth Hand, Caitlín R. Kiernan, T. Kingfisher, Steve Rasnic Tem, Paul Tremblay, and L. Marie Wood.

 

 

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Kate Heartfield, Mercutio (Harper Voyager UK 5/26) In this ‘‘prequel’’ to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo’s witty friend Mercutio gets his own story told, as he and Dante Alighieri team up to stop a Faerie invasion into the real world.

 

 

 

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Allan Kaster, ed., The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 10 (Infinivox 6/26) The latest volume in this popular SF year’s best anthology presents 11 stories from 2025 by an impressive roster of writers, including Vera Brook, Isabel J. Kim, Nancy Kress, Allen M. Steele, Bruce Sterling & Paul Di Filippo, and Peter Watts.

 

 

 

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Justin C. Key, The Hospital at the End of the World (Harper 2/26) This near-future SF novel imagines a world ‘‘in which hospitals are run entirely by AI and where doctors are little more than glorified software engineers.’’ [Ian Mond] Pok, a medical student, is forced to work in the only hospital not run by algorithms and learn how to deal with patients in a human way, all while trying to uncover his father’s secret.

 

 

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Haralambi Markov, The Language of Knives (Mythic Delirium 7/26) A collection of 13 dark fantasy/horror stories, four new, many involving elements of Slavic myth, dark humor, and questions of queer identity. This is Markov’s first collection, with an introduction by Ann VanderMeer.

 

 

 

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Alex Shvartsman, The Best of All Possible Planets (UFO Publishing 7/26) A satirical SF space opera novel, inspired primarily by Voltaire’s Candide (and not a little Douglas Adams), but with dozens more inspirations (and targets) from genre and pop culture (a list is provided). ‘‘But an exhaustive hunt for every Easter Egg would go against the spirit of this breezy read. Just relax and let the ride take you away from the actual world for a bit.’’ [Adrienne Martini] A small group sets out to get a new protective force shield for Earth, AKA Planet Dirt, and chaos naturally ensues.

 

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Jen St. Jude, Where You’ll Find Us (Bloomsbury US 6/26) This young-adult fantasy novel follows a disowned queer teen who finds a farmhouse out of time where queer kids from different decades have found refuge and share their experiences – until one day the clock starts ticking again.

 

 

 

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Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Best of Adrian Tchaikovsky (Subterranean 6/26) A hefty collection of 37 stories, chosen by the prolific author as his best, and with an Introduction by John Scalzi. Tchaikovsky notes he chose to omit some previously collected stories (notably those in his Shadows of the Apt series and his Lovecraftian Mythos stories) – what remains is a plentiful and entertaining mix of SF, fantasy, and ‘‘weirdness’’ that spans most of Tchaikovsky’s career, from early to recent tales.

#noinsta

 

Mahbod & Mahyar A. Amouzegar, To­morrow Brings Joy: Elysium (University of New Orleans Press 3/26) Near-future SF novel set in Elysium, a utopian society where humans and androids coexist, but Dolores and her android companion KR uncover a place called Walled City, a par­allel social experiment that reveals some unsettling truths about Elysium’s origins.

 

 

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Andrea Hairston, The Redemption Center Is Closed on Sundays (Tor 5/26) Multi-dimensional SF mystery novel. A local celebrity is murdered in a small town with a mysterious building where time stands still and dimensions collide. But only an inter-dimensional traveling St. Berdoodle named Oona knows who the killer is. “My favorite part of [the book] is not its playful premise, but that misfits, local personalities, and nosy neighbors are the beating heart of the book.” [Maya C. James]

 

 

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S.L. Huang, The Language of Liars (Tordotcom 4/26) SF novella about body jumping, secrets, linguistics, and consequences. Reo, a member of an empathic species, trains in linguistics to help him understand and “jump” into the mind of a Star Eater, in order to spy on the species and find out why they are dying out – a desperate concern for many worlds, since Star Eaters are the only beings capable of mining a substance necessary for faster-than-light travel – but Reo has no idea just how dark a secret he’ll uncover. “Huang’s book works beauti­fully on multiple levels. It’s a tautly plotted spy-thriller-mystery.” [Vanessa Fogg]

 

 

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T. Kingfisher, Wolf Worm (Nightfire 3/26) Southern gothic horror novel set in 1899 North Carolina, where scientific illustrator Sonia Wilson jumps at the chance to illustrate a reclusive scientist’s collection of insects. “Once the pace accelerates and the true nature of [the scientist’s] research becomes clear, those who came for the horror won’t be disappointed.” [Gary K. Wolfe]

 

 

 

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TJ Klune, We Burned So Bright (Tor 2026) Cozy end-of-the-world SF short novel about two gay men, together for 40 years, who decide to take a road trip as a wandering black hole ap­proaches. They race from Maine to Washington state to take care of unfinished business and meet a kaleidoscope of characters along the way.

 

 

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Ann Leckie, Radiant Star (Orbit US 5/26) Standalone SF novel in the world of the Imperial Radch, who consider the Temporal Location of the Radiant Star to be an antiquated religious site, but decide to allow one last man to join the mummified bodies there to become a “liv­ing saint”, and naturally complications ensue. “What it is about, I think, is where the various characters land in their attempts to find where they belong, where they can be themselves, where they can be at home.” [Russell Letson]

 

 

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James Machell, Human Voices, Alien Con­versations (Space Cowboy 6/26) Non-fiction collection of 16 interviews on writing and SF, conducted by Machell, asking intriguing ques­tions of an interesting mix of authors, artists, critics, and editors, from old legends to new tal­ents, including Paolo Bacigalupi, Pat Cadigan, P. Djèlí Clark, Neil Clarke, John Clute, Samuel R. Delany, Ai Jiang, Ken Liu, Cheryl Morgan, and John Picacio.

 

 

 

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Suzanne Palmer, Ode to the Half-Broken (DAW 5/26) A hopeful post-apocalyptic SF novel. An old ex-assassin robot, who’s been hiding out for decades in the remains of the New York Botanical Gardens, is forced to reconnect with the outside world as he looks for his stolen leg with the help of a human mechanic and a chatty cyborg dog. “This book is a masterclass in how to write near-future SF that features both an old-school wisdom and charms and a totally contemporary vibe.” [Paul Di Filippo]

 

 

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Cameron Reed, What We Are Seeking (Tor 4/26) SF mystery/adventure novel. John Maraintha is abandoned on the planet Scythia, a strange world where “survival means transformation”, where plants give birth to insects, trees kill, artificial monsters and aliens lurk, and people follow a barbaric custom called marriage. “’Things that are changing are beautiful’ is a recurring phrase in What We Are Seeking. Talking to each other is how we understand this, how we make sure we are fitting the categories to the people, not the people to the categories.” [Niall Harrison]

 

 

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Paul Tremblay, Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep Near-future SF horror novel with darkly humorous moments. A female gamer gets a temp job piloting a comatose man, driving him with a game-like controller across the country for the company that owns the AI tech in his brain – while he’s tortured by surreal nightmares. “This lone harried individual experiencing his ‘I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’-style mental captivity does evoke Phildickian ego-unease expertly and vividly.” [Paul Di Filippo]

#noinsta

 

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Nghi Vo, A Long and Speaking Silence (Tordotcom 5/26) Fantasy novella, seventh in the Singing Hills Cycle, a prequel to previous tales, following Chih’s earliest days as a wandering cleric with their hoopoe companion Almost Bril­liant, dealing with a refugee crisis and unraveling a mystery. “It continues to be the most rewarding cycle of novellas I’ve seen in recent years.” [Gary K. Wolfe]

 

 

The post New & Notable, August 2026 appeared first on Locus.

 

’Pemi Aguda, One Leg on Earth (Norton 5/26) Dark fantasy novel set in Lagos, a place of opportunity, but urban develop­ment has a price. Yosoye, 23 and eager to start her new job at an architectural firm in the shiny city, starts to notice things aren’t quite right. She gets pregnant and real­izes many pregnant women are drowning themselves, walking into water or throwing themselves off bridges. “One Leg on Earth lives up to its title. It is a bridge between the untameable present and an unknowable future.” [Niall Harrison]

 

 

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Ilona Andrews, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me (Tor 3/26) Fantasy novel, the first book in the Maggie the Undying series, about a woman who finds herself in a city she recognizes from the unfinished dark epic fantasy series she’s obsessed with; she figures out that she can get killed (in some horrible ways) but always comes back, and can’t resist trying to change things, with some unexpected results.

 

 

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Caroline Bicks, Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King (Hogarth US 4/26) Bicks used her unprecedented access to King’s pri­vate archives and interviews with the man himself to explore what makes his writing work so well. Focusing on early drafts and handwritten revisions of five early books (The Shining, Carrie, Pet Sematary, ’Salem’s Lot, and Night Shift), Bicks’s book was described, by King himself, as “the best book about my process that I have ever read.”

 

 

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Albertine Clarke, The Body Builders (Bloomsbury USA 3/26) An aspiring writer decides she and a man she con­nects with share one mind in two bodies; then she finds herself in an otherworldly artificial environment, where her every wish is made real. “The largest part of my enjoyment of The Body Builders came from the simple pleasure of encountering the first outing of a fresh and skillful voice, one that has an understanding of SF as both tool and project, and as a route to estrang­ing the society we have allowed to happen around us.” [Niall Harrison]

 

 

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Bar Fridman-Tell, Honeysuckle (Blooms­bury USA 3/26) Dark fantasy novel based on the Welsh myth of Blodeuwedd. Human boy Royr is lonely, so his big sister makes him a playmate, Daye, out of twigs and flowers. Unfortunately, she has to be rewoven every season or she’ll fall apart; Rory starts to research ways to keep her blooming, but as he gets older his feelings change. A first novel.

 

 

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Sarah Gailey, Make Me Better (Tor 5/26) Horror novel full of psychological dread, with something of a folk-horror feel. Celia goes to the Salt Festival on a mysterious island surrounded by an impossible reef, where the secluded community promises healing and transformation. “Make Me Better is unsettling, mysterious, with all the bad parts of cults, and creepy in a ‘let’s get outta here and get away from these weirdos and all those bloody shoes’ sort of way.” [Gabino Iglesias]

 

 

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Fonda Lee, The Last Contract of Isako (Orbit US 5/26) From the author of Jade City, an SF novel about a legendary swordswoman on the merciless planet Aquilo as she takes a final mission in­volving her last (and worst) apprentice. It blends the discipline of martial arts with the sweeping scale of a corporate space opera.

 

 

 

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Hache Pueyo, Cabaret in Flames (Tordotcom) Dark fantasy novella set amidst Brazil’s political chaos. Ariadne, despite having lost her limbs to guls – vampire-like beings who eat meat – still as­sists guls at a clinic, and then gets help from a gul investigating how her mentor died. It was translated, expanded, and revised by the author from a 2020 story published in Brazilian Portuguese in Mafagafo magazine. “It’s a complex, layered portrayal worthy of a much longer work.” [Ian Mond]

 

 

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Ali Smith, Glyph (Hamish Hamilton UK 1/26; Pantheon 5/26) Fantasy novel, a com­panion to Gliff, about unreliable memory and the stories we tell. Sisters Petra and Patch, now grown and estranged, reunite after Patch finds a phantom horse destroy­ing her bedroom. “Glyph doesn’t contain an ugly sentence or a boring page – and has a reassuringly crisp moral urgency.” [Niall Harrison]

 

 

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Martha Wells, Platform Decay (Tor 5/26) Short SF novel (around 54,000 words) and the eighth book in the Murderbot Diaries series. Everyone’s favorite SecUnit Murderbot volunteers to run a rescue mission, despite it involving strangers, even human children, and possibly…eye contact. Balancing high-stakes adventure with snarky inner monologues.

#noinsta