In 2019, Tor.com Publishing published over 30 novels, novellas, anthologies, and collections, including the finale of Myke Cole’s The Sacred Throne trilogy, the follow-up to the Nommo Award-winning novella The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson, the necromantic science fiction sensation Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir featuring everyone’s favorite galactic dirtbag, and so much more!
We are tremendously proud of our authors, illustrators, and editors for creating such wonderful works this year. We hope that you will nominate your favorites for the Hugos, Nebulas, and other upcoming awards which honor outstanding works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror—but most of all, we hope that you have enjoyed reading these stories as much as we have!
Novels
Perihelion Summer by Greg Egan
Published on April 16th, 2019
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Cover art and design by Drive Communications
Taraxippus is coming: a black hole one tenth the mass of the sun is about to enter the solar system. Matt and his friends are taking no chances. They board a mobile aquaculture rig, the Mandjet, self-sustaining in food, power and fresh water, and decide to sit out the encounter off-shore. As Taraxippus draws nearer, new observations throw the original predictions for its trajectory into doubt, and by the time it leaves the solar system, the conditions of life across the globe will be changed forever.
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
Published on May 7th, 2019
Edited by Lee Harris
Jacket design by Will Staehle
Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story. Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math. Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet. Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own. Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.
Desdemona and the Deep by C. S. E. Cooney
Published on July 23rd, 2019
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Cover art by Alyssa Winans; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
In Desdemona and the Deep, the spoiled daughter of a rich mining family must retrieve the tithe of men her father promised to the world below. On the surface, her world is rife with industrial pollution that ruins the health of poor factory workers while the idle rich indulge themselves in unheard-of luxury. Below are goblins, mysterious kingdoms, and an entirely different hierarchy.
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Published on September 10th, 2019
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
Cover art by Tommy Arnold; Cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill
Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will be become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die. Of course, some things are better left dead.
The Killing Light by Myke Cole
Published on November 12th, 2019
Edited by Lee Harris
Jacket art by Chris McGrath; Jacket design by Christine Foltzer
Heloise and her allies are marching on the Imperial Capital. The villagers, the Kipti, and the Red Lords are united only in their loyalty to Heloise, though dissenting voices are many and they are loud. The unstable alliance faces internal conflicts and external strife, yet they’re united in their common goal. But when the first of the devils start pouring through a rent in the veil between worlds, Heloise must strike a bargain with an unlikely ally, or doom her people to death and her world to ruin.
Novellas
In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
Published on January 8th, 2019
Edited by Lee Harris
Jacket art by Robert Hunt; Jacket design by FORT
A stand-alone fantasy tale from Seanan McGuire’s Alex award-winning Wayward Children series. This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should. When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she’s found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.
Vigilance by Robert Jackson Bennett
Published on January 29th, 2019
Edited by Justin Landon
Illustrated by Brian Stauffer ; Cover designed by Christine Foltzer
The United States. 2030. John McDean executive produces “Vigilance,” a reality game show designed to make sure American citizens stay alert to foreign and domestic threats. Shooters are introduced into a “game environment,” and the survivors get a cash prize.
The TV audience is not the only one that’s watching though, and McDean soon finds out what it’s like to be on the other side of the camera.
Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You by Scotto Moore
Published on February 5th, 2019
Edited by Lee Harris
Cover photo © Shutterstock.com
Beautiful Remorse is the hot new band on the scene, releasing one track a day for ten days straight. Each track has a mysterious name and a strangely powerful effect on the band’s fans. A curious music blogger decides to investigate the phenomenon up close by following Beautiful Remorse on tour across Texas and Kansas, realizing along the way that the band’s lead singer, is hiding an incredible, impossible secret.
The Test by Sylvain Neuvel
Published on February 12th, 2019
Edited by Lee Harris
Cover design by Jonathan Gray
Britain, the not-too-distant future. Idir is sitting the British Citizenship Test. He wants his family to belong. Twenty-five questions to determine their fate. Twenty-five chances to impress. When the test takes an unexpected and tragic turn, Idir is handed the power of life and death. How do you value a life when all you have is multiple choice?
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark
Published on February 19th, 2019
Edited by Diana M. Pho
Cover art by Stephan Martiniere; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Cairo, 1912: The case started as a simple one for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities — handling a possessed tram car. Soon, however, Agent Hamed Nasr and his new partner Agent Onsi Youssef are exposed to a new side of Cairo stirring with suffragettes, secret societies, and sentient automatons in a race against time to protect the city from an encroaching danger that crosses the line between the magical and the mundane.
Alice Payne Rides by Kate Heartfield
Published on March 5th, 2019
Edited by Lee Harris
Cover art by Cliff Nielsen; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
After abducting Arthur of Brittany from his own time in 1203, thereby creating the mystery that partly prompted the visit in the first place, Alice and her team discover that they have inadvertently brought the smallpox virus back to 1780 with them. Searching for a future vaccine, Prudence finds that the various factions in the future time war intend to use the crisis to their own advantage. Can the team prevent an international pandemic across time, and put history back on its tracks? At least until the next battle in the time war…
opens in a new window
Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds
Published on March 19th, 2019
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Cover photos © Tim Robinson/Arcangel Images and mahos/Shutterstock.com; Cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill
2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an ageing schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox. 2028: a young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery. In the days following her operation, she begins to hear another voice in her head… an unwanted presence which seems to have a will, and a purpose, all of its own – one that will disrupt her life entirely. The only choice left to her is a simple one. Does she resist … or become a collaborator?
Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett
Published on March 26th, 2019
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
Cover art and design by David Wardle
After the tempest, after the reunion, after her father drowned his books, Miranda was meant to enter a brave new world. Naples awaited her, and Ferdinand, and a throne. Instead she finds herself in Milan, in her father’s castle, surrounded by hostile servants who treat her like a ghost. Whispers cling to her like spiderwebs, whispers that carry her dead mother’s name. And though he promised to give away his power, Milan is once again contorting around Prospero’s dark arts. With only Dorothea, her sole companion and confidant to aid her, Miranda must cut through the mystery and find the truth about her father, her mother, and herself.
Ragged Alice by Gareth Powell
Published on April 23rd, 2019
Edited by Lee Harris
Cover photograph © Andrew Davis/Trevillion Images; Cover design by Fort
Orphaned at an early age, DCI Holly Craig grew up in the small Welsh coastal town of Pontyrhudd. As soon as she was old enough, she ran away to London and joined the police. Now, fifteen years later, she’s back in her old hometown to investigate what seems at first to be a simple hit-and-run, but which soon escalates into something far deadlier and unexpectedly personal—something that will take all of her peculiar talents to solve.
The Undefeated by Una McCormack
Published on May 14th, 2019
Edited by Marco Palmieri
Cover art by Chris McGrath; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
She was a warrior of words.
As a journalist she exposed corruption across the Interstellar Commonwealth, shifting public opinion and destroying careers in the process. Long-since retired, she travels back to the planet of her childhood, partly through a sense of nostalgia, partly to avoid running from humanity’s newest—and self-created—enemy, the jenjer. Because the enemy is coming, and nothing can stand in its way.
Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water by Vylar Kaftan
Published on May 21st, 2019
Edited by Christie Yant
Cover art and design by Drive Communications
All Bee has ever known is darkness. She doesn’t remember the crime she committed that landed her in the cold, twisting caverns of the prison planet Colel-Cab with only fellow prisoner Chela for company. Chela says that they’re telepaths and mass-murderers; that they belong here, too dangerous to ever be free. Bee has no reason to doubt her—until she hears the voice of another telepath, one who has answers, and can open her eyes to an entirely different truth.
Longer by Michael Blumlein
Published on May 28th, 2019
Edited by Ann VanderMeer
Cover photograph of astronaut © David & Myrtille/Arcangel Images; Cover photograph of sky © Shutterstock; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Gunjita and Cav are in orbit. R&D scientists for pharmaceutical giant Gleem Galactic, they are wealthy enough to participate in rejuvenation: rebooting themselves from old age to jump their bodies back to their twenties. You get two chances. There can never be a third. After Gunjita has juved for the second and final time and Cav has not, questions of life, death, morality, and test their relationship. Up among the stars, the research possibilities are infinite and first contact is possible, but their marriage may not survive the challenge.
The Fire Opal Mechanism by Fran Wilde
Published on June 4th, 2019
Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Cover art by Tommy Arnold; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Jewels and their lapidaries and have all but passed into myth. Jorit, broke and branded a thief, just wants to escape the Far Reaches for something better. Ania, a rumpled librarian, is trying to protect her books from the Pressmen, who value knowledge but none of the humanity that generates it. When they stumble upon a mysterious clock powered by an ancient jewel, they may discover secrets in the past that will change the future forever.
Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh
Published on June 18th, 2019
Edited by Ruoxi Chen
Cover art and design by David Curtis
There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads. When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past—both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.
The Survival of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson
Published on July 9th, 2019
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
Cover photograph © Wojciech Zwoliński/Arcangel Images; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Who was Molly Southbourne? What did she leave behind? A burnt-out basement. A name stained in blood. Bodies that remember murder, one of them left alive. A set of rules that no longer apply. Molly Southbourne is alive. If she wants to survive, she’ll need to run, hide, and be ready to fight. There are people who remember her, who know what she is and what she’s done. Some want her alive, some want her dead, and all hold a piece to the puzzles in her head. Can Molly escape them, or will she confront the bloody history that made her?
The Border Keeper by Kerstin Hall
Published on July 16th, 2019
Edited by Ruoxi Chen
Cover art by Kathleen Jennings; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Vasethe, a man with a troubled past, comes to seek a favor from a woman who is not what she seems, and must enter the nine hundred and ninety-nine realms of Mkalis, the world of spirits, where gods and demons wage endless war. The Border Keeper spins wonders both epic—the Byzantine bureaucracy of hundreds of demon realms, impossible oceans, hidden fortresses—and devastatingly personal—a spear flung straight, the profound terror and power of motherhood. What Vasethe discovers in Mkalis threatens to bring his own secrets into light and throw both worlds into chaos.
The Ascent to Godhood by JY Yang
Published on July 30th, 2019
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
Cover art by Yuko Shimizu; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
The Protector is dead. For fifty years, the Protector ruled, reshaping her country in her image and driving her enemies to the corners of the map. For half a century the world turned around her as she built her armies, trained her Tensors, and grasped at the reins of fate itself. Now she is dead. Her followers will quiver, her enemies rejoice. But in one tavern, deep in rebel territory, her greatest enemy drowns her sorrows. Lady Han raised a movement that sought the Protector’s head, yet now she can only mourn her loss. She remembers how it all began, when the Protector was young, not yet crowned, and a desperate dancing girl dared to fall in love with her.
The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday by Saad Z. Hossain
Published on August 13th, 2019
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Cover art by Eric Nyquist; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
When the djinn king Melek Ahmar wakes up after millennia of imprisoned slumber, he finds a world vastly different from what he remembers. Arrogant and bombastic, he comes down the mountain expecting an easy conquest: the wealthy, spectacular city state of Kathmandu, ruled by the all-knowing, all-seeing tyrant AI Karma. To his surprise, he finds that Kathmandu is a cut-price paradise, where citizens want for nothing and even the dregs of society are distinctly unwilling to revolt. Everyone seems happy, except for the old Gurkha soldier Bhan Gurung. Knife saint, recidivist, and mass murderer, he is an exile from Kathmandu, pursuing a forty-year-old vendetta that leads to the very heart of Karma. Pushed and prodded by Gurung, Melek Ahmer finds himself in ever deeper conflicts, until they finally face off against Karma and her forces. In the upheaval that follows, old crimes will come to light and the city itself will be forced to change.
The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht
Published on September 24th, 2019
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
Jacket art by Jeffrey Alan Love; Jacket design and hand-lettering by Christine Foltzer
The city of Elendhaven sulks on the edge of the ocean. Wracked by plague, abandoned by the South, stripped of industry and left to die. But not everything dies so easily. A thing without a name stalks the city, a thing shaped like a man, with a dark heart and long pale fingers yearning to wrap around throats. A monster who cannot die. His frail master sends him out on errands, twisting him with magic, crafting a plan too cruel to name, while the monster’s heart grows fonder and colder and more cunning. These monsters of Elendhaven will have their revenge on everyone who wronged the city, even if they have to burn the world to do it.
Ormeshadow by Priya Sharma
Published on October 15th, 2019
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Cover art: Orme by Babetts Bildergalerie; Gold by Chinnapong/Shutterstock.com; Cover design by Henry Sene Yee
Burning with resentment and intrigue, this fantastical family drama invites readers to dig up the secrets of the Belman family, and wonder whether myths and legends are real enough to answer for a history of sin. Uprooted from Bath by his father’s failures, Gideon Belman finds himself stranded on Ormeshadow farm, an ancient place of chalk and ash and shadow. The land crests the Orme, a buried, sleeping dragon that dreams resentment, jealousy, estrangement, death. Or so the folklore says. Growing up in a house that hates him, Gideon finds his only comforts in the land. Gideon will live or die by the Orme, as all his family has.
Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather
Published on October 29th, 2019
Edited by Christie Yant
Cover art and design by Drive Communication
Years ago, Old Earth sent forth sisters and brothers into the vast dark of the prodigal colonies armed only with crucifixes and iron faith. Now, the sisters of the Order of Saint Rita are on an interstellar mission of mercy aboard Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, a living, breathing ship which seems determined to develop a will of its own. When the order receives a distress call from a newly-formed colony, the sisters discover that the bodies and souls in their care—and that of the galactic diaspora—are in danger. And not from void beyond, but from the nascent Central Governance and the Church itself.
Made Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Published on November 6th, 2019
Edited by Lee Harris
Cover art by Red Nose Studio; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Welcome to Fountains Parish–a cesspit of trade and crime, where ambition curls up to die and desperation grows on its cobbled streets like mold on week-old bread. Coppelia is a street thief, a trickster, a low-level con artist. But she has something other thieves don’t… tiny puppet-like companions: some made of wood, some of metal. They don’t entirely trust her, and she doesn’t entirely understand them, but their partnership mostly works. After a surprising discovery shakes their world to the core, Coppelia and her friends must re-examine everything they thought they knew about their world, while attempting to save their city from a seemingly impossible new threat.
The Menace from Farside by Ian McDonald
Published on November 12th, 2019
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Cover art by Richard Anderson; Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Remember: Lady Luna knows a thousand ways to kill you, but family is what you know. Family is what works. Cariad Corcoran has a new sister who is everything she is not: tall, beautiful, confident. They’re unlikely allies and even unlikelier sisters, but they’re determined to find the moon’s first footprint, even if the lunar frontier is doing its best to kill them before they get there.
The Lights Go Out in Lychford by Paul Cornell
Published on November 19th, 2019
Edited by Lee Harris
Cover photograph © Hans Neleman/Getty Images; Cover design by FORT
The borders of Lychford are crumbling. Other realities threaten to seep into the otherwise quiet village, and the resident wise woman is struggling to remain wise. The local magic shop owner and the local priest are having troubles of their own. And a mysterious stranger is on hand to offer a solution to everyone’s problems. No cost, no strings (she says). But as everyone knows, free wishes from strangers rarely come without a price . . .
Anthologies
Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #1 by JY Yang, Kai Ashante Wilson, S. B. Divya, Corey J. White, and Tade Thompson
Published on January 22nd, 2019
Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #1 is a curated selection of novellas by editor Carl Engle-Laird.
This collection includes:
- The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang
- Runtime by S.B. Divya
- The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson
- Killing Gravity by Corey J. White
- The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson
Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #2 by Nnedi Okorafor, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, Martha Wells, Jeremy C. Shipp
Published on February 26th, 2019
Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #2 is a curated selection of novellas by editor Lee Harris.
This collection includes:
- Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
- Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell
- Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day by Seanan McGuire
- All Systems Red by Martha Wells
- The Atrocities by Jeremy C. Shipp
Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #3 by Victor LaValle, Jeffrey Ford, Stephen Graham Jones, and Kelly Robson
Published on March 12, 2019
Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #3 is a curated selection of novellas by editor Ellen Datlow.
This collection includes:
- The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
- The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford
- Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones
- Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson
Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #4 by Liz Ziemska and Brian Evenson
Published on April 9th, 2019
Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #4 is a curated selection of novellas by editor Ann VanderMeer.
This collection includes:
- Mandelbrot the Magnificent by Liz Ziemska
- The Warren by Brian Evenson
Tor.com Publishing 2019 Debut Sampler by C. S. E. Cooney, Katharine Duckett, Jennifer Giesbrecht, Kerstin Hall, Vylar Kaftan, Scotto Moore, Tamsyn Muir, Lina Rather, Priya Sharma, and Emily Tesh
Published on April 16th, 2019
Tor.com Publishing is proud to present a sneak peak at its 2019 debut authors. Read free sample chapters from the most exciting new voices in science fiction and fantasy today, including C. S. E. Cooney, Katharine Duckett, Jennifer Giesbrecht, Kerstin Hall, Vylar Kaftan, Scotto Moore, Tamsyn Muir, Lina Rather, Priya Sharma, and Emily Tesh.
Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #5 by Kij Johnson, Ellen Klages, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Gwyneth Jones, and Ian McDonald
Published on April 30th, 2019
Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #5 is a curated selection of novellas by editor Jonathan Strahan.
This collection includes:
- The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
- Passing Strange by Ellen Klages
- Agents of Dreamland by Caitlin R. Kiernan
- Proof of Concept by Gwyneth Jones
- Time Was by Ian McDonald
