Head below for the full list of science fiction titles heading your way in June!
Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change.
Week One (June 6)
The Endless Vessel — Charles Soule (Harper Perennial)
A few years from now, in a world similar to ours, there exists a sort of “depression plague” that people refer to simply as “The Grey.” No one can predict whom it will afflict, or how, but once infected, there’s no coming back. A young Hong Kong based scientist, Lily Barnes, is trying to maintain her inner light in an increasingly dark world. The human race is dwindling, and people fighting to push forward are increasingly rare. One day, Lily comes across something that seems to be addressing her directly, calling to her, asking her to follow a path to whatever lies at its end. Is this the Endless Vessel to happiness? She leaves her life behind and sets out through time and space to find out. From its opening heart-stopping scene in the present day at the Louvre in Paris, through the earthly meetings between Lily and her loved ones past and present, to a shocking and satisfying conclusion in a truly enchanted forest, Charles Soule has channeled history, science and drama to create a story for the ages—a story of hope and love and possibility. This is a novel you will not soon forget.
The Weltall File (Gordian Division #4) — David Weber, Jacob Holo (Baen)
The Weltall Tournament’s professional VR games were supposed to be a symbol of cooperation between SysGov and its militaristic neighbor, the Admin. But that was before star Admin player Elly Sako received a death threat, written in blood next to a copy of her own severed head. The Admin’s Department of Temporal Investigation swiftly seizes control of the crime scene, and the tournament transforms into a flashpoint of charged politics and conflicting jurisdictions. SysPol Detective Isaac Cho and DTI Special Agent Susan Cantrell—partners in the officer exchange program—are sent in to take charge of the investigation and bring the situation under control. But solving this mystery won’t be easy, and the pair struggles to determine who is telling the truth. A jilted relationship between players soon explodes into signs of a far-reaching conspiracy, and the two detectives find themselves racing against time before the tournament ends. Because the killer will be the only one who wins, should they fail.
Translation State (Imperial Radch) — Ann Leckie (Orbit)
Qven was created to be a Presger translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else isn’t “optimal behavior”. I’s the type of behavior that results in elimination. But Qven rebels. And in doing so, their path collides with those of two others. Enae, a reluctant diplomat whose dead grandmaman has left hir an impossible task as an inheritance: hunting down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. And Reet, an adopted mechanic who is increasingly desperate to learn about his genetic roots—or anything that might explain why he operates so differently from those around him. As a Conclave of the various species approaches—and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presger is on the line—the decisions of all three will have ripple effects across the stars.
Week Two (June 13)
On Earth as it Is on Television — Emily Jane (Hyperion Avenue)
Since long before the spaceships’ fleeting presence, Blaine has been content to go along with the whims of his supermom wife and half-feral, television-addicted children. But when the kids blithely ponder skinning people to see if they’re aliens, and his wife drags them all on a surprise road trip to Disney World, even steady Blaine begins to crack. Half a continent away, Heather floats in a Malibu pool and watches the massive ships hover overhead. Maybe her life is finally going to start. For her, the arrival heralds a quest to understand herself, her accomplished (and oh-so-annoying) stepfamily, and why she feels so alone in a universe teeming with life. Suddenly conscious and alert after twenty catatonic years, Oliver struggles to piece together his fragmented, disco-infused memories and make sense of his desire to follow a strange cat on a westward journey.
Flight & Anchor (Firebreak) — Nicole Kornher-Stace (Tachyon)
Stellaxis operatives 06 and 22 have escaped. Years ago, they survived a corporate civil war; Stellaxis kidnapped and modified them into celebrity supersoldiers. But 06 and 22 have finally broken free from their barracks. They flee into a strange city they barely remember, trying to remain anonymous while their faces appear on billboards. It will be an expensive disaster for the director of the supersoldier program if word gets out about the escaped operatives. But she has paired them for a reason: 06 to aggressively engage, 22 to keep her in check. One flight, one anchor: a perfect team if they would just return to their rightful place with her. If not, all operatives’ days are numbered.
The Combat Codes — Alexander Darwin (Orbit)
In a world long ago ravaged by war, the nations have sworn an armistice never to use weapons of mass destruction again. Instead, highly-skilled warriors known as Grievar Knights represent their nations’ interests in brutal hand-to-hand combat. Murray Pearson was once a famed Knight until he suffered a loss that crippled his homeland—but now he’s on the hunt to discover the next champion. In underground and ruthless combat rings, an orphaned boy called Cego is making a name for himself. Murray believes Cego has what it takes to thrive in the world’s most prestigious combat academy—but first, Cego must prove himself in the vicious arenas of the underworld. And survival isn’t guaranteed.
Week Three (June 20)
Capture the Sun (Starlight’s Shadow #3) — Jessie Mihalik (Harper Voyager)
As a recovery specialist, Lexi Bowen’s jobs typically require more trickery and thievery than honest work. Her former captain might not approve of her flexible morals, but stealing artifacts for rich assholes pays the bills, and Lexi’s had enough of war and death. The FHP left her to die once; she doesn’t plan to give them a chance to finish the job. Unfortunately, her latest contract takes her to Valovia itself—and right back into the orbit of Nilo Shoren, a Valovian teleporter who already cost her one payday and nearly stole her heart. Armored against his clever charm, Lexi plans to get in, get the job done, and get out. But when her former crew goes missing in Valovian space, Lexi will have to work with Nilo to figure out what happened—and stop it—before the galaxy’s two superpowers can use the disappearance as an excuse to return to war.
Citadel — C. M. Alongi (Blackstone)
Citadel, the only city on the planet Edalide, has a holy mission: exterminate the demons from the Flooded Forest. The unholy, vicious animals were a mistake made by their god that must be corrected. Or at least, that’s what everyone’s been told. When Olivia, a nonverbal autistic nineteen-year-old, has a chance run-in with a “demon,” she realizes that these beings are not vicious, animals, or unholy, but sentient people. Forever scarred by her mother’s legally sanctioned murder, and determined to prevent either side from losing more loved ones, Olivia embarks on a hazardous journey into the Flooded Forest where she faces flesh-eating predators, telekinetic zealot-warriors, and the demons of her own past. Olivia’s quest for answers forces her to decide to either seek justice for both sides, or continue the cycle of war, revenge, and death.
The Infinite Miles — Hannah Fergesen (Blackstone)
To save the future, she must return to the beginning. Three years after her best friend Peggy went missing, Harper Starling is lost. Lost in her dead-end job, lost in her grief. All she has are regrets and reruns of her favorite science fiction show, Infinite Voyage. Then Peggy returns and demands to be taken to the Argonaut, the fictional main character of Infinite Voyage. But the Argonaut is just that… fictional. Until the TV hero himself appears and spirits Harper away from her former best friend. Traveling through time, he explains that Peggy used to travel with him but is now under the thrall of an alien enemy known as the Incarnate—one that has destroyed countless solar systems. Then he leaves Harper in 1971. Stranded in the past, Harper must find a way to end the Incarnate’s thrall…. without the help of the Argonaut. But the cosmos are nothing like the technicolor stars of the TV show she loves, and if Harper can’t find it in herself to believe—in the Argonaut, in Peggy, and most of all, in herself—she’ll be the Incarnate’s next casualty, along with the rest of the universe.
Week Four (June 27)
The Road to Roswell — Connie Willis (Del Rey)
When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer bridegroom—she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one. Odder still, her abductor is far from what the popular media have led her to expect, with a body like a tumbleweed and a mass of lightning-fast tentacles. Nor is Francie the only victim of the alien’s abduction spree. Before long, he has acquired a charming con man named Wade, a sweet little old lady with a casino addiction, a retiree with a huge RV and a love for old Westerns, and a UFO-chasing nutjob who is thoroughly convinced the alien intends to probe them and/or take over the planet. But the more Francie gets to know the alien, the more convinced she becomes that he’s not an invader. That he’s in trouble and she has to help him. Only she doesn’t know how—or even what the trouble is.
The Archive Undying (Downworld #1) — Emma Mieko Candon (Tordotcom Publishing)
When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to life: its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he’s seen. He’s run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines.
The Ghosts of Trappist (NeoG) — K.B. Wagers (Harper Voyager)
Ensign Nell “Sapphi” Zika has been working hard to get past her trauma, but the unnerving pleas for help she’s hearing in the Verge and the song she can’t get out of her head are making that increasingly difficult. As Zuma’s Ghost gears up for a final run at the Boarding Games, their expert hacker is feeling anything but confident. Plus, her chief’s robot dog, Doge, is acting weird—a computer problem she can’t find an answer to—and the increasing number of missing freighters is putting everyone living on or stationed around Trappist on edge. It doesn’t help the NeoG’s mission that Dread Treasure is sidelined from competing in the Boarding Games, and Commander D’Arcy Montaglione is stuck on the front lines of the mystery of the missing ships while also stuck in his own head. Never good at trusting people to begin with, he’s struggling to piece together his new crew in the aftermath of a great betrayal, knowing this may be his final chance at command. The last thing he wants to do is prove his enemies right and end up getting shoved behind a desk and forgotten. The easy answer to missing ships is pirates, but D’Arcy soon realizes the easiest answer is rarely the right one out in the vacuum of space. What’s worse is that the actual pirates are scared of something out beyond the asteroid belt. Something that’s been taking their ships too… As the unknowns multiply and one of their mysterious enemies escalates by launching an attack on the NeoG itself, the Interceptor crews must brave both cyber and outer space to hunt down their foes, but no one is prepared for the truth that is revealed or the way it will shake the foundations of everything they believe about the universe.
