Summer is heating up in New York, but we’re already looking ahead to Fall: changing leaves, cool breezes, warm sweaters—and of course all the books we can’t wait to read! Below, check out the cover designs and descriptions for all the novellas and novels that Tor.com Publishing will be bring out in Fall 2017, from September through November.
It’s an exciting new season for us—we’re visiting distant space colonies, haunted houses, and the hippo-infested waters of the Mississippi Delta!
All titles will be available world-wide in print, ebook, and audio. As always, our ebooks are DRM-free.
Acadie
Written by Dave Hutchinson
Illustrated by Stephen Youll
Designed by Christine Foltzer
Available September 5
Pre-order Now: iBooks | Kindle | Nook
What’s it about?
The Colony left Earth to find their utopia—a home on a new planet where their leader could fully explore the colonists’ genetic potential, unfettered by their homeworld’s restrictions. They settled a new paradise, and have been evolving and adapting for centuries.
Earth has other plans.
The original humans have been tracking their descendants across the stars, bent on their annihilation. They won’t stop until the new humans have been destroyed, their experimentation wiped out of the human gene pool.
Can’t anyone let go of a grudge anymore?
Ruin of Angels (Craft Sequence #6)
Written by Max Gladstone
Illustrated by Goni Montes
Designed by Christine Foltzer
Available September 5
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What’s it about?
The God Wars destroyed the city of Alikand. Now, a century and a half and a great many construction contracts later, Agdel Lex rises in its place. Dead deities litter the surrounding desert, streets shift when people aren’t looking, a squidlike tower dominates the skyline, and the foreign Iskari Rectification Authority keeps strict order in this once-independent city—while treasure seekers, criminals, combat librarians, nightmare artists, angels, demons, dispossessed knights, grad students, and other fools gather in its ever-changing alleys, hungry for the next big score.
Priestess/investment banker Kai Pohala (last seen in Full Fathom Five) hits town to corner Agdel Lex’s burgeoning nightmare startup scene, and to visit her estranged sister Ley. But Kai finds Ley desperate at the center of a shadowy, and rapidly unravelling, business deal. When Ley ends up on the run, wanted for a crime she most definitely committed, Kai races to track her sister down before the Authority finds her first. But Ley has her own plans, involving her ex-girlfriend, a daring heist into the god-haunted desert, and, perhaps, freedom for an occupied city. Because Alikand might not be completely dead—and some people want to finish the job.
Taste of Marrow (River of Teeth #2)
Written by Sarah Gailey
Illustrated by Richard Anderson
Designed by Christine Foltzer
Available September 12
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What’s it about?
A few months ago, Winslow Houndstooth put together the damnedest crew of outlaws, assassins, cons, and saboteurs on either side of the Harriet for a history-changing caper. Together they conspired to blow the dam that choked the Mississippi and funnel the hordes of feral hippos contained within downriver, to finally give America back its greatest waterway.
Songs are sung of their exploits, many with a haunting refrain: “And not a soul escaped alive.”
In the aftermath of the Harriet catastrophe, that crew has scattered to the winds. Some hunt the missing lovers they refuse to believe have died. Others band together to protect a precious infant and a peaceful future. All of them struggle with who they’ve become after a long life of theft, murder, deception, and general disinterest in the strictures of the law.
The Twilight Pariah
Written by Jeffrey Ford
Designed by Christine Foltzer
Photograph © Roy Bishop/Arcangel
Available September 12
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What’s it about?
All Maggie, Russell, and Henry wanted out of their last college vacation was to get drunk and play archaeologist in an old house in the woods outside of town. When they excavate the mansion’s outhouse they find way more than they bargained for: a sealed bottle filled with a red liquid, along with the bizarre skeleton of a horned child
Disturbing the skeleton throws each of their lives into a living hell. They feel followed wherever they go, their homes are ransacked by unknown intruders, and people they care about are brutally, horribly dismembered. The three friends awakened something, a creature that will stop at nothing to retrieve its child.
Null States (Centenal Cycle #2)
Written by Malka Older
Designed by Will Staehle
Available September 19
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What’s it about?
Null States continues Campbell Award finalist Malka Older’s Centenal Cycle, the trilogy beginning with Infomocracy.
The Black Tides of Heaven (Tensorate Series)
Written by JY Yang
Illustrated by Yuko Shimizu
Designed by Christine Foltzer
Available September 26
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What’s it about?
The Black Tides of Heaven is one of a pair of unique, standalone introductions to JY Yang’s Tensorate Series.
Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of the Protector, were sold to the Grand Monastery as children. While Mokoya developed her strange prophetic gift, Akeha was always the one who could see the strings that moved adults to action. While his sister received visions of what would be, Akeha realized what could be. What’s more, he saw the sickness at the heart of his mother’s Protectorate.
A rebellion is growing. The Machinists discover new levers to move the world every day, while the Tensors fight to put them down and preserve the power of the state. Unwilling to continue to play a pawn in his mother’s twisted schemes, Akeha leaves the Tensorate behind and falls in with the rebels. But every step Akeha takes towards the Machinists is a step away from his sister Mokoya. Can Akeha find peace without shattering the bond he shares with his twin sister?
The Red Threads of Fortune (Tensorate Series)
Written by JY Yang
Illustrated by Yuko Shimizu
Designed by Christine Foltzer
Available September 26
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What’s it about?
The Red Threads of Fortune is one of a pair of unique, standalone introductions to JY Yang’s Tensorate Series.
Fallen prophet, master of the elements, and daughter of the supreme Protector, Sanao Mokoya has abandoned the life that once bound her. Once her visions shaped the lives of citizens across the land, but no matter what tragedy Mokoya foresaw, she could never reshape the future. Broken by the loss of her young daughter, she now hunts deadly, sky-obscuring naga in the harsh outer reaches of the kingdom with packs of dinosaurs at her side, far from everything she used to love.On the trail of a massive naga that threatens the rebellious mining city of Bataanar, Mokoya meets the mysterious and alluring Rider. But all is not as it seems: the beast they both hunt harbors a secret that could ignite war throughout the Protectorate. As she is drawn into a conspiracy of magic and betrayal, Mokoya must come to terms with her extraordinary and dangerous gifts, or risk losing the little she has left to hold dear.
The Murders of Molly Southbourne
Written by Tade Thompson
Designed by Christine Foltzer
Photograph © RekhaGarton/Arcangel
Available October 3
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What’s it about?
For as long as Molly Southbourne can remember, she’s been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another molly is born, identical to her in every way and intent on her destruction.
Molly knows every way to kill herself, but she also knows that as long as she survives she’ll be hunted. No matter how well she follows the rules, eventually the mollys will find her. Can Molly find a way to stop the tide of blood, or will she meet her end at the hand of a girl who looks just like her?
A Long Day in Lychford (Witches of Lychford #3)
Written by Paul Cornell
Designed by FORT
Photograph © Mark Owen/Arcangel
Available October 10
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What’s it about?
It’s a period of turmoil in Britain, with the country’s politicians electing to remove the UK from the European Union, despite ever-increasing evidence that the public no longer supports it. And the small town of Lychford is suffering.
But what can three rural witches do to guard against the unknown? And why are unwary hikers being led over the magical borders by their smartphones’ mapping software? And is the immigration question really important enough to kill for?
Weaver’s Lament (Industrial Magic #2)
Written by Emma Newman
Illustrated by Cliff Nielsen
Designed by Christine Foltzer
Available October 17
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What’s it about?
Charlotte is learning to control her emerging magical powers under the secret tutelage of Magus Hopkins.
Her first covert mission takes her to a textile mill where the disgruntled workers are apparently destroying expensive equipment.
And if she can’t identify the culprits before it’s too late, her brother will be exiled, and her family dishonoured…
Switchback (Nightshades #2)
Written by Melissa F. Olson
Designed by FORT
Photographs © Getty Images
Available October 24
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What’s it about?
Three weeks after the events of Nightshades, things are finally beginning to settle for the Chicago branch of the BPI, but the brief respite from the horror of the previous few weeks was never destined to last.
The team gets a call from Switch Creek, WI, where a young man has been arrested on suspicion of being a shade.
The suspect is held overnight, pending DNA testing, but seemingly escapes in a terrifying and bloody massacre. But is there more to the jailbreak than a simple quest for freedom?
Gluttony Bay (Sin du Jour #6)
Written by Matt Wallace
Designed by Peter Lutjen
Photographs © Getty Images
Available November 7
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What’s it about?
Welcome to Gluttony Bay High Security Supernatural Prison. We value your patronage. For your entertainment this evening, we are delighted to welcome the world’s most renowned paranormal culinary experts.
And on the menu: You.
The Sisters of the Crescent Empress (The Waning Moon #2)
Written by Leena Likitalo
Illustrated by Anna and Elena Balbusso
Designed by Christine Foltzer
Available November 7
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What’s it about?
With the Crescent Empress dead, a civil war has torn the empire asunder. No one seems able to stop the ruthless Gagargi Prataslav. The five Daughters of the Moon are where he wants them to be, held captive in an isolated house in the far north.
Little Alina senses that the rooms that have fallen in disrepair have a sad tale to tell. Indeed, she soon meets two elderly ladies, the ghosts of the house’s former inhabitants.
Merile finds the ghosts suspiciously friendly and too interested in her sisters. She resolves to uncover their agenda with the help of her two dogs.
Sibilia isn’t terribly interested in her younger sisters’ imaginary friends, for she has other concerns. If they don’t leave the house by spring, she’ll miss her debut. And while reading through the holy scriptures, she stumbles upon a mystery that reeks of power.
Elise struggles to come to terms with her relationship with Captain Janlav. Her former lover now serves the gagargi, and it’s his duty to keep the daughters confined in the house. But if the opportunity were to arise, she might be able sway him into helping them flee.
Celestia is perfectly aware of the gagargi coming to claim her rather sooner than later. She’s resolved to come up with a plan to keep her sisters safe at any cost. For she knows what tends to happen to the sisters of the Crescent Empress.
Mandelbrot the Magnificent
Written by Liz Ziemska
Designed by Will Staehle
Available November 14
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What’s it about?
Born in the Warsaw ghetto and growing up in France during the rise of Hitler, Benoit Mandelbrot found escape from the cruelties of the world around him through mathematics. Logic sometimes makes monsters, and Mandelbrot began hunting monsters at an early age. Drawn into the infinite promulgations of formulae, he sinks into secret dimensions and unknown wonders.
His gifts do not make his life easier, however. As the Nazis give up the pretense of puppet government in Vichy France, the jealousy of Mandelbrot’s classmates leads to denunciation and disaster. The young mathematician must save his family with the secret spaces he’s discovered, or his genius will destroy them.
Shadow Sun Seven (Starfire #2)
Written by Spencer Ellsworth
Illustrated by Sparth
Designed by Christine Foltzer
Available November 28
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What’s it about?
Jaqi, Araskar and Z are on the run from everyone—the Resistance, the remnants of the Empire, the cyborg Suits, and right now from the Matakas—and the Matakas are the most pressing concern because the insectoid aliens have the drop on them. The Resistance has a big reward out for Araskar and the human children he and Jaqi are protecting. But Araskar has something to offer the mercenary aliens. He knows how to get to a huge supply of pure oxygen cells, something in short supply in the formerly human Empire, and that might be enough to buy their freedom. Araskar knows where it is, and Jaqi can take them there. With the Matakas as troops, they break into Shadow Sun Seven, on the edge of the Dark Zone.
We’re also excited to be part of Tor Books’ Mini Hardcover editions, debuting this Fall!
Six Months, Three Days, Five Others
Written by Charlie Jane Anders
Illustrated by Yuko Shimizu
Designed by Jamie Stafford-Hill
Available October 3
Pre-order Now: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
What’s it about?
Before the success of her debut SF-and-fantasy novel All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders was a rising star in SF and fantasy short fiction. Collected in a mini-book format, here—for the first time in print—are six of her quirky, wry, engaging best:
In “The Fermi Paradox Is Our Business Model,” aliens reveal the terrible truth about how humans were created—and why we’ll never discover aliens.
“As Good as New” is a brilliant twist on the tale of three wishes, set after the end of the world.
“Intestate” is about a family reunion in which some attendees aren’t quite human anymore—but they’re still family.
“The Cartography of Sudden Death” demonstrates that when you try to solve a problem with time travel, you now have two problems.
“Six Months, Three Days” is the story of the love affair between a man who can see the one true foreordained future, and a woman who can see all the possible futures. They’re both right, and the story won the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.
And “Clover,” exclusively written for this collection, is a coda to All the Birds in the Sky, answering the burning question of what happened to Patricia’s cat.
