Book reviews and excerpts from exceptional speculative, sci-fi, fantasy & alternate history novels.

Speculative, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Alt. History

Recommended books found: 329

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

by Victoria E. Schwab

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Aug 2026

Critics' Consensus:

From V. E. Schwab, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: a new genre-defying novel about immortality and hunger.

Automatic Noodle

by Annalee Newitz

Hardcover: Aug 2025 | Paperback: Aug 2026

Critics' Consensus:

A cozy near-future novella about a crew of leftover robots opening their very own noodle shop, from acclaimed sci-fi author Annalee Newitz.

UnWorld

A Novel

by Jayson Greene

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

From the author of Once More We Saw Stars comes a gripping novel about four intertwined lives that collide in the wake of a mysterious tragedy. Set in a near-future world where the boundaries between human and AI blur, the story challenges our ...

The Dream Hotel

A Novel

by Laila Lalami

Hardcover: Mar 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY ● From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a "maestra of literary fiction" (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman's ...

The Door in Penrose Forest

A Novel

by Sean David Robinson

Hardcover: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

A man returns to his strange hometown twenty years after his mother climbed a staircase in the wilderness and disappeared in this speculative mystery where We Used to Live Here meets The Midnight Library.

How to Dodge a Cannonball

A Novel

by Dennard Dayle

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

A cutting, revealing caricature of the American Civil War, told through the eyes of a white teenager who joins an all-Black regiment of soldiers, for fans of Colson Whitehead and James McBride.

Earth 7

A Novel

by Deb Olin Unferth

Hardcover: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

An end-of-the-world love story, an epic full of pathos and humor, asking what can be saved of our planet.

Song of the Six Realms

by Judy I. Lin

Hardcover: Apr 2024 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

Judy I. Lin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Magic Steeped in Poison, weaves a dreamy gothic romance worthy of the heavens in Song of the Six Realms.

Katabasis

A Novel

by R. F. Kuang

Hardcover: Aug 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

Dante's Inferno meets Susanna Clarke's Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put ...

The Compound

A Novel

by Aisling Rawle

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

Love Island meets Lord of the Flies in this must-talk-about-it read, as bingeable as the best reality TV.

Meet Me at the Crossroads

A Novel

by Megan Giddings

Hardcover: Jun 2025 | Paperback: Jun 2026

Critics' Consensus:

From the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of Lakewood and The Women Could Fly, a dazzling novel about two brilliant sisters and what happens to their undeniable bond when a mysterious and possibly perilous new world beckons.

Babylon, South Dakota

A Novel

by Tom Lin

Hardcover: May 2026

Critics' Consensus:

From the author of the Carnegie Medal in Fiction winner The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu comes a tantalizing, American West saga about a Chinese American family trying to survive on their Dakota farm as a powerful, mysterious, and morally dubious ...

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