The Nebula Award finalists for best SFF of the year have been announced, and we like to think we have fantastic taste because a lot of these books are our booksellers' favorites too!
The UNBROKEN is a captivating fantasy that captured the complexities of colonization and its gut-wrenching consequences.
Touraine is a soldier struggling to find her place in the world, ripped from her homeland to serve a country who hates her people. But when she is brought back to her homeland to quash a rebellion and act as a spy, she will be forced to make an impossible choice. Divided loyalties, sapphic romance, and betrayals upon betrayals make Clark's debut an edge of your seat read, and they are unflinching in their depictions of the brutality of colonization and rebellions.
If someone told me this book had queer women in suits, a murder mystery in steampunk Cairo, and LOTS of women fighters with swords, I would have broken down the Tor door for a chance to read it AGES AGO. Fatma is an investigator of supernatural crimes, and is investigating a mass murder when she uncovers a heist, a person who can control all djinn, and powerful memory magic. This story took me in all sorts of unexpected twists and turns and always kept me on my toes. I loved Clark’s immersive writing, and his characters were funny and relatable.
Zero Dark Thirty meets The Social Network in this science fiction thriller that deals with artificial intelligence, sentience, and labor rights in a near future dominated by the gig economy.
Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass are sent to communicate with an alien armada lurking on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. Whether they succeed or fail could change the face of Teixcalaan forever.
Dex is a traveling tea monk, and although they love making people smile, they are still struggling to feel fulfilled. They seek solitude in the wilds, mysterious lands where robots were set free hundreds of years ago to roam.
When Dex encounters Mosscap, a robot with a childlike sense of wonder for human behavior, and deadly insects, the last thing they want to do is embark on an adventure with it-after all, they are the first person to encounter a robot in two hundred years! However, Dex has no idea that Mosscap will actually be teaching Dex what it means to be human.
Warm, lush and as cozy as a Studio Ghibli film, this book made me want to wander into the woods with my friends and build a yurt commune and never return. This book was the equivalent of talking to a friend about life over coffee and feeling like the world may just end up ok in the end. Dex and Mosscap are the new friendly faces of hopeful sci-fi!
As a child, princess Thanh was given to a powerful country to be their glorified hostage to cement an uneasy alliance. When she returned home to serve as an advisor in her mother’s imperial court, she came back haunted by a mysterious fire that engulfed the royal palace and a servant girl who helped her escape.
But when things start magically catching on fire around Thanh, and her domineering ex lover Eldris comes to court to take power and Thanh for herself, will Thanh let others choose for her or will she finally find the courage to blaze her own path through the world? A gorgeously ferocious novella with fangs and claws, I devoured it hungrily.
On a drowned world, the last refugees live on stranded ship surrounded by bloodthirsty monsters, and pregnant outsider Iraxi is their last hope at survival and repopulation. But when Iraxi gives birth to a being that isn’t exactly human, she soon realizes she might be their doom. And maybe, her anger and grief is fuel for a destiny bigger than any she could have imagined.
This novella is razor sharp teeth and the smell of death. Rocklyn weaves a tale of loss, pain, betrayal, rebirth, and vengeance that will haunt me for a while. It is bloody and brutal and devastatingly human at its core.
Full of heart and a cast of queer found family, this is a rollicking space adventure! Tina isn't like most teens. She finds out she's a clone of a brilliant alien commander disguised as a human, and one day, a rescue beacon inside her chest will go off, triggering one group of aliens to claim her as their own and another to start to hunt her down and kill her.
This high-stakes thrill ride through the galaxy is about self-discovery, friendship, acceptance, and self-love, perfect for fans of Teen Titans and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
