New months bring new books! I’ve scoured the catalogs to bring you a selection of upcoming releases. As the publishing industry can be chaotic, these dates are subject to change. Unless indicated, I have not had a chance to read or review any of these books. I just want to share my excitement. Click any links provided to pre-order and support your favorite (or new) authors!
This month had some standouts in the debuts and firsts in series. There are quite a few that I would love to grab and dive into the future.
August 4
Seven Devils by Laura Lam, Elizabeth May
When Eris faked her death, she thought she had left her old life as the heir to the galaxy’s most ruthless empire behind. But her recruitment by the Novantaen Resistance, an organization opposed to the empire’s voracious expansion, throws her right back into the fray.
Eris has been assigned a new mission: to infiltrate a spaceship ferrying deadly cargo and return the information to the Resistance. But her partner for the mission, mechanic and hotshot pilot Cloelia, bears an old grudge against Eris, making an already difficult mission even more complicated.
When they find the ship, they discover even more than they bargained for: three fugitives with firsthand knowledge of the corrupt empire’s inner workings.
Together, these women possess the knowledge and capabilities to bring the empire to its knees. But the clock is ticking: the new heir to the empire plans to turn a peace summit with the only remaining alien empire into a massacre of unmatched scale. If they can find a way to stop the weapon he intends to use, they will save the galaxy. If they can’t, millions may die.
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: no one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from diseases, from turf wars, from vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on three hundred seventy-two worlds in total.
On this earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and, therefore, a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now she has a nice apartment in the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works—and shamelessly flirts—with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect offworld data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the Wastes, though she struggles to feel at home in either place now. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, Cara is on a sure path to citizenship and security.
But trouble finds Cara when one of her eight remaining doppelgangers dies under mysterious circumstances, plunging her into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and future in ways she never could have imagined—and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world, but the entire multiverse.
Space Station Down by Ben Bova, Doug Beason
When a millionaire space tourist visits the orbiting International Space Station, NASA expects a $100 million win-win: his visit will bring in much needed funding and publicity. But the tourist venture turns into a scheme of terror when, together with an extremist cosmonaut, the tourist slaughters all the astronauts on board the million-pound ISS—and prepares to crash it into New York City at 17,500 miles an hour, causing more devastation than a hundred atomic bombs. In doing so, they hope to annihilate the world’s financial system.
All that stands between them and their deadly goal is the lone survivor aboard the ISS, Kimberly Hasid-Robinson, a newly divorced astronaut who has barricaded herself in a secure area. Tensions mount in space and on earth, as Kimberly conducts a deadly game of cat and mouse to sabotage their efforts, and the US is faced with enormous pressure to shoot down the station before it’s too late.
The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis
First Sister has no name and no voice. As a priestess of the Sisterhood, she travels the stars alongside the soldiers of Earth and Mars—the same ones who own the rights to her body and soul. When her former captain abandons her, First Sister’s hopes for freedom are dashed when she is forced to stay on her ship with no friends, no power, and a new captain—Saito Ren—whom she knows nothing about. She is commanded to spy on Captain Ren by the Sisterhood, but soon discovers that working for the war effort is so much harder to do when you’re falling in love.
Lito val Lucius climbed his way out of the slums to become an elite soldier of Venus, but was defeated in combat by none other than Saito Ren, resulting in the disappearance of his partner, Hiro. When Lito learns that Hiro is both alive and a traitor to the cause, he now has a shot at redemption: track down and kill his former partner. But when he discovers recordings that Hiro secretly made, Lito’s own allegiances are put to the test. Ultimately, he must decide between following orders and following his heart.
Seven Devils is said to be a feminist space opera while Space Station Down is touted as being Die Hard meets the ISS. I’m instantly pulled in by The First Sister‘s cover.
August 11
The Apocalypse Strain by Jason Parent
A multi-national research team, led by a medical genomics expert suffering from MS, study an ancient pandoravirus at a remote Siberian research facility. Called “Molli” by the research team, it is a force too dangerous to escape their compound. But the virus has a mind of its own, and it wants out.
A multi-national research team, led by a medical genomics expert suffering from MS, study an ancient pandoravirus at a remote Siberian research facility. Called “Molli” by the research team, the organic substance reveals some unique but troublesome characteristics, qualities that, in the wrong hands, could lead to human extinction.
The researchers soon learn that even in the right hands, Molli is a force too dangerous to escape their compound. But the virus has a mind of its own, and it wants out.
August 25
The Mother Code by Carole Stivers
It is 2049. When a U.S. attempt at stealth biowarfare goes awry, a team of scientists is engaged to ensure human survival on earth. Their best efforts fail, and they must turn to their last resort: a plan to place genetically engineered children inside the cocoons of large-scale robots—to be incubated, birthed, and raised by these machines, which have been programmed with the latest advances in artificial intelligence: the Mother Code.
Kai is born in America’s desert Southwest, his only companion his robotic Mother, Rho-Z. Equipped with the knowledge and intuition of a human mother, Rho-Z raises Kai and teaches him how to survive. As children like him come of age, their Mothers transform too—in ways that were never predicted. When government survivors decide that the machines who raised the children must be destroyed, Kai must fight to save the only parent he has ever known.
Architects of Memory by Karen Osborne
Terminally ill salvage pilot Ash Jackson lost everything in the war with the alien Vai, but she’ll be damned if she loses her future. Her plan: to buy, beg, or lie her way out of corporate indenture and find a cure.
When she and her crewmates salvage a genocidal weapon from a ravaged starship above a dead colony, Ash uncovers a conspiracy of corporate intrigue and betrayal that threatens to turn her into a living weapon.
Let me know if I missed any science fiction releases you had been anticipating for August. I’d also love to hear if there are any you decided to pick up!
