The sun is out. Pool chairs and hammocks everywhere are calling your name. All you need for the perfect afternoon is an icy beverage (some sunscreen) and a fresh new read. Fear not if you're not sure what books to add to your stack this summer, because we've got you covered.
Scroll on to get a glimpse of some of our top picks releasing June through September, and be sure leave your own picks in the comments!.
Chronicle Worlds: Half Way Home by Samuel Peralta et al
Release Date: June 19, 2023
In the distant future, alien planets are settled by A.I.-piloted starships. The journeys from Earth to these worlds could take hundreds of years - so the ships contain human embryos, preserved until the ship is in orbit, then thawed, raised to fully-grown, and trained by the A.I. with the skills needed to colonize their new world.
This is the seed for the universe in the bestselling novel Half Way Home, which followed one colonial foray on a new world. But this was only one world of a thousand worlds targeted by Earth's ships. That adventure, one of a thousand...
From acclaimed anthologist Samuel Peralta, Chronicle Worlds: Half Way Home brings together fifteen of the most exciting new voices in speculative fiction to explore the universe created by NY Times and USA Today bestselling author Hugh Howey, to chronicle the astounding unexplored worlds of Half Way Home.
Read Chronicle Worlds: Half Way Home here on Amazon.
The Infinite Miles by Hannah Fergesen
Release Date: June 20, 2023
Fans of Claudia Gray and Kelly Link will love Hannah Fergesen’s wild and poignant debut—a wacky time-traveling sci-fi odyssey wrapped in an elegiac ode to lost friendship and a clever homage to Doctor Who.
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 Odyssey.
Then Peggy returns and demands to be taken to the Argonaut, the fictional main character of Infinite Odyssey. 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.
Read The Infinite Miles here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
The Road To Roswell by Connie Willis
Release Date: June 27, 2023
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.
Part alien-abduction adventure, part road trip saga, part romantic comedy, The Road to Roswell is packed full of Men in Black, Elvis impersonators, tourist traps, rattlesnakes, chemtrails, and Close Encounters of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth kind. Can Francie, stuck in a neon green bridesmaid’s dress, save the world—and still make it back for the wedding?
Get your copy of The Road To Roswell here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa
Release Date: July 11, 2023
A diverse, exciting debut space opera about a young tea expert who is taken as a political prisoner and recruited to spy on government officials—a role that may empower her to win back her nation’s independence—perfect for fans of N.K. Jemisin and Nnedi Okorafor.
The dust may have just settled in the failed war of conquest between the Holy Vaalbaran Empire and the Ominirish Republic, but the last Emperor’s surrender means little to a lowly scribe like Enitan. All she wants is to quit her day job and expand her fledgling tea business. But when her lover is assassinated and her sibling is abducted by Imperial soldiers, Enitan abandons her idyllic plans and weaves her tea tray up through the heart of the Vaalbaran capital. There, she will learn just how far she is willing to go to exact vengeance, free her sibling, and perhaps even secure her homeland’s freedom.
Read
The Splinter in the Sky here on Amazon. Also available
on audiobook.
Counterweight by Djuna, translated by Anton Hur
Release Date: July 11, 2023
For fans of the worlds of Philip K. Dick, Squid Game, and Severance: An absorbing tale of corporate intrigue, political unrest, unsolved mysteries, and the havoc wreaked by one company’s monomaniacal endeavor to build the world’s first space elevator—from one of South Korea's most revered science fiction writers, whose identity remains unknown.
On the fictional island of Patusan—and much to the ire of the Patusan natives—the Korean conglomerate LK is constructing an elevator into Earth’s orbit, gradually turning this one-time tropical resort town into a teeming travel hub: a gateway to and from our planet. Up in space, holding the elevator’s “spider cable” taut, is a mass of space junk known as the counterweight. And stashed within that junk is a trove of crucial data: a memory fragment left by LK’s former CEO, the control of which will determine the company’s—and humanity’s—future.
Racing up the elevator to retrieve the data is a host of rival forces: Mac, the novel’s narrator and LK’s Chief of External Affairs, increasingly disillusioned with his employer; the everyman Choi Gangwu, unwittingly at the center of Mac’s investigations; the former CEO’s brilliant niece and power-hungry son; and Rex Tamaki, a violent officer in LK’s Security Division. They’re all caught in a labyrinth of fake identities, neuro-implant “Worms,” and old political grievances held by the Patusan Liberation Front, the army of island natives determined to protect Patusan’s sovereignty.
Conceived by Djuna as a low-budget science fiction film, with literary references as wide-ranging as Joseph Conrad and the Marquis de Sade, Counterweight is part cyberpunk, part hardboiled detective fiction, and part parable of South Korea’s neocolonial ambition and its rippling effects.
Read Counterweight here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook
Below Us (The Abyss Book One) by Nathan Hystad
Release Date: July 11th, 2023
While everyone watches the stars, looking to the future, something is looming Below Us.
After a rough break up, Wyatt moves to New York City, eager to prove himself while working on Wall Street. When he’s asked to visit the father of his ex-girlfriend, a billionaire tycoon, his fate is sealed.
The revolutionary company, Nu-En, launches a radical innovation, an energy that will allow every person on the planet access to power. Only it doesn’t perform as anticipated.
Harnessing the ocean has consequences, and highly dangerous creatures emerge from the depths. Soon, the Earth is fracturing, and the world will never be the same.
Wyatt teams with Luna, a clever journalist, to escape the treacherous city with the ultimate prize: a robot capable of saving the world.
Their journey won’t be easy, but they meet others along the way that share the same determination.
Time is running out, and nothing can prepare them for what’s coming…
Below Us is the first novel in the epic series, The Abyss, written by Nathan Hystad, the Best-Selling author of The Other Place, First Life, and The Event.
Get your copy of Below Us here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
Chrysalis by Lincoln Child
Release Date: July 12, 2023
A blockbuster new thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lincoln Child, centered on a dominant tech company—Chrysalis—whose groundbreaking virtual reality technology is redefining the way we live...and possibly introducing a catastrophic danger to the world.
Like millions of people around the world, Jeremy Logan (famed enigmalogist, or investigator of unexplained things) has grown to rely on his incredible new tech device. Made by Chrysalis, the global multibillion dollar tech company, the small optical device connects people in a stunning new way, tapping into virtual reality for the first time on a wide scale.
And yet, when Logan is summoned by Chrysalis to investigate a disturbing anomaly in the massive new product rollout, Logan is shocked to see the true scope of the massive company. He also quickly realizes that something in Chrysalis’s technology is very wrong, and could be potentially devastating. The question is what, and where, is the danger coming from? In Lincoln Child’s wildly inventive new novel, high tech comes to life alongside the myriad dangers it poses, making for one of Child’s most infectious, entertaining thrillers to date.
Get your copy of Chrysalis here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
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The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei
Release Date: July 18, 2023
Yume Kitasei's The Deep Sky is an enthralling sci fi thriller debut about a mission into deep space that begins with a lethal explosion that leaves the survivors questioning the loyalty of the crew.
They left Earth to save humanity. They’ll have to save themselves first.
It is the eve of Earth’s environmental collapse. A single ship carries humanity’s last hope: eighty elite graduates of a competitive program, who will give birth to a generation of children in deep space. But halfway to a distant but livable planet, a lethal bomb kills three of the crew and knocks The Phoenix off course. Asuka, the only surviving witness, is an immediate suspect.
As the mystery unfolds on the ship, poignant flashbacks reveal how Asuka came to be picked for the mission. Despite struggling through training back on Earth, she was chosen to represent Japan, a country she only partly knows as a half-Japanese girl raised in America. But estranged from her mother back home, The Phoenix is all she has left.
With the crew turning on each other, Asuka is determined to find the culprit before they all lose faith in the mission—or worse, the bomber strikes again.
Dive into The Deep Sky here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
Nightstalkers by Jasper T. Scott
Release Date: July 18, 2023
Everything changed the day that they arrived…
Adam and Kimberly Hall are enjoying a quiet suburban life with their daughter, Crystal, and their dog, Bowser, when an emergency message flashes up on their phones—meteor impact imminent, seek immediate shelter.
Minutes later, the shock wave rages through South Austin like a hurricane, and they’re left to pick up the pieces. But as dusk begins to fall and horrific creatures come crawling out of the impact craters, they realize that they’re under attack, and the attackers are not from Earth.
After the initial encounters turn deadly for his neighbors, Adam realizes that they can’t stay in the city. He has an old Army buddy with a ranch in Texas Hill Country. They have to get there before it’s too late.
Nightstalkers is a post-apocalyptic invasion story for fans of The Last of Us and A Silent Place.
Dive into Nightstalkers here on Amazon.
Bridge by Lauren Beukes
Release Date: August 8th, 2023
In this reality-bending thriller from the author of The Shining Girls, a grieving daughter’s search for her mother becomes a journey across alternate realities.
It was a game they played; the other worlds, the other lives. It was part of her mom’s grand delusions. It wasn’t real. Unless it was...Bridget Kittinger has always been paralyzed by choices. It has a lot to do with growing up in the long shadow of her mother, Jo, a troubled neuroscientist. Jo’s obsession with one mythical object, the “dreamworm”—which she believed enabled travel to other worlds—led to their estrangement.Now, suddenly, Jo is dead. And in packing up her home, Bridge finds a strange device buried deep in Jo’s freezer: the dreamworm. Against all odds, it actually can open the door—to all other realities, and to all other versions of herself, too. Could Bridge find who she should be in this world, by visiting the others? And could her Jo still be alive somewhere? But there’s a sinister cost to trading places, and others hunting the dreamworm who would kill to get their hands on it . . .
Across a thousand possible lives, from Portland to Haiti, from Argentina to the alligator-infested riverways of North Carolina, Bridge takes readers on a highly original thrill ride, pushing the boundaries of what we know about mothers and daughters, hunters and seekers, and who we each choose to be.Start reading Bridge here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
More Perfect by Temi Oh
Release Date: August 15th, 2023
A reimagining of the Greek myth of Eurydice and Orpheus, for fans of Becky Chambers and William Gibson by Alex Award–winning author Temi Oh.
Using the myth of Eurydice as a structure, this riveting science fiction novel is set in a near-future London where it has become popular for folks to have a small implant that allows one access to a more robust social media experience directly as an augmented reality. However, the British government has taken oversight of this access to an extreme, slowly tilting towards a dystopian overreach, all in the name of safety.
Start reading More Perfect here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.
Here, O Earth! by Daniel Arenson
Release Date: September 5, 2023
They came from beyond.
From beyond the galaxy. From beyond human understanding. They came with one mission.
To kill us all.
Some call them aliens. Others call them gods. Their tentacles grip worlds. Their malice destroys civilizations. They've crushed a million planets.
And now they crave Earth.
Marco and Addy, veterans of the Alien Wars, are retired. They fought for many years. They saved Earth many times. Now they're raising their children in a peaceful forest. They've earned this peace.
But Earth needs them. More than ever.
Because a war is coming. A war unlike any before. A war that can devour our very galaxy.
The enemy is almost here.
From the shadows of despair, heroes will rise. Heroes will sound the cry of our world, the prayer of our people. "Hear, O Earth! We will live!"
Grab Here, O Earth
! here on Amazon.
Starter Villain by John Scalzi
Release Date: September 9, 2023
Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place.
Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.
Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.
But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.
It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.
In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.
Grab Starter Villain here on amazon. Also available on audiobook.
Sons of War 4: Soldiers by Nicholas Sansbury Smith and Tom Abrahams
Release Date: September 12, 2023
In the conclusion to the sweeping saga of postapocalyptic Los Angeles, Dominic Salvatore leads the Saints, a secret team of elite operatives, in a final push to purge the city of its demons. After sending their families into hiding, the Saints know that the stakes have never been higher—they will succeed decisively or perish.
Broken by the death of his wife, Don Antonio Moretti seeks revenge against her killers. He embarks on a body-strewn campaign to crush his last rivals and secure the crown of Los Angeles. Nephew Vinny Moretti tires of the killings and wonders whether his uncle is going too far.
Every eye is on the prize. And anyone trying to walk the fence between good and evil will have to pick a side. With either choice, hell awaits.
Grab Sons of War: Soldiers
here on amazon. Also available on audiobook.
Which of these Summer 2023 releases will make their way into your (e)bookshelf or into your ears? Which ones are you most excited for? Any you're stoked about that we missed? Let us know here in the comments, or over in the Discover Sci-Fi Facebook group!
*All book-related copy in this post was pulled from Amazon, Goodreads & Wikipedia, unless otherwise credited.
