Not sure what new sci-fi reads to pick up this fall? We've got you covered! No matter what specific sci-fi genre you gravitate toward, there is something here for you. 

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Release Date: September 28, 2021

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.

When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate.

But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.

Read Light From Uncommon Stars here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Truth of the Divine (Noumena Book 2) by Lindsay Ellis

Release Date: October 19, 2021

The human race is at a crossroads; we know that we are not alone, but details about the alien presence on Earth are still being withheld from the public. As the political climate grows more unstable, the world is forced to consider the ramifications of granting human rights to nonhuman persons. How do you define “person” in the first place?

Cora Sabino not only serves as the full-time communication intermediary between the alien entity Ampersand and his government chaperones but also shares a mysterious bond with him that is both painful and intimate in ways neither of them could have anticipated. Despite this, Ampersand is still keen on keeping secrets, even from Cora, which backfires on them both when investigative journalist Kaveh Mazandarani, a close colleague of Cora’s unscrupulous estranged father, witnesses far more of Ampersand’s machinations than anyone was meant to see.

Since Cora has no choice but to trust Kaveh, the two must work together to prove to a fearful world that intelligent, conscious beings should be considered persons, no matter how horrifying, powerful, or malicious they may seem. Making this case is hard enough when the public doesn’t know what it’s dealing with—and it will only become harder when a mysterious flash illuminates the sky, marking the arrival of an agent of chaos that will light an already-unstable world on fire.

Read Truth of the Divine  here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu

Release Date: October 26, 2021

Two civilizations clash. A rebellion grows. The fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance.

These ten stories, including five Chinese Galaxy Award-winners, are a blazingly original ode to planet Earth, its pasts, and its futures. Liu's fiction takes the reader to the edge of the universe and the end of time, to meet stranger fates than we could have ever imagined.

With a melancholic and keen understanding of human nature, Liu's stories show humanity's attempts to reason, navigate, and above all, survive in a desolate cosmos.

Get your copy of The Wandering Earth here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Invasion (Invasion Book 1) by Jay Allan

Read Invasion here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

Perhaps the Stars (Terra Ignota Book 4) by Ada Palmer

Release Date: November 2, 2021

World Peace turns into global civil war.

In the future, the leaders of Hive nations—nations without fixed location—clandestinely committed nefarious deeds in order to maintain an outward semblance of utopian stability. But the facade could only last so long. The comforts of effortless global travel and worldwide abundance may have tempered humanity's darkest inclinations, but conflict remains deeply rooted in the human psyche. All it needed was a catalyst, in form of special little boy to ignite half a millennium of repressed chaos.

Now, war spreads throughout the globe, splintering old alliances and awakening sleeping enmities. All transportation systems are in ruins, causing the tyranny of distance to fracture a long-united Earth and threaten to obliterate everything the Hive system built.

With the arch-criminal Mycroft nowhere to be found, his successor, Ninth Anonymous, must not only chronicle the discord of war, but attempt to restore order in a world spiraling closer to irreparable ruin.

The fate of a broken society hangs in the balance. Is the key to salvation to remain Earth-bound or, perhaps, to start anew throughout the far reaches of the stars?

 Grab Perhaps the Stars here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

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Burntcoat by Sarah Hall

Release Date: November 2, 2021

You were the last one here, before I closed the door of Burntcoat. Before we all closed our doors . . .

In an unnamed British city, the virus is spreading, and like everyone else, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness retreats inside. She isolates herself in her immense studio, Burntcoat, with Halit, the lover she barely knows. As life outside changes irreparably, inside Burntcoat, Edith and Halit find themselves changed as well: by the histories and responsibilities each carries and bears, by the fears and dangers of the world outside, and by the progressions of their new relationship. And Burntcoat will be transformed, too, into a new and feverish world, a place in which Edith comes to an understanding of how we survive the impossible—and what is left after we have.

A sharp and stunning novel of art and ambition, mortality and connection, Burntcoat is a major work from “one of our most influential short story writers” (The Guardian). It is an intimate and vital examination of how and why we create—make art, form relationships, build a life—and an urgent exploration of an unprecedented crisis, the repercussions of which are still years in the learning.

Get your copy of Burntcoat here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Ficiton by Xueting Christine Ni, et al. 

Release Date: November 9, 2021

This celebration of Chinese Science Fiction — thirteen stories, all translated for the first time into English — represents a unique exploration of the nation’s speculative fiction from the late 20th Century onwards, curated and translated by critically acclaimed writer and essayist Xueting Christine Ni.

From the renowned Jiang Bo’s ‘Starship: Library' to Regina Kanyu Wang’s ‘The Tide of Moon City, and Anna Wu’s ‘Meisje met de Parel', this is a collection for all fans of great fiction.

Dive into Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction here on Amazon. 

This Weightless World by Adam Soto

Release Date: November 9, 2021

From the streets of gentrified Chicago, to the tech boom corridors of Silicon Valley, This Weightless World follows a revolving cast of characters after alien contact upends their lives.

We are introduced to Sevi, a burned-out music teacher desperate for connection; Ramona, his on-again, off-again computer programmer girlfriend; and Sevi’s cello protégé Eason, struggling with the closure of his high school; after a mysterious signal arrives from outer space. When the signal—at first seen as a sign of hope—stops as abruptly as it started, they are all forced to reckon with its aftermath. In San Francisco, Sevi fights to find meaning in rekindled love; and Ramona–determined to build an AI to prevent mankind’s self-destruction–begins to feel the weight of past mistakes. And in Chicago, Eason measures his commitment to an estranged childhood friend against the chance of escaping neighborhood troubles.

A dazzling deconstruction of science fiction tropes, This Weightless World looks to the past for a vision of the future.

Get your copy of This Weightless World here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

New World Order (The Kyron Invasion Book 2) by Jasper T. Scott

Release Date: November 15, 2021

Having wiped out every major city on the planet, the Kyra are now hard at work helping humanity to rebuild. Survivors are being herded into safe zones where the Kyra have promised to re-establish order and provide the basic necessities. Fences are erected and patrolled to protect against the failed hybrids known as “Dregs,” and exposure to the Chimeran virus that turned them. Meanwhile, people are being conscripted and sent away to fight in the Kyra’s war just as fast as they can be turned into successful hybrids.

That is the main concern on Christopher Randall’s mind when he and his family are taken to the safe zone in New San Bernardino: what if they get conscripted, too? Making matters worse, the zones aren’t as safe as the Kyra claimed. Dregs prowl the streets at night, and the armed Chimeran patrols that hunt them aren’t much better. The zones are little more than concentration camps with a singular goal: breed humans to produce new generations of conscripts.

Chris quickly realizes that they’ll be better off in the Wastes outside the zones, but escaping won’t be easy. On arrival, all refugees are tagged with tracking implants with remote kill switches, meaning that attempting to escape could be the last thing the Randalls ever do. But when their daughter, Gaby, a freshly-turned Chimera, begins drawing too much attention to herself, Chris realizes that they might not have a choice. If they don’t escape soon, their family might never be the same.

Start reading New World Order here on Amazon. 

The Last Shadow by Orson Scott Card

Release Date: November 16, 2021

One planet.

Three sapient species living peacefully together.

And one deadly virus that could wipe out every world in the Starways Congress, killing billions.

Is the only answer another great Xenocide?

Grab The Last Shadow here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson

Release Date: November 16, 2021

One man – visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D. – has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied?

Ranging from the Texas heartland to the Dutch royal palace in the Hague, from the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the sunbaked Chihuahuan Desert, Termination Shock brings together a disparate group of characters from different cultures and continents who grapple with the real-life repercussions of global warming. Ultimately, it asks the question: Might the cure be worse than the disease?

Epic in scope while heartbreakingly human in perspective, Termination Shock sounds a clarion alarm, ponders potential solutions and dire risks, and wraps it all together in an exhilarating, witty, mind-expanding speculative adventure.

Grab Termination Shock here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

The Every by Dave Eggers

Release Date: November 16, 2021

Delaney Wells is an unlikely new hire at the Every. A former forest ranger and unwavering tech skeptic, she charms her way into an entry-level job with one goal in mind: to take down the company from within. With her compatriot, the not-at-all-ambitious Wes Makazian, they look for the Every's weaknesses, hoping to free humanity from all-encompassing surveillance and the emoji-driven infantilization of the species. But does anyone want what Delaney is fighting to save? Does humanity truly want to be free?

Studded with unforgettable characters, outrageous outfits, and lacerating set-pieces, this companion to The Circle blends abusrdity and terror, satire and suspense, while keeping the reader in apprehensive excitement about the fate of the company—and the human animal.

Grab The Every here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Noor by Nnedi Okorafor

Release Date: November 16, 2021

Anwuli Okwudili prefers to be called AO. To her, these initials have always stood for Artificial Organism. AO has never really felt...natural, and that's putting it lightly. Her parents spent most of the days before she was born praying for her peaceful passing because even in-utero she was "wrong". But she lived. Then came the car accident years later that disabled her even further. Yet instead of viewing her strange body the way the world views it, as freakish, unnatural, even the work of the devil, AO embraces all that she is: A woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations. And then one day she goes to her local market and everything goes wrong.

Once on the run, she meets a Fulani herdsman named DNA and the race against time across the deserts of Northern Nigeria begins. In a world where all things are streamed, everyone is watching the "reckoning of the murderess and the terrorist" and the "saga of the wicked woman and mad man" unfold. This fast-paced, relentless journey of tribe, destiny, body, and the wonderland of technology revels in the fact that the future sometimes isn't so predictable. Expect the unaccepted.

Grab Noor here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Release Date: November 16, 2021

Lynesse is the lowly Fourth Daughter of the queen, and always getting in the way.

But a demon is terrorizing the land, and now she’s an adult (albeit barely) with responsibilities (she tells herself). Although she still gets in the way, she understands that the only way to save her people is to invoke the pact between her family and the Elder sorcerer who has inhabited the local tower for as long as her people have lived here (though none in living memory has approached it).

But Elder Nyr isn’t a sorcerer, and he is forbidden to help, and his knowledge of science tells him the threat cannot possibly be a demon…

Grab Elder Race here on Amazon. 

New Galaxy (The Survivors Book 18) by Nathan Hystad

Release Date: December 7, 2021

Jules Parker helped stop Death’s Mistress, but at what cost? She’s changed after the latest ordeal but pushes away the pain to focus on bringing Jaessa back to Adrol.

The Fera are thrilled to see the Governor’s daughter returned safely, but what’s waiting for them might be worse than the Brack.

Dean Parker has a new lease on life. He’s done sitting on the sidelines and takes the role of President over the entire Alliance with authority. When one of their allies stumbles on a dangerous secret, he’s dispatched to investigate. With Slate and Loweck escorting him on Light, he’s in for a surprise when they reach their destination.

Grab New Galaxy here on Amazon. 

Which of these fall releases will make their way into your (e)bookshelf or into your ears? Which ones are you most excited for? 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.