Hands up if you're ready for warmer temps and a slate of fresh new sci-fi reads! We sure are! Some of these spring titles will be familiar to you from our post a few months back on Highly Anticipated 2023 Sci-Fi, but as we get further into the year, we discover more (and more) new reads to get hyped about, so even if you're a regular blog reader, there will likely be some new-to-you books here to add to your list. Can your TBRs bear the weight of all this goodness? 

Scroll on to get a glimpse of some of our top picks for spring and be sure leave your own in the comments! 

Flux by Jinwoo Chong

Release Date: March 21, 2023

Four days before Christmas, 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, 28-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and 48-year-old Blue, a key witness in a criminal trial against an infamous now-defunct tech startup, struggles to reconnect with his family.

So begins Jinwoo Chong’s dazzling, time-bending debut that blends elements of neo-noir and speculative fiction as the lives of Bo, Brandon, and Blue begin to intersect, uncovering a vast network of secrets and an experimental technology that threatens to upend life itself. Intertwined with them is the saga of an iconic ’80s detective show, Raider, whose star actor has imploded spectacularly after revelations of long-term, concealed abuse.

Flux is a haunting and sometimes shocking exploration of the cyclical nature of grief, of moving past trauma, and of the pervasive nature of whiteness within the development of Asian identity in America.

Read Flux here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

Loki's Ring by Stina Leicht

Release Date: March 28, 2023

Gita Chithra embarks on a mission through space to save the robot she loves as a daughter—or risk losing her in the depths of Loki’s Ring—in this intergalactic space adventure from beloved author Stina Leicht.

Gita Chithra, the captain of the intergalactic ship The Tempest, is used to leading her crew on simple retrieval and assistance missions. But when she receives a frantic distress call from Ri, the AI she trained from inception—making her like a daughter to Gita—she knows she’s in for something much more dangerous.

Ri is trapped in the depths of Loki’s Ring, an artificial alien-made solar system, and says everyone in the vicinity has been infected and killed by a mysterious contagion. Gita and her team investigate, only to discover horrors at every turn, and are soon stranded themselves, leaving them vulnerable to infection and attack.

Forced to call on an old friend to help them out of this mess, Gita must succeed or risk losing everyone she’s ever loved.

Read Loki's Ring here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Where Dinosaurs Roam (Mintari II) by Daniel Arenson

Release Date: April 4, 2023

Mintari. A world of dinosaurs. A planet beyond time.

On Mintari, dinosaurs live again. Brontosaurs roam the forests. Mosasaurs haunt the deep blue seas. Tyrannosaurs prowl the plains. Life thrives.

Yet life is also fragile. Amissa Triplehorn, a deadly huntress, leads an army of poachers. They sweep across Mintari, armed with modern weapons. Burning. Killing. Mintari bleeds.

Only one man can stop Amissa. Her brother.Joe Triplehorn is a Mintari Ranger. He vowed to defend the dinosaurs. To kill poachers. But could he truly kill his own sister?

Meanwhile, young Figaro is torn between two worlds. Dinosaurs raised her. Yet she is human. As Mintari blazes in war, Figaro must choose her loyalties. Will she live as a human? Or a dinosaur?

Sweeping from dark ocean depths to snowy mountaintops, from sprawling grasslands to misty forests, Where Dinosaurs Roam returns to Mintari with another majestic adventure.

Get your copy of Where Dinosaurs Roam here on Amazon. 

Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

For the First Time, Again (Take Them to the Stars Book 3) by Sylvain Neuvel

Release Date: April 18, 2023

Against the backdrop of authentic historical events, Sylvain Neuvel concludes his acclaimed Take Them to the Stars series with a biting satire on the role of authority in all its guises, bringing us a truly breathtaking science fiction trilogy that spans the ages.

When you don’t know The Rules it’s hard to stay safe.

After a traumatic incident, Aster's blood work comes back with some unusual readings. Unsurprising, as she’s the last of an alien race called the Kibsu, though she doesn’t know it.

She becomes the focus of a hunt, with her mortal enemies, the Trackers, on one side, and the American government on the other. But help has come from a most unexpected quarter.

Whoever finds her first, it won’t be good news for Aster.

Or for the world!

Read For the First Time, Again here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook

Ascension by Nicholas Binge

Release Date: April 25, 2023

A mind-bending speculative thriller in which the sudden appearance of a mountain in the middle of the Pacific Ocean leads a group of scientists to a series of jaw-dropping revelations that challenge the notion of what it means to be human

An enormous snow-covered mountain has appeared in the Pacific Ocean. No one knows when exactly it showed up, precisely how big it might be, or how to explain its existence. When Harold Tunmore is contacted by a shadowy organization to help investigate, he has no idea what he is getting into as he and his team set out for the mountain.

The higher Harold’s team ascends, the less things make sense. Time moves differently, turning minutes into hours, and hours into days. Amid the whipping cold of higher elevation, the climbers’ limbs numb and memories of their lives before the mountain begin to fade. Paranoia quickly turns to violence among the crew, and slithering, ancient creatures pursue them in the snow. Still, as the dangers increase, the mystery of the mountain compels them to its peak, where they are certain they will find their answers. Have they stumbled upon the greatest scientific discovery known to man or the seeds of their own demise?

Framed by the discovery of Harold Tunmore’s unsent letters to his family and the chilling and provocative story they tell, Ascension considers the limitations of science and faith and examines both the beautiful and the unsettling sides of human nature.

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

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In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

Release Date: April 25, 2023

In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots—fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.

The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

Dive into In the Lives of Puppets here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Release Date: May 2, 2023

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a “new and necessary American voice” (Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review).

Dive into Chain-Gang All-Stars here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Forgotten Empire (Space Raiders Book 2) by Ken Lozito 

Release Date: May 4th, 2023

Nathan Briggs left his old life behind, but his thirst for adventure remains the same…

And this galaxy has many secrets.

A chance encounter with a strange creature puts Nathan on the trail of a lost civilization that predates everything else in the galaxy.

For thousands of years, many have abandoned the deadly search, but there are powerful forces that will do anything to possess the promised technological marvels that will change everything.

Determined to uncover the truth, Nathan joins the hunt, but when the race for the ultimate prize turns deadly, it will test the loyalty of his crew. To the victor goes the spoils, while the others become yet another tragic end, lost while pursuing the forgotten empire.

Get your copy of Forgotten Empire here on Amazon.

Dark World (The Travelers Book 3) by Nathan Hystad

Release Date: May 16th, 2023

Another year passes, and the Spheres are restless. The Travelers have invaded.

It’s become impossible for the powers that be to ignore the fact that aliens are real, and Earth is under an imminent threat.

Buzz is ordered to create a team to save the world. For some reason, he elects Elliot and his friends to accompany him.

After the shocking revelation that someone close to Elliot has betrayed them, his loyalties are tested in the epic conclusion to The Travelers.

Start reading In the Dark World here on Amazon. 

Savage Skies by Nicholas Sansbury Smith 

Release Date: June 6, 2023

A hostile world that will doom the human race … or save it, if a few survivors can unlock its secrets …

After waking up with no memories in an underground facility, a squad of elite soldiers and scientists must try to recall what their mission is. But first, it’s a race against the clock to escape their collapsing bunker before it becomes a tomb. Topside, an even more dangerous world of fiery skies and desolate terrain awaits.

As they venture out to explore their strange new surroundings, bits of memory begin to return, though nothing can prepare them for the strange forces protecting this bleak landscape. Worse, it seems that not everyone on the team wants the mission—whatever it is—to succeed. One thing is certain: the world they remember is gone, destroyed by war or natural disaster. Soon, they will learn that they must unlock the past if they are to have any hope of ever seeing the future.

Grab Savage Skies here on Amazon. Also available on audiobok.

Translation State by Ann Leckie

Release Date: June 6, 2023

Qven was created to be a Presger translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else isn't "optimal behavior". I's the type of behavior that results in elimination.

But Qven rebels. And in doing so, their path collides with those of two others. Enae, a reluctant diplomat whose dead grandmaman has left hir an impossible task as an inheritance: hunting down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. And Reet, an adopted mechanic who is increasingly desperate to learn about his genetic roots—or anything that might explain why he operates so differently from those around him.

As a Conclave of the various species approaches—and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presger is on the line—the decisions of all three will have ripple effects across the stars.

Masterfully merging space adventure and mystery, and a poignant exploration about relationships and belonging, Translation State is a triumphant new standalone story set in the celebrated Imperial Radch universe.

Grab Translation State here on Amazon. Also available on audiobook.

Flight & Anchor by Nicole Kornher-Stace

Release Date: June 13, 2023

Stellaxis operatives 06 and 22 have escaped. Years ago, they survived a corporate civil war; Stellaxis kidnapped and modified them into celebrity supersoldiers. But 06 and 22 have finally broken free from their barracks. They flee into a strange city they barely remember, trying to remain anonymous while their faces appear on billboards.

It will be an expensive disaster for the director of the supersoldier program if word gets out about the escaped operatives. But she has paired them for a reason: 06 to aggressively engage, 22 to keep her in check. One flight, one anchor: a perfect team if they would just return to their rightful place with her. If not, all operatives' days are numbered.

Grab Flight & Anchor here on Amazon. 

Which of these spring 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.