20 Amazing New Scifi and Fantasy Books to Add to Your Reading List in May
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May brings M.R. Carey’s new tale set in the same zombified world as The Girl With All the Gifts, a surreal new short-story collection from Haruki Murakami, a posthumous novel about dinosaurs from Michael Crichton—and many more. Dig in!
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
On a scientific mission to a faraway planet, a corporate security droid becomes self-aware and starts referring to itself as “Murderbot”—though not all is lost, since it grudgingly teams up with its human companions to investigate a mystery that arises in deep space. (May 2)
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All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries (The Murderbot Diaries, 1)
The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey
The latest from the author of The Girl With All the Gifts is set in that tale’s same post-apocalyptic world, but earlier in the timeline, and with a young male protagonist. (May 2)
City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett
The third book in the Divine Cities fantasy series focuses on one man’s quest to avenge the death of his oldest friend and closest ally. (May 2)
City of Miracles: A Novel (The Divine Cities)
Gods of Sagittarius by Eric Flint and Mike Resnick
One of the best security specialists in the galaxy is assigned to protect one of the smartest people in the galaxy as he investigates a race of ancient, god-like aliens—a quest that, coincidentally, is shared by an alien shaman who has her own reasons for tracking down the so-called “Old Ones.” (May 2)
Pawn: A Chronicle of the Sibyl’s War by Timothy Zahn
The author of Thrawn returns with a non-Star Wars entry this time; it’s the tale of a woman whose going-nowhere life gets suddenly exciting when she joins the maintenance crew of a spaceship that happens to be at the dead center of a mysterious power struggle. (May 2)
Pawn: A Chronicle of the Sibyl's War
A Tyranny of Queens by Foz Meadows
The second book in the author’s Manifold Worlds series sees protagonist Saffron Coulter struggling to adjust to the real world after her adventures in the fantasy realm of Kena—a place that continues to have its own troubles in her absence. (May 2)
Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb
The author (who counts George R.R. Martin among her fans) wraps up her Fitz and the Fool epic fantasy trilogy with another adventure starring two of the most memorable characters from her Realm of the Elderlings. (May 9)
Assassin's Fate: Book III of the Fitz and the Fool trilogy
The Berlin Project by Gregory Benford
The author imagines an alternate history (using tales of real scientists and historic figures) in which the atomic bomb was completed on an accelerated timeline—and dropped on the Western Front as part of D-Day in 1944. (May 9)
Killing Gravity by Corey J. White
This debut novel follows a “voidwitch” with extraordinary abilities as she evades a determined bounty hunter and other shadowy figures from her past—and ends up trapped on an aging spacecraft, forced to confront her fears in order to overcome them. (May 9)
Killing Gravity (The Voidwitch Saga, 1)
Men Without Women: Stories by Haruki Murakami
The acclaimed author (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) presents seven funny and surreal stories about men who have somehow found themselves alone. (May 9)
Wicked Wonders by Ellen Klages
The author of The Green Glass Sea presents her second short-story collection of “lyrical stories with vintage flair” (topics include: life on Mars, gambling with fairies), with an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler. (May 9)
Dark Cities edited by Christopher Golden
Twenty short tales of everyday horrors from some of the genre’s most acclaimed writers, including Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-Tep, Hap and Leonard) and Cherie Priest (Boneshaker). (May 16)
Full Wolf Moon by Lincoln Child
The author’s signature character, “enigmalogist” Jeremy Logan, returns to investigate another mysterious case—this time, a dead body on a deep-woods hiking trail that looks like it was mauled by a bear... or possibly a werewolf. (May 16)
Full Wolf Moon: A Novel (Jeremy Logan Series)
Vanguard by Jack Campbell
In this military science fiction adventure set in the world of Campbell’s Lost Fleet novels, humankind has colonized the galaxy thanks to the invention of a faster-than-light jump drive—and Earth’s various conflicts and wars have amplified as they’ve spread into space. (May 16)
Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner
In this standalone novel set in the author’s Queen’s Thief epic fantasy universe, a secretary and slave realizes he’ll never achieve the great power he desires—a fate that may change when he’s tasked with carrying out an extraordinary mission. (May 16)
Thick as Thieves (Queen's Thief, 5)
Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton
Yes... the same Crichton who wrote Jurassic Park, Sphere, and Westworld, and died in 2008. This “recently discovered” novel is based on the real-life rivalry between paleontologists Cope and Marsh, who raced to one-up each other by any means necessary while hunting dinosaur fossils in the Wild West. (May 23)
River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey
A debut novel that imagines an 1890s United States in which imported hippos become an important meat source—with a focus on the mercenary “hippo wrangler” who pursues them through the Louisiana bayou where they live and breed. (May 23)
River of Teeth (River of Teeth, 1)
Radiate by C.A. Higgins
The author continues her Lightless series with the story of Ananke, a military spacecraft-turned-sentient AI who’s searching for her human “father,” the troubled programmer who helped create her. (May 23)
Radiate (The Lightless Trilogy)
Lightning in the Blood by Marie Brennan
The author continues her Varekai novella series (after Cold-Forged Flame) with this tale of a roaming spirit who finds a physical form but still has much to learn about her own origins and identity. (May 30)
LIGHTNING IN THE BLOOD (Varekai)
Mormama by Kit Reed
In Jacksonville, there’s a sprawling mansion that seems to have a supernatural power over the sisters who been in residence for generations. What will happen when an amnesiac and a single mother and her son find their way into their closed circle? (May 30)
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