The Shadow King

Maaza Mengiste

Set in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, The Shadow King centers Hirut, an orphan living as a servant in the home of Kidane, and his wife, Aster.

A Paradise Built in Hell

Rebecca Solnit

Starting with the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, Solnit tours through one disaster after another, including the Halifax explosion, Mexico City’s earthquake, 9/11 in New York, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

The City We Became

N. K. Jemisin

This latest tome from N. K. Jemisin tells the story of New York—specifically, of the six people who must become the city of New York in order to save themselves and their city from destruction.

Agency

William Gibson

In this sequel to The Peripheral, Gibson returns to a world with multiple futures, and a newly rewritten past.

How We Get Free

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Formed in 1974, the Combahee River Collective was a radical Black feminist organization.

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever

James Tiptree, Jr.

Under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr., Alice Sheldon wrote dozens of award-winning and influential stories, some of the best of which are included here.

Emergent Strategy

adrienne maree brown

“I read sci-fi and visionary fiction as political, sacred, and philosophical text, and I engage with others who read it that way,” writes adrienne maree brown, in this astonishing, radical, and humane book.

Words Are My Matter

Ursula K. Le Guin

In this late volume, Le Guin reflects on many of the things that animated her thinking throughout her life.

The Water Dancer

Ta-Nehisi Coates

This is a story of the underground railroad, of memory, and of magic—all told with Coates’s exquisite prose.

Errantry

Elizabeth Hand

This collection of shorts includes ghosts, flying machines, witches, ancient trees, and more than one impossible transformation.

And Go Like This

John Crowley

This collection ranges across a wide territory in both place and time, but there are recurring themes: aging, mortality, endings and beginnings—extraordinary reflections on ordinary lives.

Gideon the Ninth

Tamsyn Muir

The cover blurb promises lesbian necromancers in space, and the pages within do not disappoint.

The Song of Achilles

Madeline Miller

In this reimagining of the Iliad, the love story is not of Helen and Paris but of Achilles and his beloved, Patroclus.

Vita Nostra

Marina Dyachenko & Sergey Dyachenko

This story begins when Sasha, on a beach holiday with her mother, notices a strange man keeping tabs on her.