It’s going to be a fantastic year, literally. Other-wordly literary imagination is going to be in full flow with some of the best-known science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers due to publish new books in 2015. Here’s a selection of novels that will boggle your mind.
Slade House, David Mitchell
Only one year after the publication of The Bone Clocks, and set in the same universe, Mitchell will bring us Slade House. It was born out of The Right Sort, a story Mitchell wrote in over three hundred tweets. Mitchell usually publishes at two- or three-year intervals, so this is a real treat for fans of the genre-travelling writer.
The Book of Phoenix, Nnedi Okorafor
Okorafor is a multiple award-winning Nigerian-American writer. The Book of Phoenix is a prequel to her World Fantasy award-winner Who Fears Death, and tells the story of Phoenix, an 'accelerated woman' – only two years of age, but an adult in ability and body. Endearingly, the first (and only) GoodReads review is by the author herself.
Three moments of an explosion: stories!, China Miéville
Miéville, maker of multitudinous fantastic worlds, is publishing his first collection of short stories in 10 years. The three-time Arthur C Clarke award winner balances his academic and activist pursuits with writing the kind of genre fiction that has wowed giants such as Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin. Now for that Booker.
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances, Neil Gaiman
The wildly beloved Gaiman is back with another product of his literary fecundity. Even the reviewers prone to looking askance at first have good things to say. If you love The Sandman, or Coraline, or The Graveyard Book - give this one a whirl. Gaiman has produced excellent collections of short fiction in the past, including Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things.
Get in Trouble, Kelly Link
Editor and writer of short fiction, Link is back with her first collection for adult readers in a decade. If reviews are anything to go by, it has met the formidable expectations set by Link's reputation as a master of the craft. The nine stories straddle the familiar and unfamiliar in disparate but self-contained worlds created especially for each tale.
Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology, edited by Anne and Jeff Vandermeer
After several celebrated anthologies on everything from the new weird, through steampunk, to time travel, the award-winning editor duo is back. This anthology will have speculative feminist fiction from the 1970s to today. We're particularly excited to read what they picked by Angela Carter, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Vandana Singh.
Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear
The Hugo winner Bear brings us Karen Memory, the eponymous protagonist, who lives in the steampunk Pacific Northwest universe of the novel. Bear reclaims pulp fiction by populating it with the kinds of characters who've been on the very precipices of these worlds thus far, except as passive and flat victims – sex workers, transgender women, African American women. Hat-tip for showing us how it's done.
Old Venus, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
We can't top George R.R. Martin's preview of this anthology: it's set in Old Venus, "...the old watery pulp Venus of our lost youth, with its swamps, dinosaurs, and web-footed Venusians". Apparently there's one story in there that Martin says deserves to win both the Hugo and the Nebula... but he won't say which one. We'll just have to read it, then.
Of Noble Family, Mary Robinette Kowal
This is the final book in the five-part series popularly known as The Glamourist Histories. The setting is Regency, and the premise is that magic – known here as glamour – meets Jane Austen. It's not just a tribute to the beloved British author, but the serious world-building work of a skilled fantasy writer.
Dragons at Crumbling Castle and Other Tales, Terry Pratchett
These fourteen short stories by Terry Pratchett are meant for a young audience, and were written when Pratchett was considerably younger himself. In fact, he was only a teenager when he wrote these for the Children's Circle section of a local paper in Buckinghamshire, England. But it should be very enjoyable for even considerably older Pratchett loyalists.
Uprooted, Naomi Novik
If you love fairy tales, this one's for you. The author has released the first page, where a young woman tells us of the monster who terrorises her. He is called Dragon, and he seems to be a man who picks a young girl from the village he protects and makes her live with him in his tower for ten years. Read it for yourself here. Intrigued? We are too.
Seveneves, Neal Stephenson
The world is about to end, so the countries of the world (perhaps for the first and only time in human history) agree to send a group of humans to the international space station. It goes badly, and only seven women survive - the Seven Eves. And to think that this is only the first of two new books by Stephenson.
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Slade House, David Mitchell
Only one year after the publication of The Bone Clocks, and set in the same universe, Mitchell will bring us Slade House. It was born out of The Right Sort, a story Mitchell wrote in over three hundred tweets. Mitchell usually publishes at two- or three-year intervals, so this is a real treat for fans of the genre-travelling writer.
The Book of Phoenix, Nnedi Okorafor
Okorafor is a multiple award-winning Nigerian-American writer. The Book of Phoenix is a prequel to her World Fantasy award-winner Who Fears Death, and tells the story of Phoenix, an 'accelerated woman' – only two years of age, but an adult in ability and body. Endearingly, the first (and only) GoodReads review is by the author herself.
Three moments of an explosion: stories!, China Miéville
Miéville, maker of multitudinous fantastic worlds, is publishing his first collection of short stories in 10 years. The three-time Arthur C Clarke award winner balances his academic and activist pursuits with writing the kind of genre fiction that has wowed giants such as Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin. Now for that Booker.
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances, Neil Gaiman
The wildly beloved Gaiman is back with another product of his literary fecundity. Even the reviewers prone to looking askance at first have good things to say. If you love The Sandman, or Coraline, or The Graveyard Book - give this one a whirl. Gaiman has produced excellent collections of short fiction in the past, including Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things.
Get in Trouble, Kelly Link
Editor and writer of short fiction, Link is back with her first collection for adult readers in a decade. If reviews are anything to go by, it has met the formidable expectations set by Link's reputation as a master of the craft. The nine stories straddle the familiar and unfamiliar in disparate but self-contained worlds created especially for each tale.
Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology, edited by Anne and Jeff Vandermeer
After several celebrated anthologies on everything from the new weird, through steampunk, to time travel, the award-winning editor duo is back. This anthology will have speculative feminist fiction from the 1970s to today. We're particularly excited to read what they picked by Angela Carter, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Vandana Singh.
Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear
The Hugo winner Bear brings us Karen Memory, the eponymous protagonist, who lives in the steampunk Pacific Northwest universe of the novel. Bear reclaims pulp fiction by populating it with the kinds of characters who've been on the very precipices of these worlds thus far, except as passive and flat victims – sex workers, transgender women, African American women. Hat-tip for showing us how it's done.
Old Venus, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
We can't top George R.R. Martin's preview of this anthology: it's set in Old Venus, "...the old watery pulp Venus of our lost youth, with its swamps, dinosaurs, and web-footed Venusians". Apparently there's one story in there that Martin says deserves to win both the Hugo and the Nebula... but he won't say which one. We'll just have to read it, then.
Of Noble Family, Mary Robinette Kowal
This is the final book in the five-part series popularly known as The Glamourist Histories. The setting is Regency, and the premise is that magic – known here as glamour – meets Jane Austen. It's not just a tribute to the beloved British author, but the serious world-building work of a skilled fantasy writer.
Dragons at Crumbling Castle and Other Tales, Terry Pratchett
These fourteen short stories by Terry Pratchett are meant for a young audience, and were written when Pratchett was considerably younger himself. In fact, he was only a teenager when he wrote these for the Children's Circle section of a local paper in Buckinghamshire, England. But it should be very enjoyable for even considerably older Pratchett loyalists.
Uprooted, Naomi Novik
If you love fairy tales, this one's for you. The author has released the first page, where a young woman tells us of the monster who terrorises her. He is called Dragon, and he seems to be a man who picks a young girl from the village he protects and makes her live with him in his tower for ten years. Read it for yourself here. Intrigued? We are too.
Seveneves, Neal Stephenson
The world is about to end, so the countries of the world (perhaps for the first and only time in human history) agree to send a group of humans to the international space station. It goes badly, and only seven women survive - the Seven Eves. And to think that this is only the first of two new books by Stephenson.
