If you’re looking for something new to read this spring, these brand-new and upcoming sci-fi and fantasy books offer many amazing worlds to delve into. While many prominent authors have novels being published this month—like Ann Leckie, Leigh Bardugo, and Edward Ashton—several new novelists are also debuting with some excellent SFF books to consider.
For sci-fi fans, we've found novels exploring dystopian worlds, rogue AI, generation ships, and imaginative parallel universes. And, for anyone looking for that next fantasy adventure, we've tracked down novels that traverse unknown ocean depths, Chinese mythology, and 16th-century Spain. In summary, we've tried to include something for every reader in this month's sci-fi and fantasy book roundup. Which ones are you looking forward to reading? Here are the best sci-fi fantasy books to consider in April 2024.
Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton
Much like Ashton’s first novel—Mickey7, which has a film adaptation releasing in 2025—Mal Goes to War is a dark sci-fi comedy that places a sardonic narrator in a dangerous future setting. While similar in tone, the two have very different settings. Mal is an independent AI living in infospace watching serial dramas while a war rages between the augmented Federals and the ‘pure’ Humanists. Mal fully intends to ignore the war and the humans scurrying outside infospace.
Unfortunately, the war finds him. When the Humanists cut off infospace, Mal is left adrift. He finds a new host in a deceased augmented human. For some reason, the young child he discovers beside the dead human seems somewhat disturbed by his animation of the corpse’s body. On his journey to find a new home, he befriends several humans, making him realize that he does care about what happens in the war. If you enjoyed Mickey7 and The Murderbot Diaries, you will likely enjoy Ashton’s latest. It’s brilliantly narrated on audio if you’re an audiobook listener.
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
Bardugo is a queen of engrossing page-turners regardless of length. Her newest novel is no exception. This dark and steamy standalone historical fantasy is set in 16th-century Spain during the height of the Inquisition. Luzia is a Jewish scullion who can do small acts of magic by singing Ladino refrains. She keeps both her magic and her heritage a secret, knowing that if anyone discovered either, she would be turned over to the Inquisition.
When her mistress catches her doing a small act of magic, she forces Luzia to perform magic tricks at dinner parties. Secretly, Luzia enjoys the attention and craves more. A wealthy and ambitious nobleman soon discovers her and wants her to compete to be the king’s magical champion. In his employ is the mysterious and sinister Guillén Santangel, a cursed immortal who makes Luzia feel like she’s flying. Bardugo’s latest is a lovely and magical ode to marginalized and diaspora cultures during the Spanish Inquisition.
Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes
Barnes’ debut novel, Dead Silence, was a nail-biting space horror, and her second space horror, Ghost Station, is, dare I say, even better than her first. Dr. Ophelia Bray is a psychologist better known for her ridiculously wealthy family than her work. She has tried to separate herself as much as possible from her problematic family, but their legacy seems to follow her wherever she goes.
She specializes in treating people with ERS—a space-based mental health condition that often leads to violence, both self-inflicted and towards other crew members. After a crew member dies, she joins a deep-space mission to explore an abandoned planet. The crew immediately begins harassing Ophelia, but she’s determined to do her job well. On the planet, however, everything goes wrong. This nuanced, character-driven space horror with intense plotting is a fantastic addition to the genre, and could be perfect for fans of Dead Space, Alien, or Event Horizon.
Lake of Souls: The Collected Short Fiction by Ann Leckie
Ann Leckie is well-known to SFF readers for her award-winning Imperial Radch series. This is her first short story collection, though many of these stories have been previously published in short story markets. It’s divided into three sections.
The first section occurs in primarily unspecified worlds, the second in the Imperial Radch universe, and the third in the same world as her standalone fantasy novel, The Raven Tower. It’s an imaginative and often experimentative collection with coming-of-age stories for a lonely spawn, dinosaurs fleeing meteors by escaping into space, espionage and extreme religious piety in Radch, schemes between gods, and so much more. Often, science fiction authors excel at short stories, and Leckie is no exception.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar
Samatar taps into her experience as a professor in this thought-provoking dystopian novella deeply entrenched in university academic politics and carceral control. Set on a mining spaceship that’s part of a fleet of generation ships, it rotates between two characters.
The boy is one of the Chained who lives as a captive deep below the ship. He’s haunted by dreams of drowned people and makes art depicting his inner thoughts and dreams. A prophet speaks to him of the practice, a sort of philosophical meditation, and the boy tries to follow it by devoting himself to his art.
While the other is a woman, a professor of older knowledge working on a paper about play among children who wear blue bracelets around their ankles, like her, that can be controlled by the elite. She initiates a scholarship to allow one of the Chained to attend the university, and the boy is chosen as its recipient. This is a unique and sometimes opaque read, at turns disturbing and profound. Samatar deftly manages to pack a lot into only a slim page count.
A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall
Cathrall’s debut is a lovely epistolary cozy fantasy for fans of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries and Legends & Lattes. In a world mostly covered by water, people live on small islands where scholars study the sea. E., who has OCD, lives in the only underwater house—the Deep Houseëwhich her eccentric (and deceased) scholar mother designed.
After a strange marine animal appears outside the house, she writes to Scholar Henerey, a renowned marine naturalist, in hopes he can shed light on the nature of the animal. The two start a delightful exchange of letters, eventually leading to deeper feelings. Soon, E. becomes riveted by a new mystery, a strange structure that suddenly appears outside her home. The frame story happens one year after these events. E.’s younger sister, Scholar Sophy, is mourning E.’s presumed death and begins a correspondence with Henerey’s brother, Navigator Vyerin. They begin a project of exchanging letters, diaries, and other written materials to explain the year E. and Henerey spent in correspondence. It’s a delicious slow-burn fantasy and the first book in a series.
Song of the Six Realms by Judy I. Lin
YA fantasy readers will adore this beautifully written standalone based on Chinese mythology. After being accused of treason, Xue’s family was put to death, and their name was eradicated. An orphan, her uncle raised her before turning her over to the House of Flowing Water, where she’s learned to entertain and perfected her musical skill at the qin.
She’s an unparalleled musician, and after her first public performance, a stranger asks for a private audience with her. He offers to become her patron, and she accepts, hoping to earn her freedom. He turns out to be the Duke of Dreams, and his derelict mansion hides secrets that could put Xue’s life at risk.
Ocean's Godori by Elaine U. Cho
This entertaining found-family sci-fi is like K-drama meets The Expanse. Korea’s military space force, the Alliance, dominates the galaxy. Ocean Yoon is a down-on-her-luck pilot aboard the Ohneulis. She and the crew are currently attending a gala in Seoul, but Ocean skips the gala to instead go shopping with Teo, the son of a wealthy Korean family.
Meanwhile, Haven replaces a crew member aboard the Ohneulis and becomes their medic, though the crew distrusts him for being part of a religious community called the Death’s Hand. Cho rotates between these three perspectives as the ragtag crew navigates adventures, politics, and romance. It ends on a cliffhanger, so hopefully, book two will be released soon!
In Universes by Emet North
North’s debut novel is an inventive, mind-bending literary science fiction that delves into mental health, queerness, Judaism, love, and more as it explores parallel universes. Raffi is an assistant in a NASA lab studying dark matter and feels wildly out of their depth.
They struggle to make meaningful connections as they grapple with depression, but the one bright spot in their life is Britt, a sculptor who grew up in the same town as Raffi. Each chapter imagines a different universe with Raffi and Britt, each universe growing more and more chaotic and surreal as the novel progresses. Despite the wildness of each chapter, this slim novel is a wonderfully immersive and vivid read.
Margaret Kingsbury is a freelance writer, editor, and all-around book nerd based in Nashville, TN. Her pieces on books and reading have appeared in Book Riot, BuzzFeed News, School Library Journal, StarTrek.com, Parents, and more. Follow her on Instagram @BabyLibrarians and Twitter and Bluesky @AReaderlyMom.
