What is speculative fiction, anyway? To repeat the copout we always use with noir: I can’t define it, but I know it when you see it. Speculative is a big tent, for the purposes of this list: any fantasy, alternative history, or science fiction story with a crime element is eligible to be counted. That’s why I’ve included 15 titles, each representing a little sliver of a delightfully big tent. One cool trend to highlight: capers! There are two heist novels below, one taking place in space, and the other featuring clones. Anyone wishing to relieve the future wealthy of their excess baggage should pay close attention…
The Works of Vermin, Hiron Ennes
(Tor)
Hiron Ennes blew me away with their debut, Leech, a novel as indescribable as it is horrifying, and The Works of Vermin is just as difficult to capture, although far more epic in its scope. In an enormous city located on a world-sized tree, the residents of the upper branches enjoy strange perfumes and violent operas while those in the lower branches struggle to make do, and the root-dwellers engage in constant warfare against insectoid species capable of unspeakable destructie on. I read this book, then re-read it, then re-read it again. And I’m quite sure anyone who picks up the book after reading this blurb will feel the same way.
The Gentleman and His Vowsmith, Rebecca Ide
(Saga)
in this delightful fantasy, mysteries and intrigues abound! A marriage pact between two families sharing ancient magical abilities becomes a locked-in murderfest when someone starts killing all the ceremony’s attendees. It’s up to Ide’s charming hero, his aromantic fiancee, and his ex-boyfriend to find out who’s behind the attacks, or face their own imminent demise.
The Book of Guilt, Catherine Chidgey
(Europa)
Imagine if Never Let Me Go was written by Stanley Milgram. The Book of Guilt explores a fascinating alternative history conundrum: if Hitler’s Germany had been overthrown by its own bureaucrats, leading to a draw rather than clear winners and losers, how exactly would all that Nazi science have made its way into allied research? While Chidgey is clearly inspired by the real-life stories of rocket scientists taking their torture-based aeronatics lessons to the US, the scientists in The Book of Guilt go a step further, with German scientists given British government funding to continue their studies, with inevitably devastating results.
Hole in the Sky, Daniel H. Wilson
(Doubleday)
This book is an essential addition to the growing canon of first-contact literature, crafted from Daniel H. Wilson’s singular perspective as an indigenous writer and robotics engineer, and featuring a perfect mixture of technical know-how, native history, and dynamic character interactions. Lyrical, creative, and truly original!
The Heist of Hollow London, Eddie Robson
(Tor)
Eddie Robson won my heart with the translation-themed mystery Drunk On All Your Strange New Words, and The Heist of Hollow London proves the hype is real, with one of the most believable and entertaining set-ups I’ve ever come across in scifi. The Heist of Hollow London begins with a cloning company’s dramatic collapse, leaving employees—both clones and originals—reeling. What’s a formerly employed/enslaved clone to do? Why, band together with several other clones, to execute a dramatic heist only enabled by the complete collapse of their makers. While capers in general are having a moment, this one feels truly novel.
The Bones Beneath My Skin, TJ Klune
(Tor Books)
Klune has crafted a moving story of found family in this X-Files-influenced thriller perfect for fans of Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World. The Bones Beneath My Skin follows Nate, a journalist at loose ends, who finds a mysterious girl and her hunky bodyguard hiding out in his family’s summer cabin. He soon joins them in their dangerous quest to reunite her with her family, as her former captors follow in hot pursuit.
The White Octopus Hotel, Alexandra Bell
(Del Rey)
I may have cried while reading this in public. But that’s just proof of how good it is! In The White Octopus Hotel, an art appraiser finds her way to a mysterious and magical hotel in the Swiss Alps, traveling through time to arrive at the luxurious building in its 1930s heyday, where she forms an intense connection to a shell-shocked composer. The two lovers seek to learn the building’s secrets and avert the terrible events of the future, but the hotel’s magic is capricious, unpredictable, and possessed of its own inscrutable agenda.
The Man Who Died Seven Times, Yasuhiko Nishizawa
Translated by Jesse Kirkwood
(Pushkin Vertigo)
In a murder mystery take on Groundhog Day, a high schooler has seven chances to save his grandfather’s life. Nishizawa’s young hero has always possessed a strange talent: some days are repeated, up to nine times, and whatever happens on the last iteration of the repeating day becomes the new reality. The Man Who Died Seven Times is a metaphysical masterpiece that never hesitates to show both humor and heart.
The Starving Saints, Caitlin Starling
(Harper Voyager, May 20)
A castle under siege and about to run out of food is the setting for Starling’s latest. When mysterious strangers arrive promising victory and sustenance, the defenders let them in, but at what cost? And what bargains must be struck to be rid of them? This book was messed up (in the best way).
A Drop of Corruption, Robert Jackson Bennett
(Del Rey)
Robert Jackson Bennett’s immersive world-building, engaging characterizations, and intricate mysteries are once again on display in this second mystery to feature the Watson-and-Sherlock duo of Ana Dolabra and Dinios Kol, investigators for a vast empire full of cruel masters and strange magicks. This book was so creepy and good. Y’all all need to read it so we can talk about the shroud.
Two Truths and a Lie, Cory O’Brien
(Pantheon)
It’s hard to believe this is Cory O’Brien’s debut, given the sophisticated plotting and world-weary tone—Two Truths and a Lie already feels bound to be a classic. O’Brien channels the spirit of Hammett and Chandler in his futuristic ode to Chinatown and The Long Goodbye, set in a future Los Angeles mostly inundated with water and home to a wide variety of scrappy denizens, hustling con artists, and veterans of the AI wars (both human and machine). The scruffy antihero narrating the tale is a former drone operator turned fact checker who finds himself embroiled in a Byzantine plot featuring erased memories, manipulative rich people, and dark secrets, with more twists than a mid-century candy wrapper. The conclusion is logical, devastating, and necessary.
Esperance, Adam Oyebanji
(DAW)
Adam Oyebanji has crafted another brilliant melange of science fiction and murder mystery, with a heady dose of Afrofuturism thrown into the mix. In a seemingly impossible crime, a number of bodies are found drowned in seawater, and far from the ocean. Meanwhile, a woman with strange talents and even stranger technologies seeks information related to a singular 18th-century voyage marked by disaster and cruelty. The Esperance does something very tricky, and does it quite well indeed.
Hammajang Luck, Makana Yamamoto
(Harper Voyager)
Hawaiians in space, planning a heist—what’s not to love? In this queer anti-capitalist caper, former outlaw Edie is determined to abide by the law after 8 years in prison, but their loved ones are in need of more money than a regular job can provide—so Edie reluctantly agree to one last job, organized by Angel, their femme-fatale-will-they-or-won’t-they former partner in crime, and the source of much unresolved sexual tension with the novel’s handsome enby lead. Angel’s got a plan to rob the richest man in the universe, and she’s assembled a team that might just pull off the toughest heist in galactic history.
The Once and Future Me, Melissa Pace
(Henry Holt)
This book will blow your mind!!!! Pace’s amnesiac heroine, locked up in a mental institution and subjected to strange experimental procedures, must escape her padded prison and find out what exactly she’s forgotten, and what role her husband has played in all this, well, madness. I cannot tell you more without spoilers, but even as someone who reads 150+ books a year, I was genuinely surprised.
Harmattan Season, Tochi Onyebuchi
(Tor)
Tochi Onyebuchi is one of the most creative writers around, and Harmattan Season showcases both his world-building talents and his sly sense of humor. Set in a West African city full of traditional magic and annoying French colonizers, Harmattan Season follows a rumpled private eye looking into a string of murders that have baffled the occupiers and worried the locals.
