Archives de catégorie : Fiction

OBSERVER de Nicholas Russell

A mystical and mercury-ladened mystery involving trees that walk, desert illusions, and a 100-year-old diary.

OBSERVER
by Nicholas Russell
Ecco, Fall 2026
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

For fans of Brian Evenson, K-Ming Chang, and Jeff VanderMeer, OBSERVER is the story of the American desert, government cover-ups, family devotion, and how curiosity for the truth or a version of it sends even the most sane into the deepest depths.

Renata’s mother left her in the care of her aunt and took a job at an observatory when she was young, never to return. Now in her early twenties, Renata receives a truck load of her mother’s papers and possessions one day; the family assumes her dead. Renata, curious and undeterred, packs up her camera and her mothers’ notebooks and drives to the Observatory, asking questions the locals would prefer not to answer and reminding them of what they’ve been denying for years. Renata might be able to complete the research her mother was undergoing, but she might also reach for a truth much stranger than any of the tall tales the desert weaves through her dreams.

Nicholas Russell is a writer from Las Vegas. His work has appeared in The Believer, McSweeney’s, The Atlantic, Conjunctions, The Baffler, The Drift, and Defector. He is a bookseller at The Writer’s Block, Managing Editor of Still Alive magazine, and a contributor to Defector.

ABSENCE de Andrew Dana Hudson

Pitched as The City & The City meets The Leftovers, ABSENCE is a propulsive mystery, combining the best elements of speculative fiction and detective noir, one which explores a world confronted with the new reality of Spontaneous Human Absence, or the sudden disappearance of people into thin air, never to return.

ABSENCE
by Andrew Dana Hudson
Soho Press, Spring 2026
(via Vertical Ink)

With millions around the world having already “popped” out of existence, and the numbers increasing daily, humanity’s long-term survival is now in doubt. Now, Bureau of Depopulation Affairs agents Harvey Ellis and Shonda Erins must unravel a mystery that could answer the impenetrable question of where the absent go, as one day a disheveled woman with no identification appears at the sheriff’s office in the small town of Dawnville, Kansas, claiming to have returned from Absence and providing a highly-detailed description of the “life after” and a mysterious post-Absence city called Strangertown.

Is she just another charlatan styling herself as a prophet, or is she really Gabby Reyes, a Dawnville teenager who popped a decade before under notorious circumstances? If true, her story holds the key to understanding humanity’s future and would give hope to the millions of people mourning the unfathomable disappearance of their loved ones – a group that also includes agent Ellis.

As the agents navigate a hostile town awash in conspiracy theories with its own secrets to hide, they get closer to the answer, and agent Ellis finds himself caught between his professional skepticism and his own personal desire for the possibility of hope in a hopeless world.

But as Absence begins to ravage Dawnville, the townspeople focus their ire on Gabby and the agents, and in a world where no one knows how long they have left, agents Ellis and Erins must unravel the mystery of Gabby Reyes before Dawnville explodes into violence, and before they themselves disappear.

Andrew Dana Hudson is a speculative fiction writer, sustainability researcher, and futurist. He is the author of Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures, as well as over twenty-five short stories appearing in Slate Future Tense, Lightspeed Magazine, Escape Pod, Vice Terraform, MIT Technology Review, Grist, and many more. His nonfiction has appeared in Slate, Jacobin, and others. His fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, longlisted for the BSFA, and translated into Italian. Andrew has a master’s degree in sustainability from Arizona State University, where he is now pursuing an MFA in creative writing (fiction). He is also an Imaginary College Fellow at the ASU Center for Science and the Imagination. His research, partnering with institutions like Luleå University of Technology in Sweden, uses speculative fiction to explore the entwined social and technical dynamics of future scenarios, particularly the challenges and opportunities of decarbonization and climate repair. He has previously worked in journalism, political consulting, and healthcare innovation. He also teaches yoga. Follow his work via solarshades.club.

BIRD DEITY de John Morrissey

A scout retrieving artifacts from an ancient species on a distant planet sets out on a search for his missing mentor.

BIRD DEITY
by John Morrissey
Text Publishing Australia, August 2026

BIRD DEITY is a science-fiction novel set in a colony on a distant planet. The protagonist, David, is a young man who works as a ‘scout’, retrieving artifacts made by a now-vanished species called the parasapes. These artifacts encode the memories of the parasapes from a time before their civilisation was destroyed by a mysterious catastrophe.

After ten years, David is due to return to Earth. But he is worried about leaving. His mentor, Tom, has recently gone missing on a plateau where the parasapes used to live. Is he dead? Tom’s girlfriend, Eliza, thinks so and is trying to organise passage home for herself and her baby.

Just before he is due to depart, David is approached by a newly arrived anthropologist named Sarah, who has been sponsored by a trillionaire philanthropist to study the lost culture of the parasapes. David agrees to take her to the plateau in exchange for a massive fee.

But when they get there, David’s story begins to overlap with the story of a parasape astronomer in the months before his civilisation was destroyed. Searching for Tom, David finds himself drawn back into his childhood until he is ultimately confronted by the horrifying Bird Deity.

John Morrissey is a multi-award-winning Melbourne writer of Kalkadoon descent. His work has been published in Overland, Voiceworks, Meanjin and the anthology This All Come Back Now. He was the winner of the 2020 Boundless Mentorship, the runner-up for the 2018 Nakata Brophy Prize and named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Novelists of 2024. His debut short story collection, Firelight, was published in 2023 and won Best Collection in the Aurealis Awards 2023 as well as the Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection in the 2024 Queensland Literary Awards.

MEET ME AT THE CROSSROADS de Megan Giddings

From the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of Lakewood and The Women Could Fly, a dazzling new novel about two brilliant sisters and what happens to their undeniable bond when a mysterious and possibly perilous new world beckons.

MEET ME AT THE CROSSROADS
by Megan Giddings
Amistad, June 3, 2025
(via Writers House)

On an ordinary summer morning, the world is changed by the appearance of seven mysterious doors that seemingly lead to another world. People are, of course, mesmerized and intrigued: A new dimension filled with beauty and resources beckons them to step into an adventure. But, perhaps inevitably, people soon learn that what looks like paradise may very well be filled with danger.

Ayanna and Olivia, two Black Midwestern teens—and twin sisters—have different ideas of what may lie in the world beyond. But will their personal bond endure such wanton exploration? And when one of them goes missing, will the other find solace of her own? And will she uncover the circumstances of what truly happened to her once constant companion and best friend?

Megan Giddings brings her customarily brilliant and eye-opening powers of storytelling to give us a story that dazzles the senses and bewitches the mind. MEET ME AT THE CROSSROADS is an unforgettable novel about faith, love, and family from one of today’s most exciting and surprising young writers.

Megan Giddings is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Her novel, Lakewood, was one of New York Magazine’s 10 best books of 2020, one of NPR’s best books of 2020, a Michigan Notable book for 2021, a nominee for two NAACP Image Awards, and a finalist for a 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in The Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction category. Her second novel, The Women Could Fly, was named one of The Washington Post’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy novels of 2022, one of Vulture’s Best Fantasy books of 2022, and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice.

THE FOREST BECOMES HER de Julie Carrick Dalton

At the intersection of Weyward and Migrations lies the perfect choice for your next book club: Julie Carrick Dalton’s THE FOREST BECOMES HER, a gorgeous, hopeful novel about three women from different generations navigating the complexities of family, the impacts of our choices, and our deep connections to the natural world beneath our feet.

THE FOREST BECOMES HER
by Julie Carrick Dalton
St. Martin’s Press, April 2026
(via Writers House)

In historic, bucolic Concord, Massachusetts, a centuries old forest has been removed to make way for a new, eco-friendly housing development. The locals are upset by the destruction, but out-of-towners like Hazel Stoddard are flocking to put down roots in their new guilt-free dream homes.

Soon a tragedy leaves Hazel unmoored in her new life, and she begins to feel the pull of the absent forest. Hazel is not alone— her neighbors, real estate agent Stella Flint and teenage environmentalist Polly Bauer, each have their own traumas and their own relationship to the land. The three women are drawn together to save the last remaining oak tree, or they risk losing themselves to lingering shadows that only they can see.

In THE FOREST BECOMES HER, Julie Carrick Dalton brings hope and reverence to this lush celebration of multigenerational female relationships, the ever-evolving female form, humanity’s connection to our changing world, and the mysteries that still exist in nature.

As a journalist, Julie Carrick Dalton has published more than a thousand articles in The Boston Globe, BusinessWeek, The Hollywood Reporter, Orion Magazine, Electric Literature, and other publications. A Tin House and Bread Loaf alum, and graduate of GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator, Dalton holds a master’s degree in literature and creative writing from Harvard Extension School. She is a frequent speaker on the topic of writing fiction in the age of climate crisis.