Archives de catégorie : Science Fiction

CASCADIA de Colin Meloy

A dual timeline narrative with deep roots in current global crises, CASCADIA is an absurdist yet all too relatable vision of a future where unchecked capitalism, advanced technology, and climate emergencies have come to a head.

CASCADIA
by Colin Meloy
Little, Brown, Summer 2027
(via Writers House)

Barnaby Chambers is no hero. He’s just another bio broker in Cascadia trying to scrape out a living in an already scraped-thin world. Plummeting birth rates mean the market is rising for anything people believe will promote fertility, especially cauls (the membrane that can cover a newborn’s head). But when a lead on a new caul saddles Barnaby with an abandoned baby, instead, he must navigate the dangerous road home and a difficult AI-run government system in search of someone to care for his unex­pected ward.

A decade earlier, in 2043, civilization as we know it is careening towards the cliff of no return. Cascadia is newly formed, having just separated from the United States. Its people are searching for a better method of government to combat climate change and guard against the pitfalls of governance tainted by human self-interest. Two computer scientists meet for the first time: Dr. Emil Franke and nine-year-old prodigy Gershwin Datta. They will change everything.

As the story moves back and forth in time, it becomes clear that Barnaby’s troubles—and the baby he’s rescued—are inextricably linked to Emil and Gershwin’s work. They are all connected. Not just to the fate of Cascadia, but the world.

Colin Meloy is the author of the middle grade novels The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid, The Stars Did Wander Darkling, and the New York Times bestselling Wildwood Chronicles, as well as two picture books, The Golden Thread: A Song for Pete Seeger and Everyone’s Awake! He is also the singer and songwriter for the indie rock band the Decemberists. Colin lives in Oregon with his wife and frequent collaborator, illustrator Carson Ellis, and their sons.

CELLO’S GATE de Maurice Africh

With a wit to rival Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl, action on par with Pierce Brown’s Red Rising, and the scope of Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth, this is a rollicking sci-fi fantasy epic about a ragtag crew of rogues on the hunt for mythic treasure. They did not, however, sign up to save the world.

CELLO’S GATE
(The Sky Pirates of Imperia, Book 1)
by Maurice Africh
Saga Press/S&S, November 2026
(via Writers House)

One crew of sky pirates. Seven mythological stones. A race to find them all.

Captain Grey and his crew of sky pirates have a reputation for doing the impossible. From breaking into high-security military research facilities to conning the iCity elite, there isn’t a lock they can’t pick, a safe they can’t break, or a hidden treasure they can’t find. Until now.

Returning from a harrowing heist involving a neon battery and a trash chute, Grey and his crew are approached by Dalia, the immortal daughter of the infamous ArchGovernor—and she has an offer.

The job? Locate and steal the Stones of Indigo—seven fabled rocks invested with godlike power. The search for the first stone is a bona fide treasure hunt, guided by an ancient map to a deadly, uncharted island that’s protected by a mysterious guardian. The score? One million credits per crew member, per stone. The catch? Well, that’s where things get a little complicated.

The stones don’t exist. They’re a myth. A bedtime story told to little pirates to make them believe that power and wealth are attainable if you just work hard enough.

And to make matters infinitely worse, Grey’s never trusted immortals, and Dalia’s definitely hiding something—something bad. And if they don’t figure out what it is, it might cost them their lives in this “wickedly wild and uniquely imaginative adventure” (Grimdark Magazine).

“A stellar debut. It’s got scheming immortals, a perilious quest, and a ragtag band of eclectic, eccentric, exceedingly dangerous misfits setting out on a grand adventure. This one’s a must-read. » – Nicholas Eames (Author of Kings of the Wyld)

« The very definition of rip-roaring. » – Richard Swan (Author of the Empire of the Wolf Trilogy)

Maurice Africh is an ex-theater kid with a passion for tasty food, semi-luxurious travel, reality competition television shows, D&D, and fantasy novels. He currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his beautiful wife, Rachel, and his cute, albeit cranky chihuahua, Toby.

UNTRAVELLED WORLD de Martha Perotto-Wills

A heart-pounding, otherworldly adventure, mixed with the thorny, sexy lesbian dynamics of a Julia Armfield novel. For fans of The Ministry of Time and Annihilation.

UNTRAVELLED WORLD
by Martha Perotto-Wills
Random House, Fall 2027
(via The Friedrich Agency)

Ten years ago, the door opened to reveal a surreal, uncharted world adjoining our own: a terrifyingly beautiful expanse of glass which shifts at its own whims—every two hours, every two days—unpredictably gifting clear, flat planes or delivering dangerous crevasses hiding reality-bending hallucinations.

For Teddy, newly graduated and directionless, the era-defining mystery of the other world is merely an icebreaker, a conversation topic on dates gone cold. But then Adrian Clermont, an old family friend, appears in Teddy’s living room seeking funding for an expedition into the other world. Teddy, seeing a chance for purpose and an escape from her privileged, hermetic world, begs to join Adrian’s team.

When the Clermont party make it through the door, Teddy falls helplessly in love with both the landscape and with Jenny Cattaneo, a flinty meteorologist with a strangely deep connection to the other world. When Teddy makes a staggering discovery about a missing explorer, she is forced to reckon with the true cost of the life she’s built in the other world—the first real home she’s ever known.

Martha Perotto-Wills is a writer from London. She has a BA in History and an MA in Queer History. After spending several years as a bookseller and cataloguer in crumbling second-hand bookshops she moved into trade publishing, and now works as an associate agent at a literary agency. She lives in south London with her girlfriend and their cat. UNTRAVELLED WORLD is her first novel, partially born from her obsession with Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s 1922 memoir The Worst Journey in the World.

THE HALTER de Darby McDevitt

Combining the inventive worldbuilding of Philip K. Dick and the elegiac longing of Raymond Chandler and for fans of Ready Player One and Rabbits, THE HALTER by Darby McDevitt (lead writer for Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag) is a debut sci-fi novel that fuses cyber-noir, psychological suspense, and high-concept speculation in a breakneck search for truth inside a utopian metaverse on the verge of collapse.

THE HALTER
by Darby McDevitt
Diversion Books, February 2026
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)

In a world where virtual addiction kills, Kennedy Stark is paid to pull the plug. A professional halter—part detective, part counselor—he trawls the world’s darkest surrogate-reality feeds in search of the lost. When he isn’t working, he’s dreaming of a one-way ticket to Mars, where a new colony has been established as a hopeful alternative to an Earth in the early stages of climate collapse.

One evening, after a botched rescue attempt, a mysterious client offers Kennedy a tantalizing new case: brilliant software engineer Delia Walsh, who Kennedy fell in love with years ago, has disappeared inside a surrogate reality project called The Forum. Entering under an assumed identity, Kennedy finds a simulation unlike any other. The Forum bills itself as a tool for cutting-edge scientific research and radical philosophical investigations, but the signs of its corruption are everywhere. As Kennedy investigates, he learns Delia had been working on a new simulation that could upend The Forum’s primary purpose, and that even in this prurient playground for the super wealthy, the dangers are very real.

Brimming with black humor, hardboiled attitude, and a cast of endearing misfits lost in brittle fantasies, The Halter introduces a charismatic detective and heralds a unique and assured new voice in sci-fi crime.

Darby McDevitt is a writer and game developer best known for his work on the Assassin’s Creed series of video games. He served as lead writer for Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and as narrative director for the forthcoming Assassin’s Creed: Codename Hexe. His short fiction has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Jeopardy, Griffel, and In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Writing. McDevitt is a dual citizen of the US and Canada and lives in Montreal.

DIE MACHT DER MUSIK d’Ullrich Fichtner

Music makes us happier, healthier, smarter and nicer – and we need more of it in our lives.

DIE MACHT DER MUSIK
(The Power of Music)
by Ullrich Fichtner
DVA/PRH Germany, November 2025

Music has an extraordinary effect on us: it can give us goosebumps and butterflies, it can make our hearts beat faster, it can cheer us up and make us sad, can bring our stress levels down and ease pain. Not just that, but the latest findings from neuroscience and brain science show that it can have a positive impact on our health, psyche and social skills, and help develop and reinforce cognitive skills in both the young and the old.

In DIE MACHT DER MUSIK, the multi-award-winning Spiegel reporter and music aficionado demonstrates that music has huge tangible benefits. Using his wide-ranging experience with music and musicians in all genres around the world, as well as the latest scientific studies, he reveals how and why music is so important both for us individually and society at large, how it works, its enormous potential as a social tool, and how it can help us live a healthier, happier, more peaceful – in short: better – life.

Ullrich Fichtner was born in 1965 and is a Spiegel reporter based in Paris. With three Egon Erwin Kisch and three Henri Nannen prizes to his name, he is one of the most award-winning German journalists. His latest book, « Geboren für die großen Chancen » (‘A future of opportunities’) was shortlisted for the German Non-Fiction Prize.