8 Excellent New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books to Read in July 2023

A young scribe and tea expert seeks revenge after her lover is murdered and her sister is kidnapped by a soldier of the new government. Enitan once had dreams of a quiet life and a tea shop. Now she’s planning to kill the people responsible for her lover’s death and get her sister back — if she doesn’t get captured first.

Djuna is one of South Korea’s most beloved writers of science fiction. This is an exciting novel about an island where a company is building an elevator to the stars, the people building this invention, and the importance of what makes up the counterweight holding the other end up in space. Sounds bananapants — I’m in!

A young trained killer deals in gods, devils, and divinity, while also living the mundane tasks of his day-to-day life. After fleeing his small hometown for the big city, Fetter learns that destinies are everywhere, he just has to pick a door and walk through. When he isn’t in therapy, that is. This is a fun, wildly imaginative debut!

This debut fantasy novel has had BookTok buzzing with excitement! Inspired by Ancient Egyptian mythology, The Jasad Heir follows a dangerous game of politics when an exiled queen strikes a bargain with her enemy. When Arin accidentally sees Sylvia’s magical abilities, he insists she help him hunt rebels, or lose her life. But he doesn’t know she’s the queen of the people he’s looking for.

This is one of the best debuts of the year, in the ever-expanding sci-fi sub-genre of “this planet sucks, let’s go find a new one.” The inhabitants of The Phoenix are on a mission to find a new place for humanity to live. But an explosion rocks their ship shortly after they wake from cryo-sleep, killing their captain and knocking them off course. Now it’s a rush to find out who is responsible and, maybe more importantly, figure out how to get back on track before they’re left adrift forever.

This novella covers a hot topic: AI! An AI investigative journalist named Scorn discovers ze has no memory of a 10-day period spent on the moon, investigating a story. Ze must find out what happened during those 10 days if ze wants to be successful in zir career…and also because of the danger of not knowing. Ignorance is only bliss sometimes.

There is nothing a parent won’t do for their child. Which is exactly what a mother does in this suspenseful novel about being a parent. Hannah has been having strange feelings about her son Jack since he was born eight months ago. Like the sensation that things aren’t really how they are. And when he goes missing from his crib, she will have to travel not just this world, but parallel worlds to find out who took him and get him back. (Spoiler: It wasn’t the Goblin King.)

And last, but not least, a debut series starter inspired by the stories of colonial South America. In this imaginative fantasy, Reina and Eva are two women whose paths will cross and whose lives will be filled with magic and dark sorcery when they join together for a quest. But it’s a quest that may cost them their lives.