17 fantasy and science fiction books to read in September 2023
By Daniel Roman
STARTER VILLAIN by John Scalzi — September 16
For readers, a few things are certain: new books are always on the way, we’ll probably still be waiting for George R.R. Martin’s The Winds of Winter a month from now, and if science fiction author John Scalzi is releasing a new book, it’s going to be a raucous good time. Scalzi has written so many sci-fi books at this point that we’d be here for a while if we listed them all, but perhaps his best known is Old Man’s War.
In the years since that one, Scalzi has developed a reputation for writing stories that are fun, action-packed, and often hilarious. The cover for his latest book Starter Villain promises pretty much exactly that. It’s about a man who takes over his dead uncle’s supervillain business. There are talking cats, “unionized dolphins,” and all sorts of other things that sound so absurd I can’t not be curious.
Are the cats middle-management? Do they actually wear suits? We’ll have to read and find out.
Charlie’s life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.
Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.
But becoming a supervillain isn’t all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they’re coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.
It’s up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.
In a dog-eat-dog world…be a cat.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
STARS LIKE ACID by Marissa Lupe — September 18
Stars Like Acid is the debut novel from Marissa Lupe. It’s a science fiction novel which sees two women — a soldier and a member of the societal elite — brought together on a distant space station where they’re forced to unravel a web of mysteries with immense ramifications for humanity. With explorations of oppressive government oversight, out-of-control human evolution, and humanity adapting to life beyond Earth, Stars Like Acid calls to mind complex space sagas like The Expanse.
Téa, a Latina soldier in training, is used to standing her ground in a world that seems hellbent on bringing her to her knees. Orphaned at age five and held captive on a military base for most of her life, she barely remembers a time before the government controlled her every move.
Now, fifteen years later, the Earth is dying, a resistance is forming, and the corrupt government is hoarding resources and information that could save the world. When Téa is forced to marry the son of a terrifying general, she stumbles across a dark secret that could finally dismantle her power-hungry father-in-law’s regime and offer her a chance at freedom.
Humans are evolving in dangerous and powerful ways, and Téa may be the most powerful one of them all.
Meanwhile, Annabelle, another of Earth’s many orphans, has lived a mostly charmed life. That is if you don’t count the fact that she’s technically a prisoner. Drifting among the stars on Space Station Luna–the top-secret government lifeboat built to save Earth’s ruling class–Annabelle has everything she needs and the woman she loves by her side.
But when Téa ends up at the space station, she unravels a web of deceptions that send both women reeling and make one thing perfectly clear: the secrets that connect Téa and Annabelle may be powerful enough to turn the tides of war, save the planet, and set the people free.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
The Darkest Stars by Kristy Gardner (The Broken Stars #2) — September 19
The second book in Kristy Gardner’s The Broken Stars trilogy, The Darkest Stars continues the story of Calay, a survivor in a post-apocalyptic Pacific Northwest ravaged by alien horrors and darkness.
The first book in Gardner’s series, The Stars in Their Eyes, saw Calay risk it all to reunite with her love Tess. Things didn’t all work out as planned. Calay is still alive despite the post-apocalypse, but the dangers she faces have only grown more menacing in The Darkest Stars.
After discovering everything she’s ever known has been a lie, Calay understands humanity’s brutality firsthand. Now, depleted rations, unexplained aberrations, and an ecosystem in collapse have driven her to the brink of madness–even with Jacob by her side. When a mysterious woman sent from the stars promises to grant every desire she’s ever locked away in her shattered heart, she’s forced to make an impossible decision: remain on a dying Earth or journey to a planet two-billion lightyears away in an effort to save them all. Clinging to the dream she might yet find somewhere to call home, she agrees. After all, how much worse could it get?
When she arrives on the shimmering, glass-city planet Téras, Calay desperately want to believe in a better future. Despite being haunted by the past she’ll never escape, her hope is buoyed by the reunion with the mother she thought long-dead and the possibility of uniting their civilizations. The reality, however, is more horrifying than anything she could have imagined.
As the universe descends into darkness, she finds herself trapped in the far reaches of deep space, face to face with dangerous forces, unyielding truths, and feral monsters that will force her to confront the darkest parts of herself, pushing her to the very limits of what it means to be human.
In this gripping queer sci-fi odyssey, Calay’s journey through love, betrayal, and self-discovery becomes a fight not only for her life, but the survival of Earth itself.