17 fantasy and science fiction books to read in March 2024
By Daniel Roman
THE SIEGE OF BURNING GRASS by Premee Mohamed — March 12
Speaking of authors who are releasing books in a monthly fashion, prolific speculative fiction author Premee Mohamed has another book coming out in March. Like last month's release, The Butcher of the Forest, Mohamed's next book is another standalone novel. The Siege of Burning Grass is secondary world fantasy which examines the cost of war and violence.
According to this review from SciFi Mind, this book has "pteranodons trained as bomber planes." That might be intriguing enough that you may need to immediately add this book to your TBR.
The Empires of Varkal and Med’ariz have always been at war.
Alefret, the founder of Varkal’s pacifist resistance, was bombed and maimed by his own government, locked up in a secret prison and tortured by a ‘visionary’ scientist. But now they’re offering him a chance of freedom.
Ordered to infiltrate one of Med’ariz’s flying cities, obeying the bloodthirsty zealot Qhudur, he must find fellow anti-war activists in the enemy’s population and provoke them into an uprising against their rulers.
He should refuse to serve the warmongers, but what if he could end this pointless war once and for all? Is that worth compromising his own morals and the principles of his fellow resistance members?
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THOSE BEYOND THE WALL by Micaiah Johnson — March 12
Those Beyond the Wall is the latest novel from The Space Between Worlds author Micaiah Johnson. It's a sci-fi thriller where a woman named Scales, who serves as a fixer for the Emperor of a desert community, has to a solve a series of mysterious murders. These murders strikes fear into the heart of the community as well as the neighboring walled-off metropolis of Wiley City, which is nonetheless poised to capitalize on the chaos.
Sci-fi with a good mystery element is always a lot of fun, and the back-of-book description for Those Beyond the Wall is especially transportive:
In Ashtown, a rough-and-tumble desert community, the Emperor rules with poisoned claws and an iron fist. He can’t show any sign of weakness, as the neighboring Wiley City has spent lifetimes beating down the people of Ashtown and would love nothing more than its downfall. There’s only one person in the desert the Emperor can fully trust—and her name is Scales.
Scales is the best at what she does: keeping everyone and everything in line. As a skilled mechanic—and an even more skilled fighter, when she needs to be—Scales is a respected member of the Emperor’s crew, who’s able to keep things running smoothly. But the fragile peace Scales helps to maintain is fractured when a woman is mangled and killed before her eyes. Even more incomprehensible: There doesn’t seem to be a murderer.
When more bodies start to turn up, both in Ashtown and in the wealthier, walled-off Wiley City, Scales is tasked with finding the cause—and putting an end to it by any means necessary. To protect the people she loves, she teams up with a frustratingly by-the-books partner from Ashtown and a brusque-but-brilliant scientist from the City, delving into both worlds to track down an invisible killer.
But the answers Scales finds are bigger than she ever could have imagined, leading her into the brutal heart beneath Wiley City’s pristine façade and dredging up secrets from her own past that she would rather keep hidden. If she wants to save the world from the earth-shattering truths she uncovers, she can no longer remain silent—even if speaking up costs her everything.