The best new science fiction books of August 2024

Whether it’s black orbs swallowing people in downtown Seoul, murder on Mars or malevolent pigs, August has got science fiction fans covered. There are new titles from big names such as James S. A. Corey, Josh Malerman and Neal Asher, and an intriguing-sounding short story collection from Mark Haddon (he of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time fame). I will be kicking off my August reading with Janina Matthewson’s story of the apocalypse experienced from a small island, followed up with Miles Cameron’s vision of a universe traversed by city-sized “Greatships”. Whatever your favourite genre of sci-fi, there’s lots to choose from and enjoy.

This speculative novel opens in downtown Seoul, where a huge black orb suddenly appears and sucks Jeong-su’s neighbour inside. As it continues to consume people, attempts to stop it fail and it begins to split and multiply, causing global panic. Jeong-su, meanwhile, sets out to find his elderly parents.

The Horses by Janina Matthewson

This story of the apocalypse takes place in the small island community of Black Crag, where Sarah wakes one morning to find that the rest of the world appears to have gone silent. No aeroplanes cross the sky and the radios are quiet. When a silent, traumatised ferryman arrives, whispers about what really happened on the mainland begin to divide the villagers. This is being compared to Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven – one of my favourite post-apocalyptic novels.

This is a standalone novel set within Asher’s Owner universe. Earth is governed by a “ruthless Committee”, but when rebel and mutant Ottanger is experimented on by Earth’s Inspectorate, he discovers he can reach alternate worlds and meets an evolved human from the far future. Can he destroy the Committee’s regime?

This sounds a lot of fun – a generation-spanning sci-fi story moving from Mars in 2034, when the first human is born on the Red Planet, to Mars in 2103, now a place of division and fear.

Pearl by Josh Malerman

The bestselling author of the terrifying Birdbox sets his latest slice of horror on a farm inhabited by Pearl, a “strangely malevolent pig”, and her owner Walter Kopple. Walter has always been afraid of Pearl, and as rumours swirl in town, madness begins to grip the locals.

This slice of military science fiction is the sequel to Cameron’s Artifact Space, which I haven’t read, but now I want to read them both as they sound tons of fun. They’re set in a world where Greatships, with city-sized crews, transport goods across space and trade for “xenoglas” with an alien species. Marca Nbaro has always wanted to serve aboard one of them, and now she is, but something is targeting the ships in the darkness of space.

This debut introduces us to Raffi, a physicist who dreams of parallel universes, and who is falling for a sculptor named Britt in this one. If only Raffi had been brave enough to say hello to Britt when they were children – but what if they had? The question sees Raffi catapulted across strange alternative universes, yet everything eventually leads them back to Britt.

This is a collection of short stories weaving ancient Greek myth with the modern world to explore genetics, how we treat animals and more. So the Minotaur, for example, becomes a story of maternal love and the patriarchy. I’m looking forward to this – Haddon is reliably excellent.

The bestselling authors of The Expanse series of novels, who write under a joint pen name, have released a new space opera that sees the empire of the Carryx descend on an isolated human world of Anjiin, where the population is slaughtered or abducted as prisoners. Dafyd, a scientist’s assistant, is captured with his team – but can his skills help them escape their captors’ agenda?

The punning title sets the scene for this comic story of an alien invasion in the town of Muddy Gap. Pie lover Denver Bryant sees a UFO explode, but they appear to be the only person who cares. As they document the incident and their investigations on their pie blog, the only person who takes them seriously is the handsome new bartender, Ezra.

Biohackers Charlie and Parker live in a near-future version of London, one where the climate has collapsed. It is a world split into three groups: Greens, who are still trying to save it; Blues, who are out for profit while they can get it; and Blacks, who see no hope. When the pair are hired by Green activists for jobs ranging from robbery to murder, Charlie isn’t keen, but Parker wants to accept, believing they can still make a difference.

This debut short story collection about Central American identity moves from past to future worlds as it explores what we would do if we woke to find our lives were unrecognisable. It is peopled with characters from mango farmers to cyborgs and promises to take on everything from “menacing technology” to “unchecked bureaucracy”.

Not quite science fiction, this last one, but it’s the kind of thing I love, and so I wanted to mention it in case you do too. It does what it says on the tin, basically – collects quotes from four centuries’ worth of sci-fi, from Isaac Asimov’s “Better to make a good future than predict a bad one” (Prelude to Foundation, 1988) to Frank Herbert’s “Hope clouds observation.” (Dune, 1965).