The best new sci-fi this month from George R. R. Martin to a Three-Body Problem graphic novel

December is usually a quiet month in publishing, and that’s true this year, with fewer new books than usual to tempt us sci-fi nerds. However, there are some novels that seem like fun: Makana Yamamoto’s debut, described by her publisher as a “love letter” to Hawai’i, for example. And less funny but just as tempting is the new collection of stories by Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Jane Rogers, all climate fiction that (says her publisher) “raise questions about personal responsibility that cannot be easily answered.” It might even put out big, expensive adaptations of Cixin Liu’s 10-volume graphic novel. The three-body problem on my Christmas wish list – looks absolutely epic.

Presented by his publisher Ocean’s 8 fulfills Blade Runner – and what’s not to love there? – this follows Edie, recently paroled from a frozen prison planet, who is met by Angel, the woman who betrayed her eight years ago. Angel offers Edie one last job: thwart the last time they failed to bring down a billion “tech gods”. This one has a lot of hype from the publishers behind it, and it looks like a lot of fun. Hammajang, by the way, is a loan from Hawaiian Pidgin, we are told, and means “in a disordered or chaotic state”; confused”.

This is the last anthology Wild Cards universe in which an alien virus unleashed on the world has given 1 percent of those exposed to it superpowers. Edited by Martin and featuring contributions from several authors, this is the third volume Wild Cards‘s “British Arc”, after Knaves Over Queens and The Three Kings. It takes place on the fictional island of Keun, connected only to the Cornish peninsula by an ancient tidal causeway.

Jane Rogers won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the UK’s highest science fiction award, in 2012. The Will of Jessie Lamb. (I really liked this one: it’s set in a world where every pregnant woman has been affected by a deadly virus, and it’s narrated by a teenager.) This new book is a collection of climate fiction stories spread out of the covid-19 pandemic. until the end of the 22nd^n.d century, and from the Australian outback, where bushfires break out, to Oxfordshire, where an old man is chained to an old beech tree about to be felled. I especially love the sound of it being set in space in the far future, when the Earth is barren but beginning to heal.

This space opera installment is a sequel to the brilliantly titled August Kitko and Space Mechas. It features, of course, a “rag-tag band of misfits” fighting “an army of giant mechas” intent on destroying humanity. Our protagonists are ultra-glam popstar Ardent Violet and her new boyfriend August Kitko. The book also promises “a mysterious omnipotent AI” and an alien coalition.

Spanning 10 volumes, this epic adaptation of Cixin Liu’s graphic novel is one for completists, but I suspect that might have some. The New Scientist the readers Nominated for a 2024 Hugo Award for Best Graphic or Comic Story, it has a few extras, including, I’m told, a transcript of an interview with the character Ye Wenjie by the Beijing PSB Criminal Investigation Detachment. As Liu himself said, “I am now convinced that the graphic novel offers the widest possible canvas for science fiction.” Maybe one to put on your Christmas list?

After romance (romantic + fantasy), sci-fi romance seems to be a growing genre these days, and I’m all for it. It follows Ada, who happens to be given an undercover mission by a group of rebels at a charity gala, where she finds Rian, hoping to stop him. Described by her publisher as for fans of Becky Chambers and Martha Wells: That’s Me, Then.

late on the 21st^St In the 20th century, the United States is ravaged by global warming and a mother and daughter escape from an anti-climate change program, The Inside Project, where they have been treated as lab rats for the past 22 years. They go on the run and encounter a woman from their mother’s past as the weather continues to worsen and what’s left of humanity struggles to survive.

Zahn’s Icarus is the latest in the series, set in a universe where an alien race called the Icari disappeared 10,000 years ago, leaving behind portals that can transport people across the stars. In this outing, Gregory Roarke and his partner Selene are tasked with finding these alien artifacts, but find themselves on a distant planet facing a group of aliens called the Ammei, who have their own plans for portals.