Dust Storms, Dream Hotels, and Road Trips: March’s Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books

In fitting with International Women’s Day on March 8, dangerously powerful women are at the center of many of this month’s SFF and speculative books. Maithree Wijesekara’s epic fantasy debut features pacifist witches enacting revenge for their forebears; Karen Russell’s latest follows a Dust Bowl prairie witch who collects people’s memories; and the dreamers in Laila Lalami’s surveillance-tech dystopia might as well be called pre-crime witches. Plus, there’s a climate crisis convent, a Roman-inspired road trip, and a cozy murder mystery on a generation ship.

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Laila Lalami, The Dream Hotel
(Pantheon, March 4)

Even though Laila Lalami’s near-future thriller shares a similar premise with Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report—that is, the government abuses a pre-crime technology to prosecute people who are not yet guilty—there are so many disturbing, get-under-your-skin details that center it  solely in this moment and from this author. Sara Hussein is detained at LAX by the Risk Assessment Administration, which believes that she is in danger of harming her husband. The data? Dreams pulled from a sleep app meant to help her function on broken sleep thanks to her infant twins. Held at a retention center, Sara and the other dreamers (all of them women) must help feed AI models and perform other work to earn privileges like emails as well as any chance at getting out. In a time when many women are second-guessing what personal data to freely offer to apps in exchange for convenience, this is a chilling premise.

Agustina Bazterrica (translated by Sarah Moses), The Unworthy
(Scribner, March 4)

While the world outside their convent burns, the Sacred Sisterhood endures: the unworthy (like our narrator, writing in her own blood) aspire to reach the ranks of the Enlightened, no matter how much they must torture and mutilate themselves and one another to do so. Agustina Bazterrica’s climate crisis horror tale explores ideological extremes in times of catastrophe, and how seductive it is to turn self-destructive… until a stranger from the outside dares the narrator to question what constitutes worthiness.

Grace Curtis, Idolfire
(DAW, March 11)

Sapphic science fantasy road trip? In Grace Curtis’ (Floating Hotel) latest, as two strangers set out from opposite ends of the world for Nivela, a mythical city inspired by ancient Rome—a once-grand empire that, like its predecessor, has fallen. But Aleya Ana-Ulai and Kirby of Wall’s End each believe that some of Nivela’s gods-given magic still exists and that it can redeem their respective dreams despite their vastly different stations. Curtis calls this book “mad, ambitious, deeply nerdy, deeply gay”—ready to hitch a ride.

Karen Russell, The Antidote
(Knopf, March 11)

In 1935, a dust storm would blot out the sky in what came to be known as Black Sunday. Karen Russell’s second novel explores this historical event through the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, and its supernatural inhabitants. Central is the Prairie Witch, who has long absorbed others’ memories—until the dust storm wipes them away, leaving both her and her customers unexpectedly bereft. In comes Cleo Allfrey, a Black government photographer meant to document the event but whose camera winds up revealing the past. Russell uses these devices to examine not just what gets swept away, but also what gets uncovered in its wake.

Olivia Waite, Murder by Memory
(Tordotcom Publishing, March 18)

Imagine if Jessica Fletcher’s mind were preserved in a generation ship’s Library, downloaded into a fresh new body every time there was an exciting murder case aboard the HMS Fairweather. But this time, detective Dorothy Gentleman has been deposited into a body that is decidedly not hers, and she’s facing a foe who doesn’t just kill, they delete minds entirely. Playing catchup with the Fairweather’s current generation—which includes her body’s ex-girlfriend with whom she has some alluring unfinished business—Dorothy must find the killer before she’s put into permanent storage in this cozy sci-fi murder mystery.

Maithree Wijesekara, The Prince Without Sorrow
(Harper Voyager, March 18)

The Obsidian Throne trilogy reimagines the violent rise to power of Emperor Ashoka, a historical ruler from ancient India’s Mauryan dynasty. In Maithree Wijesekara’s debut, young Ashoka rejects the emperor’s practice of murdering the empire’s witches, but his father’s sudden death challenges him to put those ideals into practice. Meanwhile, witch Shakti struggles between her code of pacifism and her desire for revenge—specifically, cursing the royal bloodline. Both want peace, but both will have to wield terrible power—and take on grim consequences—in order to achieve it.

Erika T. Wurth, The Haunting of Room 904
(Flatiron Books, March 18)

Erika T. Wurth occupies the familiar horror setting of a haunted hotel room in this tale of Native American grief, both personal and cultural. At Denver’s ominous Brown Palace hotel, the eponymous Room 904 is the site of strange paranormal happenings every few years: a young woman will be discovered dead in the morning, no matter what room she might have checked into the night before. Some believe it’s suicide, but paranormal investigator Olivia Becente thinks it has something to do with the ghosts she can’t stop seeing, a gift she inherited from her sister Naiche after her strange death. As Olivia delves into the secrets of Room 904, she can’t help but wonder if it has anything to do with losing Naiche.

Philip Fracassi, The Third Rule of Time Travel
(Orbit Books, March 18)

It’s telling that there’s a butterfly on the cover of horror author Philip Fracassi’s foray into sci-fi technothriller, as the butterfly effect is one of the most horrifying aspects of any time travel story. Yet scientist Beth Darlow’s invention is supposed to solely send time travelers back into their own bodies, able to observe the highs and lows of their lives but not interact nor change the timeline. But when she loses her co-inventor and husband Colson, a grieving Beth (who is also raising their daughter, Isabella) pushes herself to meet their project timeline. And every time she returns to the present, something has changed. Grief and time travel are a potent combination, and I’m intrigued by the limits that Fracassi will push this story about wanting to rewrite the past but instead contending with a future you didn’t expect.