Space Eurovision and the Countess of Monte Cristo: September’s Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books

We open this month’s list with an SFF short fiction collection, which feels fitting to welcome autumn—each story like a falling leaf. Some of the offerings feel very much in conversation with authors like Alexandre Dumas and Octavia E. Butler. Others kick off new epic fantasy series or provide the long-awaited sequel to a fun space romp. These adventures and chillers (because we are approaching spooky season) take place onboard colonizing spaceships and behind the curtain at an elite fashion house. Get ready to blast off into space, to travel into the past, and to burrow into the heart. 

Lyndsey Croal, Limelight and Other Stories
(Shortwave Publishing, September 3)

What makes the twenty-plus stories in Lyndsey Croal’s dark SFF collection really get under your skin is how keenly she imagines increasingly disturbing uses for androids, AI, and other biotech. Especially when it comes to family: The titular novelette “Limelight” demonstrates how tempting it is for grieving parents, resurrecting their dead children, to tweak them just a little bit into more perfect offspring. The cheeky “Rent-A-Baby: Content Without Commitment” sounds like a social media riff on Hemingway’s famous six-word story, the kind of callous stunt you’d expect to see play out on parenting Instagram today. “The Rift Between Us” and “Hush Little Sister” examine the liminal spaces between life and death, on- and off-planet, ghosts and the living.

Shawntelle Madison, The Fallen Fruit
(Amistad, September 3)

A spiritual descendant of Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred, Shawntelle Madison’s historical fantasy explores a peculiar curse placed upon the Bridge family: Each generation, one member is sent back in time. In 1964, history professor Cecily Bridge-Davis discovers a fraying family Bible listing her various ancestors, and embraces her power to jump back over a hundred years. But her curiosity, combined with her need to investigate a murder-kidnapping in the family’s history, causes Cecily to break one of the Bridges’ rules for survival: Never interfere with past events. From the Revolutionary War to the Great Depression, from slavery to freedom, the Bridges grapple with reliving history versus changing it.

Andrea Stewart, The Gods Below
(Orbit Books, September 3)

Andrea Stewart describes her new series The Hollow Covenant as “both deeply romantic and deeply unsettling, exploring themes of misinformation, corruption, and displacement.” The “misinformation” bit is especially intriguing to see in an epic fantasy setting, in particular this world which is undergoing a “restoration”—more of a transformation, of both the land and its human inhabitants. Mortals cling to survival only by remaining in debt to the trickster god Kluehnn, for whom they mine precious gemstones as tribute. Desperate to flee their homeland, sisters Hakara and Rasha are separated, with Rasha changed and Hakara accidentally ingesting a magic gem. As Rasha trains to be a god killer, Hakara may not recognize her sister in more ways than one.

Suzan Palumbo, Countess
(ECW Press, September 10)

A queer, Caribbean, anti-colonial riff on The Count of Monte Cristo? I am all aboard! In this retelling of Alexandre Dumas’ classic, Virika Sameroo is the unfortunate captain who works her way up through the ranks of the merchant marine of the Æcerbot Empire, only for a fellow crew member with a grudge to frame her for murder. Taking up with space pirates, locating hidden treasure, and reinventing herself as the eponymous Countess is all part of Virika’s delicious plan to take down not only her nemesis, but the entire empire that would erase her home culture.

Catherynne M. Valente, Space Oddity
(Saga Press, September 24)

The sequel to Catherynne M. Valente’s Space Opera was announced in 2019, which feels like a vastly different universe ago. This is a case where the longer-than-usual wait, coming out on the other side of the covid-19 pandemic, is much needed. The bonkers Douglas Adams-esque premise delights—Earth competes in the Metagalactic Grand Prix to justify its continued existence—while its Eurovision inspiration strikes a chord of sheer joy. Here is a way to carry the magic of the summer song contest into fall, while building on what made Space Opera fun; this time around, Earth is in the position to sponsor a new world’s entry into the Grand Prix.

Lilliam Rivera, Tiny Threads
(Del Rey, September 24)

Lilliam Rivera’s adult debut, a contemporary gothic thriller, trades in the typical house setting for a different kind of home—that is, the House of Mota, a renowned fashion designer’s studio. Rising fashion star Samara is welcomed into the luxurious, secretive world of Antonio Mota, but it’s all just too good to be true: the designer job, with its unprecedented access and attention from the rich and beautiful, also makes her the target of more sinister forces. It’s almost no surprise when Samara starts seeing and hearing things she shouldn’t be, when her new home and her new job promise new terrors instead of a fresh start. As each thread unravels, Samara must confront the dark, rotten heart of the House of Mota.