Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
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From USA Today bestselling author T. Kingfisher, Thornhedge is the tale of a kind-hearted, toad-shaped heroine, a gentle knight, and a mission gone completely sideways.

Medusa’s Sisters by Lauren J. A. Bear
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The story follows the lives of Medusa and her sisters, Stheno and Euryale, through their various adventures and encounters with mortals and Greek Gods. As they struggle against the inherent conflict between sisterhood and individuality, myth and truth, vengeance and peace, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa’s story will keep readers hooked until the very last page

Bridge by Lauren Beukes
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A grieving daughter’s search for her mother becomes a journey across alternate realities in Bridge, a wildly entertaining, reality-bending new thriller from Lauren Beukes, author of the AppleTV+ smash hit The Shining Girls.

The Midnight Kingdom by Tara Sim
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The second book in Tara Sim’s sweeping dark fantasy series, in which the four heirs to four noble houses—each gifted with a divine power—must defy their gods in a fight for the fate of the world. 

Where Peace Is Lost by Valerie Valdes
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A brand-new space fantasy novel from master world-builder Valerie Valdes! A refugee with a secret, a dangerous foe, and a road trip that could either save a planet or start a war. 

Cassiel’s Servant by Jacqueline Carey
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Returning to the realm of Terre d’Ange which captured an entire generation of fantasy readers, New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline Carey brings us a hero’s journey for a new era.

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan
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The sequel and series conclusion to She Who Became the Sun, the accomplished, poetic debut of war and destiny, sweeping across an epic alternate China. Mulan meets The Song of Achilles.

Prophet by Sin Blaché and Helen Macdonald
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From the extraordinary minds of award-winning and New York Times–bestselling author of H Is for Hawk Helen Macdonald and first time author Sin Blaché, Prophet is their electric debut, a tantalizing adventure fusing noir, sci-fi and a slow burn queer romance―set in a universe just one perilous step from our own.

Whalefall by Daniel Kraus
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The Martian meets 127 Hours in this “powerfully humane” (Owen King, New York Times bestselling author) and scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.

The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang
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Inspired by a classic of martial arts literature, S. L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws are bandits of devastating ruthlessness, unseemly femininity, dangerous philosophies, and ungovernable gender who are ready to make history—or tear it apart.

The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord
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As first contact transforms the Earth, a group of gifted visionaries race to create a new future in this wondrous science fiction novel from the award-winning author of The Best of All Possible Worlds.

Forged by Blood by Ehigbor Okosun
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A brilliant new voice brings a brilliant new novel: debut author Ehigbor Okosun’s first book in an action-packed, poignant duology inspired by Nigerian mythology–full of magic and emotion and set in a highly atmospheric, complex world in which a young woman fights to survive a tyrannical society, having everything stripped away from her, and seeks vengeance for her mother’s murder and the spilled blood of her people.

What August fantasy and sci-fi book releases are you looking forward to? Tell us in the comments below!

The post August 2023 Fantasy & Sci-Fi Book Releases appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Hi, Lauren! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

No pressure! I’m a South African writer, now living in London, UK, with my teenage daughter and two cats. I love board games and dinner parties with friends and great tv shows and immersive theatre and bike rides along the canals and all the sharks and weird parasites. I write novels that are probably best described as high concept thrillers or crossover or weird fiction, but usually I find out what genre they are after they come out and see where they get shelved. I’m best known for The Shining Girls, a novel about a time-travelling serial killer and the survivor who turns the hunt around which is now an excellent AppleTV show with Elisabeth Moss, Jamie Bell and Wagner Moura, but the book of my heart is Zoo City, which is a phantasmagorical noir and a love letter to Johannesburg about how we live with the things we’ve done, and oh yeah, magical animals, which also won the Arthur C Clarke Award and the Kitschies Red Tentacle. I’m so excited about the new audiobook narrated by South African actor Qondiswa James who killed it. I was a journalist for a very long time and I use those skills to do on the ground-research for my novels. I’ve directed an award-winning documentary about Miss Gay Western Cape and I was the showrunner on South Africa’s first half hour animated TV show, Pax Afrika back in the day. Oh! And I write comics from time to time too, including the Vertigo original, Survivors Club with Dale Halvorsen and Ryan Kelly, and the Fables spin-off, Fairest: The Hidden Kingdom about a J-horror Rapunzel with Inaki Miranda. My novels have been translated into 24 languages, in 27 countries.

When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?

As a kid I loved fairytales and mythology and our illustrated edition of The Hobbit. I learned how to read quicker because I got so impatient waiting for my parents to read it to me at night. My mom got me into fantasy and comics (some of which were an education – looking at you, Barbarella) and my dad got me into SF. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was five years old and I found out that “author” was a job you could have, as in getting paid to make up stories all day. I didn’t realize how hard that would be in reality.

Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!

The Hobbit illustrated edition.

The Tree That Sat Down by Beverly Nichols, a lesser known cult classic kid’s book about nefarious witches who turned people into toads I think? I remember it being delightfully weird.

The Ballad of Halo Jones by Alan Moore and Ian Gibson, a British 2000AD comic about a girl and her robot dog living in urban poverty who needed to “get out”, has had a lasting impact.  I read it as a teen and re-read it once every couple of years.

Your latest novel, Bridge, is out August 8^th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

Grieving daughter discovers reality-tripping artefact.

What can readers expect?

The reviews I’ve seen have used the word “wild” a lot. It does go to some weird places, across shifting realities, although they’re all broadly compatible with ours (no Spider-Hams or sausage fingers here to shout out two of my favourite other multiverse stories). It’s the story of a young woman reeling in the wake of her mother’s death and the artefact that Jo left behind, the ‘dreamworm’ that Bridge thought was part of her mom’s delusion, only now it turns out that it really does allow you to move between realities and maybe, in one of them, her mom is still alive. She doesn’t know that some very, very dangerous people are also looking for the dreamworm and that her search is going to have devastating consequences. It’s a novel about the tangled relationship between mothers and daughters, about the family we choose and the choices we make. And it’s also about consciousness and mind-altering music, some good neuroparasitology, the impact of domestic violence, vital friendships, how we shape our own real.

Where did the inspiration for Bridge come from?

Oh man, lots of places. I’m a fan of alternate universes in general, I’m definitely from the BerenSTEIN Bears universe and would quite like to get back there please, because I suspect things might be going better? And of course, in a real way, I *have* recently switched realities, immigrating from South Africa to the UK.

I’m interested in choices, the roads untravelled, the idea of having a do-over or being able to follow a different track to a whole other kind of life – and what if you could actually do that, explore your other lives, otherselves? What if it was better over there?

The truth (in a post-truth era) is that we already live in alternate realities from each other. My experience of the world is so radically different and fundamentally incompatible with someone who is an anti-vaxxer for example, or a climate change denier, or a Trump voter or an Andrew Tate devotee or a slavery apologist or a TERF. We live in very fragile bubbles of reality that overlap and intersect. It’s about the stories we tell, which stories become dominant cultural narratives, which ones we have to fight with all our guts and heart. It’s so weird to live in a schism that is getting wider and more horrifying.

On a personal level, after a very recent ADHD diagnosis, I realized how paralysed I’ve been by choices, and the overwhelm of all those could-have-beens,  and it’s something very much reflected in Bridge who is absolutely flailing in her own life until her mother’s death forces her to make some very tough (and possibly some very bad) decisions.

Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

Dom is one of my favorite characters of all time. I love how they’re so very much themself – and that they’ve fought to get here, to be this person, especially in contrast to Bridge who is all over the place. I admire their compassion and fire and general goofiness. I also really loved writing the antagonist, who is, without any spoilers, almost kinda justified or at least you can see how this person came to this radical zeal about the dreamworm, although her methods are indefensible.

What helps you stay motivated when it comes to writing?

A meaningful deadline, knowing that people are counting on me to deliver a book, getting over my inner critic, working in a shared studio space with illustrators and animators and designers at the desk right next to my best friend, who is also a writer, Sam Beckbessinger. And medication plus excellent therapy. Turns out I don’t need to drink eight cups of coffee a day when I have proper medicine to help my weird squirrel brain not spend all its time doing donuts in the parking lot on the motorcycle of doubt.

What’s next for you?

A new novel is pupating (sorry, I may have spent too much time researching parasites) and I have an original TV show in development with my best friends, Sam Beckbessinger and Dale Halvorsen, which we’re hoping to get cracking on as soon as the WGA Strike resolves and networks agree to pay creators fairly.

Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?

My co-conspirators Dale Halvorsen and Sam Beckbessinger have a brilliant 90s riot-grrrls supernatural thriller about the horror of adolescence and the power of friendship out, called Girls of Little Hope.

I’m loving the Youtube DIY horror, The Handyman Method by Andrew F Sullivan and Nick Cutter which is so imaginatively disturbing with imagery that will climb into your head and make a poisonous home there like black mold.

I’ve just discovered Sarah Pinsker (after multiple Hugo and other major award wins) and her short stories are a strange delight, very much in the vein of Kelly Link and Karen O Russell.

The post Q&A: Lauren Beukes, Author of ‘Bridge’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Peace Talks by Jim Butcher
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Harry Dresden is back and ready for action, in the new entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling Dresden Files series. When the Supernatural nations of the world meet up to negotiate an end to ongoing hostilities, Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, joins the White Council’s security team to make sure the talks stay civil. But can he succeed, when dark political manipulations threaten the very existence of Chicago–and all he holds dear?

The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty
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The final chapter in the bestselling, critically acclaimed Daevabad Trilogy, in which a con-woman and an idealistic djinn prince join forces to save a magical kingdom from a devastating civil war.

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks
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The #1 bestselling author of World War Z takes on the Bigfoot legend with a tale that blurs the lines between human and beast–and asks what we are capable of in the face of the unimaginable.

Afterland by Lauren Beukes
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Children of Men meets The Handmaid’s Tale in this “bowstring-taut, visceral, and incredibly timely” thriller about how far a mother will go to protect her son from a hostile world transformed by the absence of men.

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
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A young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society discovers dark powers within herself in this stunning, feminist fantasy debut.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
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This epic novel follows Kira Navárez, who, during a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, finds an alien relic that thrusts her into the wonders and the nightmares of first contact. Epic space battles for the fate of humanity take her to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and, in the process, transform not only her, but the entire course of history.

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
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Harrow the Ninth, the sequel to the sensational, USA today best-selling novel Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor’s haunted space station.

Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis
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The alternate history first contact adventure Axiom’s End is an extraordinary debut from Hugo finalist and video essayist Lindsay Ellis.

Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh
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From the author of the Man Booker Prize longlisted novel The Water Cure comes another mesmerizing, refracted vision of our society In a world where women can’t have it all, don’t underestimate the relief of a decision being taken away from you.

The Mother Code by Carole Stivers
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In a future that could be our own, The Mother Code explores what truly makes us human–and the tenuous nature of the boundaries between us and the machines we create.

Will you be picking up any of these books? Tell us in the comments below!

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