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Science Fiction for August 2026

by Henry L Lazarus

Since having a hip replacement and then falling and breaking my femur, I’ve had more time to read Fantasy and Science Fiction. I suspect it will be another month before I feel normal again. 

Robert G. Williscroft has a different approach to time travel. Outside of time is the waystation keeping things on track. One of their agents' spirit is propagated forward in time, as The Anomaly(ebook from Starman Press) inhabits four people who die heroically. An  asteroid  belt salvage operator, a submarine captain on Europa, an engineer working on shielding the first extra-solar colony from a surging Proxima solar bursts, and the captain of the first FTL  starship. Each segment is well detailed and complete in itself. I would nominate this tale for an award.
 Anna, a single mother with a thirteen-year-old daughter takes a job at the Time Travel Agency Sydney, Australia which she doesn’t believe actually works. There’s no physical time travel, but the soul is sent back either as a physical presence that can talk to people and create an alternate time line, or simply watch unseen. Jaclyn Moriarty tells a tale of Time Travel for Beginners (hard from ‎ Berkley) in a store that gets bad reviews for being too boring. Wild!

Robert Jackson Bennett has another of his Hugo winning fantasy mystery series. This time Dinios Kol and his strange boss Ana Dolabra are sent to the agricultural sector where two households, both alike in dignity are rivals. A couple have been trysting at a local pub, when the girl is sliced in pieces and the boy runs off into the haunted forest. Unfortunately there is a horrible secret in this tale of A Trade of Blood(hard from Del Rey). The mystery involves brain-infecting fungi, and exploding heads which I found a bit gruesome. I’m sure this will be nominated for an award
.M. H. Foster has a wonderful tale of The Demon Overlord's Retirement Plan(paper from Grand Central Publishing) in which Galornus Prime is tired of killing heroes,  becomes human and starts a turnip farm in a small village.  I loved  him trying to hide in plain sight while inadvertent chaos ensues. Part one of three
.Margot de Klerk tells of a Nameless Mage(paper from Mdk) , an assassin hiding from her Agency, who pretends to be Juliet Blackmore. Juliet is a ghost the mage rescued and heir to her Grandmother's Apothecary shop. Strange things are happening in the village and a local coven might be responsible. The romance is on low boil, but that might change with sequels
Beth Revis’s tales of conwoman Ada Lamarr are collected in Chaotic Orbits(paper from DAW) which tell a full tale starting with her almost dying as her salvage vessel is hurt trying to recover items from a downed freighter on a volcanic planet. The vessel that rescues her is looking for a specific item on the downed freighter. But it’s all a con, as is the attempt to steal from an ultrarich man at his own party. I loved the tale.
The Inevitable Undoing of Zahara Douglass(paper from) begins when her twin sister disappears and nobody remembers her existence.  At the heart of the tale is a small unit that encounters the supernatural in Vietnam and gets small powers that can be deadly. Zahara and her sister are the daughters of one of those soldiers. There are two  groups trying to change the world and Zahara is caught in the middle. It was nice to return to the simpler days at the end of the millennium.
Is The Whitechapel Full Moon Society(paper from Dutton) responsible for the Jack The Ripper murders. Elizabeth Delozier sets Caroline Foster on that when she comes to the society looking for her brother and finds that the society meets on the full moon with closed doors. The murderer of her brother is not the famous Jack, but just as evil.The historical details are very well done.
Trisha Blanchet sets her interesting mystery in a small town on the Merrimack River. The female music teacher’s corpse has an axe in her head and is lying in blood, not her home. People with witch blood come with minor talents. Private detective Tess Tulley can get an occasional thought or image from people’s minds which helps in her cases, and sometimes works with the local police. She’s also being snubbed by the magical community after helping to arrest her criminal uncle. Murder Like Magic(hard fromCrooked Lane Books) is a solid first book in what might be a series.
Louisa Carmody sets her urban fantasy in the apocalypse after Angels and Daemons start fighting. By treaty, humans are safe during the day, but an angel with razor wings is violating the treaty and kidnapping people. Amara is an agent of the Angel Intelligence Agency. So when her boyfriend, lover disappears she goes out into the night to find him. Working with the Archangel Nathaniel, she discovers The Shadows That Listen (paper from Orbit) and secrets about herself she didn’t know. I enjoyed it. Procyx is a star-like object that has been destroying Federation planets. Martin Palmer is trying to save the remaining few people on Arghol before Worlds End(ebook from Oliver Heber Books) and his Ferryship has been damaged by looting raiders. There’s a religious group on the planet that believe that Procyx was created by a god and that prophecy reveals a way to stop the continual destruction of settled planets. Unfortunately there;s another religious group trying to stop the prophecy. O.R. Savage tells a compelling tale that made me muse about Biblical prophecy in our real world that seems to be coming true.
Erin Ampersand has aliens force Earth's population in a monster killing game. For Meghan Moretti and her kids it's not what she expected in her suburban home with her husband away, but she grows to the challenge.  It may be Time to Play(paper from Tor) but she's going to win. I had fun but wasn't interested in continuing the series.
Gwendolyn Finora accidentally fell into a hidden room in the Great Pyramid and is given superpowers, super speed, flight, and strength. Though her graduate studies take up most of her time, she decides to help others as the only superhero Delta(ebook). Leonard Ellis has her facing mainly human reactions including the US navy. I have a soft spot for even basic superhero tales and this fits the bill.
Brian Moyer continues the tale started in Splinter(ebook) which introduced a world that people fall into. Esah has integrated the three talents he got in the first tale and he and his friends have drawn the attention of three organized groups that are looking for the reason why more people have been splintering into this part of Wyoming and also have to become Unbound(ebook) from the tether that limits the distance one can travel from their splinter point. I’m enjoying this survival with magical talents series. According to Brian’s website there are four more books already written and coming out one a month. I’m hooked.
Melissa Olthoff continues the tale of Harper Tavros and her griffin Felix as they finish their training and are thrust into the war between Tennessean and Savinia. The Savinias are getting desperate and kidnapping both Tennesseans and members of their own Griffin corps who have refused horrible things the leadership requires. Then Harper and Felix are kidnapped themselves to be Tempered By Fire (hard from Baen). I suspect this is a fun part of a trilogy that I am eagerly waiting for the conclusion.
Anthony Ryan concludes his very bloody and somehow satisfying Age of Wrath trilogy as his five characters face the centuries old evil king Vortigurn Upon the Forge of Battle (hard from Orbit). There's a solid twist, magical weapons and heroes who have to do the impossible.  Lots of fun.
The Lion and the Deathless Dark(hard) is the penultimate book in Carissa Broadbent’s Crowns of Nyaxia series in which vampire kingdoms are fighting human kingdoms with huge amounts of blood and gore. By this time the world has gone permanently dark and soulless, zombies have been added to increase the horror. Kyrene has been given a magical sword and works as a bounty hunter. When her team is murdered she kills her  goddess patron and then works with a vampire noble,Septimus, to kill other gods and somehow find a way to end the nightmare. Intense, sensual, and impossible to put down. 
Mu-young is quarantined in a small fishing village after an earthquake releases an incurable disease on the Haewon Village. Some inhabitants are warped in horrible ways. Kim Bo-Young’s Lovecraftian novelette of  A Plagued Sea (hard from Tor Nightfire) made me keep reading as Mu-young  discovers the secrets underlying the disease. 

There are more reviews at http://www.henrylazarus.com/sf.htm

Henry Lazarus is a retired Dentist and author of several books.