Natalie Zutter Recommends New SFF From Katherine Arden, Angela Mi Young Hur, Paul Tremblay and more
In just a few weeks, the summer solstice marks the longest day of the year on June 21. To get you ready, here’s this month’s excellent SFF offerings. An actress joins a Time Travel Agency that’s all luxury quantum-realm vacations and toxic office drama. A robot valet must marry off its thirtysomething charge in order to maintain its existence. A time traveler hopscotches in time ahead of his son desperately trying to drag his father back. Henry VIII’s wives are witchy assassin queens forging a destiny without him.
And if that weren’t enough for your TBR, don’t forget the many lovely titles from our 2026 preview, including Isabel J. Kim’s Sublimation, Melissa Albert’s The Children, Meg Elison’s Foundling Fathers, and more.
*
Katherine Arden, The Unicorn Hunters
(Del Rey, June 2)
In a riveting blend of history and folklore from the author of The Bear and the Nightingale, Duchess Anne of Brittany must escape a forced marriage to the king of France after the nation has already invaded her realm and murdered her father. With magical diviners watching her every move at court, Anne stages a unicorn hunt in the forest of Bróceliande as a diversion so that she can secretly wed Charles of France’s greatest rival. But the woods contain ancient magic stretching back to the time of Merlin the Enchanter and a long-lost faerie queen, so what do you want to bet this admittedly clever mortal’s plan is going to run away from her?
J.P. Lacrampe, Valet
(Saga Press, June 2)
Come for the robotic riff on Jeeves and Wooster, stay for the Vonnegut-inspired insights into how humans would incorporate artificial intelligences into not just their lives but their family structures. Helper robot or VALET Cy’s continued existence is tied to 35-year-old failson Grayson, but the tenderhearted tech heir isn’t living up to his family’s expectations in either business (his sister Charlotte is the ruthless CEO) or dating (no prospects). Then Charlotte’s decision to sell their late father’s robotics company—and with it, beings like Cy—spurs Grayson into action, stealing the flash drive with all the company secrets and towing Cy along on his attempt at a corporate takeover. Add in another VALET who needs Cy’s help to escape, plus Grayson’s well-meaning but inconvenient love interest and her dog, and it sounds like a real romp.
Joseph Eckert, The Traveler
(Tor Books, June 9)
A contemporary drama like The Time Traveler’s Wife but more about the relationship between a reluctant time-skipping father and his linear-living son? Welp, preemptively bringing out the tissues. Seriously though, this premise sounds so compelling: one random morning at 7:52 AM, Scott Treder accidentally slips through time to exactly 24 hours later, reappearing exactly in space where he left it but with his wife and son worried that he was victim to an accident or worrying memory loss. The next day, it’s a 48-hour jump; the next time, four whole days. Scott’s uncontrollable time traveling is rapidly doubling, which means that soon he’s losing weeks (and months, and years) while only aging days. As Scott struggles to understand this destabilizing paradox, his marriage disintegrates and his son Lyle begins growing up—the genius boy becoming a man determined to catch his father before he slips too far into the future.
Holly Race, Six Savage Thrones
(Orbit Books, June 16)
Fans of the Broadway musical Six will appreciate this revisionist historical fantasy in which Henry VIII’s wives are not tragic sacrifices to his ego but rather keys to his rule, and their own: The king of Elben must wed all six queens and bind them to one of the island’s various magical palaces. But following the events of Six Wild Crowns, Henry’s wives are learning that they are strongest together. Queen Seymour is on the run as a traitor, having literally sunk one palace, while Queen Howard practices spycraft right under her husband’s nose. And Queen Cleves finds herself with a dangerous longing for one of her fellow sister-wives. Sing it, ladies—history’s about to get overthrown!
Meg Charlton, Voyagers
(Harper, June 16)
When a mysterious Signal begins pulsing out near Pluto, the world goes still, leaving the skies open for what is believed to be first contact with extraterrestrials. But what about those who have already encountered visitors from outer space? Decades ago, two six-year-olds went missing for thirty-six hours, sparking a media frenzy that they had been briefly abducted by UFOs but eventually relegating them to a pop cultural punchline. Alex, a thirty-something lawyer, is inspired to track down his estranged friend Ana, an “Experiencer Advocate” for fellow abductees and an expert on this stunning new development. With the Signal transmitting every 875 minutes (or about 14 hours), Alex tracks Ana down to Palm Springs, near where they disappeared, and must confront their conflicting memories of that pivotal night in light of this potentially world-changing first contact.
Jessica M. Goldstein, Retro
(Ballantine Books, June 23)
Time travel becomes a fun-house mirror for present-day ennui and future climate-crisis catastrophizing in this sharp debut from Vulture and McSweeney’s contributor Jessica M. Goldstein. In need of health insurance, aspiring actress Ash turns her skills toward being a Time Travel Agent for Retro, a luxury travel startup catering to the rich and history-obsessed. In addition to Ash’s chaperoned jaunts into yesteryear, the novel is also about Millennial startup culture, the platonic showmance of getting obsessed with your castmates, living vicariously through influencers’ vacation reels, the nostalgic romance of cross-country travel via Amtrak…that is to say, very much my shit, and hopefully yours too.
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Green City Wars
(Tor Books, June 23)
Redwall meets Raymond Chandler in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s SF noir set in a futuristic solar city. Humans enjoy the warmth and heat of the Green City, while genetically engineered Little Helpers scurry through the shadows living out an anthropomorphized noir. Our racoon PI is Skotch, and he’s looking for a missing mouse, who knows something valuable enough that someone will pay Skotch handsomely to find it—but what happens when Skotch gets too deep into Green CIty’s metaphorical garbage? Considering Tchaikovsky’s track record of writing bioengineered war dogs and giant genius spiders, the animal cast should make for a bizarre mystery.
Angela Mi Young Hur, The Loom Tree
(Erewhon Books, June 30)
High schooler V should have plenty in common with her mother Sharon—both Korean-American, both raised by single mothers—but of course can only see the ways in which they don’t connect. But after she is drawn to the eponymous loom tree, V discovers Sharon’s diary, detailing her brief time at the magical college of Alvsdahl. There, young Sharon encountered the descendants of fairy tale figures like Bluebeard and Cinderella, watching them try to fulfill or overcome their folkloric family trees, while wondering at her own origins. Through drawings, diagrams, and memories, V will come to better understand her mother and maybe even rewrite their shared story.
Paul Tremblay, Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep
(William Morrow, June 30)
Horror writer Paul Tremblay pays homage to Philip K. Dick in this tongue-in-cheek SF thriller about the technicalities of life or death and the grotesque nightmares in-between those states. Julia Flang, burnt-out former semi-professional gamer, gets an unusual job with an irresistible payday dropped into her lap: tech company Decillion needs her to escort a man carrying the company’s nanotech across the country. Now, said man is comatose, but his muscles still work thanks to Decillion’s embeds; Julia will simply have to remote control him, like Weekend at Bernie’s with an app. But as Julia tries to keep her odd job under the radar—and as readers delve into the disturbing subconscious of the man she has nicknamed Bernie—Decillion’s ulterior motive becomes disturbingly clear.
