The best new sci-fi this month featuring a TJ Klune thriller and new Adrian Tchaikovsky

Humanoid mosquitoes, alien contact on deadly moons, implants that let you know everything your partner is thinking… the science fiction novels on offer in February feel especially interesting, and I’m looking forward to transporting myself to worlds other than these during this cold, dark time of the year. Whether you’re after classic science fiction from the likes of Gareth L. Powell and Adrian Tchaikovsky, high-concept thrillers or flooded future Earths, you’ll find it here. Enjoy!

After reading Tchaikovsky’s excellent sci-fi novel Alien Clay for the New Scientist Book Club – we’re in the middle of it right now, so please do sign up and join us; it’s free and we’ll be talking to Adrian next month! – I’m definitely in the mood for more from this brilliant writer. This latest is a tale of survival and first contact on a deadly pitch-black moon, buzzing with radio activity. When two humans are forced to make a landing on the hostile moon, they start to learn more about the strange species that lives there. Our sci-fi columnist Emily H. Wilson really enjoyed this – watch out for her review next week.

Elijah convinces Anna to go to OneMind to celebrate their 10th anniversary; this high-tech company will give them implants that will enable them to hear each other’s thoughts. But Anna may have something to hide from her partner… I love a good high-concept thriller, and this is a fun (and terrifying) idea.

Powell is the British Science Fiction Award-winning author of Stars and Bones and Embers of War, and his latest novel sounds like another great slice of hard science fiction. It follows the story of archaeologist Ursula Morrow, who becomes infected with an alien parasite. Her worries about jeopardising her career come to nothing, however, as Earth is subsequently destroyed, and no one really needs archaeologists anymore. Two years on, she’s in a refugee camp on a backwater world when she’s tasked with finding the alien artefact that infected her, in the hopes that it might help humanity to survive.

I absolutely love how wonderfully weird this novel sounds. In 2272, New York and Buenos Aires have been underwater for years, and the Patagonian archipelagos are Earth’s only habitable lands. Our protagonist is a humanoid mosquito whose horrendous appearance repulses everyone. As the world collapses around him, Dengue Boy searches for the truth about his origins – and the meaning of his life. This is translated from Spanish by Rahul Bery, and I think it sounds amazing!

I like the sound of this blend of archaeology and science fiction, in which a mountain unexpectedly arrives in the Marlborough Downs, looming over the city of Swindon. Clare Holworth is part of an archaeological investigation into its origins, in an attempt to manage the site before public pressure to get to the summit grows out of control.

This blend of sci-fi and thriller follows Nate Cartwright, lonely and jobless, as he returns to his family’s summer cabin in Oregon to start again. In the cabin, he discovers a man named Alex and a 10-year-old girl, Artemis Darth Vader, who is a lot more than she seems – and who is in danger from forces who want to control her.

I can’t promise that this is science fiction, because I haven’t read it yet, but it’s being compared to works by speculative fiction authors like Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell and Kaliane Bradley (The Ministry of Time author), and it sounds very intriguing. It centres on a woman who never ages or dies, but through the centuries and across the continents, those around her do – in terrifying and similar ways. Can she be stopped? It could be that this shades more into horror than sci-fi; I’ll report back either way.

More speculative horror here, this time compared to the films of Jordan Peele and Stranger Things – a comparison I’m very much here for. Calla is 25, and a reluctant guardian to her 16-year-old brother Jamie. All the while she’s haunted by “The Nightmare”, in which Jamie and their middle brother Dre keep dying. When Jamie’s actions spiral out of control, the siblings go on the run, finding themselves facing a threat in which their lives, and reality, hang in the balance.

This is for my fellow Octavia E. Butler fans, and you completists out there: the book looks at little-known manuscripts in Butler’s collection and at her childhood influences and writings, and explores “animals, science fiction, Black girlhood, and racial and environmental justice”, says its publisher.

I mentioned this one last month, but the hardback is actually out in February, so I’m reminding you of it as it does sound great. As I said before, it’s been tipped by our sci-fi columnist Emily H. Wilson as one to watch for, and follows sci-fi author Zelu as she decides to write a novel about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. But as she writes, the lines between what she’s writing and reality begin to blur…

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