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All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in April 2025
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All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in April 2025
Exotic locales abound in April’s new SF novels: Wakanda, the Klingon Empire, and… the Huntington Library in near-future Los Angeles County?
By Reactor
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Published on April 9, 2025
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Here’s the full list of science fiction titles heading your way in April!
Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change.
April 1
The Ephemera Collector — Stacy Nathaniel Jackson (Liveright)The year is 2035, and Los Angeles County is awash in a tangelo haze of wildfire smoke. Xandria Anastasia Brown spends her days deep in the archives of the Huntington Library as the curator of African American Ephemera and associate curator of American Historical Manuscripts, supported by an array of AI personal assistants and health bots. Descended from a family of obsessive collectors who took part in the Great Migration, Xandria grew up immersed in African American ephemera and realia: boots worn by Negro Troopers during the Civil War, Black ATA tennis rackets, bandanas worn by the Crips… Although Xandria’s work may preserve collective memory, she is losing a grasp on her own. Evren, her new health bot, won’t stop reminding her that her symptoms of long COVID are worsening; not to mention that severe asthma, chronic fatigue, grief, and worrying lapses in reality keep disrupting progress on a new Octavia E. Butler exhibition, cataloging the new Diwata Collection, and organizing the Huntington against a stealth corporate takeover. Then, one morning a colleague Xandria can’t place calls to wish her a happy birthday—and the library goes into an emergency lockdown. Sequestered in the archive with only her adaptive technology and flickering intuition, Xandria fears that her life’s work is in danger—the Diwata Collection, a radical blueprint for humanity’s survival. Up against a faceless enemy and unsure of who her human or AI allies truly are, she must make a choice.
Diviner’s Bow (Liaden #27) — Sharon Lee, Steve Miller (Baen)The Oracle has Seen the end of Civilization, and the end of the Haosa, too. Reactions to this are—mixed. On the one hand, foresight is a notoriously erratic Gift. On the other, can Civilization—or the Haosa—afford to assume that the prophecy is an error? And if the Oracle has Seen truly—is it possible to alter the future? While well-meaning people struggle to implement change that might, at least, mitigate a disaster, others are looking toward the profit they can make from the end of the world. In the meantime, the Tree-and-Dragon Trade Team has concluded its whole port inventory, and is about to propose Colemeno as a trade-hub and anchor to a brand-new route. Padi yos’Galan is preparing to step into new roles, personally, and in trade. And the lives of two small children may be the thread that binds the future—or unravels it.
Where the Axe Is Buried — Ray Nayler (MCD)In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who has downloaded his mind to a succession of new bodies to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, on the fringes of a Western Europe that has renounced human governance in favor of ostensibly more efficient, objective, and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an experimental artificial mind is malfunctioning, threatening to set off a chain of events that may spell the end of the Western world. As the Federation and the West both start to crumble, Lilia, the brilliant scientist whose invention may be central to bringing down the seemingly immortal President, goes on the run, trying to break out from a near-impenetrable web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with a worldwide group of others fighting against the global status quo: Palmer, the man Lilia left behind in London, desperate to solve the mystery of her disappearance; Zoya, a veteran activist imprisoned in the taiga, whose book has inspired a revolutionary movement; Nikolai, the President’s personal physician, who has been forced into more and more harrowing decisions as he navigates the Federation’s palace politics; and Nurlan, the hapless parliamentary staffer whose attempt to save his Republic goes terribly awry. And then there is Krotov, head of the Federation’s security services, whose plots, agents, and assassins are everywhere.
The Icarus Coda — Timothy Zahn (Baen)For years Gregory Roarke and his Kadolian partner Selene have worked for the ultra-secret Icarus Group, hunting for the mysterious Icari teleportation portals so valued by the Commonwealth. But their job has now come to a wrenching end. The two of them are fugitives, sought by the Commonwealth, the rival Patth, and the remnant of the ancient Ammei who once controlled the portals and who hunger for a return to those days of glory. All three groups want Selene and her unique ability to understand and deal with Icari technology. Or is it unique? In the shadow of an Ammei stronghold they stumble across an unfamiliar and badly confused alien named Bubloo who has the same ultrasensitive sense of smell as Selene and her fellow Kadolians. If the Ammei get hold of him, can they achieve their goal of domination without Selene? Roarke doesn’t know. But he doesn’t dare take that chance. Things are looking grim, with multiple puzzles and questions intertwined around Bubloo and the portals, and the future of the Spiral hanging in the balance. And then, the Patth assassination squad arrives
April 8
The Price of Everything — Jon McGoran (Solaris)When Armand Pierce first became a courier ten years ago, he had an attaché case connected to a titanium cuff grafted into the bones of his wrist, and took an oath: the delivery is everything. He can run, fight—kill, if he needs to—but the package gets where it’s going. It’s the Guild’s guarantee, and since the internet went down in the Cyber Wars, all business, legitimate or otherwise, depends on it. Otherwise, he dies. So Pierce knows he’s in deep trouble when he arrives at his latest destination to find his payload missing, his case mysteriously empty. Something strange is going on: something that’s already cost three couriers their lives, and threatens to upend the global order. And Pierce had better get to the bottom of it, before the Guild, catches up to him.
Last Chance to Save the World (Chaotic Orbits #3) — Beth Revis (DAW)After a few weeks trapped on board a spaceship with Ada (and, oh look, there’s only one bed), Rian has to admit that maybe Ada’s rebels have a point. The nanobots poised to be unleashed on Earth are infected with malware that will ultimately leave the residents of Earth in a worse position than they’re in now. But is it too late? Ada and Rian arrive on Earth with little time to spare. Together, they have to break into a high-security facility and infect the nanobots with a counter-virus before they’re released in order to give Earth a fighting chance. And if Ada happens to notice some great tech laying around in this high-security facility she shouldn’t have access to and then happens to steal a bunch of it when Rian’s not looking? Well, he knew who she was before he teamed up with her. And if he wants it back, he’s going to have to catch her first.
April 15
Dark Diamond — Neal Asher (Pyr)Captain Blite knows that someone, or something, is trying to kill him. But a device he possesses, known only as the dark diamond, won’t let that happen. After surviving a series of catastrophic accidents and assassination attempts, Blite realizes that whenever he dies the dark diamond reverses time to a moment before his death. He must go through the traumatic experience again and again until he escapes. Every encounter Blite survives generates a time flash which reveals potential futures. This extraordinary phenomenon attracts the attention of Polity agents and the crab-like p-Prador who wish to acquire this power for themselves. Hunted across space and time, Blite must uncover the true nature of the dark diamond before it causes his destruction.
Notes from a Regicide — Isaac Fellman (Tor Books)When your parents die, you find out who they really were. Griffon Keming’s second parents saved him from his abusive family. They taught him how to be trans, paid for his transition, and tried to love him as best they could. But Griffon’s new parents had troubles of their own—both were deeply scarred by the lives they lived before Griffon, the struggles they faced to become themselves, and the failed revolution that drove them from their homeland. When they died, they left an unfillable hole in his heart. Griffon’s best clue to his parents’ lives is in his father’s journal, written from a jail cell while he awaited execution. Stained with blood, grief, and tears, these pages struggle to contain the love story of two artists on fire. With the journal in hand, Griffon hopes to pin down his relationship to these wonderful and strange people for whom time always seemed to be running out.
April 22
Eleven Percent — Maren Uthaug (St. Martin’s)It is the New Time, a time not so different from our own except that the men are gone. All but eleven percent of them, that is, the minimum required to avoid inbreeding. But they are safely under lock and key in “spa” centers for women’s pleasure (trained by amazons to fulfill all desires) and procreation. A few women protest that the males should be treated better – more space, better food, but all agree that testosterone cannot be allowed to roam free. The old patriarchal cities are crumbling, becoming overgrown; people now live in “round communities.” But if you prefer the slum, that’s okay too. Religion has survived, sort of: women priestesses speak in tongues, inspired by snake venom, as apples are passed around to the congregation. But all social engineering has its costs… Four different lives intersect: Medea, a tiny, long-haired witch and snake whisperer; Wicca, a young priestess who excelled at the “self-pleasuring” curriculum in school and has lost her pregnant lover; Eva, a doctor working in a spa center, and Silence, who lives in an almost abandoned convent. Each will discover the cracks in this women’s paradise.
April 29
Fortress Sol — Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)When Rab was a baby, his mother made a decision which would change his life. She feared he would be sent to work in the hellish mines of Mercury, to eke out his life until he was worn out, all in the name of maintaining the defense of the Solar System. But when her desperate attempt to flee with her 2 year old failed, she took a desperate step to save him. She cut off his hand. Decades later, Rab has been spared the physical hardships he can no longer endure, and is now based on the Mask, the all-encompassing structure which hides the Solar System from alien eyes. And it is during his watch that a spaceship arrives, one which has travelled for a hundred years from a long-forgotten colony planet. If they pierce the Mask, everything humanity has created will be left open to the alien threat. But this strange ship, bearing an offshoot of the species, may bring something else with them. Hope.
One Way Witch (She Who Knows #2) — Nnedi Okorafor (DAW)As a teen, Najeeba learned to become the beast of wind, fire and dust: the kponyungo. When that took too much from her, including the life of her father, she let it all go, and for a time, she was happy—until only a few years later, when the small, normal life she’d built was violently destroyed. Now in her forties and years beyond the death of her second husband, Najeeba has just lost her beloved daughter. Onyesonwu saved the world. Najeeba knows this well, but the world does not. This is how the juju her daughter evoked works. One other person who remembers is Onyesonwu’s teacher Aro, a harsh and hard-headed sorcerer. Najeeba has decided to ask him to teach her the Mystic Points, the powerful heart of sorcery. There is something awful Najeeba needs to kill and the Mystic Points are the only way. Najeeba is truly her daughter’s mother. When Aro agrees to help, Najeeba is at last ready to forge her future. But first, she must confront her past—for certain memories cannot lie in unmarked graves.
Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda (Marvel) — Suyi Davies Okungbowa (Random House Worlds)On Earth, Wakanda is a beacon of prosperity and a bastion of freedom. But across the expanse of space, thousands of lightyears away, lies another Wakanda. One that has grown to hold five galaxies in its iron grip. One that steals the memories of those it enslaves. One that has abandoned the values of its forebearers and seeks only the glory and power of empire. Lost amongst unfamiliar stars, a man finds himself as the property of Emperor N’Jadaka. He knows not how he got there, who he is, or even his name. The only thing he does know, in his bones, is that he must fight the oppression that surrounds him. That drive for liberation leads him to the Maroons, a band of rebels determined to shatter the empire and restore the memories of the Nameless. When the man quickly proves his worth with an unparalleled skill for battle, the Maroons bestow on him a title of hope, promise, and responsibility: T’Challa. As T’Challa’s reputation among the rebels and ordinary citizens spreads, whispers of hope begin to swirl. Could this be the true T’Challa of old, the Avenger? The One Who Put the Knife Where It Belonged? When all eyes turn to him, T’Challa must decide if he will embrace a future of responsibility as their savior or pursue the mystery of his true past.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Toward the Night — James Swallow (Pocket Books)While patrolling the borders of the Klingon Empire, Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the USS Enterprise record a series of subspace echoes from a planet orbiting a volatile flare star—and when Lieutenant Spock and Commander Una Chin-Riley lead a landing party to learn more, they discover the ruins of a dead civilization and evidence of starship-grade metals… quite possibly a crash site. As they continue to investigate the strange signals, Spock and Una find shocking signs of dangerous alien life and remnants of what can only be Federation hardware. The trail soon leads Pike and Enterprise’s helmswoman Lieutenant Erica Ortegas deep into the mystery of a lost Starfleet vessel, missing in action for over ninety years—and to a terrible dilemma that will challenge the crew to question their past… and their future.
The post All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in April 2025 appeared first on Reactor.
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