OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: A Trade of Blood is another superb fantasy murder mystery in an eerie, creepy world. This particular installment takes a look at how the meat gets made - and I mean that literally. Ana and Din are sent to a part of the empire renowned for its cattle pastures and butchery floors, as well as for its two feuding noble families who have been squabbling over the land for centuries. As with the previous two books, everything is just a little bit off in a way that is unsettling to the reader. This is an empire willing to alchemically enhance and manipulate anything and anyone for its survival - although in this adventure, we start taking a real peek behind the curtain at the cost of that survival.
This was also a particularly personal adventure for Din, in more ways than one. His own alchemical enhancements that give him an eidetic memory also cost him life span and fertility. And while he may not care so much about losing the ability to procreate, Din starts to get some reminders that his life will likely be much shorter than those around him. It's a realization that makes him grapple with both his past and future.
The mystery itself is a good one - why would a man who confessed to a murder have no recollection of how or why he did it? The answer is absolutely chilling and disquieting. I will say that keeping track of the cast of characters involved in the two feuding houses did become a little bit daunting at times, simply because there were so many names and connections between everyone, but it's a minor issue.
In short, A Trade of Blood has confirmed what I've suspected: if Bennett releases one of these books every year for the foreseeable future, I will be a very happy reader indeed.
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This SF anthology features the talents of ten brilliant writers (Lu Hang, Zhou Dedong, Ling Chen , Dan Shi , He Zun, He Xi, Anna Wu, Tang Fei, Zhao Haihong , Yimei Tangguo & Chen Qiufan).
How might this event – which
triggered a global health crisis – reach across a century of
technological progress, social engineering, and medical advances, to shape the
country and its people? Will the lessons of the pandemic have been learned?
Will the people’s trust in science have been repaired?
Covering
a range of contexts, from transhumanist performance art to lawless
dystopia, these stories use the prism of the future to inspect both
intergenerational repercussions from the 2019 outbreak and imagined future
pandemic scenarios. Along the way, we encounter concrete-devouring super-fungi,
deep-space outbreaks, slum clearances dressed up as ‘quarantine measures’, and
science-defying rumours spreading faster than any virus. However, at the heart
of each story, lies the unique Chinese temperament, acknowledging the loss that
the entire country experienced, and a resilience formed over generations of
disasters and conflict.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael R. Fletcher lives in the endless suburban sprawl north of Toronto. He dreams of trees and seeing the stars at night and being a ninja. He is an unrepentant whiskey-swilling reprobate of the tallest order and thinks grilled cheese sandwiches are a food group.
http://michaelrfletcher.com/
Publisher: Michael R. Fletcher (August 3, 2026) Page count: 358 pages Formats: ab, eb, pp
Read our review of Book 1, A Forbidden Alchemy
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: A Forsaken Prophecy is an excellent sequel full of all the angst and complicated emotions you could want from our poor tortured protagonists. Picking up from the tumultuous events from the end of book one, it does a great job of putting our characters between a rock and a hard place. Each must decide what compromises they’re willing to make: is it more important to make short term compromises in order to survive, or should you refuse to bend even a little in order to protect a fledgling rebellion? What’s more important, your rebellion or those you love? Which one are you willing to sacrifice in order to protect the other? There are plenty of terrible tough decisions to be made, and I was thoroughly engrossed to see how our characters navigated the waters they were in.
Nina in particular really bears the weight of these decisions and as a result, we are treated to some impressive bouts of feminine rage throughout the book as she finally decides she has had ENOUGH. But while Nina does get some fantastic moments to call people out, I did feel like she was put a little bit to the side in this book. That’s in part because there are more POVs in this sequel than there were in book one (which only featured Nina and Patrick). With more POVs, that means there's less time to spend with each POV, and in this case, it felt like Nina got the short end of the stick (somewhat ironic given there were those who were insisting that no one gets to decide her fate but her). Some POVs offered some interesting insights, but some POVs belonged to characters I wanted to drop kick into the sun (sorry not sorry Theo). I preferred it when it was just a two POV book, but I also understand the need to broaden the POVs as the scope of the series broadens.
As for the romance, it continues its delicious slow burn. Without going into spoilers from book one, Nina and Patrick have some things to work through and feelings to grapple with. I enjoyed the turmoil, especially as it didn’t feel like unnecessary roadblocks, but real people working through real emotions brought on by their circumstances.
The plot this time goes into the overarching lore of the world as our characters unpack a hidden prophecy and try to understand its implications. I enjoyed the race against time and continuing to see how other communities are faring in the world, especially as strikes and rebellion pit the upper classes against the working class and regular everyday folks struggle to hold onto ideals when they can’t feed their families.
All in all, A Forsaken Prophecy is an engrossing sequel that continues to put our heroes through the wringer, forcing them to make impossible choices. It’s moody and atmospheric and will throw you right back into all the angst and drama you loved from book one. Cannot wait to see how everything concludes in the finale!
Exclusive Cover Reveal: Children Of Sun And Moon (Children of the Worldsea #1) by Juhi & Matt Larkin
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mike Carey is the acclaimed writer of Lucifer and Hellblazer (now filmed as Constantine). He has recently completed a comics adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, and is the current writer on Marvel's X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four. He has also written the screenplay for a movie, Frost Flowers, which is soon to be produced by Hadaly Films and Bluestar Pictures.
Also writes as Mike Carey
Publisher: Orbit (June 23, 2026) Page count: 400 Formats: all
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The Infinite State is a dystopian sci-fi that's ironically undercut by succeeding a little too well at crafting a seemingly inescapable authoritarian police state. I admit, I had to sit with The Infinite State for a bit before I wrote this review. I was caught up in trying to figure out why the bleakness of the author's previous series, Empire of the Wolf, worked for me, while the bleakness of The Infinite State left me underwhelmed. But it has finally clicked. Bear with me for a moment.
In Empire of the Wolf, you are told from page one that the empire in this saga is doomed to fall. We know everything is going to fall apart, but the drama is in HOW it falls apart. More importantly, even though the empire is doomed, the characters we follow still have agency. They are making choices and they are still the ultimate drivers of the narrative. And even in ultimate failure, there are some successes to be found along the way.
In The Infinite State, we arrive at the very worst of times. The empire is a totalitarian surveillance state, where no one is safe from political murder. There should be excitement in watching characters break out of this nightmare. The problem is that success doesn't actually seem like a viable path for our characters. The government knows all their moves before they make them. Resistance is futile. A lot of the story is things happening to them, rather than as a result of their actions. Whatever victories our heroes achieve is because they are caught up in political machinations way above their head, not because they have some cunning plan of their own.
I don't hate the characters outright. Cyprian, an Inspecktor in the state police and by far my favorite of the three POVs, is a competent but disillusioned man who has realized the futility of trying to achieve any real justice. His job is to keep his head down and to make political assassinations disappear. His junior office, starry-eyed with patriotism, can't understand how things work and suffers for it. Cyprian is out here doing his best to survive because he's been around long enough to actually know how to survive. But surviving is all he really does.
Katherine, on the other hand, is a character that stumbles into success. Now there is plenty to be said about the fact that this woman even has the idea to begin with to start a new planet and government. She's the will that keeps the progress of this whole project moving forward. But really, that's all that she contributes: a will to succeed. She's not particularly smart or politically savvy, but somehow keeps moving the ball forward.
And lastly there's Julian, whose poor unfortunate arc is to be the guy who comes from a privileged life in a neighboring regime of planets; when he comes to spend his racing career in Pater Aeternus, he doesn't imagine that life could be THAT bad here. He quickly realizes his mistake when he violates the "morality" clause of his racing contract.
Interesting characters, for sure. But watching them trapped in an authoritarian state, knowing that none of them would break free without circumstances outside their control aligning, that was a level of bleakness I found a bit suffocating. I want to know our heroes can make things happen on their own. Sure, sometimes it takes a bit of luck, but there's got to be that glimmer of hope. And this story was decidedly without hope because for the most part, our characters are just passive prisoners in a nightmare.
Despite all my critiques, I will be continuing with the series. It's still an interesting premise, even if the execution was too bleak for my taste. There's also the fact that, as the first book of the series, our characters are just getting started. They're already more proactive in the final pages; there's every chance that will only grow with time. But if you're looking for an escape from our present world society, this may not be the one for you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: RJ Barker is a critically acclaimed and award-winning author of fantasy fiction. He won the 2020 British Fantasy Society (BFS) Robert Holdstock award for Best Novel for his fourth novel, The Bone Ships.
His debut trilogy The Wounded Kingdom (Age of Assassins, Blood of Assassins and King of Assassins) was nominated for the David Gemmel Award, the Kitschie Golden Tentacle, The Compton Crook and the BFS Best Debut and Best Novel awards. It was called ‘Thoroughly entertaining and constantly impressive’ by the Fantasy Hive, ‘One of the best fantasy series you will ever read’ by the BFS, and ‘A singular sensational new voice in epic fantasy’ by Kings of the Wyld author Nicholas Eames.
He followed this with the award-winning Tide Child Trilogy: The Bone Ships, Call of the Bone Ships and The Bone Ship's Wake. These books have been hailed as “One of the most interesting and original fantasy worlds I’ve seen in years” by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and “Brilliant” by Robin Hobb, alongside rave reviews in Starburst, SFX, and a starred review in Booklist: ‘A unique and memorable world – harsh and brutal and full of fully realized, powerful female characters. Barker has managed to craft a story inspired by Moby Dick, Game of Thrones, and pirate lore, and readers will be drawn in and fascinated.’
RJ lives in Leeds with his wife, son and a collection of questionable taxidermy, odd art, scary music and more books than they have room for. He grew up reading whatever he could get his hands on, and has always been 'that one with the book in his pocket'. Having played in rock bands before deciding he was a rubbish musician, RJ returned to his first love, fiction.
Website: www.rjbarker.co.uk
Twitter: @dedbutdrmng
Publisher: Tor Books (May 19, 2026) Page count: 432 Formats: audio, ebook, pp
It is by the hands of loresmen that heroes and villains are risen from history’s foundations, today’s stories that became yesterday’s histories that became the legends of yore. And from those legends emerge truths…of a sort. The truths that best serve a story when the facts have been lost to the decay of time.
The war that spelled the end of the Second Age was long mired in such murky truths, in these legends accepted as history, these fables and songs that served as the only surviving memory of those fateful days. Until now. Until these Forahm Papers, and whatever they may contain within.
For it is not the singular hero and villain who weave a story’s tapestry, but the many hands who break from the foundations and hold the truth aloft.
The ministry official who must investigate a sudden disappearance. The reluctant hero who saved a queen and doomed an entire people in the process. The exile whose very soul threatens the destruction of all around her. The son of a traitor who will stop at nothing to see honor restored to his name. The untested heiress faced with a long-dormant storm coming to rage over her land once more.
And the man whose name endured within the darker threads of history, cursed in the shadows as an assassin of kings, an arbiter of doom, a devil taken flesh. For if there is a truth hidden amongst these papers, it must begin here. It must begin with him: the Ashen Viper.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The Eye of Leviathan is a juxtaposition of whimsy and harsh reality that makes for a brutal examination of religious conversion and colonialism. Many readers will come to this having devoured the author duo's previous series, and I want to set the tone for what you're getting. The Rook & Rose trilogy (one of my all time favorites) is what I would call a "romantic adventure" fantasy. There's lavish balls, masked vigilantes, duels, con artists, crime lords with hearts of gold, all the trappings of a good old time. There's of course danger in it, but it's all a dashing affair.
The Eye of Leviathan, however, is darker in tone. It's a historical fantasy, grounded in an alternate version of our world where the Spanish have discovered a doorway to a faerie realm they call the Sea Beyond. In this history, Spain has given up its claim to the New World (the Americas) in favor of conquering this magical world instead.
We see all this from two POVs: Estevan, a changeling masquerading as a human to infiltrate the Spanish colonization efforts to disrupt them from the inside, and the Hungry Girl, the mortal child Estevan replaced as a baby who has grown up in faerie and never seen another human until Spanish Conquistadors arrive. Estevan's POV is the more challenging of the two to get acclimated with, as we watch him assume the form of a child and grow over several years. It serves as an introduction to the world, but also required me to brush the cobwebs off my old history education as I tried to place the many names and places that get rattled off at the beginning of the story to establish this alternate history of events. I admit the early chapters were a little rough going because of that, as I struggled to remember what was factual in our world, and what changes had been made for this alternate history.
The Hungry Girl, meanwhile, was an easier character to get to know. Having grown up in wondrous faerie, she knows the ways in which the realm operates. But having never met another human, she is incredibly naive as to how they operate. When she meets the Spanish, she accepts everything they tell her must be true, because these are the only humans she's met and surely they must know the proper way of the world. But as she becomes complicit in their crimes, she starts to question and grow and start to unpack what her people are truly up to.
And that truly is the harshest part of the book, seeing all the beauty and wonder slowly be enslaved and corrupted. Through it all, the Hungry Girl has to wrestle with the hypocrisies and confused messaging of her people, as they tell her the proper way to be, the proper people to hate, the proper religion to follow. I do wish the Hungry Girl had questioned things a little more instead of taking what humans say at face value. After all, she's spent her whole life amongst fae creatures who know how to twist their words to hide their motivations.
The story cuts back and forth between alternating timelines that slowly converge, as Estevan goes through adulthood and embarks upon his present day career. This was where the story started to pick up for me, as the journeys of these two people drew together. Up to that point, I struggled a bit sometimes with feeling a real drive to Estevan's story, as he pursues his career without a real end goal in sight. This book was definitely on the slower side at times, and while I appreciated the magical metaphors, I didn't fully see where the climax was going.
The Eye of Leviathan excels as a condemnation of colonialism while struggling a bit with the overall story. The ending didn't quite catapult me to the sequel; it simply closes one chapter with the promise of a part two. And it felt slower than the ROOK & ROSE books; while those books took me a while to get to, I was so enraptured with the world and the characters I didn't care. This just felt slow overall, especially with some extremely lengthy chapters. It is still a good book overall, but it didn't hit the heights I was hoping of the authors' previous work.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Sunsplitter is the spicy action-packed follow-up to Voidwalker and it manages to deftly balance romance, action, and character in one fantastic finale. What I especially appreciated about this sequel was that it managed to find conflict between the couple of Fi and Antal (human and monstrous daeyari respectively) that felt natural and earned and not forced to create drama. Antal may have found the love of his life in Fi, but he's grappling with the fact that he has been isolated from his own people for decades, and he may have to continue that isolation to protect the human-friendly community he and Fi are building. There's a real exploration of how being cut off from your own culture is a devastating loss of connection - even if you have mixed feelings about the individual people in that culture. Fi in return struggles to figure out if she's "enough" for Antal - if she can fill the void that lost connection creates.
This conflict felt like a natural rough patch in a relationship, especially one where family members don't approve of the match. And eventually, they do call each other out and work through their issues, becoming even stronger for it. If I had one area where I had a complaint, it's that I wish Antal had had a little more initiative towards the end of the book, instead of letting old patterns continue to rule.
Aside from the romance, there's an engaging action-packed plot with a splash of politics as a dangerous foe threatens not just Antal's territory, but daeyari rule everywhere. I was fully invested in this new enemy, though I could have stood to learn a little more about them than we did. Either way, this new threat gives us the excuse to peek behind the curtain at the council that rules how daeyari live and govern on their home turf, and I welcomed the addition of new characters from Antal's past. They provide their own complications as Antal tries to figure out who - if any - of his former friends and relatives he can trust.
I'll also just give a quick mention to the fact that this is a spicier book than Voidwalker. While there was definitely spice in the first book, the author here leans full-tilt into the "monster smut" aspect of the book. There is plenty of non-spice plot in here too, but if those kinds of scenes aren't your cup of tea, you might be better off with another book.
Sunsplitter was a fantastic sequel to a book I really enjoyed. Voidwalker was one of my favorite reads of 2025 and I have a feeling Sunsplitter is going to end the year with the same glowing honor.
Sergei relives his mother’s tragic death in nightmares every night… but he’s the only one who believes she’s still alive.
Sergei lives an ordinary 1980’s American life… but every
night he travels back to the frozen Russian lake where his mother made the
ultimate sacrifice for her children’s freedom. So when a mysterious woman tells
him his mother is alive, he jumps at the chance to find her.
The problem? The only clue to her whereabouts is an otherworldly book written in a language no one has ever seen before.
Lured into a risky game of cloak and dagger with a shadowy government cabal that wants his mother as badly as he does, Sergei will risk everything to find the truth. But when his nightmares start bleeding into reality, his double life might tear his family completely apart before he has a chance to bring them back together.
The clock is ticking. With one last chance to save his
mother from the ruthless forces plotting to use her, can Sergei make it in time...
Or will everyone he loves suffer the consequences?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adrian M. Gibson is an award-winning Canadian SFF author, podcaster, book designer, and tattoo artist. He is the creator of the SFF Addicts podcast, which he co-hosts with fellow authors M.J. Kuhn and Greta Kelly. The three host in-depth interviews with an array of science fiction and fantasy authors, as well as writing masterclasses. And, as of May 2026, he is the Publishing Project Manager for Grimdark Magazine, heading up their line of fantasy and sci-fi novellas. He lives in Quito, Ecuador with his family.
For the latest updates, follow Adrian on social media @adrianmgibson. You can also stream/watch new episodes of SFF Addicts every Tuesday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and more.
Publisher: The Kinoko Book Co. (June 16, 2026) Page count: 291 pages Formats: ebook, pp, hc
Book review: Sister Svangerd and the Devil You Know by K.J. Parker (The Loyal Opposition #2)
SPFBO XI Finalists - our approach
As avid fantasy readers, we love discovering new voices and hidden gems. SPFBO contest gives us such a possibility, and we're thrilled to participate in it for the tenth time.
The first stage of the contest has just ended, and ten blogs have picked their champions. We're excited to read all of them and would love to encourage you to do the same.
Here's GR LIST with all finalists. We encourage you to add them all to your Want to Read shelf.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: N. K. Jemisin is a Brooklyn author who won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for The Fifth Season, which was also a New York Times Notable Book of 2015. She previously won the Locus Award for her first novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and her short fiction and novels have been nominated multiple times for Hugo, World Fantasy, and Nebula awards, and shortlisted for the Crawford and the James Tiptree, Jr. awards. She is a science fiction and fantasy reviewer for the New York Times, and you can find her online at nkjemisin.com.
Publisher: Orbit Page count: 368 Formats: audiobook, ebook, paperback
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Paige Lewis is an American poet and the author of the collection Space Struck, which was named one of the Best Books of 2019 by Entropy and Book Riot. Lewis's debut novel, Canon, was published by Viking Press / Penguin in May 2026.
Publisher: Viking (May 19, 2026) Page count: 480 Formats: audiobook, ebook, HC
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Hugo and Locus Award winning author Ray Nayler was born in Quebec and raised in California. He lived and worked abroad for two decades in Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and in Vietnam.
Ray most recently served as international advisor to the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and as visiting scholar at the George Washington University's Institute for International Science and Technology Policy.
Ray lives in Washington, DC with his wife Anna, their daughter Lydia, and two rescued cats.
Publisher: MCD (May 19, 2026) Page count: 384 pages Formats: audiobook, ebook, paperback
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Craig Schaefer writes about witches, outlaws, and outsiders. Whether they’re weaving tales of an occult-shrouded New York in Ghosts of Gotham, the dimension-hopping adventures of Castaways, or the gritty streets of a noir future in the Neon Meridian series, their protagonists are damaged survivors searching for answers, redemption, or maybe just that one big score.
Publisher: Aethon Books (May 19, 2026) Page count: 358 pages Formats: audiobook, ebook, paperback Genre: Urban Science Fantasy
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Publisher: St. Elmo (July 14, 2024) Length: 385 pages Formats: ebook
Book links: Amazon, Goodreads
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
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OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: When Isako's boss unexpectedly retires, she knows she's at the end of her career. Afterall, what is a longkniveswoman without a contract? But an expected offer comes in from a rival executive for one last job - one that will allow her to retire on her own terms. The contract: successfully find dirt on one of the most powerful executives at the Company and stop him from joining the Board of Directors. But as soon as Isako starts poking around, she starts finding a bigger conspiracy than she anticipated - and all roads lead back to Martim, the last person Isako ever took on as an apprentice.
The Last Contract of Isako is an atmospheric mystery set in a bleak, harsh world that offers little comfort to the reader or those who live in it. By far the highlight of this story is the world-building. The author has created a pressure cooker of a city, where everyone's value is determined by whether or not they're deemed useful to society. Every element of this world boils down to the fact that it is a resource scarce colony. If you aren't contributing to the colony's survival, then you're a drain on resources. But of course, the people who determine what is useful are the elite who will almost never have to face the consequences of the society they've created. And like the frog in the slowly boiling water, the rest of society doesn't realize it's already cooked.
I've found myself calling this a cybernoir book. There's elements of cyberpunk, with one giant corporation controlling everyone's lives, technology integrated into bodies, and a big disparity between the haves and the have nots. That melds nicely with the noir aspects, where the world is hugely weighted against you unless you have stacked the deck yourself and solving a mystery doesn't necessarily mean justice is achieved.
Enter Isako, a woman in her fifties who has been working in corporate life for decades. Her job is something of a cross between a consigliere and a bodyguard; she helps plan her boss's corporate strategy and she also defends his life. Isako understands she's a cog in a system; she has a role to play and she does it well, even if it means sometimes doing terrible things. Her life is dedicated to serving her Principal, and that means following their orders. But now, faced with the end of her career, Isako is also facing that big existential question: in the grand scheme of things, what did her work and her life mean? What legacy will she leave behind?
I understand some of the misgivings of people looking for the next GREEN BONE SAGA. I've seen a few comments that people missed having a sprawling cast of complex characters. But bear in mind this isn't a grand sweeping trilogy with 1500 pages at its disposal. This is a standalone (if still a hefty one) that is getting through a complex story. There's only time to build out a few characters with true depth. You'll get to know a few people really well, and some you'll only see the surface of, but that doesn't detract from the overall story.
As a result, the ending is a quiet gut punch. Jade Legacy may have left me a bawling mess, but The Last Contract of Isako had me just staring into middle distance, unpacking everything that happened in the last 50 pages and what that meant for the characters. It's an ending that somehow manages to be both tragic and hopeful and not at all where I thought things would end when I started the journey.
The Last Contract of Isako is not here to fill you with sunshine and it's not quite here to stomp on your heart. Instead it leads you through a world that is completely unbalanced, slowly filling you with existential dread. Surely society can't be this uneven, surely there's a way out. Surely a life will have meaning when all is said and done. But if you're looking for those reassurances, The Last Contract of Isako is not here to offer them.
Book links: Amazon, Goodreads
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cameron Johnston is a Scottish writer of fantasy and lives in the city of Glasgow in Scotland. He is a member of the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers' Circle, loves archaeology and mythology, enjoys exploring ancient sites and camping out under the stars.
Publisher: Angry Robot (April 14, 2026) Page count: 328 pages Formats: audiobook, ebook, paperback
