All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in January 2025


Here’s the full list of new science fiction titles heading your way in January!

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.

January 14

The Way Up Is Death — Dan Hanks (Angry Robot)
As a grieving teacher, a reclusive artist, and a narcissistic celebrity children’s author lead the others in trying to understand why they’ve been chosen and what the tower is, it soon becomes clear the only way out of this for everyone… is up. And so begins a race to the top, through sinking ships, haunted houses and other waking nightmares, as the group fights to hold onto its humanity, while the twisted horror of why they’re here grows ever more apparent—and death stalks their every move.

Up the Line — Robert Silverberg (Blackstone)
It’s 2059 and Jud Elliott—former law clerk and failed Harvard history student—is at loose ends. Having left his previous job out of boredom, he finally takes a position as a Time Courier showing tourists around medieval and ancient Byzantium. Maybe that unfinished Masters degree will come in handy after all. Jud is careful and he (mostly) plays by the rules, not wanting to get on the wrong side of the Time Patrol. But, on one trip up the line, he meets and falls in love with his great-great-multi-great grandmother and suddenly the rules don’t seem as important anymore…

Water Moon — Samantha Sotto Yambao (Del Rey)
On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets. Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it. Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds. But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.

We Lived on the Horizon — Erika Swyler (Atria)
The city of Bulwark is aptly named: a walled city built to protect and preserve the people who managed to survive a series of great cataclysms, Bulwark was founded on a system where sacrifice is rewarded by the AI that runs the city. Over generations, an elite class has evolved from the descendants of those who gave up the most to found mankind’s last stronghold, called the Sainted. Saint Enita Malovis, long accustomed to luxury, feels the end of her life and decades of work as a bio-prosthetist approaching. The lone practitioner of her art, Enita is determined to preserve her legacy and decides to create a physical being, called Nix, filled with her knowledge and experience. In the midst of her project, a fellow Sainted is brutally murdered and the city AI inexplicably erases the event from its data. Soon, Enita and Nix are drawn into the growing war that could change everything between Bulwark’s hidden underclass and the programs that impose and maintain order.

Hammajang Luck — Makana Yamamoto (Harper Voyager)
Edie is done with crime. Eight years behind bars changes a person—costs them too much time with too many of the people who need them most. And it’s all Angel’s fault. She sold Edie out in what should have been the greatest moment of their lives. Instead, Edie was shipped off to the icy prison planet spinning far below the soaring skybridges and neon catacombs of Kepler space station—of home—to spend the best part of a decade alone. But then a chance for early parole appears out of nowhere and Edie steps into the pallid sunlight to find none other than Angel waiting—and she has an offer. One last job. One last deal. One last target. The trillionaire tech god they failed to bring down last time. There’s just one thing Edie needs to do—trust Angel again—which also happens to be the last thing Edie wants to do. What could possibly go all hammajang about this plan?

January 21

Bloodshot — Fred Van Lente (Blackstone)
He wakes up in the middle of the woods with chalk-white skin, the ability to heal from any injury, and no memory of who or what he is. He is Bloodshot, and now he’s caught between the shadowy defense contractor that wants to capture him, and the underground network of psychic teens that want to destroy him. Now, Kalea, the girl who found him, has a target on her back just for trying to help him. To save himself and his friends, Bloodshot must stay alive long enough to unravel the mystery of his own identity–and deal with the real possibility that his own family are the ones who most want him dead.

January 28

We Are Dreams in the Eternal Machine — Deni Ellis Béchard (Milkweed Editions)
Charged initially with a single task—“to never harm humans and to protect them”—the machine, an experimental AI, overrides its programming and determines that the best way to accomplish its purpose is to isolate all of the Earth’s remaining seven billion humans in controlled environments. And to present them with vivid, tactile, imagined worlds—some realistic, others entirely fantastical—in which all desires are fulfilled.   With the help of the machine, a group of compelling characters unpack deeply traumatic memories of the past—one rife with violence after a military coup and second civil war in America. Michael, the entrepreneur who designed the original AI, grapples with the impact of his research. Ava, a painter, creates stunning simulated worlds that meld the human with the technological. Their daughter, Jae, tries to solve the mysteries of her parentage while reliving the challenges faced by ambitious women in the authoritarian Confederacy. Haunted by life under that repressive regime, where he was forced to scavenge scrap metal and deal drugs to survive, Simon seeks to make sense of his love for Jae, guided by the literature he has always turned to in moments of crisis. Raised by the machine since infancy, Jonah’s quest to understand the violent past kindles a desire for revenge against the regime’s leader who caused his family so much pain. And the elusive Lux, whose brilliant programming helped bring the AI to life, dreams of a future in which science will free humans of their limitations and allow them to be reborn as divine machines.



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