GFA: Sci-Fi Round-Up! (4/8/20)

Hello genre readers! In need of a little escape? Today’s Genre For All round-up highlights forthcoming sci-fi picks that will take you out of this world!

AXIOM’S END by Lindsay Ellis

Alternate history + first contact + Stranger Things meets Arrival

By the fall of 2007, one well-timed leak revealing that the U.S. government might have engaged in first contact has sent the country into turmoil, and it is all Cora Sabino can do to avoid the whole mess. The force driving this controversy is Cora’s whistleblower father, and even though she hasn’t spoken to him in years, his celebrity has caught the attention of the press, the Internet, the paparazzi, and the government–and redirected it to her. She neither knows nor cares whether her father’s leaks are a hoax, and wants nothing to do with him—until she learns just how deeply entrenched her family is in the cover-up, and that an extraterrestrial presence has been on Earth for decades. To save her own life, she offers her services as an interpreter to a monster, and the monster accepts.

NETWORK EFFECT: A Murderbot Novel by Martha Wells

The most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century + pew-pew space battles + first full-length novel!

You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you’re a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you’re Murderbot. When Murderbot’s human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action. Drastic action it is, then.

THE LAST EMPEROX by John Scalzi

Conclusion to a bestselling series + interstellar empires + humanity’s last hope

The collapse of The Flow, the interstellar pathway between the planets of the Interdependency, has accelerated. Entire star systems—and billions of people—are becoming cut off from the rest of human civilization. This collapse was foretold through scientific prediction . . . and yet, even as the evidence is obvious and insurmountable, many still try to rationalize, delay and profit from, these final days of one of the greatest empires humanity has ever known. Emperox Grayland II has finally wrested control of her empire from those who oppose her and who deny the reality of this collapse. But “control” is a slippery thing, and even as Grayland strives to save as many of her people form impoverished isolation, the forces opposing her rule will make a final, desperate push to topple her from her throne and power, by any means necessary. Grayland and her thinning list of allies must use every tool at their disposal to save themselves, and all of humanity. And yet it may not be enough.

AXOIM’S END by Lindsay Ellis, ISBN 9781250256737, on sale 7/21/20
NETWORK EFFECT by Martha Wells, ISBN 9781250229861, on sale 5/5/20
THE LAST EMPEROX by John Scalzi, ISBN 9780765389169, on sale 4/14/20