When I did this post for 2017, it was one of my most popular posts over the year. Hopefully we can make an equally useful list this year (double the brainpower and all that!) Again, we find that most of our fellow bloggers are concentrating on young adult fantasy and contemporary books. While that’s okay for them, it’s definitely not our style! So here’s eighteen new science fiction and horror novels to look for from January to June of 2018!
Please note: This only includes *new* releases. Not reprints or whatnot.
New 2018 Science Fiction & Horror Releases To Look For
(The covers link to Goodreads)
The Wolves of Winter – Tyrell Johnson – Release Date: Jan 2nd, 2018
Forget the old days. Forget summer. Forget warmth. Forget anything that doesn’t help you survive.
Lynn McBride has learned much since society collapsed in the face of nuclear war and the relentless spread of disease. As memories of her old life haunt her, she has been forced to forge ahead in the snow-covered Canadian Yukon, learning how to hunt and trap to survive.
But her fragile existence is about to be shattered. Shadows of the world before have found her tiny community—most prominently in the enigmatic figure of Jax, who sets in motion a chain of events that will force Lynn to fulfill a destiny she never imagined.
Dark Screams: Vol 1 – Edited by Brian Freeman and Richard Chizmar – Expected Release: Jan 9, 2018
Kelley Armstrong, Stewart O’Nan, Taylor Grant, Jonathan Moore, Peter Straub, and Lee Thomas weave six hair-raising yarns proving that appearances can be deceiving—and deadly—in this horror anthology assembled by Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar.
INVITATION TO THE GAME by Kelley Armstrong
Vivienne dreams of moving up in the company, and now she’s got her chance. All the company asks in return is that she prove her absolute devotion by playing a simple, silly little game.
SUMMER OF ’77 by Stewart O’Nan
Suntanned and bleached blond, the boys and girls of summer never expect anything to interrupt their carefree days. They never see me coming until it’s too late.
THE DEAD YEARS by Taylor Grant
Emma was the great love of his life, even after she vanished. So when she reappears at a cocktail party fifteen years later, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her from slipping away again.
THE BLACKOUT by Jonathan Moore
When a body goes missing from the morgue, Detective Nakahara is called in to investigate. Despite the storm, it should be a simple case. After all, a dead body can’t just walk out on its own . . . right?
VARIATIONS ON A THEME FROM SEINFELD by Peter Straub
At six years old, Clyde noticed that his reflection decided not to show up in the mirror. Whenever it happens, he just needs to go through the mirror and fetch him. The trick is making it back.
TORN by Lee Thomas
Luther’s Bend is the kind of place where bad things just aren’t supposed to happen, but even the sleepiest towns have secrets . . . and the full moon can bring retribution for all manners of sins.
Thunderhead – Arc of Scythe #2 – Neal Shusterman – Release Date: Jan 9th, 2018
Rowan and Citra take opposite stances on the morality of the Scythedom, putting them at odds, in the second novel of the chilling New York Times bestselling series from Neal Shusterman, author of the Unwind dystology.
Rowan has gone rogue, and has taken it upon himself to put the Scythedom through a trial by fire. Literally. In the year since Winter Conclave, he has gone off-grid, and has been striking out against corrupt scythes—not only in MidMerica, but across the entire continent. He is a dark folk hero now—“Scythe Lucifer”—a vigilante taking down corrupt scythes in flames.
Citra, now a junior scythe under Scythe Curie, sees the corruption and wants to help change it from the inside out, but is thwarted at every turn, and threatened by the “new order” scythes. Realizing she cannot do this alone—or even with the help of Scythe Curie and Faraday, she does the unthinkable, and risks being “deadish” so she can communicate with the Thunderhead—the only being on earth wise enough to solve the dire problems of a perfect world. But will it help solve those problems, or simply watch as perfection goes into decline?
Zenith: The Androma Saga – Sasha Alsberg & Lindsay Cummings – Release Date: Jan 16th, 2018
Most know Androma Racella as the Bloody Baroness, a powerful mercenary whose reign of terror stretches across the Mirabel Galaxy. To those aboard her glass starship, Marauder, however, she’s just Andi, their friend and fearless leader.
But when a routine mission goes awry, the Marauder’s all-girl crew is tested as they find themselves in a treacherous situation and at the mercy of a sadistic bounty hunter from Andi’s past.
Meanwhile, across the galaxy, a ruthless ruler waits in the shadows of the planet Xen Ptera, biding her time to exact revenge for the destruction of her people. The pieces of her deadly plan are about to fall into place, unleashing a plot that will tear Mirabel in two.
Andi and her crew embark on a dangerous, soul-testing journey that could restore order to their shipor just as easily start a war that will devour worlds. As the Marauder hurtles toward the unknown, and Mirabel hangs in the balance, the only certainty is that in a galaxy run on lies and illusion, no one can be trusted
The Gone World – Tom Sweterlitsch – Release Date: Feb 6th, 2018
Shannon Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In Western Pennsylvania, 1997, she is assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL’s family–and to locate his teenage daughter, who has disappeared. Though she can’t share the information with conventional law enforcement, Moss discovers that the missing SEAL was an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra–a ship assumed lost to the darkest currents of Deep Time. Moss knows first-hand the mental trauma of time-travel and believes the SEAL’s experience with the future has triggered this violence.
Determined to find the missing girl and driven by a troubling connection from her own past, Moss travels ahead in time to explore possible versions of the future, seeking evidence or insight that will crack the present-day case. To her horror, the future reveals that it’s not only the fate of a family that hinges on her work, for what she witnesses rising over time’s horizon and hurtling toward the present is the Terminus: the terrifying and cataclysmic end of humanity itself.
Pitch Dark – Courtney Alameda – Expected Release: Feb 20, 2018
Note: Pitch Dark appeared on one of my 2017 lists, but shortly after that, I learned from the writer that it was being delayed until 2018. Boo! But now 2018 is here! (YAY. Kind of. At least in November when we make things go blue. /offbox) And now we finally get Pitch Dark. I’ve been waiting forever on this book! It had better be a good one!
Set against a future of marauding space scavengers and deadly aliens who kill with sound, here is a frightening, fast-paced YA adventure from the author of the acclaimed horror novel, Shutter.
Tuck has been in stasis on the USS John Muir, a ship that houses Earth’s most valued artifacts—its natural resources. Parks and mountains are preserved in space.
Laura belongs to a shipraiding family, who are funded by a group used to getting what they want. And they want what’s on the Muir.
Tuck and Laura didn’t bargain on working together, or battling mutant aliens who use sound to kill. But their plan is the only hope for their crews, their families, and themselves.
In space, nobody can hear you scream . . . but on the John Muir, the screams are the last thing you’ll hear.
The Rending and the Nest – Kaethe Schwehn – Release Date: Feb 20th, 2018
When ninety-five percent of the world’s population disappears for no apparent reason, Mira does what she can to create some semblance of a life: She cobbles together a haphazard community named Zion, scavenges the Piles for supplies they might need, and avoids loving anyone she can’t afford to lose. Four years after the Rending, Mira has everything under control. Almost.
Then Mira’s best friend, Lana, announces her pregnancy, the first in this strange world and a new source of hope for Mira. But Lana gives birth to an inanimate object—and soon other women of Zion do, too—and the thin veil of normalcy Mira has thrown over her new world begins to fray. As the community wrestles with the presence of these Babies, a confident outsider named Michael appears, proselytizing about the world outside Zion. He lures Lana away and when she doesn’t return, Mira has to decide how much she’s willing to let go in order to save her friend, her community, and her own fraught pregnancy.
Zero Day – The Hatching #3 – Ezekiel Boone – Release Date: Feb 27, 2018
In the thrilling, nerve-wracking finale of Ezekiel Boone’s “hair-raising” (Parade) Hatching series, the United States goes to war against the queen spiders that threaten to overtake the human race forever.
The world is on the brink of apocalypse. Zero Day has come.
The only thing more terrifying than millions of spiders is the realization that those spiders work as one. But among the government, there is dissent: do we try to kill all of the spiders, or do we gamble on Professor Guyer’s theory that we need to kill only the queens?
For President Stephanie Pilgrim, it’s an easy answer. She’s gone as far as she can—more than two dozen American cities hit with tactical nukes, the country torn asunder—and the only answer is to believe in Professor Guyer. Unfortunately, Ben Broussard and the military men who follow him don’t agree, and Pilgrim, Guyer, and the loyal members of the government have to flee, leaving the question: what’s more dangerous, the spiders or ourselves?
Zero Limit – Jeremy K. Brown – Release Date: March 6th, 2018
For war hero Caitlin Taggart, mining work on the Moon is dirty, low pay, and high risk. But no risk seems too extreme if it helps her return to Earth and the daughter she loves more than life itself. Offered a dangerous, long-shot chance to realize that dream, Caitlin will gamble with more than just her life.
By leading a ragtag crew of miners on a perilous assignment to harvest an asteroid, Caitlin could earn a small fortune. More importantly, it would give her clearance to return to Earth.
But when an unexpected disaster strikes the mission, Caitlin is plunged into a race to save not only herself, but every human being on Earth.
Feeder – Patrick Weekes – Release Date: March 6th, 2018
Lori Fisher hunts monsters. Not with a sword or a gun, but with an interdimensional creature called Handler. Together they take down “feeders”—aliens who prey on mankind. When Lori touches a feeder, Handler’s impossibly large jaws appear and drag the beast into another dimension.
It’s a living—or was, until a job for the Lake Foundation goes wrong, and Lori stumbles across the Nix, a group of mutant teenagers held captive on the docks. Now the Lake Foundation is hunting Lori, and if they find Lori, they find Ben, the brother Lori would do anything to protect. There’s only one thing to do: strike first.
Lori teams up with the Nix to take on Lake, and to discover why the Nix were kidnapped in the first place. But as she watches their powers unfold, Lori realizes the Nix are nothing like her. She has no powers. She has…Handler. Maybe she’s not the monster hunter after all. Maybe she’s just the bait.
Dracula: Rise of the Beast – Edited by David Thomas Moore – Release Date: March 13th, 2018
Anthology of stories exploring the secret history of the world’s most iconic monster
That the cruel, ambitious monster of Bram Stoker’s most famous novel was once Vlad III Dracula, Voivode of Wallachia – the Impaler, to his enemies – is known. A warleader in a warlike time: brilliant, charismatic, pious, ferociously devoted to his country. But what came of him? What drove him to become a creature of darkness – an Un-Dead – and what use did he make of this power, through the centuries before his downfall?
Decades after the monster’s death, Jonathan and Mina Harker’s son Quincey pieces together the story: dusty old manuscripts, court reports from the Holy Roman Empire at its height, oral traditions among the Szgany Roma people who once served the monster.
One Way – S.J. Morden – Release Date: April 12th, 2018
A murder mystery set on the frozen red wastes of Mars.
Eight astronauts.
One killer.
No way home.
It’s the dawn of a new era – and we’re ready to colonise Mars. Xenosystems Operations (XO) has won the contract to construct a new Mars base with its audacious promises of highly advanced equipment. Unfortunately the equipment they’ve promised doesn’t exist yet, there’s no way they can create it in time, and XO is desperate enough to cut a lot of corners. The first thing to go is the automation… the next thing they’ll have to deal with is the eight astronauts they’ll send to Mars, when there aren’t supposed to be any at all…
Frank – father, architect, murderer – is recruited for the mission from XO’s private prison with the promise of a better life, along with seven of his most notorious fellow inmates. But as his crew sets to work on the red wasteland of Mars, the accidents mount up, and Frank begins to suspect they might not be accidents at all… As the list of suspects grows shorter, it’s up to Frank to uncover the terrible truth before it’s too late.
Dr S. J. Morden is a bona fide rocket scientist and author of razor-sharp, award-winning science fiction. Perfect for fans of Andy Weir’s THE MARTIAN and Richard Morgan, ONE WAY takes off like a rocket, pulling us along on a terrifying, epic ride with only one way out.
Medusa Uploaded – Emily Devenport – Release Date: May 1st, 2018
The Executives control Oichi’s senses, her voice, her life. Until the day they kill her.
An executive clan gives the order to shoot Oichi out of an airlock on suspicion of being an insurgent. A sentient AI, a Medusa unit, rescues Oichi and begins to teach her the truth—the Executives are not who they think they are. Oichi, officially dead and now bonded to the Medusa unit, sees a chance to make a better life for everyone on board.
As she sets things right one assassination at a time, Oichi becomes the very insurgent the Executives feared, and in the process uncovers the shocking truth behind the generation starship that is their home.
ANIMUS – Antoine Revoy – Release Date: May 8th, 2018
The residents of a quiet Japanese neighborhood have slowly come to realize that inauspicious, paranormal forces are at play in the most unlikely of places: the local playground. Two friends, a young boy and girl, resolve to exorcise the evil that inhabit it, including a snaggle-toothed monster.
In Animus, a beautiful but spooky young adult graphic novel of everyday hauntings, Antoine Revoy delivers an eerie tale inspired by the Japanese and French comics of his childhood.
84K – Claire North – Release Date: May 24th, 2018
From one of the most powerful writers in modern fiction comes a dystopian vision of a world where money reigns supreme, and nothing is so precious that it can’t be bought….
The penalty for Dani Cumali’s murder: £84,000.
Theo works in the Criminal Audit Office. He assesses each crime that crosses his desk and makes sure the correct debt to society is paid in full.
These days, there’s no need to go to prison – provided that you can afford to pay the penalty for the crime you’ve committed. If you’re rich enough, you can get away with murder.
But Dani’s murder is different. When Theo finds her lifeless body, and a hired killer standing over her and calmly calling the police to confess, he can’t let her death become just an entry on a balance sheet.
Someone is responsible. And Theo is going to find them and make them pay.
Perfect for fans of speculative fiction such as The Handmaid’s Tale and Never Let Me Go, Claire North’s moving and unnerving new novel will resonate with readers around the world.
Adrift – Rob Boffard – Release Date: June 5th, 2018
In the far reaches of space, a group of tourists board a small vessel for what will be the trip of a lifetime – in more ways than one…
They are embarking on a tour around Sigma Station – a remote mining facility and luxury hotel with stunning views of the Horsehead Nebula.
During the course of the trip, a mysterious ship with devastating advanced technology attacks the Station. Their pilot’s quick evasive action means that the tour group escape with their lives – but as the dust settles, they realize they may be the only survivors . . .
Adrift in outer space, out of contact with civilization, and on a vastly under-equipped ship, these passengers are out of their depth. Their chances of getting home are close to none, and with the threat of another attack looming they must act soon – or risk perishing in the endless void of space.
We Are Where the Nightmares Go and Other Stories – C. Robert Cargill – Release Date: June 12th, 2018
From the critically acclaimed author of Sea of Rust and Queen of the Dark Things comes a hair-raising collection of short fiction that illuminates the strange, humorous, fantastical, and downright diabolical that tantalize and terrorize us: demons, monsters, zombie dinosaurs, and Death itself.
In the novella “The Soul Thief’s Son” C. Robert Cargill returns to the terrain of the Queen of the Dark Things to continue the story of Colby Stevens . . .
A Triceratops and an Ankylosaurus join forces to survive a zombie apocalypse that may spell extinction for their kind in “Hell Creek” . . .
In a grand old building atop a crack in the world, an Iraq War veteran must serve a one-year term as a punisher of the damned condemned to consume the sins of others in the hope that one day he may find peace in “In a Clean, White Room” (co-authored with Scott Derrickson) . . .
In “The Town That Wasn’t Anymore,” the village of Pine Hill Bluff loses its inhabitants one at a time as the angry dead return when night falls to steal the souls of the living . . .
And in the title story, “We Are Where the Nightmares Go,” a little girl crawls through a glowing door beneath her bed and finds herself trapped in a nightmarish wonderland—a crucible of the fragments of children’s bad dreams.
These tales and four more are assembled here as testament to Cargill’s mastery of the phantasmagoric, making We Are Where the Nightmares Go and Other Stories a collection of unnerving horror and fantasy will keep you up all night and haunt your waking dreams.
Blood Cruise – Mats Sandberg – Release Date: June 14th, 2018
On the Baltic Sea, no one can hear you scream.
A summer thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King and John Ajvide Linqvist.
Tonight 1200 expectant passengers have joined the booze cruise between Sweden and Finland. The big old ship travels this route, back and forth, every day of the year. This time, the passengers include a lonely old woman seeking adventure, a washed-up pop star reduced to running karaoke evenings, the twelve-year-old cousins who were best friends before a family secret came between them, and the security guards who are trying to control the daily chaos on board.
But this time is going to be different.
In the middle of the night the ferry is suddenly cut off from the outside world. There is nowhere to escape. There is no way to contact the mainland. And no one knows who they can trust. Relationships are about to be tested. Ordinary people are forced to become heroes. But what happens this night can also bring out the worst in people.
Welcome aboard the Baltic Charisma.
For small press fans, I have some tentative information for you!
Crystal Lake has these titles scheduled for the first 6 months of 2018, though no exact dates and covers (bar 1) was available yet.
- Beyond Night by Eric S. Brown and Steven L. Shrewsbury (novel)
- Darren Speegle’s Varying Distances (collection)
- Gene O’Neil’s Frozen Shadows and Other Chilling Stories (collection)
- C.H.U.D. LIVES! (anthology)
- Aaron Dries’ House of Sighs (novel with accompanying follow-up novella)
- The Mourner’s Cradle by Tommy B. Smith (novella)
- Dave Jeffery’s Ship of Shadows (novel)
- Welcome to the Show (anthology)
- War, a poetry collection by Alessandro Manzetti and Marge Simon Mark Allan Gunnells’ Book Haven (novella)
Are there any books being released in the first half of 2018 that you can’t wait for?? Let us know below!
Lilyn G is the founder of Sci-Fi & Scary, and leader of the Coolthulhu Crew. She does book and film reviews for both genres the site focuses on. Her tastes run towards creature features, hard science fiction, and lots and lots of action. She also has a soft spot for middle-grade fiction that rears its head frequently.
Though no longer involved with Ladies of Horror Fiction due to other responsibilities and a too-full plate, she was one of the original 4 co-founders.
Feel free to chat her up on Twitter as long as you aren’t hitting her up to review your book.
If I grabbed all of these that I want to read my book budget would be blown for months. Going to add them to my wish list though and grab one here and there. I just finished Zero Day. That was a creepy fun series.
Some great looking books!
love, Love, LUV the cover of ‘Feeder’!
These all look really interesting.
Happy Reading!
~Icky. 🙂
It is a neat cover! My favorite is the Pitch Dark one.