Top New Sci-Fi Novels of September 2025 Featuring Cixin Liu and John Scalzi

In Mason Coyle’s exile, a human crew arrives on Mars

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This month brings new releases from renowned authors like Cixin Liu, Stephen Baxter, and John Scalzi. I’m particularly interested in Ian McEwan’s journey into a submerged world of 2119 in Salt Crop. The tale chronicles the downfall of Mason Coil within a fledgling Martian colony, while also capturing my attention is the time-travel noir from the talented Nicholas Binge.

This month, I’m taking a classic route in the New Scientist Book Club with Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1974 masterpiece, The Dispossessed. Join us in reading and see how it stands against today’s best science fiction. But let’s not forget about September 2025…

Literary authors are turning to sci-fi—this isn’t unprecedented (who could forget the 2010s’ Solar?). In his latest, we’re taken back to 2014, reflecting on great poems never to be heard again. Fast-forward to 2119, as lowland Britain finds itself submerged. Scholar Tom Metcalfe delves into early 21st century archives, uncovering the myriad opportunities of the past. He discovers a clue that might lead to “the great lost poem”…

For fans of The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu presents a collection of short stories exploring first contact, artificial intelligence, and cosmic dread. With 32 stories included, expect explorations of devoured planets and interstellar crafts.

Three Body Problem adaptation in 2024

Ed Miller/Netflix

The hearth serves as the “celestial birthplace” of countless planets, where humanity has flourished for millennia. As an unknown foe covets the wealth of this realm, Commander Ula Breen strategizes to unite diverse forces and retaliate. Will she uncover humanity’s original purpose for coming here?

In a future where coastal cities are submerged and oceans teem with mutated fish, we follow Sailor Skipper, the youngest of three sisters who make a life by collecting and selling ocean plastic. When she receives a mysterious call for help from her oldest sister, Nora, who seeks a remedy for failing crops, she and another sister, Carmen, embark on a perilous journey across the sea. Kitasei, the author of Deep Sky and Stardust Grey, delivers an astonishing tale.

In a time-travel murder investigation, detective Julia Togrimsen (what a name!) returns from retirement to solve the case of a billionaire she once infiltrated. However, she discovers two bodies—both belonging to billionaire Bruno Donaldson. We loved Binge’s previous sci-fi thriller, Dissolution, and anticipate this next offering.

This marks Scalzi’s seventh installment in the Old Man’s War series. After a decade of peace in interstellar space, humanity faces the threat of war from the most advanced alien species yet. Caught in the tumult, bureaucrat Gretchen Trujillo receives a covert mission that could reshape the future for both humans and aliens.

Exile by Mason Coil

I am captivated by the cover and premise of this new novel from the late author of William (which I enjoyed). Set in 2030, this tale reveals a human crew preparing the first Martian colony, only to discover a half-destroyed base. They must question three robots dispatched four years earlier, one of which is still missing…

In a desolate lab in the desert, Kinsey and her team unearth bizarre specimens in the sand. Breaking quarantine to bring one inside, they soon realize it seeks a new host.

This intriguing blend of horror, science fiction, and fantasy captures my attention. Set against a backdrop of ecological dread, Kinsey excavates two ancient bodies found in Somerset Fen, while also exploring “her own wildness,” alongside archaebotanist Nell.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

From Cixin Liu, author of “The Three Body Problem,” to Douglas Preston, this month’s top new science fiction discovery

In The Truth of Areke, the last remaining free city in the Eternal Desert has been under siege for centuries.

Shutterstock / Liu Zishan

This month we have new works by several big name authors. Cixin Liu and Ann Leckie both have easy-to-read collections of short texts. It also depicts a dystopian future by award-winning Thea Obret, and a world where woolly mammoths have been brought back from the world. Douglas Preston's bestseller.He also loves the sound of Scott Alexander Howard's debut song another valleya town where past and future versions exist in the following valleys, and the space adventures of Sofia Samatar. Practice, horizon, and chain. There are so many things I want to read and not enough time…

This is a collection of short stories by science fiction author Liu, who is currently on the rise thanks to a new Netflix film. three body problem, from essays and interviews to short stories. I love this excerpt from an essay about science fiction fans. In it he calls us “mysterious aliens in the crowd.” They “jump like fleas from the future to the past and back again, floating like gas clouds between nebulae. In an instant we can reach the edge of the universe or tunnel into quarks.” or swim inside the core of a star.''Aren't we lucky to have a world like this on our shelves?

Leckie is a must-read author for me, and this is the first complete collection of her short stories, ranging from science fiction to fantasy. On the sci-fi side, we'll be able to dip in again. imperial latch And we're also promised to “learn the secrets of the mysterious Lake of Souls” in a brand new novel.

In the disastrous future, an 11-year-old girl arrives in Morningside with her mother. Once a luxury high-rise, Morningside is now another crumbling part of Island City, half submerged under water. Obrecht won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011 for her debut novel. tiger's wife.

Samatar won all kinds of awards for his first novel. Stranger in Olondria. Her latest work depicts the story of a boy who grew up working on a mining ship in the stars, but whose life changes when he is given the opportunity to receive an education at the ship's university. Sounds interesting.

A boy grows up working on a mining ship surrounded by starry skies in The Practice, Horizon, and The Chain.

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It's set in a Rocky Mountain valley, where guests at the luxury resort can see woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths and Irish moose brought back from extinction through genetic engineering. But then a series of murders begins, and the two investigators must find out what's really going on.this is what it looks like Jurassic Park-It looks like a lot of fun. And if you want more mammoth-related reading, try my colleague Michael Le Page's excellent explanation of why they won't be coming back anytime soon.

mania Written by Lionel Shriver

The award-winning author we have to talk about kevin Reflecting her thoughts on the so-called “culture wars” in her fiction, she imagines a world where the “spiritual equality movement” is at its peak, and “the worst thing you can do is call someone 'stupid'.” There is.

This speculative novel alternates endlessly through the wilderness, with the same town to the east 20 years ahead of its time, and the same town to the west 20 years behind. Border crossings are only allowed on “memorial tours,'' which allow people to see the dead in towns where they are still alive. Odile, 16, will take a seat on the Conseil Commission, which can decide who can travel across borders. I love this sound.

Many may wonder if Marvel's superhero stories are really science fiction, but I'm leaning toward the multiverse aspect of this here and including it because it seems kind of interesting. This is the first installment in a new series that reimagines the origins of some of our biggest heroes. Here, Thor died defending Earth from Loki's pranks, and the Norse trickster god, exiled to our planet, is now dealing with the consequences.

the second book of eternal desert The series is set 500 years in the future. Ajungo's lie, which follows a junior peacekeeping force in the last remaining free city in the Eternal Desert, which has been under siege for centuries. It was actually released in March, but I missed it then, and science fiction contributor Sally Addy introduced it as a title to watch this year, so I'm introducing it now.

abnormality Written by Andrei Nikolaidis, translated by Will Firth

On New Year's Eve, the last year of humanity, various stories unfold, from a high-ranking minister with blood on his hands to a nurse with a secret. Later, in a cabin in the Alps, a musicologist and his daughter, the last people left on Earth, try to make sense of this catastrophe.according to independent personNicolaidis makes “Samuel Beckett look aggressively cheerful,'' and I admit that I sometimes want to see stories like that.

In this techno-thriller, Mal is a free AI, unconcerned with the conflicts going on between humans, but is trapped inside the body of a cyborg mercenary and is responsible for keeping the girl she died protecting. It will be.

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Source: www.newscientist.com