Pocket Worlds, Pie, and More of This Week’s Best SFF New Releases


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Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until then, she lives with her three cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, in Maine. She is also right behind you. Just kidding! She’s too busy reading.

Twitter: @MissLiberty

Down below you’ll find a two exciting new SFF releases for your TBR and two out-of-this-world recommendations, for good measure.

Bookish Goods

Take Me To Your Reader sticker by MileLongTBRboutique.

I always love a good “Take me to your readers” graphic. I mean, it has really improved upon the boring old original phrase “Take me to your leaders.” Plus, it’s shiny! $4-$6.

New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books Releases Out This Week

cover of Time's Agent by Brenda Peynado; illustration of gold, blood-spatted clockwork gears against a forest background

Time’s Agent by Brenda Peynado

In this dazzling novella, it’s the future, and humans have discovered pocket worlds. Pocket worlds are hidden, alternate versions of our reality, and people can now visit them. Of course, corporations immediately figured out a way to exploit the discovery, take control of them, and make as much money as they could. Raquel is a disgraced archeologist, living with her estranged wife’s pocket world on a chain around her neck. Can Raquel figure out how to get her life back on track — in any world?

cover of Key Lime Sky by Al Hess; illustration of a roadside sign in pinks and greens with the title on it

Key Lime Sky by Al Hess

Ryka Aoki’s Light from Uncommon Stars gave us aliens and donuts; this cozy, queer new novel is serving up aliens and pie! When pie aficionado Denver Bryant sees a UFO explode in the skies of his small town, Muddy Gap, he can’t believe it. But what’s even weirder is that no one else in town knows what he’s talking about. It becomes increasingly obvious to Denver that the whole town might be having close encounters of the third kind. As he starts documenting the town’s weirdness, he’ll have to figure out how to save his own life when the town won’t let him leave. Fortunately, he has the company of a handsome bartender.

For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.

Riot Recommendations

Here are two more recommendations to help overload your TBRs!

cover of The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa; illustration of a Black person standing on front of floating shapes in the sky

The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

This is out in paperback this week and a big hit with several Rioters! In this debut space opera, a scribe dreaming of changing careers and expanding her tea business is dragged into a failed war when her lover is murdered, and her sibling is captured by soldiers. Enitan must take her tea and infiltrate the capital — steeping with the enemy, if you will — in order to exact her revenge and free her sibling.

cover of Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend by MJ Wassmer; illustration of a man floating in a pool inner tube while the sky rains fire

Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend by MJ Wassmer

This recent satirical post-apocalyptic adventure gets five stars! Dan and his girlfriend, Mara, are among the first guests at a new luxury resort in the Bahamas when the sun burns out. Yep, you read that right: the sun goes out, plunging the island into grayness. With no way to communicate with the world or get off the island, things quickly descend into chaos as temperatures drop. And very soon, the one thousand vacationers find that even in an apocalypse, social status and classism rule. Can Dan the Everyday Man step up and be a Hero?


You might have noticed that I’m not Alex, who usually helms this SFF recommendation ship. While Alex is away at Glasgow Worldcon, I’m going to be beaming books into your brains for the next two weeks.

That’s it for me today, star bits. I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me make lots of adjectives about them on the BR podcast All the Books! and in our New Books newsletter.

If an SFF fan forwarded this newsletter to you or you read it on bookriot.com and you’d like to get it right in your inbox, you can sign up here.





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