One of the best new science fiction books of October 2025, that includes Chris Hadfield and a tribute to Ursula Ok. Le Guin

Like a lot of you, little doubt, Ursula Ok. Le Guin is certainly one of my favorite sci-fi writers. So I’m actually excited a couple of assortment out this month that brings collectively the maps she would draw when beginning a narrative, and likewise celebrates her sensible and clever writing. Not least as a result of we’ve simply learn The Dispossessed with the New Scientist Guide Membership: do come and be a part of us and share your ideas on this traditional novel with fellow followers!

The sci-fi out this month appears ahead in addition to again, although. Ken Liu brings us a thriller set within the close to future, and I’m eager to learn Megha Majumdar’s story of a flooded Kolkata and a determined mom. There’s additionally fiction from astronaut Chris Hadfield and a brand new launch from Mark Z. Danielewski, creator of the epically unusual Home of Leaves.

Le Guin, the blurb for this tells us, would draw a map when starting certainly one of her sensible tales, such because the Earthsea collection (I do keep in mind the archipelagos at the beginning of these books) and All the time Coming Dwelling. The brand new assortment compiles these maps and accompanies them with interviews, poems, recipes and tales from a variety of contributors. This e-book feels like an actual treasure trove for my fellow Le Guin followers and me.

On this sci-fi thriller set within the close to future, hacker Julia is recruited to assist save a kidnapped “dream artist” and unravel a digital actuality thriller. That is the primary within the Julia Z collection from the Hugo award profitable Liu.

Reynolds, who wrote a superb sci-fi quick story for New Scientist a number of years again, right here tells the story of a non-public investigator named, considerably unexpectedly, Yuri Gagarin, who’s trying right into a loss of life on a starship carrying 1000’s of sleeping passengers via area.

I need to admit that I’m unsure how far this strays into science-fictional territory, however I’d say there may be loads of crossover between sci-fi followers and lovers of Danielewski’s seminal Home of Leaves. In truth, my colleague Jacob Aron picked it as among the finest sci-fi novels of all time. So I think about a few of you’ll, like me, be excited to be taught Danielewski has a brand new novel out this month. It ostensibly follows two associates within the small metropolis of Orvop, Utah, out to save lots of two horses from slaughter – however I’m positive there may be going to be an terrible lot extra to it than that, and I’m right here for it.

This dystopian novel takes place in a world the place an sickness has robbed folks of their reminiscences, and the place they go to The Centre to relearn the best way to converse and reside. However as “shards of reminiscences” begin to return to them, it threatens The Centre’s strict curriculum and the scholars begin to query what is admittedly occurring. I really like the very fact of their free time, they watch previous videotapes and tackle the names of the characters from them – Chandler and Gunther, Maria and Chino!

Conform by Ariel Sullivan

Garnering comparisons to The Starvation Video games, that is set in a dystopian society the place everyone seems to be judged by their capacity to adapt, and the place one lady finds herself in a love triangle. We’re promised a have a look at the risks of social and genetic engineering, too.

This slice of area horror might be simply the ticket for the Halloween season. Halley is on the run after exposing an interplanetary conspiracy. She hides out on the Elysian Fields, a drifting crypt in area dreamed up by a trillionaire who thought the wealthy may lie in cryo-sleep till medication caught up with mortality. It has floated silently for over a century, after the programme was deserted, however now Halley is on board, and one thing feels improper…

Astronaut Chris Hadfield’s chilly conflict thriller is ready within the Nineteen Seventies, amid the area race between the US, the USSR and China, as a brand new Apollo mission launches into orbit. That is the third title within the collection after Hadfield’s The Apollo Murders and The Defectors.

This feels like a must-read to me. It’s set in a near-future Kolkata, the place local weather change and meals shortage are inflicting flooding and famine. Ma is ready to hitch her husband in Michigan, bringing her 2-year-old daughter and aged father along with her. However simply as they’re about to depart, Ma discovers her immigration paperwork have been stolen. Cue a frantic seek for the thief over the course of every week. In the meantime Boomba, the thief himself, commits escalating crimes as he seeks to look after his household. How far will every go to guard their kids as disaster approaches?

Lucy, whose earliest reminiscences are of the covid-19 pandemic and who now fights to revive misplaced species, and Hester, born on the day of the Chernobyl catastrophe, each dream of a time when wolves return to Britain. That is “large” and “unforgettable”, based on at least Kim Stanley Robinson.

We get two for the value of 1 on this double-header – a pair of crime tales set in a far-future science-fictional universe. Miller’s Pink Star Hustle follows a high-class escort on the run who falls for the “studly and noble clone of a murderous puppet monarch” (I’m very taken by that mixture of phrases). Kowal’s Apprehension sees a grandmother on an alien planet set out in pursuit when her grandson is kidnapped by a terrorist organisation.

When you thought Delight and Prejudice and Zombies was the zenith (or nadir) of Jane Austen reinventions, then suppose once more: this can be a remix of Delight and Prejudice and Frankenstein that reimagines plain sister Mary Bennet as an excellent scientist who needs to reanimate the lifeless… so as to discover a husband. However then she meets a outstanding younger lady who makes her reexamine what she actually needs.