It’s hard being a debut author. Like really hard. One of the things that’s the hardest is just getting your book out there and having people find it. To help with that, here’s a post of all the debut SF that I know about that’s coming in 2023.

Methodology…lol…like there’s one of those. I’m including anything that somebody told me was their debut and that they classified as SF. Did I check anybody’s writing history to make sure this is truly their debut? I did not. Did I ensure it was SF? No, not really. I mean, I read about the books and it all seems somewhere in the SF realm. At least SF adjacent. Is some of it science-fantasy? Probably. Is some of it techno-thriller? Also probably. Do I care? I do not. It’s a list, and you can look at it and pick what you like. I hope you do.

What’s a debut? I took a really wide stance on this one. Generally speaking, I’m trying to publicize people’s first books as often those are the hardest to gain traction with, but I’m also likely to include first in genre, or, in a couple cases, first traditionally published book by previously self-published authors.

As it’s a fairly long list, I’m only going to include what I know about each book mostly off the top of my head, because I’m on deadline and I’ve got like one free Saturday night to put the whole thing together. For some of them, that might not be much, and I’m sorry for that, but you can always dig further if you see something that catches your eye.

I’m going to try to go in chronological order by month, but this is publishing and dates change, so take it for what it’s worth.

Away we go!

BURROWED by Mary Baader Kaley. Angry Robot, January. This one is actually out tomorrow, so happy book birthday. This looks like a really cool premise. From the promotional material: In the distant future, a genetic plague has separated humanity in two – Subterraneans who live in underground burrows to protect their health, and strong surface-dwelling Omniterraneans. Zuzan Cayan, a brilliant Subter girl with “light blindness,” is about to leave the safety of her burrow and earn a living. With her low life expectancy, however, her options are slim. That is until she’s offered the chance of a lifetime to study the population’s broken genetic code, fix the divide and reunite the world once again. But when a new virus turns fatal for the Omnits, Zuzan must find a cure or humanity won’t simply remain separate, it will become extinct. 

WORLD RUNNING DOWN by Al Hess. Angry Robot, February. From the promotional material: A transgender salvager on the outskirts of a dystopian Utah gets the chance to earn the ultimate score and maybe even a dash of romance. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch. So yeah, we’ve got post-apocalyptic Utah, we’ve got a scrappy salvager, and we’ve got an AI that’s been forced into an android body. The salvager is offered an impossible job…but one that pays the ultimate reward. I love that trope. I’m in.

FRONTIER by Grace Curtis. Solaris, February. From the promotional material: Frontier is The Mandalorian meets Mad Max, with the emotional heart of the Wayfarers series. But at its core, Frontier is a love story, about two women who find each other, lose each other and then find each other again. Mandalorian? Good. Mad Max? Good. What’s not to like here? From the promotional material:

What passes for justice is presided over by the High Sheriff, and carried out by his cruel and ruthless Deputy. Then a ship falls from the sky, bringing the planet’s first visitor in three hundred years. This Stranger is a crewmember on the first ship in centuries to attempt a return to Earth and save what’s left. But her escape pod crashes hundreds of miles away from the rest of the wreckage. The Stranger finds herself adrift in a ravaged, unwelcoming landscape, full of people who hate and fear her space-born existence. Scared, alone, and armed, she embarks on a journey across the wasteland to return to her ship, her mission, and the woman she loves.

THE TEN PERCENT THIEF by Lavanya Lakshminarayan. Solaris, March. This is a near-future dystopian about a city run along ‘meritocratic’ lines, the injustice it creates, and the revolution that will destroy it. From the promotional material:

Welcome to Apex City, formerly Bangalore, where everything is decided by the mathematically perfect Bell Curve. With the right image, values and opinions, you can ascend to the glittering heights of the Twenty Percent – the Virtual elite – and have the world at your feet. Otherwise you risk falling to the precarious Ten Percent, and deportation to the ranks of the Analogs, with no access to electricity, running water or even humanity. The system has no flaws. Until the elusive “Ten Percent Thief” steals a single jacaranda seed from the Virtual city and plants a revolution in the barren soil of the Analog world.

DIVE BEYOND ETERNITY by Valeryia Salt. Northodox Press, March. I don’t know much about this beyond the fact that it’s coming. I can’t even find a link yet. Time jumping and a Nazi super-weapon seem to be involved, which reminds me of some cool old Dean Koontz stuff, which is never a bad thing. If you’re the author or publisher and want to tell me more, definitely do.

THE MOON AND THE DESERT by Robert E. Hampson. Baen, March. An updated take on the Six Million Dollar man written by a PhD who does real-world work on machine brain interfaces. From the promotional material: Glenn Armstrong Shepard had his sights set on going to Mars as a flight surgeon, but a training accident on the Moon left him crippled. Now he has a new plan: to be fitted with bionic prosthetics and come back even stronger. Fate and the Space Force have other plans, and Glenn is grounded. Another doctor—his ex-fiancée—takes his place, and Glenn will have to fight to prove he can be an astronaut once more. . . .

THE IRON CHILDREN by Rebecca Fraimow. Solaris, April. This looks a bit like Mil SF, though the author didn’t call it that, so maybe not. But the premise — a young leader forced to take over her unit after the commander dies — reminds me a lot of the premise of my own novel, THE WEIGHT OF COMMAND, where a young leader is forced to take over her unit after the commander dies. Except in THE IRON CHILDREN, the soldiers are encased in exoskeletons that give them extraordinary fighting powers. Personally, I’m sold. This one is on my ‘definitely going to read it’ list.

From the promotional material: Asher has been training her entire life to become a Sor-Commander. One day, she’ll give her soul to the gilded, mechanical body of the Sor and become a commander to a battalion of Dedicates. These soldiers, encased in exoskeletons, with extra arms, and telepathic subordination to the Sor-Commanders, are the only thing that’s kept the much larger Levastani army of conquest at bay for decades. But while on a training journey, Asher and her party are attacked, and her commander is incapacitated, leaving her alone to lead the unit across a bitterly cold, unstable mountain. Worse, one of the Dedicates is not what they seem: a spy for the enemy, with their own reasons to hate their mechanical body and the people who put them in it.

WHITE SUN WAR by Major General Mick Ryan. Casemate Publishing, April. Mick Ryan is a retired Australian army officer who is now one of the foremost commentators on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So when he writes a book about a future where China invades Taiwan–a very realistic World War III scenario–you know it’s going to be can’t miss. I haven’t read it yet, but I fully expect this to be military SF for the person who really loves the military part of Mil SF, and I expect military leaders around the world to be taking note. I’ll be begging the publisher for an early copy.

ASCENSION by Nicholas Binge. Riverhead US / Harper Voyager UK, April. I’ve got an advanced copy of this one here on my desk from the good folks at Penguin-Random House, and it’s next on my list of things to read. Pretty sure Nicholas has been self-published before, but this is his traditional debut, and it looks to be a good one. It’s about a giant mountain appearing in the Pacific Ocean and nobody knows how it got there, how high it is, or what it is. So of course somebody’s got to try to figure that out, and as they start to ascend…well…it’s not your average mountain.

THE SCOURGE BETWEEN STARS by Ness Brown. Tor Nightfire, April. From the promo material: A tense, claustrophobic sci-fi/horror blend set aboard a doomed generation ship harboring something terrible within its walls. As acting captain of the starship Calypso, Jacklyn Albright is responsible for keeping the last of humanity alive as they limp back to Earth from their forebears’ failed colony on a distant planet. Faced with constant threats of starvation and destruction in the treacherous minefield of interstellar space, Jacklyn’s crew has reached their breaking point. As unrest begins to spread throughout the ship’s Wards, a new threat emerges, picking off crew members in grim, bloody fashion. This has blurbs from Ada Hoffman and Chloe Gong, and Ness Brown is an astrophysicist, so normally I’d jump on it. But I really am a horror wimp, so I’ll be waiting for someone else to read it and tell me it’s safe.

BANG BANG BODHISATTVA. Solaris, May. From the promotional material: An edgy, queer cyberpunk detective mystery by an exciting new trans voice from New Zealand. Someone wants trans girl hacker-for-hire Kiera Umehara in prison or dead—but for what? Failing to fix their smart toilet? 
It’s 2032 and we live in the worst cyberpunk future. Kiera is gigging her ass off to keep the lights on, but her polycule’s social score is so dismal they’re about to lose their crib. That’s why she’s out here chasing cheaters with Angel Herrera, a luddite P.I. who thinks this is The Big Sleep. Then the latest job cuts too deep—hired to locate Herrera’s ex-best friend (who’s also Kiera’s pro bono attorney), they find him murdered instead.

ADRIFT by Lisa Brideau. May. A bit of a cli-fi feel, set in the Pacific Northwest and featuring mind wiping. Kind of gives me a Blake Crouch vibe. I love the cover on this. From the promo material: Ess wakes up alone on a sailboat in the remote Pacific Northwest with no memory of who she is or how she got there. She finds a note, but it’s more warning than comfort: Start over. Don’t make yourself known. Don’t look back. Ess must have answers. She sails over a turbulent ocean to a town hundreds of miles away that, she hopes, might offer insight. The chilling clues she uncovers point to a desperate attempt at erasing her former life. But why? And someone is watching her…someone who knows she must never learn her truth. 

THE SURVIVING SKY by Kritika H. Rao. Titan, June. I’ve heard a lot of buzz about this one, but somehow have no idea what it’s about. But when I open the Amazon page for it, it has blurbs from a lot of my friends, which makes me wonder how I somehow missed the bus. Definitely leaning toward science-fantasy, as there are floating cities but also magic. I’ll definitely be reading this. From the promo material:

High above a jungle-planet float the last refuges of humanity—plant-made civilizations held together by tradition, technology, and arcane science. In these living cities, architects are revered above anyone else. If not for their ability to psychically manipulate the architecture, the cities would plunge into the devastating earthrage storms below. Charismatic, powerful, mystical, Iravan is one such architect. In his city, his word is nearly law. His abilities are his identity, but to Ahilya, his wife, they are a way for survival to be reliant on the privileged few. Like most others, she cannot manipulate the plants. And she desperately seeks change.

THE COMBAT CODES by Alexander Darwin. Orbit, June. This was a self-published book that got picked up by Orbit and is being re-released (as a new version). The gist of it is that the world got sick of war, so now they settle disputes with highly trained fighters going at it in one-on-one combat. Darwin is a master of martial arts himself, so this figures to have a lot of realistic action. I heard a lot of great things about this back when it was self-pubbed, and it only figures to have gotten better since then. From the promo material: In a world long ago ravaged by war, the nations have sworn an armistice never to use weapons of mass destruction again. Instead, highly-skilled warriors known as Grievar Knights represent their nations’ interests in brutal hand-to-hand combat.

Murray Pearson was once a famed Knight until he suffered a loss that crippled his homeland — but now he’s on the hunt to discover the next champion.

In underground and ruthless combat rings, an orphaned boy called Cego is making a name for himself. Murray believes Cego has what it takes to thrive in the world’s most prestigious combat academy – but first, Cego must prove himself in the vicious arenas of the underworld. And survival isn’t guaranteed.  

THE ARCHIVE UNDYING by Emma Mieko Candon. Tordotcom, June. AI deities clash with brutal police states. There are also giant robots. This looks to be a big debut with blurbs already from Tamsyn Muir, Anne Leckie, and Kate Elliott. Of all the books I’ve put in this post, this is the one that I don’t know about yet that I most want to know more about.

From the promotional material: When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to life: its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he’s seen. He’s run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines.

ON EARTH AS IT IS ON TELEVISION. Hyperion Avenue, June. A first contact story where aliens show up in the night sky…and then leave. Wait! Was it something we said? From the promotional material: Blaine has always been content to go along with whatever his supermom wife
and television-addicted, half-feral children want. But when the kids blithely
ponder skinning people to see if they’re aliens, and his wife announces a surprise road trip to Disney World, even steady Blaine begins to crack.
Half a continent away, Heather, bored in a Malibu pool while the ships hover overhead, watches as the Arrival heralds the demise of her dead-end relationship and sets her on a quest to understand herself, her accomplished (and oh-so-annoying) stepfamily, and why she feels so alone in a universe teeming with life. And Oliver, suddenly conscious and alert after twenty catatonic years, struggles to piece together broken memories and understand why he’s following a strange cat on a westward journey and into the greatest adventure of his―or anyone’s―lifetime.

THE INFINITE MILES by Hannah Fergesen. Blackstone, June. Time travel SF where someone that the protagonist thinks was lost shows back up, but doesn’t remember her, and then the protagonist gets swept back in time to 1971 where she’s stuck needing to save her friend along with the universe.

BLACK SAILS TO SUNWARD by Sheila Jenne. Hansen House, July. I don’t know much about this one or even about the publisher, but it appears to be Regency lesbian pirates in space. I think that says enough. You know you want this.

THE DEEP SKY by Yumei Kitasei. Flatiron, July. From the promotional material: It is the eve of Earth’s environmental collapse. A single ship carries humanity’s last hope: eighty elite graduates of a competitive program, who will give birth to a generation of children in deep space. But halfway to a distant but livable planet, a lethal bomb kills three of the crew and knocks The Phoenix off course. Asuka, the only surviving witness, is an immediate suspect. To me, this looks like a closed-ship mystery/thriller, which, if you know me (which you probably don’t) means that I will be injecting this straight into my veins.

THESE BURNING STARS by Bethany Jacobs. Orbit, September. This is my most anticipated SF book of 2023, debut or otherwise. I’ve got a little bit of personal history with this one. Back in 2019 or early 2020, I was bored and I told my friend Rebecca Enzor I wanted to do some work with a developing author, and did she know anybody. She did. She introduced me to Bethany, who sent me 50 pages, and I gave her some notes. Not that she needed them. Because I knew from reading those pages even then that I’d be putting that book on a blog post someday. And here we are. This is pure space opera, a revenge story, an assassin’s quest, and quite gay. It’s destined to be one of the most-talked-about SF books of the year, and I can’t wait to read the final version. You’ll certainly hear more about this one from me before it comes out. Yo, Orbit, if you’re reading this, feel free to send me a copy any time.

And that’s what I’ve got for 2023 science fiction debuts. I’m sure there are more, especially later in the year, and especially from small presses. It’s hard to find everything everywhere and those two factors make it harder. But I hope this gives you a start, and I hope that you’ll check out some of these debuts. I can’t emphasize enough how important your debut novel is as an author, so if you can, go ahead and take a chance on one of these. There are 19 books on the list. My personal goal is to read 8 or more of them this year, which would make them 20 to 25% of my overall reading. Wish me luck. If I’m organized and I remember, maybe at the end of the year I’ll come back and talk about the ones I read.

And while I have you here, I am not a debut author, but I do have a book that’s coming out on January 17th, and if I tell you about it I can pretend that this post was promotional and not just me wanting to talk about SF books to whoever will listen. The lies we tell ourselves are the best lies.

THE WEIGHT OF COMMAND was originally released only on audio last July, but now will be available on e-book and in print. (That’s a long story that involves audible writing me a nice check. Okay…maybe not so long a story). As a special offer, if you pre-order the e-book, you’ll get it for the special price of $5.99. After the 17th it will go up to its regular price of $7.99. You can read more about it here, or you can pre-order it here.

Falstaff books is publishing the e-book and print versions. You can check out their website here.

Tags: 2023 science fiction, Debut, Debut Science Fiction, Science Fiction