Tordotcom Publishing is proud to present a sneak peek of its 2022 debut novel and novella authors. In modern day Los Angeles, a shadowy faction led by the Governor of California develops the arcane art of combat linguistics, planting the seeds of a future totalitarian empire in Scotto Moore's Battle of the Linguist Mages. Marion Deed's Comeuppance Served Cold is a hard-boiled historical fantasy of criminality and magic, couched in the glamour of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. In the tradition of Mira Grant and Stephen Graham Jones, Malcolm Devlin’s And Then I Woke Up is a creepy, layered, literary story about false narratives and their ability to divide us. Celebrated short fiction author Rachel Swirsky returns with January Fifteenth, a gut-wrenching, near-future novella humanizing the experimental, practically science fictional policy of universal basic income. Margaret Atwood meets Kazuo Ishiguro in Joma West's Face, a sci-fi domestic drama that reimagines race and class in a genetically engineered society fed by performative fame. Meet the cure for the human disease in this dark and infectious debut from Hiron Ennes. Leech is Edgar Allen Poe mixed with Ridley Scott, Jeff VanderMeer with a side of Charlotte Brontë, The Thing from the thing's point of view. It will worm its way deep into your bones and hold you hostage to your own insatiable human fascination. Pepper Rafferty has lived her entire adult life knowing two things: that the famous artist, Ula Frost's, paintings are purported to harbor magical powers and that Ula Frost is the woman who gave her away. Aimee Pokwatka's Self-Portrait with Nothing is a heartstopping quest for truth written for a post-modern age with the world-melding of David Mitchell and the intimacy of Marilynn Robinson. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In Joma West's Face, Margaret Atwood meets Kazuo Ishiguro in this sci-fi domestic drama that reimagines race and class in a genetically engineered society fed by performative fame. How much is your Face worth? Schuyler and Madeleine Burroughs have the perfect Face--rich and powerful enough to assure their dominance in society. But in SchAddie's household, cracks are beginning to appear. Schuyler is bored and taking risks. Maddie is becoming brittle, her happiness ever more fleeting. And their menial is fighting the most bizarre compulsions. In Face, skin color is an aesthetic choice designed by professionals, consent is a pre-checked box on the path to social acceptance, and your online profile isn't just the most important thing--it's the only thing. Praise for Face "One of the more deeply interesting books I've read this year." --Claire North "This book is wicked, deliciously dark and penetrating. I think the less you know about it, the better but I will say two things: 1. Joma West is a genius. 2. This is the best thing I've read in a very long time." --Sylvain Neuvel "In a world where the only thing that matters is your impact on other people, Hell is absolutely other people. Creepy, unsettling and thoroughly dystopic!" --Genevieve Cogman "Face is a searing, patient, and unforgiving examination of status, class, and the foundations of humanity. With admirable precision and empathy, Joma West unravels the lies we tell society, our families, and ourselves. A fascinating debut." --Samit Basu

Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You is a story of music, obsession, violence, and madness by Scotto Moore I was home alone on a Saturday night when I experienced the most beautiful piece of music I had ever heard in my life. Beautiful Remorse is the hot new band on the scene, releasing one track a day for ten days straight. Each track has a mysterious name and a strangely powerful effect on the band's fans. A curious music blogger decides to investigate the phenomenon up close by following Beautiful Remorse on tour across Texas and Kansas, realizing along the way that the band’s lead singer, is hiding an incredible, impossible secret. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

“Spectacular—I've been waiting years for this book to exist.” —Maria Dahvana Headley, author of Beowulf: A New Translation "If Le Guin wrote a Camelot story, I imagine it would feel like Spear: humane, intelligent, and deeply beautiful. It's a new story with very old bones, a strange place that feels like home." —Alix E. Harrow, author of A Spindle Splintered She left all she knew to find who she could be . . . She grows up in the wild wood, in a cave with her mother, but visions of a faraway lake drift to her on the spring breeze, scented with promise. And when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she decides her future lies at his court. So, brimming with magic and eager to test her strength, she breaks her covenant with her mother and sets out on her bony gelding for Caer Leon. With her stolen hunting spear and mended armour, she is an unlikely hero, not a chosen one, but one who forges her own bright path. Aflame with determination, she begins a journey of magic and mystery, love, lust and fights to death. On her adventures, she will steal the hearts of beautiful women, fight warriors and sorcerers, and make a place to call home. The legendary author of Hild returns with an unforgettable hero and a queer Arthurian masterpiece for the modern era. Nicola Griffith’s Spear is a spellbinding vision of the Camelot we've longed for, a Camelot that belongs to us all. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

'A superbly told tale of folklore-infused fantasy, full of rising dread, set in a sharply observed Australian outback town.' Garth Nix Strange what chooses to flourish here. Which plants. Which stories. Bettina Scott lives a tidy, quiet life in Runagate, tending to her delicate mother and their well-kept garden after her father and brothers disappear - until a note arrives that sends Bettina into the scrublands beyond, searching for answers about what really happened to this town, and to her family. For this is a land where superstitions hunt and folk tales dream - and power is there for the taking, for those willing to look. WINNER OF THE BRITISH FANTASY AWARDS: THE SYDNEY J. BOUNDS AWARD FOR BEST NEWCOMER 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR THE COURIER-MAIL PEOPLE'S CHOICE QUEENSLAND BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2021 PRAISE FOR FLYAWAY 'Jennings' prose dazzles, and her magic feels real enough that you might even prick your finger on it.' Kelly Link 'Half mystery, half fairy tale, all exquisitely rendered and full of teeth.' Holly Black 'Brilliant light washes through these pages, a perfect foil for the novella's shadowy, all-too-serious battles of class, community and family. Sly visitations from imported, half-naturalised folklore add further layers of mystery and wonder to a more-than-magical tale of history's grip, the land's memory, and the harm we cannot help but do to ourselves and each other.' Margo Lanagan 'In spellbinding, lyrical prose Jennings lulls readers into this rich, dreamlike world. Lovers of contemporary fairy tales and magical realism will find this a masterful work.' Publishers Weekly

"I devoured this."—V. E. Schwab, New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue An International Bestseller An NPR Best Sci Fi, Fantasy, & Speculative Fiction Book of 2022 A Book Riot Best Book of 2022 A Vulture Best Fantasy Novel of 2022 A Goodreads Best Fantasy Choice Award Nominee A Library Journal Best Book of 2022 Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries. Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Winner of the 2022 Australian Shadows Award for Best Long Fiction Nominated for the 2023 British Fantasy Award for Best Novella "Intelligent, compassionate and unsettling."—The New York Times “Devlin twists and breaks the typical zombie narrative without spoiling one of the cleverest conceits in recent horror. Suffice to say that the author takes a scalpel to the post-truth era.”—Esquire In the tradition of Mira Grant and Stephen Graham Jones, Malcolm Devlin’s And Then I Woke Up is a creepy, layered, literary story about false narratives and their ability to divide us. In a world reeling from an unusual plague, monsters lurk in the streets while terrified survivors arm themselves and roam the countryside in packs. Or perhaps something very different is happening. When a disease affects how reality is perceived, it’s hard to be certain of anything... Spence is one of the “cured” living at the Ironside rehabilitation facility. Haunted by guilt, he refuses to face the changed world until a new inmate challenges him to help her find her old crew. But if he can’t tell the truth from the lies, how will he know if he has earned the redemption he dreams of? How will he know he hasn’t just made things worse? At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Kerstin Hall's Second Spear is the thrilling follow-up to the Nommo Award finalist, The Border Keeper “A labyrinth of demons, dead gods, cranky psychopomps, and broken all-too-human lives. Hall is by turns wry and lush, genuine and venomous.”—Max Gladstone, New York Times bestselling author, on Border Keeper After surviving the schemes of a vengeful goddess and learning some shattering truths about her former life, the warrior Tyn feels estranged from her role guarding her ruler. Grappling with knowledge of her identity, she unleashes her frustrations on all the wrong people. When an old enemy returns wielding an unstoppable, realm-crushing weapon and Tyn is swept up in the path of destruction, she must make a choice about who she is and who she wants to be. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

“This is a stand-alone novel with material enough for six... By the halfway point, it had blown my mind twice... an audacious, genre-bending whirlwind.” —New York Times “It reads like Snow Crash had a dance-off with Gideon the Ninth, in a world where language isn't a virus from outer space, it's a goddamn alien invasion.” —Charles Stross In modern day Los Angeles, a shadowy faction led by the Governor of California develops the arcane art of combat linguistics, planting the seeds of a future totalitarian empire. Isobel is the Queen of the medieval rave-themed VR game Sparkle Dungeon. Her prowess in the game makes her an ideal candidate to learn the secrets of "power morphemes"—unnaturally dense units of meaning that warp perception when skilfully pronounced. But Isobel’s reputation makes her the target of a strange resistance movement led by spellcasting anarchists, who may be the only thing stopping the cabal from toppling California over the edge of a terrible transformation, with forty million lives at stake. Time is short for Isobel to level up and choose a side—because the cabal has attracted much bigger and weirder enemies than the anarchist resistance, emerging from dark and vicious dimensions of reality and heading straight for planet Earth! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST ANTHOLOGY Sixteen short stories from China's groundbreaking science fiction writers, edited and translated by award-winning author Ken Liu. In Hugo award-winner Liu Cixin's ‘Moonlight,’ a man is contacted by three future versions of himself, each trying to save their world from destruction. Hao Jingfang’s ‘The New Year Train’ sees 1,500 passengers go missing on a train that vanishes into space. In the title story by Tang Fei, a young girl is shown how the stars can reveal the future. In addition, three essays explore the history and rise of Chinese science fiction publishing, contemporary Chinese fandom, and how the growing interest in Chinese SF has impacted writers who had long laboured in obscurity. By turns dazzling, melancholy and thought-provoking, Broken Stars celebrates the vibrancy and diversity of SFF voices emerging from China. Stories include: “Goodnight, Melancholy” by Xia Jia “The Snow of Jinyang” by Zhang Ran “Broken Stars” by Tang Fei “Submarines” by Han Song “Salinger and the Koreans” by Han Song “Under a Dangling Sky” by Cheng Jingbo “What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear” by Baoshu “The New Year Train” by Hao Jingfang “The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales” by Fei Dao “Moonlight” by Liu Cixin “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Laba Porridge" by Anna Wu “The First Emperor’s Games” by Ma Boyong “Reflection” by Gu Shi “The Brain Box” by Regina Kanyu Wang “Coming of the Light” by Chen Qiufan “A History of Future Illnesses” by Chen Qiufan Essays: “A Brief Introduction to Chinese Science Fiction and Fandom,” by Regina Kanyu Wang, “A New Continent for China Scholars: Chinese Science Fiction Studies” by Mingwei Song “Science Fiction: Embarrassing No More” by Fei Dao For more Chinese SF in translation, check out Invisible Planets. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.