The best new science fiction books from Octuber 2025 with Chris Hadfield and a tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin

Like many of you, Ursula K. Le Guin is arguably one of my favorite sci-fi writers. So I’m really excited about a collection this month that brings twigs on the cards she would draw when the story has history, and also celebrates her brilliant and wise writing. Not least because we just read The event With The New Scientist Book Club: Come and join and share your thoughts on this classic novel with fellow fans!

However, sci-fi out this month is looking back as well as. Ken Liu brings us a thriller in the near future, and I am eager to read Megha Majumdar’s tale of a flooded Kolkata and a desperate mother. There is also fiction from astronaut Chris Hadfield and a new release from Mark Z. Danielewski, author of The Epically Strange House of Leaves.

Le Guin, Blurb for this, roles us, would draw a card when she began one of her glorious stories, such as Earthsea Series (I remember Archipelagos at the start of these books) and Always comes home. The new collection gathers these cards and accompanies them with interviews, poems, recipes and stories from a number of contributors. This book sounds like a real treasure trove for my colleagues Le Guin fans and me.

In this sci-fi-thriller set in the near future, Hacker Julia is recruited to help save a kidnapped “dream artist” and reveal a virtual reality mystery. This is the first one in Julia Z. Series from Hugo -Prize -winning Liu.

Reynolds who wrote an excellent sci-fi short story to New scientist A few years back here tells the story of a private investigator named something indefinite, Yuri Gagarin, who is investigating a death on a star voucher carrying thousands of sleeping passengers through the room.

I have to admit that I am not sure how far this strikes into science fictional territory, but I always say that there are perfect of crossover between sci-fi fans and lovers of Danielewski’s semen House of Leaves. In fact, my colleague Jacob Aron chose it as one of the best sci-fi novels of all time. So I can imagine that some of you, like me, are happy to teach Danielewski a new novel this month. It apparently follows two friends in the small town of Orvop, Utah, to save two horses from slaughter – but I’m sure there will be a terrible much more than that and I’m here for it.

This dystopian novel takes place in a world where a disease has robbed people of their memories and where they visit the center to bother to speak and live. But when “cuts of memories” begin to return to them, it threatens the center’s strict curriculum and the students begin to question what is really going on. I love the fact in their free time, they see old video tapes and take on the names of the characters from them – Chandler and Gunther, Maria and Chino!

Conformity of Ariel Sullivan

Going comparisons with The Hunger GamesThis is set in a dystopian society where everyone is judged according to their ability to adhere to and where a woman is in a love triangle. We also promised a look at the dangers of social and genetic technique.

This slice of the room’s horror will just be the ticket to the Halloween season. Halley is on the run after the exhibition an interplanetary conspiracy. She was hiding in the Elysian fields, a driving crypt in the room that was dreamed of by a billionaire who thought the rich could be in Kryo-Subsleep until the medicine caught Mortaly. It has fled silently for over a century after the program was abandoned, but now Halley is on board and something feels wrong …

Astronaut Chris Hadfield’s Cold War Thriller is set in the 1970s, in the midst of the US, USSR and China, which a New Apollo mission is launched in orbit. This is the third title in the series after Haadfields The Apollo murders and The offenses.

This sounds like a must-feed to me. It lies in an almost future kolkata where climate change and food button cause flooding and famine. MA is ready to join her husband in Michigan and bring her 2-year-old daughter and older father with him. But just as they are about to leave, mine discovers her immigration documents have been stolen. Insert a Franstic search for the thief over the course of a week. Meanwhile, Boomba, the thief himself, commits escalating crimes when seeking to look after his family. How far goes each to protect their children as approaches?

Lucy, whose earliest memories are about the Covid-19 pandemic, and who is now struggling to restore lost species, and horses, born on the day of the Chernobyl disaster, both dream of a time when Wolves return to Britain. This is “huge” and “unforgettable” according to no less than Kim Stanley Robinson.

We get two for the price of one in this double heads-a couple of crime stories set in a far-reaching science-fictional universe. Millers Red star hustle Follows a high -class escort on the run that falls for the “studio and noble clone of a murderous puppet monarch” (I am very much taken by that combination of words). Kowal’s Apprehension Seeing a grandmother on a foreign planet described in persecution when her Grandeon is kidnapped by a terrorist organization.

If you thought Pride and prejudice and zombies Were zenith (or nadir) by Jane Austen reinvents, so think again: this is a remix of Pride and prejudice and Frankenstein It is reimbursed to the ordinary sister Mary Bennet as a glorious scientist who wants to re -analimize the dead … to find a man. But then she meets a remarkable young woman who makes her see what she really wants.