Out of This World: The Best New April 2025 Sci Fi Books

In 2035 Los Angeles, wildfire smoke chokes the air, and archivist Xandria Brown is fighting to preserve African American history—while her own memory unravels. Long COVID, grief, and corporate threats shadow her days at the Huntington Library, where she’s curating a vital new collection.

When the building locks down and a colleague vanishes, Xandria must rely on AI assistants, scattered memories, and fading intuition to protect the Diwata Collection—a radical vision for humanity’s survival. But in a world of glitchy tech and eroding trust, even her allies may not be what they seem.

In a crumbling future, the authoritarian Federation faces a plot to assassinate its power-hungry President—an immortal figure who preserves control by uploading his mind into new bodies. Meanwhile, in AI-governed Western Europe, a rogue artificial intelligence threatens global collapse. On the run from surveillance, scientist Lilia may hold the key to toppling the regime.

As revolution brews, her fate intertwines with a cast of rebels, lovers, and reluctant insiders—from imprisoned activists to corrupt officials—each playing a role in the fight for a world on the brink of transformation or total ruin.

In this magical, coming-of-middle-age adventure, a coven of trans witches faces off against a power-hungry AI. After mysteriously gaining the ability to understand all languages, Wilder—a thirty-something queer Brooklynite—is taken in by a coven with mystical gifts of their own. As Wilder adjusts to magic, community, and self-acceptance, the group must unite to confront a growing threat.

Awakened is a funny, heartfelt tale of chosen family, drag shows, identity, and resisting late capitalism—exploring what it means to live, love, and create reality in a world on the brink.

When Griffon Keming’s second parents die, he’s left with a hole in his heart—and a bloodstained journal as his only clue to who they truly were. They rescued him from abuse, guided his transition, and gave him love shaped by their own traumas: a failed revolution, exile, and the long journey to become themselves.

Now, through his father’s prison writings—raw with grief, art, and devotion—Griffon begins to unravel their fierce, fleeting love story and discover what it means to belong to people who were always racing against time.

In 2106, climate change has reshaped the world—and a cosmic event called the “Bloom” has awakened psionic powers in a rare few. Maida Sun, gifted with the ability to read an object’s past, joins a cultural recovery project in San Francisco. When she touches a mysterious artifact, she’s drawn into the lives of Li Nuan, a sex-trafficked girl in 1906, and Nathan, a disillusioned tech designer in 2006.

As Maida uncovers a deadly plot against psions, past and future collide in a powerful fight against exploitation and for collective liberation.

The world has forgotten Onyesonwu—but Najeeba has not. Once a powerful kponyungo who gave up magic after losing her father, Najeeba built a quiet life, only to see it shattered again and again. Now in her forties and grieving her daughter’s death, she turns to Onyesonwu’s old teacher, the ruthless sorcerer Aro, to learn the Mystic Points—magic strong enough to destroy what must be destroyed.

As Najeeba steps back into power, she must face buried memories, lost loves, and the legacy of a daughter the world chose to forget.

After weeks trapped on a spaceship with Ada (and yes, there’s only one bed), Rian starts to realize her rebel cause might be right. The nanobots about to be released on Earth are infected with malware—and time is running out. To stop global disaster, they must break into a high-security facility and unleash a counter-virus. But Ada’s got her eye on more than just saving the world.

Packed with tension, twists, and stolen tech, this enemies-to-lovers, sci-fi romance crackles with Sherlock/Moriarty energy and a slow-burn chemistry you won’t want to miss.

In Vanishing World, Sayaka Murata reimagines Japan with unsettling precision, exploring a future where sex is taboo and procreation is strictly artificial. Amane is horrified to learn her parents conceived her naturally—a social disgrace in her world.

As she grows up, torn between desire and disgust, she enters a sterile marriage and moves to Paradise-Eden, a town where child-rearing is communal and gender roles are dissolving. With men bearing children in external wombs and names replaced by “Kodomo-chan,” Amane wonders: can this world finally erase her shame—or deepen her alienation?

Captain Blite is trapped in a deadly loop. Each time he dies—through sabotage, accident, or assassination—the mysterious dark diamond rewinds time, forcing him to relive the trauma until he survives. These repeated deaths spark powerful time flashes that reveal glimpses of possible futures, catching the attention of ruthless Polity agents and the warlike p-Prador.

Hunted across galaxies and timelines, Blite races to uncover the truth behind the dark diamond’s power before it destroys him for good. Some fates are worse than death—and Blite’s may be infinite.

When JP’s cancer returns, his lifelong best friend Dulin suggests one last adventure: a week-long bus tour of North America’s “Impossibles”—bizarre, reality-defying sites that began appearing after the Announcement revealed our world is a digital simulation. With a ragtag group of oddball passengers—a nun seeking God, a fame-hungry influencer, thrill-seeking seniors, and a fugitive professor—the journey promises absurd stops, existential questions, and plenty of chaos.

But as they approach the tour’s mysterious final stop, Ghost City, the true nature of their reality—and who’s running it—might finally be revealed.

At 45, Imogen has never quite found her place—or her passion. Cold feet before her wedding is one thing, but getting kidnapped by an alien prince? That’s a whole new level. The prince, a powerful sidhe, is convinced Imogen will fall for him and use her latent powers to help win a centuries-old war.

But with his kinder brother’s help, Imogen begins to reclaim her agency. If she can’t fight back, she risks being just another pawn in a world that’s already decided her fate.

Ella has been five years old for fifty-eight years. Trapped in a simulated colony, she’s forced to play the daughter of its creator—“Daddy”—a man with total control over reality. His power keeps the colonists quiet, even as his grip slips and danger rises. Anyone who helps Ella disappears. But every sixty years, a Technician arrives from the real world.

Ella has a plan—and if help doesn’t come soon, she’ll take a risk that could upend not just her life, but the entire universe.