Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for November and … – tor.com

The end of the year is almost upon us, but that doesnt mean that theres a shortage of intriguing-looking books due out on indie presses to close out 2023. Instead, the last two months of this year abound with some of 2023s most intriguing reads to datefrom an unexpected work of ecological horror to a bizarre vision of the Ozarks in the future. Heres a look at a number of indie press titles due out between now and the end of the year. Whether youre looking for a classic dystopian tale or a dreamlike take on detective fiction, you might just find your next favorite read here.

This summer saw the publication of the second volume of Chris McKinneys trilogy about an underwater city and a world-changing technology. With the end of the year comes the final installment, titled Sunset, Water City. Here, McKinney completes a pivot from futuristic detective narrative to a work set in a full-on post-apocalyptic landscape (or seascape). Its a haunting conclusion for an ambitious series. (Soho Press; December 2023)

Described by its publisher as a transhumanist noir, Thomas Kendalls new book How I Killed the Universal Man sends its journalist protagonist on the trail of a potentially groundbreaking medicationand into a world where body modifications abound and the nature of consciousness is forever altered. Kendalls previous novel The Autodidacts featured a very different kind of literary mystery, and its exciting to see what he might do here. (Whisk(e)Y Tit, Dec. 2, 2023)

Bennet Sims has previously told a zombie story with no other in the book A Questionable Shape. With the new collection Other Minds and Other Stories, Sims pushes his fiction into fascinating new placesincluding one of the most surreal private detective stories youre likely to read. Simss use of dream logic and surrealism blend with a cerebral quality; the overall effect is thoroughly compelling. (Two Dollar Radio; Nov. 14, 2023)

The protagonist of Amin Maaloufs novel On the Isle of Antiochtranslated by Natasha Lehrerhas a quiet life on an isolated island when the book opens. Soon enough, things take a series of ominous turns, including a crisis that puts the world on the verge of ending and the arrival on the scene of mysterious beings seeking to avert a disaster. Is there more happening here than meets the eye? (World Editions; Dec. 5, 2023)

Its been a big year for Tiffany Morris, who also had work featured in the anthology Never Whistle at Nightand whose story Wapnintutijig They Sang Until Dawn was praised in these pages as [a] beautiful story about climate change, Indigenous beliefs and practices, and the intersections between them. Green Fuse Burning tells the story of an artist whose immersion in a haunted space touches on both ecological themes and horrific imagery. (Stelliform Press; Nov. 1, 2023)

Following the crew of a soon-to-be-decommissioned space station, Samantha Harveys novel Orbital offers a singular perspective on life both on the planet and making its way above it. Whats it like to hurtle through space thousands of feet above the planets surface? Harveys novel blends the technologically breathtaking with the quietly quotidian. (Grove Press; Dec. 5, 2023)

In an interview published earlier this year, Chkdl Emelmad explained the genesis of her novel Dazzling. I wanted a book that represented the strange mix of world in which I grew up in contemporary south-eastern Nigeria, with its mores, hierarchies, and beliefs, she saidand this novel, where humans and spirits traverse the same paths and bodies are malleableis the result. (The Overlook Press; Dec. 5, 2023)

Writing on the subject of Appalachian SFF in these pages in 2021, Linda H. Codega noted that Manly Wade Wellmans stories of John the Balladeer are hard to find, but worth it. Now, a new edition of John the Balladeer should help these tales of a traveling musician crossing paths with the supernatural find a broader audience. (Valancourt Books; Nov. 1, 2023)

In an interview last year, Jane Alberdeston described the thoughts that provided the underpinning for a course she was teaching at Binghamton University. Its also thinking about exile, imprisonment, solitudeall those themes that have come up in the past couple of years, Alberdeston saida description that could also apply to her novel Colony 51, about a community of young women living in an isolated dystopian society and the recent arrival looking to spark change there. (Jaded Ibis Press; Nov. 2, 2023)

A winner of the Otherwise Award in 2019, Gabriela Damin Miravetes latest project is the novel They Will Dream in the Garden, here translated by Adrian Demopulos. This novel chronicles, as per the publisher, the disconcerting experience of living as a woman in Mexicowhich, in this book, involves everything from linguistic preservation to transcendental experiences. (Rosarium Publishing; Dec. 5, 2023)

In his blurb for Matthew Mitchells novella Chaindevils, Laird Barron invoked The Road, Warhammer 40k, and pulp westernsand your response to those three points of comparison should serve as a pretty good guide as to what youll make of this book. Do you like your speculative fiction set in a violent futuristic version of the Ozarks? This might be the next addition to your to-read pile. (Weirdpunk, Nov. 11, 2023)

Im on record as being a huge admirer of Kang Young-sooks novel Rina, a haunting tale that followed its protagonist through a devastated and hostile landscape. Needless to say, Im thrilled to hear that a new book of Kangs is due out in translation (in this case, by Janet Hong). The collection At Night He Lifts Weights offers readers a cross-section of Kangs work, featuring settings ranging from fraught urban landscapes to plague-ridden suburbs. (Transit Books; Nov. 1, 2023)

The protagonist of Gemma Amors novel The Folly struggles in the wake of multiple tragedies: the death of her mother and the wrongful incarceration of her father for her murder. Daughter and father begin working as caretakers for an isolated towerthe folly of the titlewhen things take a turn for the weird. Specifically, someone shows up who may have an uncanny connection to the murdered womanwhich ups the stakes considerably. (Polis Books; Dec. 5, 2023)

Reading the works of Mathias nard can involve revisiting the life of Michaelangelo or chronicling the horrors of the 20th century. With The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers Guild, nard and translator Frank Wynne take things in a more metaphysical directionwith a narrative in which a researchers trip to a small French town coincides with a temporary shift in the balance between death and life. (New Directions; Dec. 5, 2023)

Michael Jeffrey Lees fiction has been published in the likes of Fairy Tale Review, Conjunctions, and the anthology XO Orpheus: Fifty New Myths. Lees new collection, My Worst Ideas, features the natural world turning bizarreincluding a hostile river and a headless pigeon with strange propertiesamidst a pervasive sense of widespread alienation. (Spurl Editions; Nov. 1, 2023)

I first learned of the writings of Stefan Grabinski via this fascinating overview of his work by John Coulthart. The new collection Orchard of the Dead & Other Macabre Tales features translations by Anthony Sciscione and an introduction by Brian Evenson; its a great introduction to a writer whos been compared to both Poe and Lovecraft, and who summoned up a sense of dread at the excesses of industry.

Tobias Carroll is the managing editor of Vol.1 Brooklyn. He is the author of the short story collection Transitory (Civil Coping Mechanisms) and the novel Reel (Rare Bird Books).

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Can't Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for November and ... - tor.com