Since 2022 has only just begun, we’ve got all year to anticipate them. But we’re sure that they’ll be worth it! With books from Emily St. John Mandel, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Adam Roberts, and so many other amazing authors, 2022 is a year with a lot to look forward to. So, with plenty of releases to get excited for, be sure to check out the best sci fi books 2022!
How High We Go In The Dark – Sequoia Nagamatsu
Release Date: January 18 2022
In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come.
Dead Silence – SA Barnes
Release Date: February 8 2022
Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate. What they find is shocking: the Aurora, a famous luxury spaceliner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago.
The Kaiju Preservation Society – John Scalzi
Release Date: March 15 2022
When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. Until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization.” Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on. What Tom doesn’t tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth.
Light Years from Home – Mike Chen
Release Date: January 25 2022
Evie Shao and her sister, Kass, aren’t on speaking terms. Fifteen years ago on a family camping trip, their father and brother vanished. Their dad turned up days later, convinced he’d been abducted by aliens. Their brother, Jakob, remained missing. When Evie’s UFO network uncovers a new event, she goes to investigate. And discovers Jakob is back.
Goliath – Tochi Onyebuchi
Release Date: January 25 2022
In the 2050s, Earth has begun to empty. Those with the means and the privilege have departed the great cities of the United States for the more comfortable confines of space colonies. Those left behind salvage what they can from the collapsing infrastructure. What was once a home now a quaint reminder for the colonists of the world that they wrecked.
Mickey 7 – Edward Ashton
Release Date: February 15 2022
Dying isn’t any fun, but at least it’s a living. Mickey7 is an Expendable. A disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there’s a mission that’s too dangerous the crew turns to Mickey. On a fairly routine scouting mission, Mickey7 goes missing and is presumed dead. By the time he returns to the colony base, there’s a new clone, Mickey8, reporting for Expendable duties.
Bluebird – Ciel Pierlot
Release Date: February 8 2022
Three factions vie for control of the galaxy. Rig doesn’t give a damn about them and she hasn’t looked back since abandoning her faction three years ago. That is, until her former faction sends her a message: return what she stole from them, or they’ll kill her twin sister.
The Moonday Letters – Emmi Itäranta
Release Date: July 5 2022
Lumi is an Earth-born healer whose Mars-born spouse Sol disappears unexpectedly on a work trip. As Lumi begins her quest to find Sol, she delves gradually deeper into Sol’s secrets and her own.
A Half-Built Garden – Ruthanna Emrys
Release Date: July 26 2022
On a warm March night in 2083, Judy Wallach-Stevens wakes to a warning of unknown pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay. She heads out to check what she expects to be a false alarm. And stumbles upon the first alien visitors to Earth.
Deep Dive – Ron Walters
Release Date: January 11 2022
Still reeling from the failure of his last project, videogame developer Peter Banuk is working hard to ensure his next game doesn’t meet the same fate. So when Peter’s tech-genius partner offers him the chance to beta-test a new state-of-the-art virtual reality headset, he jumps at it. But something goes wrong during the trial.
Eyes of the Void – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Release Date: May 3 2022
After eighty years of fragile peace, the Architects are back, wreaking havoc as they consume entire planets. In the past, Originator artefacts could save a world from annihilation. This time, the Architects have discovered a way to circumvent these protective relics. And suddenly, no planet is safe.
Hunt The Stars – Jessie Mihalik
Release Date: February 1 2022
Octavia Zarola would do anything to keep her tiny, close-knit bounty hunting crew together. Even if it means accepting a job from Torran Fletcher, a ruthless former general and her sworn enemy. When Torran offers her enough credits to not only keep her crew afloat but also hire someone to fix her ship, Tavi knows that she can’t refuse.
Manhunt – Gretchen Felker-Martin
Release Date: February 22 2022
Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they’ll never face the same fate. Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren’t safe. After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate all sorts of dangerous enemies.
The Starless Crown – James Rollins
Release Date: January 4 2022
A gifted student foretells an apocalypse. Her reward is a sentence of death. Fleeing into the unknown she is drawn into a team of outcasts: A broken soldier, a drunken prince, and an imprisoned thief. On the run, hunted by enemies old and new, they must learn to trust each other in order to survive. But with each passing moment, doom draws closer.
The Memory Librarian – Janelle Monáe
Release Date: April 19 2022
Whoever controls our memories controls the future.
Expanding from that mythos, these stories fully explore what it’s like to live in such a totalitarian existence and what it takes to get out of it. The Memory Librarian serves readers tales grounded in the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, but also reaching through to the worlds of memory and time within, and the stakes and power that exists there.
Stars and Bones – Gareth L. Powell
Release Date: March 1 2022
Seventy-five years from today, the human race has been cast from a dying Earth to wander the stars in a vast fleet of arks. Each shaped by its inhabitants into a diverse and fascinating new environment, with its own rules and eccentricities. When her sister disappears while responding to a mysterious alien distress call, Eryn insists on being part of the crew sent to look for her.
The This – Adam Roberts
Release Date: February 3 2022
The This is the new social media platform everyone is talking about. Allow it to be injected into the roof of your mouth and it will grow into your brain, allow you to connect with others without even picking up your phone. Its followers are growing. Its detractors say it is a cult. But for one journalist, hired to do a puff-piece interview with their CEO, it will change the world forever.
Nona The Ninth – Tamsyn Muir
Release Date: September 13 2022
In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona’s not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger’s body, and she’s afraid she might have to give it back. As well as this, the whole city is falling to pieces.
Devil House – John Darnielle
Release Date: January 25 2022
Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That’s what his mother always told him. Years later, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly success to his name, along with a series of subsequent less notable efforts. But now he is being offered the chance for the big break: to move into the house where a pair of briefly notorious murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected teens during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.
Sisters of the Forsaken Stars – Lina Rather
Release Date: February 22 2022
Not long ago, Earth’s colonies and space stations threw off the yoke of planet Earth’s tyrannical rule. Decades later, trouble is brewing in the Four Systems, and Old Earth is flexing its power in a bid to regain control over its lost territories.
The Order of Saint Rita bore witness to and defied Central Governance’s atrocities on the remote planet Phyosonga III. The sisters have been running ever since, staying under the radar while still trying to honor their calling.
Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel
Release Date: April 5 2022
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core.
The Women Could Fly – Megan Giddings
Release Date:
Josephine Thomas has heard every conceivable theory about her mother’s disappearance. That she was kidnapped. Murdered. That she took on a new identity to start a new family. That she was a witch. But fourteen years have passed since her mother’s disappearance, and now Jo is finally ready to let go of the past. Yet her future is in doubt.
