How June Is Now? 10 New SFF Books Out June 2024

Calling all you misbehaving robot fans! This is a humorous sci-fi about robots and the end of humanity. (It’s supposed to be funny, really.) After an idea is somehow downloaded into its programming, a domestic service model murders its owner and takes off on its own adventure. But even without murdering robots, humanity is on the brink of collapse, leaving the robot population that has long served humans to fend for itself. When you have “outlived” your purpose, is it as easy as reprogramming yourself for a new one?

From the author of the amazing debut The Deep Sky comes this exciting space heist novel! Maya Hoshimoto was once an outlaw of the galaxy, stealing back alien artifacts and returning them to their civilizations. Until things went wrong, and she retired and became a student of anthropology. But now an old friend has contacted her with a job that pays so well that she can’t refuse it. She must locate an object that will save a whole race of aliens from extinction. Maya gets a crew together and sets off on one last job, but it will be marked by danger and double-crossing. And oh yeah, the possibility that if she completes her job, it may bring about the end of humanity on Earth. No pressure, though.

Wild rockstar Mal Caldera is dead. And regrets, she has a few. Mostly that her younger sister Cris was left to deal with the fallout after Mal died. Everyone else in the afterlife seems to be, ah, living it up. But Mal doesn’t want to join the dead man’s party. She wants to reach out to Cris, and she thinks her best hope of getting her a message is the Oda Mae Brown way. So she contacts Ren, a medium, who agrees to help. But the more Mal interferes with the human realm, the more she risks her spirit. And her growing connection with Ren is making it harder and harder to return to the ghost life. What’s a ghoul to do?

This amazing novel from the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore will twist your brain into the best knots and you will thank it. Sloan has crafted a brilliant, fun tale of courage and adventure! It’s like Mary Stewart writing after ten cans of Red Bull, like The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles for grownups. It’s probably best to go in not learning very much about it, so just know that it’s about a young boy, a kingdom, sentient artificial intelligence, and an epic journey to save the world. And, bee tee dubs, it’s set eleven thousand years in the future. (I read this in one sitting and then immediately read it again. It might be my favorite book of the year.)

This debut historical fantasy takes place aboard the Trans-Siberian Express. But this version of the famous train rides through the Wastelands, as its the only way to pass through the world of monsters outside. But then something terrible happens on a journey. Buuuuuut no one remembers what it was, just that…something happened. Now the train is ready for a new journey, with a new group of passengers, each with their own special reasons for needing to travel through the Wastelands. Even if it’s on a train that had a terrible incident on its last journey…But as the train makes its way down the tracks, it’s starting to look like that incident wasn’t an anomaly. And they may have to depend on each other, strangers, if they want to make it to their destination.