A ship’s crew is like a family. They fight together, succeed together, love together and, if things go wrong, die together. As with previous installments of Alex White’s Salvagers trilogy, the crew of the starship Capricious does a little bit of all of these. The stakes have never been higher than in this last entry, The Worst of All Possible Worlds. But one of the best parts about reading books in a series is that by the end, you feel like part of the family, too.

Having just delivered one of the galaxy’s worst war criminals to an execution chamber, Nilah, Boots and the rest of the crew should be feeling like they’re on cloud nine. But the threat of Henrick Witts and his impossibly powerful space station hangs heavily over all sectors of space. After witnessing Witt’s destructive power firsthand, they find themselves in a race against time: uncover the mysteries of a long-lost colony ship and an ancient form of magic that might be the only hope to save everyone and everything.

With all of the space battles, massive creatures, AI-controlled mech suits and military techno-jargon, it’s a wonder there’s even time for White’s characters to breathe. But Worlds is a high-water mark for emotional precision in the space opera subgenre. White injects so much heart into their characters, and the toll the mission takes on them feels immediate and challenging. We’re far beyond the getting-to-know-you phase, and White takes full advantage.

That said, this book contains a flood of incredible moments. It’s hard to go 20 pages without finding a brilliant action set piece, and the driving pace is such that you never have a chance to guess what’s going to happen next. This gleeful intensity was a hallmark of the previous books, and it’s certainly alive and well in the finale. Balancing the action is White’s ever-present humor. A particular highlight is an AI hilariously named “The Devil” that drives a newly acquired war machine—just another tool in the arsenal for a crew that needs all the help it can get.

The crew’s goal—to find out more about Origin, the original human home world and the source of all magic in the galaxy—feels perfectly suited for the conclusion of the series. There’s poetic strength in finding where things began in order to get to the end, and it feels like the only treasure worthy of our treasure-hungry crew. As in the other books, there are nods to classic sci-fi and adventure, from James VanderMeer’s Annihilation to Isaac Asimov’s work to Indiana Jones. But it never feels like fan service. White’s creation is fully their own.

To really get the full experience, I recommend starting with the first book in the series, A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe. You’ll more fully appreciate the journey that these miscreants took to get here. But consider yourself lucky if you do have to start from page one; you’ll be on your way to experiencing one of the best sci-fi trilogies released in the last several years.

Cuban science fiction author Yoss has written a simple, elegant narrative in Red Dust, a novel centered on a robot deputy of little renown. Within Yoss’ succinct 150 pages, the reader follows an eccentric robot obsessed with noir fiction named Raymond after Raymond Chandler. Yoss goes beyond a reliance on overused storytelling methods to craft an entire story from overwrought science fiction tropes slamming into detective noir cliches. The premise—an alien confederation wrapped in power politics holds down the advancement of the human race, and one robot police officer must track down an alien criminal with the help of a convicted thief—should make for a predictable story at best. However, Yoss’ choice of narrator and ability to converse with the reader make Red Dust a breezy, fun read perfect for summer afternoons.

With its copious amounts of cliche, a reader could easily lose interest or find themselves unattached to characters in Red Dust. Raymond, however, keeps the reader engaged, sarcastically pointing out obvious literary references as they happen. The first-person narrative shatters the fourth wall with constant, direct allusions to the story’s noir influences. The resultant quirky lightheartedness creates the feeling of watching a cheesy movie with a good friend, joking about each plot hole and contradiction. As a result, the plot holes don’t matter, and the contradictions are fun instead of frustrating.

Our spunky robot gets assigned the incredibly difficult task of tracking down a supernatural killer called a Gaussical, a being capable of manipulating probability to make any number of insane things happen. This ability translates into the space equivalent of magic, and to catch a wizard, Raymond needs a wizard. Enter El Afortunado, an imprisoned thief and smuggler who happens to be the only known human Gaussical, and is out for revenge. While not particularly complicated, the plot takes the reader on a lovely jaunt through a troubled Sol system, chasing bad guys, ejecting power crystals and eventually, finding a happy ending.

If you are looking for either hard science fiction or gritty noir mystery, Red Dust is not for you. If you want to peruse those worlds through a rosy tint and listen to the narration of a sardonic positronic companion, then this book will happily fill a short few hours of your time.

Life isn’t easy in the great, wide universe. Especially if you’re a SecUnit who’s hacked your governor module in order to watch thousands of hours of human media feeds. Or if you’re responsible for the health and safety of a crew of humans who seem just so incredibly bent on getting themselves killed, either on standard survey missions or in attempted hostile incursions from the Corporation Rim. Despite the downsides of caring for humans (most notably, caring for them interferes with television time), Murderbot is content with its position within Preservation Station and with the life and associates it has collected over the years. But when an old acquaintance kidnaps Murderbot’s crew and demands its help as ransom, Murderbot is forced away from the media feed to save the day (again) and get its humans back safe and sound.

Network Effect is the first novel-length work in Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries saga and the fifth entry in the series overall. Like Wells’ previous novellas starring Murderbot, Network Effect is a masterclass in tone. Murderbot’s sarcastic, adolescent humor suffuses the book, giving readers the distinct feeling of reading real-time logs directly off Murderbot’s strange, twisted core processor. The result is, at times, laugh-out-loud insights into human behavior. At others, it’s the feeling of intruding on someone as they try to understand exactly how to relate to their fellow sentient beings—and often fail. Despite its name, Murderbot is the most awkwardly human character to come out of science fiction in a long time.

Of course, Network Effect is far from a book on philosophy. If it is, it’s a book on philosophy wrapped in the perfect space opera, full of mysterious alien remnants, thrilling firefights inside of sentient space ships and political and corporate intrigue. Wells’ fight scenes are kinetic and tactical, juxtaposing visceral descriptions of Murderbot’s organic parts sloughing off with occasionally balletic fight sequences between Murderbot, its drones and whatever targets it happens to be facing off against. The result is not for the overly squeamish, but it is also gory within reason. After all, Network Effect is a book based in humor as much as it is in action.

New readers to the Murderbot Diaries universe need not fear; although it is well worth your time to go back and binge-read the first four novellas in the series, Network Effect delivers on its promise as a stand-alone story (one that, somehow, miraculously, only contains a few spoilers for the rest of the series). Although not every relationship is explained to its fullest, the book contains everything readers need to know about Murderbot and its team. And for longtime students of the many (mostly sarcastic or mildly annoyed) moods of Murderbot, this will be a satisfying return to some fan-favorite characters. No matter your background with sentient murder robots, Network Effect is the perfect fare for any seeking the perfect weekend binge read or escapist vacation.

Tim Lebbon’s latest thriller pits a group of adventurous explorers against Mother Nature as they attempt to cross through a wilderness that is guarding itself against all human intervention.

In a dystopian future, the earth has been parceled out, with some large tracts of land completely closed off to the public. With the hope of reversing the damage inflicted on the planet, entire populations have been relocated away from these Virgin Zones, to allow the environment a chance to rebuild itself. The most mysterious and impenetrable of these zones is Eden. But a group of ultramarathon runners is about to cross its threshold in an attempt to become the only people in Virgin Zone history to pass through Eden and live.

While the action-packed plot will keep readers glued to the page, it’s this motley team of characters that lend the book its heart. The story is told mostly through the perspective of Jenn, a fierce athlete whose fearless love for adventure takes her all over the world. She is joined by Dylan, her father and the team’s level-headed leader; Aaron, her longtime boyfriend; Cove, the risk-taking explorer; Lucy, her best friend and confidante; and Selina, the scientist of the group, whose appreciation for nature is an emotional and intellectual exercise. Though they enter Eden as a team, they will quickly be driven to the limits of their faith in each other and their abilities to withstand the elements—both natural and unnatural.

Eden is brilliantly paced, with each new section introduced by a piece of “genuine” text, such as reports from the United Zone Council and excerpts from National Geographic magazine. As the group is driven to confront their greatest fears and challenges, the tension continues to mount up until the novel’s exciting conclusion. This is a true page-turner that seamlessly blends elements from various genres, from horror and science fiction to classic adventure tales.

Set hundreds of years in the future, A Pale Light in the Black imagines a universe where humans—and the branches of our military—have expanded beyond the solar system. Least among these branches is the Near-Earth Orbital Guard (NeoG), who are often derided by their fellow service members as being little more than “space cops.” A Pale Light in the Black follows the members of the NeoG Interceptor team Zuma’s Ghost. After a narrow defeat at the annual Boarding Games, the team has trained hard to redeem themselves. But that training is thrown into jeopardy when one of the team’s core members is unexpectedly promoted and reassigned. In his place they are given Maxine “Max” Carmichael, a young, awkward lieutenant with no experience in the Games. And when it becomes apparent that someone is targeting the team following a routine smuggling-busting mission, the Games aren’t the only thing Zuma’s Ghost will have to deal with.

There are plenty of TV shows and books out there for folks who want gritty, high-stakes action and intrigue. A Pale Light in the Black is not that. While it does have a mystery subplot with sabotage and murder, most of the book’s action covers the all-consuming Games. And while this might seem boring compared to alien invasions and intergalactic warfare, the Games make the perfect backdrop for the real focus of the book: the growing bond between the members of Zuma’s Ghost and their new lieutenant. At its core, A Pale Light in the Black is as much about Max learning to be more confident or Commander Rosa Martín Rivas worrying about her daughters as it is about the games themselves. Far from boring, Wagers’ focus on character growth and relationships is refreshing, providing a welcome palate cleanser from the grimdark dramas that have come to dominate much of the science fiction landscape.

But all this isn’t to say that the book isn’t exciting. Wagers has a gift for describing action, especially in the sequences surrounding the Boarding Games’ cage match-style fights, emphasizing the feel of a tooth coming loose after a particularly hard hit or the panic of knowing that you’re about to get hit hard. For readers who enjoyed Rocky or Top Gun as much as they did Star Trek, A Pale Light in the Black is a thrilling and heartwarming ride.

The best science fiction stories create a bridge between ambitious, precisely calculated genre concepts and the deep, emotional truths that unite us all. Keeping the balance between intricate sci-fi backdrops and delicate matters of the heart is a high-wire act that only succeeds with tremendous care, passion and narrative grace. In his debut novel, The Vanished Birds, Simon Jimenez has announced himself as a graceful, spellbinding storyteller with the gifts to pull it off.

The Vanished Birds charts, in its carefully selective way, centuries of human history and advancement, ultimately catapulting us into a future carved out of glittering corporate-run space stations and far-flung starships that zip through folds in spacetime. It’s into this future, where time is as much of a commodity as any physical good, that Jimenez drops Nia Imani, a woman whose job as captain of a time-folding ship means she’s constantly losing time. Months of travel for her mean years lost on either side of the journey, and this constant sense of detachment has left her unmoored. Then she meets a mysterious boy who fell from the sky onto a distant planet, a boy with a gift for music who could also be destined for much more. Together, they find a bond neither dreamed possible, but powerful forces also want the boy, and a struggle lies ahead.

Though Jimenez’s prose feels right at home in a universe of interstellar travel and space station settlements, The Vanished Birds soars highest when the author is navigating the complex emotional avenues through which much of this deeply human story unfolds. The book never fails to deliver the science fiction goods, and fans of high-concept leaps will be satisfied, but the book’s emotional core is what makes it fly.

The Vanished Birds strikes a breathless balance between the conceptually dazzling and the emotionally resonant, and it’s in that balance that a bright new voice in genre fiction is born.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Simon Jimenez discusses how our contemporary fear of lost time inspired The Vanished Birds.

It seems every new generation gets to witness at least one incredible technological advancement. Something as transformative as the internet or as wondrous as the telephone often redefines life as we know it forever. In Anyone, comics writer-turned-sci-fi scribe Charles Soule builds a world around a similarly staggering invention, but it’s his interest in the people who create it, use it and profit from it that captivates the reader. If you could transfer consciousness to another body, would you be ready for the consequences?

Gabrielle White, a brilliant and determined researcher, is at the end of her rope. Out of funding and losing confidence, she has one last chance to prove that her work to cure Alzheimer’s disease hasn’t gone to waste. When she flips the switch on the laser array in her backyard laboratory, something miraculous happens. For an hour or so, she transfers her consciousness into her husband Paul’s body and back again. Knowing that her financial backers would kill for this technology, Gabby must find a way to keep it a secret while she figures out how to reveal it to the world and ensure that it’s hers.

Twenty-five years later, the introduction of “flashing” has changed the course of world history. Annami is a secretive loner with a chip on her shoulder. By day, she’s a brilliant engineer at Anyone, the company that oversees consciousness transfer worldwide. By night, she moonlights as a dark share, lending her body as a vessel for criminals to take over for a fee. When a dark share deal goes bad and she loses everything, she takes matters into her own hands to fight the evil that flashing has brought to the world.

It is impossible to write about Anyone without first acknowledging the depth of thought and structure Soule has put into flash technology and its potential impact on the world. In chapters written from Annami’s point of view, small details reveal how consciousness transfer affects international relations, sex workers, criminal operations, military aid and more. However, flashing takes a personal toll on everyone in the story. Annami and the characters she interacts with are all direct victims of Gabby’s invention, and Soule’s Blade Runner-inspired cityscape is full of fascinating, often broken people searching for answers.

This gritty future is especially interesting when compared to Gabby’s chapters, which juxtapose perfectly against Annami’s. While Gabby by no means has an easy time of it (some of the troubles she runs into during flash technology’s infancy are gut-wrenching), the promise of a new future that will be better for millions contrasts beautifully with the actual future, where we see that even the purest intentions can be warped into pain and suffering.

In today’s world, we are given glimpses of possible futures impacted by vast technological advancements. But we don’t often consider the costs that might come with those futures. If we really could be anyone, would we want to?

Family life can be tough. Sibling rivalries, parental scrutiny and personal boundaries can sometimes make it hard to remember that you love one another. It’s even more difficult when your mother is an intergalactic smuggler with a frigid demeanor, your brother is enlisted in a far-away war, your younger siblings love nothing more than a good gunfight, and you’re an alcoholic. Yep, Kristyn Merbeth puts a lot of pressure on Scorpia Kaiser and her family. But with a few huge risks, some real bravery and quite a bit of cursing, things might turn out okay for the crew of the Fortuna.

Long after humans left Earth, they settled across a small group of hospitable planets in a far-off sector of space. Each one of these planets developed differently and, despite an alliance, isolated themselves from one another. The only way to gain access to each planet is to be born there. Momma Kaiser, an enterprising individual, adopted a child from each planet so that she could smuggle freely across the galaxy. It’s about as rag-tag a group as you can imagine, but they work together to make a life running contraband. When the family finds itself in the middle of an intergalactic massacre because of cargo they delivered, the two eldest Kaisers, Scorpia and Corvus, must put aside years of differences to figure out how to keep the family safe from a universe certain to track them down.

Fortuna spends time in the separate POVs of Scorpia and Corvus, a storytelling choice that superbly elevates the narrative. Brother and sister have completely different voices, so it’s easy to appreciate how different they are. Scorpia’s casual, devil-may-care style contrasts beautifully with Corvus’ rigidity, economy and self-loathing. The reader finds real sympathy for each of them, which blurs the line between who is right and who is wrong. Merbeth shows herself to be adept with dialogue and character building with all of the Kaisers, and some of the funniest and most powerful moments happen when the family is trading jabs or bickering. It gives the whole story a warm, lived-in feeling. But this book is also full of action, and the pace shifts very naturally between intimate conversations and breakneck space adventure.

Though I found myself loving the different origin accounts of Scorpia and Corvus, I wanted them to collide sooner in the narrative. When their paths do converge, the main conflict really starts cranking. Perhaps that’s the best compliment that could be paid here: No matter what’s happening outside the hull of Fortuna, family is always strongest when everyone is together.

Jessie Mihalik returns to her science fiction romance series with Aurora Blazing, as a noblewoman with secrets plays cat-and-mouse with her family’s security advisor.

Bianca von Hasenberg is a woman with a lot to hide. Widowed under mysterious circumstances, Bianca fully leans into “mourning” her late husband, which grants her freedom from the strict Consortium courtly etiquette. Though she plays up the air-headed, materialistic royal role, Bianca has been cultivating a network of spies and complex digital connections for collecting intel. But her biggest secret is that she was her scientist husband’s guinea pig, and now has a modified mind and body that intercept communication signals from nearly everyone.

Security Director Ian Bishop is a no-nonsense man who is loyal to von Hasenberg family, though Bianca’s habit of sticking her nose into things where it doesn’t belong is often his biggest source of frustration. When Ferdinand, Bianca’s older brother, is kidnapped and Bianca is framed as a traitor, Ian is tasked with keeping her locked away. When she escapes, Ian chases Bianca across the galaxy as she searches for answers and Ian does his best to keep her out of harm’s way.

Sci-fi romance is a relatively small subgenre and Mihalik’s imaginative series about the bonds of family amid scheming power plays feels like a refreshing sip of water after a long drought. The romance is tense, as Bianca and Ian both prefer to ignore whatever feelings they share. And with an intergalactic conspiracy as a backdrop, there is no shortage of action to rival the sizzling banter between the main couple.

Bianca is an impressively strong heroine, given what she’s overcome both in childhood and marriage. The survivor she’s built herself to be is, well, totally badass. She doesn’t need a blaster or superb fighting skills to get out of a tough situation. Instead, Bianca relies on her many connections and useful knowledge to gain the upper hand. And for romance readers who prefer the strong, silent type, Ian Bishop ticks all of the boxes. His sense of honor and duty is everything to him, but when pesky things like love get in the way, Ian must finally address how far he’ll go for his employer and his mission. Aurora Blazing is a standout, memorable book that oozes crossover appeal.

Prefer action and adventure? One spaceship heist coming up! Find court intrigue and politics to be irresistible? Two ruling houses are at war, with a third desperately trying to remain neutral. Sucker for a happy ending? Well, it’s a romance, so there’s definitely that. Mihalik fills the void for every Star Wars fan who wished the franchise had more kissing.