Gideon Nav is not a Necromancer. She is not even one of their bodyguards, a Cavalier. So when her oathsworn enemy since childhood, the Reverend Daughter and Necromancer Harrowhark Nonagesimus, requires a skilled Cavalier to accompany her on her ambitious educational trials, brash swordswoman Gideon volunteers partially out of self-preservation, partially because of blackmail and mostly because she needs a free ride off of the planet of the damned she was raised on.

Gideon and Harrow hail from the Ninth House, a dark realm fraught with bloodthirsty skeletons, fearsome nuns and crypts that house the living, dead and reanimated alike, where the haunted and actively haunting lay trapped, forgotten and rotting in the jet-black depths ruled by the iron fist of Harrow and her frightful ossified forces. Tamsyn Muir’s meticulous world building has created a realm where penitence and piety are prioritized above all else, traditions that acting leader Harrow has kept instituted to keep rabble-rousers like Gideon at bay. But for the fearless and free-spirited Gideon, who has yet to leave the Ninth House, remaining on the planet means the slow torture and inevitable death of her hopes and dreams, or she can risk a swift execution during her next escape attempt.

On her most recent escape effort, Gideon’s plans are foiled by Harrowhark as usual, but this time she is offered an intriguing proposition—to escort Harrow on her journey to the First House to study towards Lyctorhood, a hallowed educational position for reputed necromancers of the Nine Houses. If Gideon accepts, she can finally leave the Ninth and its grimy ghouls behind, but she will be tied at the hip to her mortal enemy, posing as a professional cavalier in front of the rest of the Houses. If she declines, she will surely rot in the prisonlike Ninth until her death and beyond.

Gideon thrives off-planet despite personal and professional challenges, practicing her swordswoman and adventuring skills and becoming accepted by the group of competitors as the solitary Harrow explores their lodgings, the mysterious and foreboding Canaan House. The girls are welcomed by Teacher, a priest of the First who is a little too lively and thrilled for the taste of the Ninth, as well as a fascinating and memorable cast of their competitors, including Dulcinea Septimus of the Seventh, whose alluring charm captivates Gideon immediately; the suspicious trio of the Third, comprised of twin sun-and-moon necromancers and a vain cavalier; and the repulsive, parasitic-like duo of the Eighth, a nephew-uncle combination who condemn followers of the Ninth as “death cult members.” So when the murders begin, it is only natural that the house most comfortable and familiar with Death itself should solve the mysteries that abound.

Gideon the Ninth is worth every second of every spine-chilling page as the book moves seamlessly from science fiction to mystery-thriller and back again. The journey to Lyctorhood is soon revealed to be more nefarious and agonizing than a simple competition between Houses. The necromancer-cavalier teams realize they are stranded on the First, and things devolve into a battle royale reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None where only the strongest, bravest and smartest will endure.

Gideon herself is a blazing beacon in this very dark world, where people are shackled their entire lives by tradition and fear—her extroverted nature and love for items like swords, girly magazines and an archaic pair of an item once called “sunglasses” reveal her passion for living in the moment and her open-mindedness to explore outside of the parameters forced upon her by society. Compelled to accompany Harrowhark on several trials and tribulations, Gideon soon realizes that they might have more in common than she assumed, and that if they want to stay alive, they will have to move forward from the past and work together, and that maybe, just maybe, she could have had a friend—or more—all along during their dark days in the Ninth.

Muir’s attention to numerology, wordplay and symbology here is beyond impressive. Each of the Nine Houses is painstakingly constructed, from their unique Necromancer personalities to the abilities of their Cavaliers and priests. The story takes place mostly in the First House, yet readers will feel familiar enough with the other realms that they can imagine the entire cosmos that Muir has created at her fingertips. Gideon is no stranger to Death, but when faced with the constructs of fear, loss and grief, she soon learns what is truly important to her in life, and that while new endeavors mean an inevitable end, endings can also mean a new beginning.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Tamsyn Muir about Gideon the Ninth.

A good space opera can be many things. It can be funny or deeply philosophical. It can be touching, and it can be gory. John Birmingham’s latest novel, The Cruel Stars, balances all of those things, making readers laugh out loud even as it pulls them through an intergalactic battle for the soul of humanity.

Hundreds of years ago, humanity faced a terror like no other: the Sturm, a cultlike subculture bent on exterminating any human with genetic or cybernetic modifications. After a bloody and hard-fought civil war, the Sturm were forced to retreat. Because they weren’t heard from for hundreds of years, many thought the Sturm had to be extinct. That is, until they suddenly executed a system-wide, coordinated attack designed to cripple both human defenses and the enhancements of any “impure” humans. Led by a group of space pirates, a young military officer, a princess, a convicted criminal and a war hero, those who survived the initial onslaught must make a stand. Their mission? Drive the Sturm back before they can carry out their goal of system-wide purification.

The Cruel Stars showcases Birmingham’s remarkable mastery of scope. In just a few short chapters, he manages to paint (and then proceeds to destroy) a complex, flawed and deeply interesting version of human civilization. The grandness of this vision could be overwhelming. How, after all, can five point-of-view characters hope to encompass the entirety of a civilization or of a war? The simple answer is that they can’t, so Birmingham doesn’t try. Instead, he focuses his attention on a single planet and the Habitation satellites surrounding it. Instead of a grand, sterile view of the war, he creates a claustrophobic nightmare—well, as close as you can get to a nightmare and still have jokes. Despite the admittedly disturbing drive behind the Sturm’s crusade, The Cruel Stars manages to be deeply funny. In fact, it’s probably because of the disturbing potential consequences of the Sturm’s religious zeal that the humor works. Jokes about overly literal rhino men and space Nazis act as comic relief, breaking up the tension and letting Birmingham’s characters and universe shine.

If you aren’t a fan of gore (or if you just don’t like your humor and your gore to mix), then The Cruel Stars might not be the right book for you. But for readers who loved the frenetic pacing of the first few episodes of “Battlestar Galactica” or the gritty realism of A Song of Ice and Fire, The Cruel Stars needs to make its way to the top of summer reading lists.

I’ll admit it—sometimes I can’t keep up with science fiction novels I read. It’s not for lack of trying; I’ll keep doggedly reading even if the complexities of the plot confuse me or the science has gotten too “science-y” or the concepts are so philosophical I feel like I’m back in lectures just trying to maintain a C for the course. It can be downright exhausting. Thank goodness that, despite being a wild ride across the galaxy, Max Gladstone’s Empress of Forever has the perfect amount of self-awareness and heart to maintain its wilder moments.

Vivian Liao is tired of being herself. A Steve Jobs-esque super CEO in Earth’s near future, she controls a vast technological empire, but increasingly suspects that her enemies are closing in on her success. In a last-ditch effort to take control of her life (and the world), Viv fakes her own death and breaks into a server room where, with a few quick keystrokes, she’d be able to take over all data on earth. Just as the last loading bar creeps toward 100 percent, a woman bathed in light grabs Viv and, somehow, rips her out of her existence and into a far future galaxy full of robots where she is the only human. With nothing but questions and a few fantastic companions by her side, Viv must scour the galaxy for an answer to a simple question: “How the heck do I get home?”

The answer involves a kaleidoscopic journey through space on a ship called, of course, the Question. And the journey wouldn’t be half as fun without the ensemble cast Gladstone builds around Viv the moment she arrives in the post-human future. There’s a forest-dwelling Viking princess-pilot, a robed monk who treats Viv like a miracle, a creature called Gray who steals dreams and Zanj, a wrathful demigod hell bent on the same thing as Viv—finding the Empress and exacting revenge. Each core member of the team is given plenty of page time, and in its best moments, Empress feels like Guardians of the Galaxy mixed with a healthy, swashbuckling dose of Pirates of the Caribbean.

With Empress, Gladstone stands confidently on the shoulders of his Craft Sequence to create a confident, poignant, expansive world. Though he never holds back in the imagination department, it’s the smaller interactions between characters that forms the foundation. It might be hard to build a new universe, but it is even harder to fill it with people that readers instinctively know both belong and deserve to be there.

So I need not have worried that Gladstone would leave me behind. Though the Question finds itself hurtling through a dizzying, incredible universe, Viv and her friends were right there to keep me company.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Go Behind the Book with Max Gladstone.

In the weeks since the climactic events of Trail of Lightning, Maggie Hoskie’s life has returned to normal. The demigod Neizghání has been safely imprisoned under several tons of rock, the uneasy alliance between Maggie and the Goodacre clan has largely dissolved, and Maggie’s partner, Kai Arviso, is miraculously back from the dead. Granted, Kai still isn’t speaking to Maggie, and a hunt gone wrong has left her responsible for Ben, a grieving teenage girl. And there’s a new problem: a cult leader called the White Locust. But normal is relative when you’re a supernaturally gifted monster hunter living after the climate apocalypse. When Clive and Rissa Goodacre show up on Maggie’s doorstep with the news that both Caleb Goodacre and Kai have been abducted by the White Locust, Maggie is pulled into a hunt that will take her outside the relative safety of Dinétah, a former Navajo reservation, and into the horrors of the world beyond.

For some series, a second installment can be a “set-up” book that slowly introduces new characters and new places as it builds toward a final conclusion. Rebecca Roanhorse’s Storm of Locusts is not that sort of second book. It’s the kind that makes a fantastic first book pale in comparison, that captivates readers from the first page to the last. Storm of Locusts introduces new characters who captivate as much as Maggie, Kai and the Goodacres while also giving readers a glimpse into the world outside of Dinétah—a world dominated by slave traders, organ harvesters and dedicated park rangers. But none of these introductions makes the book feel slow. Storm of Locusts careens from scene to scene with the same frenetic energy and electrifying prose that set Roanhorse’s debut apart.

But while Trail of Lightning dealt with conflict on a godly scale, Storm of Locusts changes perspective, showing just how destructive clan powers can be if placed in the wrong hands. The shift focuses our attention on Maggie, Ben and their companions. Whether it’s Maggie’s search for Kai or Ben’s desire for revenge for the death of her uncle, the stakes are high. Roanhorse’s prose and pacing are electric, and so are her characters, who clearly have many more stories to tell.

Storm of Locusts will delight and captivate fans of speculative fiction and mythology. Your only complaint will be that the next book isn’t out yet for you to devour.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Rebecca Roanhorse about Storm of Locusts.

When I was a kid, my father would read to me to help me fall asleep. Most of the books he read to me were books he had inherited or owned when he was young. As luck would have it, almost all of these were sea-faring adventures like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Dead Man’s Chest and Treasure Island. I recalled those moments with quite a bit of nostalgia while finishing Winds of Marque, which consistently evokes the danger, the promise and the daring of life on the open ocean. However, one detail in this new novel by Bennett R. Coles would have blown my 9-year-old brain: It’s in space?!

Commissioned to capture enemy vessels, the spaceship HMS Daring sets sail under a false flag to pursue and engage pirate ships. Liam Blackwood, the ship’s second-in-command, leads a crew of “sailors” in undercover missions meant to locate the pirates. When a series of dangerous moves from his new captain threaten the safety and morale of the crew, he must uncover the truth about his captain and keep the mission on course before pirates strike out from a hidden base.

Coles cleverly preserves many of the naval traditions that have become synonymous with historical seafaring adventure stories. The leadership structure aboard Daring, the divisions between the sailors and the officers, and even the commands shouted out in the middle of battle feel ripped from the pages of a Patrick O’Brien novel. In fact, the environment of the ship is perhaps Coles’ greatest achievement in Winds of Marque. A former officer in the Royal Canadian Navy himself, it’s no surprise that Coles bring that knowledge into this fictional world.

Winds of Marque maintains a brisk pace from the get-go. Action scenes are crisp and tense, with special attention paid to the visceral feeling of hand-to-hand combat and firing cannon batteries. Because of Daring’s secret mission, the stakes are high at every encounter and as the adventure becomes more and more desperate, each skirmish reinforces what failure means for everyone. Adding to this tension is the interplay between a set of colorful characters, particularly the officers. I loved the tenacious Chief Sky, leader of the boarding party, and Virtue, the talented new quartermaster. Coles achieves a real sense of camaraderie amongst his characters and I found myself wanting to see more banter even before the book was over.

I might not have had my dad drowsily reading Winds of Marque to me, but I did feel that same sense of adventure I felt as a kid. And though it isn’t set in the chilly waters of the northern Atlantic, Winds of Marque takes you to a place just as full of danger and intrigue.

C.A. Fletcher’s heart- and gut-wrenching tale of a post-apocalyptic world is a minimalistic take on dystopic science fiction, set in a lush, ruggedly overgrown landscape rather than an entirely barren wasteland devoid of hope or comfort. The humans (and their beloved dogs) who remain are willingly isolated and to a point, content to be unaware of what is going on in the modern world. But curious teenage Griz desires more than the complacent existence in the After—what is beyond Griz’s family’s island dwelling? What’s on the Mainland? And most mysteriously, what happened to all of the dogs from before the Gelding, in which human fertility ceased, and the subsequent “soft apocalypse”?

In A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World, Fletcher shows readers that even the softest of apocalypses contain an immense and unforeseeable amount of heartache and loss. This is survivalist science fiction at its rawest, a reminder that when the world as humans know it crumbles, so do their way of life, their laws, their traditions and their priorities. When the mysterious and slightly off-putting stranger Brand arrives on Griz’s island in a boat with foreboding red sails, we feel as naïve, hopeful and dewy-eyed as the imaginative teen. Soon, Griz listens to Brand’s tales of distant lands, diverse peoples and the last few loyal canine heroes in existence. But like his aptly-named dog companion, the cunning Saga, Brand is soon revealed to be a weaver of tall tales and an ill-intentioned “trader” who brings cruelty and deceit from the Mainland into Griz’s home. When Brand drugs Griz’s family and commandeers their supplies, and even one of Griz’s beloved dogs, Jess, Griz has no choice but to follow him into uncharted waters and face whatever challenges may arise.

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World takes a memorable journey of loyalty and love and transforms it into an unraveling mystery of self-discovery and exploration. The threadbare but essential cast includes Griz, determined teen rescuer; Jip, faithful canine companion and brother to Jess; Griz’s well-intentioned but protective father, Abe; Griz’s mentally-absent Mum; and Brand, sly manipulator of words, emotions and entire lives. From the moment that Brand steals Griz’s resources, the safety of the family and Jess, Griz is thrust into the animalistic nature of post-apocalyptic humans and wild canine foes, and their cruelty as described by Fletcher resonates with some very important contemporary concerns. But never fear—Fletcher promises on the back jacket that no dogs will be harmed in the novel.

Fueled by a fierce loyalty to one’s pack and the newfound fire of vengeance, Griz and Jip embark on their rescue mission, trailing Brand through treacherous and eerie lands, experience a return to humanity at its most primitive, something that Griz once joked about (“going a’viking” for resources and scavenged materials). Along the way, they encounter friends and foes alike—the rigid and sailor-mouthed “John Dark,” a battle-weary French woman, a cult of Before traditionalists known as the Conservators (or “Cons”), the mysterious Freemen, and, inevitably, the scoundrel Brand. Like the family's canine friends, Griz must rely on the basest of animal instincts to decide who to trust and when to flee or fight back.

Young Griz is an endearing narrator, whose humanity transcends the gloom and doom of Fletcher’s world. Though Griz changes to reflect the evil, anger, destruction and deception in the world, he notices things that bring joy in their own dilapidated, creepy ways—ruins of museums, cozy abandoned homes, fossils of books and music—and his mature worldview, despite his age, is refreshing and reassuring. Griz’s intrinsic connection to and empathy toward Jess and Jip, especially the way they conversationally speak to the dogs and treat them like family, is particularly lovable. Griz must resist succumbing to his own revenge fantasy, and questions if the right species survived, or if the monsters of the apocalypse really are all extinct. Griz’s mission reminds us that life should be appreciated and treasured in the moment. This is the story of trust and loyalty within a family, and finding your own pack—even if they’re different from the pack you were born into.

Raised on a resource-starved and dangerous world, Gyre’s survival is a testament to both her durability and her motivation to do everything it takes to escape her home. With the planet’s only wealth locked in minerals below the surface, going underground as a caver comes with extreme risks, but it’s one of the only ways to make enough money to live—or to leave. With only a mysterious note in her wake, Gyre’s mother fled from her husband and child to seek a better life off-planet. Poverty and abandonment have propelled Gyre to risk everything for enough money to seek out her mother, to perhaps understand why she left. Gyre doesn’t have an issue with the surgical modification needed to suit up for extended subsurface exploration, nor regrets over the lies she tells to get hired, get paid and get off-planet.

Assuming she has a whole surface team to monitor and support her first exploration, Gyre trusts her suit’s technology and her own skills to ensure she completes her mission. But as her descent underground reveals missing supplies and altered routes, Gyre discovers that her surface support consists of only one handler, one voice in her helmet named Em. Communicating through the suit, Gyre finds her mounting concerns about the mission are met with misdirection and half-truths. Their terse exchanges begin to launch red flags that Em’s plan for the descent may by very different from the job Gyre signed on for.

The gulf between Gyre and Em seems as vast as the distance from the cave depths to the surface. As their combative communications evolve, they discover some fragile common ground. Each may hold the only key to answers for the other. But with lies and secrets damning both Gyre and Em, the only way for the two explorers to move forward is to keep going down. As Gyre navigates around the corpses of earlier cavers, deadly testimony to the harsh journey, each subtly whispers the dangers of putting faith in the voice they also trusted to guide them back. Gyre’s battle to survive may depend on which voices she trusts; the ones in her head, or the one on her headset.

While the story’s premise has the potential to be a bit claustrophobic, the literary landscape is surprisingly vast. Below ground the narrow passages open into great rooms, waterfalls plunge over subterranean cliffs and rivers run through tunnels left by the passage of enormous hidden creatures. Luminescent flora and fauna add haunting illumination that punctuates the descent, revealing hints of both horror and profound beauty. And the mental and emotional territory explored within the suit, between Em and Gyre, is enormous as well. With twists, turns, rock falls and drop-offs, the dangerous navigation of the cave mirrors the challenges they confront as their connection to each other evolves.

Boldly building a psychological sci-fi thriller with a cast of two, Caitlin Starling’s debut novel explores the horrors hidden within profound physical and psychological stress. As they navigate unknown territory, both caver and handler risk being trapped by emotional obstacles that could bury them both. Testing the limits of endurance and trust, The Luminous Dead sheds a revealing light on the extraordinary dark depths that the human mind and body will plumb in search of answers and illumination.