This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Hello, my little space monkeys! Today’s list contains five exciting debut sci-fi and fantasy novels headed our way in 2025! These all sound extremely interesting and have fabulous covers. It’s always great to see a debut novel catch fire and light up the reading world. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the first book the author has ever written—a lot of writers have books hiding in drawers and files on their computer that weren’t chosen to be their first release, for whatever reason. But as the first novel to introduce readers to an author, there is something extra-special about a debut.
There have been many, many wildly successful SFF debut novels, of course. The Night Circus, for one. And there’s Neuromancer, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, The Poppy War, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and something called The Hobbit. And of course, lots of authors have published story collections before they have a debut novel, like two of my favorites of the past two years: The Book of Love by Kelly Link and Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. Here’s wishing great success to all the debut SFF novels of the class of 2025!
Sci-Fi and Fantasy Debut Novels Out in 2025
The Last Bookstore on Earth by Lily Braun-Arnold (Delacorte Press, January 7)
This YA debut is every book lover’s dream: being trapped in a bookstore at the end of the world. (We are all Henry Bemis.) After a giant storm destroyed the world as humans know it, 17-year-old Liz Flannery has been living in an abandoned bookstore in New Jersey. But then word reaches Liz of another world-destroying storm and she isn’t sure how she—and the store—will survive. Enter Maeve, literally. After Maeve breaks into the bookstore looking for shelter, she and Liz butt heads, but Liz can’t make herself kick Maeve back out into the coming storm. And Maeve has the skills Liz is lacking to shore up the crumbling bookstore before the storm gets worse. As the two begrudgingly spend time together sparks start to fly.
Lightfall: Book One of The Everlands by Ed Crocker (St. Martin’s Press, January 14)
Books about vampires never get old. (Ba-dum, tiss!) This one also has werewolves and sorcerers! It’s a dark fantasy-slash-bloody-mystery about class, murder, and magic, set in a world where vampires are forced to one small city after ruling the lands for centuries. In the city of First Light, as it is everywhere, nobility in the castle get the riches and the best blood, and everyone else gets scraps. Sam is a palace maid in possession of a huge secret who joins the Leeches, a gang of rebel maids, determined to change the way things are for the lower class. Helping Sam is also a magic-less sorcerer, a werewolf assassin, and a countess.
The Scorpion Queen by Mina Fears (Flatiron Books, January 28)
This debut YA book is inspired by a Malian fairy tale. In it, Amie is a 16-year-old in Timbuktu whose family was once wealthy but lost everything, so now she serves the palace princess. Princess Mariama of Mali’s father, the emperor, is trying to find her a suitor. In order to be deemed worthy, suitors are put through a series of nearly-impossible trials, and those who fail are boiled alive. Spoiler: they always fail. Amie has been making plans to escape Timbuktu with her intended, but as she grows closer to the princess and begins to understand what her life is really like, she questions whether leaving is best or if she should stay and help the princess stop her father from creating any more corpses in her name. (Related: it bugs me an unreasonable amount that emperor ends with -or, but sorcerer ends with -er. I can’t explain it, it just does.)
Symbiote Michael Nayak (Angry Robot, February 11)
They say you should write what you snow know, and it looks like Michael Nayak took that and ran with it. A planetary scientist, pilot, and skydiving instructor who spent time in the South Pole, Nayak has crafted an intense science fiction story of a parasite in Antarctica. The invader is turning everyone it comes in contact with through touch into killers. As the scientists desperately work to stop it, they also have to deal with geopolitics, the freezing cold, and the fact that this started in the middle of a third world war. This is drawing comparisons to the writing of Tom Clancy, and sounds like The Thing and the great “Ice” episode of The X-Files.
Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill (Orbit, February 25)
And chloroplast but not least, we have this cozy fantasy about a lake monster and a witch. Jenny Greenteeth is a lake-dwelling monster who has lived in the lake with the plants and the fish, far away from the humans who would harm her. But when a witch is thrown into the lake by the townspeople, Jenny impulsively decides to save her, as kind of an “eff you” to the townspeople and the tyrannical new pastor. Joined together by their outsider status and anger towards the humans, Jenny and the witch, Temperance, will work together on a magical quest to expose the real monsters of the town and save the lake and Temperance’s family. Cozy fantasy narrated by a monster, plus a witch and a magical quest? It sounds like a very T. Kingfisher-ish read. I needed this yesterday!
Okay, star bits, now take the knowledge you have learned here today and use it for good, not evil. If you want to know more about books, I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me say lots of adjectives about them on the Book Riot podcast All the Books! and on Bluesky and Instagram.
If an SFF fan forwarded this newsletter to you or you read it on bookriot.com and you’d like to get it right in your inbox, you can sign up here.
