This Month in SF: New Science Fiction Novels in June 2026

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:03]Welcome to another installment of this month in SF where I round up the upcoming science fiction releases for June 2026. Looking over this month's books, a few themes quickly emerge.

[00:00:14]There's a surprising amount of fiction about identity and transformation.

[00:00:17]People confronting alternate versions of themselves, communities facing unexpected change, and characters struggling to understand forces that seem to exist beyond ordinary human experience. There are also a couple of sharp satirical takes on contemporary society from genetically enhanced animal underworlds to cloned founding fathers.

[00:00:35]And then, because this is science fiction, there are still plenty of opportunities for humanity to stumble into circumstances it doesn't fully understand and then make things considerably worse. Let's take a look at what's arriving this month. Let's start with the book I'm most eager to read this month, M. John Harrison's The End of Everything. Now, Harrison has spent much of his career writing science fiction that refuses to explain itself too neatly, and this novel sounds very much in that tradition. Years after an obscure crisis reshapes civilization, government barely functions, Europe is effectively disappeared, and the seas have become home to strange new life.

[00:01:11]Philip Tennet survives by scavenging the tide line, collecting whatever the ocean chooses to return. Then he discovers something he can't simply sell or discard, a mysterious object, or perhaps a creature, that continually changes its form. The setup sounds almost deceptively straightforward, but this is Harrison we're talking about. I suspect the real subject won't be the artifact itself so much as the limits of human understanding and our tendency to impose narratives on things that we don't fully comprehend. The title turns out to be literal? Well, that's always a possibility, too. Then there's Joseph Ecker's The Traveler. This offers one of the strongest high-concept premises of the month. Every morning at exactly 7:52 a.m., Scott Treador jumps forward in time. First it's a day, then weeks, then years. Eventually decades vanish in the blink of an eye. As Scott hurtles helplessly into the future, his seven-year-old son Lyle grows up, grows old, and refuses to accept that his father is slipping beyond reach. It seems like a premise that takes a familiar science-fictional device and grounds it in something deeply human.

[00:02:16]The time travel isn't really the point.

[00:02:18]The point is watching a relationship being stretched beyond what should be possible. Sounds like a novel about loss, persistence, and the refusal of family bonds to obey the laws of physics. One of the most original ideas this month comes from Nebula Award winner Isabel J. Kim. In Sublimation, emigration creates a literal split in the self. One version crosses the border, another remains behind. Some people keep in contact with their alternate selves, synchronizing experiences in hopes of one day becoming whole again. Others cut ties entirely.

[00:02:51]In It's So Young, Rose Kang belongs to the second group, until a death in the family forces her to return to Seoul.

[00:02:58]Hello, Seoul. And confront the version of herself she left behind decades earlier. What initially sounds like a clever science-fiction gimmick is said to become something richer, a story about immigration, identity, regret, and the roads not taken. Well, as someone who has spent a significant portion of his adult life living outside of his home country, this one is intriguing.

[00:03:19]Meanwhile, Adrian Tchaikovsky continues his apparent mission to publish more books per year than most people can read. Green City Waters takes place in a solar-powered future where humans live comfortably while genetically enhanced animals quietly maintain civilization behind the scenes. The animals' primary directive is simple: Don't bother the humans. Unfortunately, a mouse scientist may be on the verge of breaking that rule in spectacular fashion. Standing between civilization and chaos is Scotch, a freelance raccoon investigator who suddenly finds himself pursued by gangsters, assassins, and conspiracies.

[00:03:56]On paper, this sounds delightfully absurd. Maybe for the kids. Then again, several of Tchaikovsky's best novels sound absurd when summarized in a sentence or two. He's remarkably good at using non-human perspectives to examine very human social structures. Plus, any book featuring a raccoon detective automatically earns a few points for originality. Perhaps the most gloriously unhinged premise of the month belongs to Meg Ellison. Foundling Fathers asks the simple question, what if a cabal of billionaire idealongs cloned the Founding Fathers and raised them in secret so that they could save America?

[00:04:32]As it turns out, things become complicated when your 18th century political project discovers smartphones.

[00:04:39]The young clones, Ben, Thomas, John, and George, begin questioning both their upbringing and the people who engineered it. The premise feels part political satire, part alternate history, part social comedy, and possibly part cautionary tale about what happens when powerful people become convinced they can manufacture the past, which come to think of it may be the most science fictional idea of all. One of the more intriguing crossover science fiction literary releases this month is The Endling. An isolated feminist community is already struggling with internal divisions when something impossible begins to happen. The women start becoming pregnant. Then one child is born who threatens the entire ideological the settlement. Same time, an orchid, Endling, the last of its species, approaches extinction nearby. The title gives away one of the novel's central concerns, survival. Not simply biological survival, but the survival of communities, beliefs, identities, and social systems. It sounds provocative without being merely provocative for its own sake, which is a difficult balance in the end. The Endling also touches on a theme that has reappeared repeatedly in science fiction over the decades, fertility, reproduction, and the future of the human species. That's going to be the subject of the next video on this channel. We'll be looking at how science fiction writers have explored the fear and sometimes the hope surrounding human reproduction through works like Brian Aldiss's Greybeard, Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, P.D.

[00:06:09]James's The Children of Men, Octavia Butler's Dawn, and Nicola Griffith's >> Ammonite.

[00:06:15]>> It's a fascinating subgenre that asks a deceptively simple question, what happens when humanity can no longer take its own continuation for granted? If that sounds interesting, keep an eye out for that video in the coming days. Back to the new releases. Peter F. Hamilton returns with Exodus, the Helium-3, the conclusion of his Archimedes Engine duology. This setup is classic Hamilton, ancient powers, galaxy-spanning conflict, humanity caught between forces vastly larger than itself, and enough political maneuvering, technological wonders, and massive-scale world-building to fill several ordinary novels. This time the balance of power within the Crown Dominion is shifting as a long-exiled faction returns after 7,000 years seeking revenge. If you're already on board with Hamilton's blend of epic scope and hard SF sensibilities, this is likely one of the major releases of the month, but clearly not the entry point for that particular series. And if you're not familiar with his work, perhaps prepare for a very large page count. Finally, there's Defrosted by Christina LaPorte, a cryogenically preserved scientist and his wife awaken two centuries in the future to discover a society that has become deeply dystopian. Human value is measured in usefulness, freedom has become conditional, and a devastating biological threat known as mito-cancer hangs over civilization. Cryogenic revival is one of science fiction's oldest ideas, but the appeal here seems less about the technology itself and more about using future shock to examine contemporary questions about medicine, ethics, governance, and human worth.

[00:07:50]It's positioned somewhere between medical thriller, political thriller, and speculative fiction, which can be an effective combination when it works. It could be very Michael Crichton for all I know. That's June 2026. This isn't everything coming out in June, of course. I've seen some other books listed alongside these with titles like The Disco at the End of the World, All We Have Left, and The Forest Called You that seem more like Romantasy with sci-fi gimmicks and tropes than true SF.

[00:08:19]There's even a book described as a whimsical speculative ode to P.G.

[00:08:23]Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster. Maybe that sounds like fun to you, but I won't be personally seeking it out. For me, the standout title is not surprisingly The End of Everything, simply because it's M. John Harrison. How many more books are we going to get from him? Let me know in the comments which of these books you're planning to pick up, and if there is a June release I've missed, be sure to mention it below. Before I wrap up, a quick non-book recommendation.

[00:08:46]After 13 years of near silence, Boards of Canada recently released In Flagrante, their first new music in over a decade, and at least in my opinion, one of the strongest things they've ever done. Now, you might reasonably ask what a Scottish electronic duo has to do with the science fiction channel. For me, quite a lot. The best science fiction isn't always about technology, spaceships, or speculative concepts.

[00:09:09]Often, it's about atmosphere. Those uncanny moments when reality feels slightly off, when familiar places become strange, when you're standing in a liminal space between one world and another. Boards of Canada has always been masters of creating exactly that feeling. Their music evokes forgotten futures, lost memories, alternate histories, and places that seem to exist just beyond reach. In other words, many of the the emotional and and imaginative territories explored by writers like J.G. Ballard, M. John Harrison, Christopher Priest, and Philip K. Dick.

[00:09:43]So, I'm curious, are there any Boards of Canada fans out there? And would you be interested in a future video exploring some of the music that has influenced my taste in science fiction and speculative fiction? Everything from progressive rock to soundtrack music to electronic music. Albums and artists that have shaped the way I think about atmosphere, imagination, and storytelling. Let me know in the comments. Now, before we wrap up, a quick reminder that if you're enjoying the channel, please become a member. For about the price of a cup of coffee each month, you'll get access to a growing library of members-only content, including my ongoing video series about my science fiction novel Edge Case Protocol, early access to new videos before they're publicly released, and dozens of exclusive videos from the back catalog that aren't available anywhere else on the channel. Members also help shape the direction of the channel through monthly voting polls where you can help decide future reviews, author spotlights, comparisons, and other upcoming content. If that sounds interesting, click the join button below. Your support helps keep the channel growing and allows me to spend more time exploring the strange, challenging, and overlooked corners of speculative fiction. It also feeds my coffee habit. Until next time, stay speculative and keep reading great science fiction.