The Most Highly Anticipated Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of December 2020 According to Goodreads Members

We’re almost to December and Goodreads has shared with us a list of books that fans are excited for. Goodreads members have rated the following books as the most anticipated Sci-fi and Fantasy titles for the entire month of December. What are you most excited to be reading?

Crosshairs

  • By Catherine Hernandez

  • Publication Date: December 8th

Set in a terrifyingly familiar near-future, with massive floods leading to rampant homelessness and devastation, a government-sanctioned regime called The Boots seizes on the opportunity to round up communities of color, the disabled, and the LGBTQ+ into labor camps.

In the shadows, a new hero emerges. After he loses his livelihood as a drag queen and the love of his life, Kay joins the resistance alongside Bahadur, a transmasculine refugee, and Firuzeh, a headstrong social worker. Guiding them in the use of weapons and close-quarters combat is Beck, a rogue army officer, who helps them plan an uprising at a major televised international event.

With her signature “raw yet beautiful, disturbing yet hopeful” (Booklist) prose, Catherine Hernandez creates a vision of the future that is all the more frightening because it is very possible. A cautionary tale filled with fierce and vibrant characters, Crosshairs explores the universal desire to thrive, love, and be loved for being your true self.

The Ambergris Trilogy

  • By Jeff VanderMeer

  • Publication Date: December 1st

Before Area X, there was Ambergris. Jeff VanderMeer conceived what would become his first cult classic series of speculative works: the Ambergris Trilogy. Now, for the first time ever, the story of the sprawling metropolis of Ambergris is collected into a single volume, including City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch.

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

  • By Nghi Vo

  • Publication Date: December 8th

The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache with hunger. To stay alive until the mammoths can save them, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover—a woman of courage, intelligence, and beauty—and discover how truth can survive becoming history.

Nghi Vo returns to the empire of Ahn and The Singing Hills Cycle in this mesmerizing, lush standalone follow-up to The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Hollow Empire

  • By Sam Hawke

  • Publication Date: December 1st

Poison was only the beginning…. The deadly siege of Silasta woke the ancient spirits, and now the city-state must find its place in this new world of magic. But people and politics are always treacherous, and it will take all of Jovan and Kalina’s skills as proofer and spy to save their country when witches and assassins turn their sights to domination.

Threshold of Annihilation

  • By T.A. White

  • Publication Date: December 15th

When her most closely guarded secrets are laid bare, how will Kira survive the inevitable fall out—and will anybody be standing beside her in the end?

Traveling to the planet of Jettie in the hopes of finding safe harbor for her niece, Kira arrives only to find their destination host to the quorum—a series of dangerous contests that hold the power to decide the fate of empires.

With little choice but to participate, it doesn’t take long for Kira to find herself knee deep in enemies. Surrounded on all sides, Kira will have to face her worst fear. Trusting others with the truth.

Because it’s becoming clear the tsavitee are no longer content to exist in the shadows. War is coming—and everything Kira thought she once knew is about to change.

Defending the Galaxy

  • By Maria V. Snyder

  • Publication Date: December 2nd

Year 2522. Oh. My. Stars.

Junior Officer Ara Lawrence here, reporting for duty. Again. It’s situation critical for the security team and everyone in the base – including my parents – with a new attack from the looters imminent, a possible galaxy-wide crime conspiracy and an unstoppable alien threat. But this all pales in the face of my mind-blowing discovery about the Q-net. Of course, no one believes me. I’m not sure I believe me. It could just be a stress-induced delusion. That’s what my parents seem to believe…

Their concern for me is hampering my ability to do my job. I know they love me, but with the Q-net in my corner, I’m the only one who can help the security team beat the shadowy aliens from the pits we discovered. We’re holding them at bay, for now, but the entire Milky Way Galaxy is in danger of being overrun.

With battles on too many fronts, it’s looking dire. But one thing I’ve learned is when people I love are in jeopardy, I’ll never give up trying to save them. Not until my dying breath. Which could very well be today…

God’s Eye: Awakening: A Labyrinth World Novel

  • By Aleron Kong

  • Publication Date: December 1st

Telos is a world at the center of the Universe. A bright jewel wrapped in a Lattice of realities. It is a world that gods and demons call home at the beginning of a new age. Remy is a newly risen deity, struggling to survive in a Battle Royale where the consequences are worse than death and last longer than damnation.

He will find that he cannot live without his tribe of worshipers. Their strength is his, and his is theirs. Other tribes want nothing more than to feast upon their flesh and consume their power. It is a deadly race of technology and power, faith and corruption, of commoners and legends.

Gods of ancient pantheons and demons of forbidden nightmares compete in a timeless game where the stakes are the souls of every living being. These old forces will come to fear a newly risen god.

His name will become a curse on their lips. His name will be a chant in the mouths of the faithful. His name will be carved in time.

Zero Fell, Zero Fell, ZERO FELL!

Black Canary: Breaking Silence

  • By Alexandra Monir

  • Publication Date: December 29th

Dinah Lance was seven years old when she overheard the impossible: the sound of a girl singing. It was something she was never meant to hear—not in her lifetime, and not in Gotham City, taken over by the Court of Owls. The sinister organization rules Gotham as a patriarchal dictatorship, all the while spreading their influence like a virus across the globe.

Now seventeen, Dinah can’t forget that haunting sound, and she’s beginning to discover that her own voice is just as powerful. But singing is forbidden—a one-way stop to a certain death sentence. Can she balance her father’s desire to keep her safe, a blossoming romance with mysterious new student Oliver Queen, and her own desire to help other women and girls rise up and finally be heard? And will her voice be powerful enough to destroy the Court of Owls once and for all?

Day One

  • By Kelly deVos

  • Publication Date: December 1st

In the sequel to Day Zero, stepsisters Jinx and MacKenna must put aside their enmity and work together to rescue their little brother…and possibly save the world. A nonstop whirlwind of a read for fans of Marie Lu, Rick Yancey and Alexandra Bracken.

RULE ONE: THOSE WHO PANIC DON’T SURVIVE

IT’S AS TRUE NOW AS IT WAS THE DAY OUR WORLD EXPLODED INTO CHAOS

Jinx

Three months ago, all I wanted was to stay up late playing video games and pretending things were fine. But with my parents’ role in a massive political conspiracy exposed, I ended up on the run, desperate to rescue my little brother, Charles, from the clutches of The Opposition.

I used to hate my father’s obsession with disaster prepping. But as I fight my way across a war-torn country and into a secret military research facility with only my stepsister to count on, I realize that following Dr. Doomsday’s Guide for Ultimate Survival might be our only hope of surviving to see Charles again.

MacKenna

Once, I had it all. The right backstory. The right qualifications. But my life as a student journalist was destroyed forever in the explosions that triggered the country’s meltdown. Now I’m determined to help Jinx get our little brother back. But we also have to find our own reasons to survive. Somehow, I’ve become the first reporter of the new civil war. In a world where your story is your ultimate weapon, I have to become the toughest freedom fighter of all.