Future Fiction #293 – Cover Reveals & Newly Discovered SFF Books

Welcome to Future Fiction, my reimagining of the Waiting on Wednesday meme! There are so many amazing new books coming out, that I can no longer pick just one. My goal with Future Fiction is to share at least three new books each week, a combination of recent cover reveals and books that I’ve recently added to my TBR pile. I’m still going to be linking up with Wishful Endings/Can’t Wait Wednesday, and I also want to give a shout out to Jill at Breaking the Spine for starting the original Waiting on Wednesday meme. I hope you’ll find some new books to add to your TBR piles, and as always, I look forward to hearing what YOU’RE looking forward to:-D

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Today I have a new book by a favorite author and two fantasy debuts, take a look:

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From multiple award-winning author Daryl Gregory comes a madcap adventure following two friends on a cross-country bus tour through the mind-boggling glitches in their simulated world as they grapple with love, family, secrets, and the very nature of reality in a simulation.

JP and Dulin have been the best of friends for decades. When JP finds out his cancer has aggressively returned, Dulin decides it’s the perfect time for one last a week-long bus tour of North America’s Impossibles, the physics-defying glitches and geographic miracles that started cropping up seven years earlier—right after the Announcement that revealed our world to be merely a digital simulacrum. The outing, courtesy of Canterbury Trails Tours, promises the trip of a (not completely real) lifetime in a (not completely deluxe) coach.

Their fellow passengers are 21st-century pilgrims, each of them on the tour for their own reasons. There’s a nun hunting for an absent God, a pregnant influencer determined to make her child too famous to be deleted, a crew of horny octogenarians living each day like it’s their last, and a professor on the run from leather-clad sociopaths who take The Matrix as scripture. Each stop on this trip is stranger than the last—a Tunnel outside of time, a zero gravity Geyser, the compound of motivational-speaking avatar—with everyone barreling toward the tour’s iconic final stop Ghost City, where unbeknownst to our travelers the answer to who is running the simulation may await.

When We Were Real is a tour-de-force and exploration of what really matters, even in an artificial world.

When We Were Real by Daryl Gregory. Releases in April 2025 from Saga Press. I can’t remember where I stumbled upon this book, but I can’t believe it wasn’t on my radar! It’s been three years since Revelator came out, which is way too long between books for me:-) Gregory is an auto-read author and this sounds like it has his trademark humor, I cannot wait!

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Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle-sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce. Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake, something makes Jenny decide she’s worth saving.

Temperance doesn’t know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor. Though they have nothing in common, these two must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Jenny’s lake and Temperance’s family – as well as the very soul of Britain.

Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill. Releases in February 2025 from Orbit Books. This has a pretty short blurb, but I love the idea of a Jenny Greenteeth retelling, and a blurb from T. Kingfisher certainly doesn’t hurt:-)

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From debut author Emily Yu-Xuan Qin comes a snarky urban fantasy novel inspired by Chinese and First Nation mythology and bursting with wit, compelling characters, and LGBTQIA+ representation

Readers of Seanan McGuire, Ilona Andrews, and Ben Aaronovitch will devour this gory story—and the sweet-as-Canadian-maple-syrup sapphic romance at its monstrous heart

Tam hasn’t eaten anyone in years.

She is now Mama’s soft-spoken, vegan daughter — everything dangerous about her is cut out, repressed. Medicated.

But when Tam’s estranged Aunt Tigress is found murdered and skinned, Tam inherits an undead fox in a shoebox and an ensemble of old enemies.

The demons, the ghosts, the gods running coffee shops by the river? Fine. The tentacled thing stalking Tam across the city? Absolutely not. And when Tam realizes the girl she’s falling in love with might be yet another loose end from her past? That’s just the brassy, beautiful cherry on top.

Because no matter how quietly she lives, Tam can’t hide from her voracious upbringing, nor the suffering she caused. As she navigates romance, redemption, and the end of the world, she can’t help but wonder…

Do monsters even deserve happy endings?

With worldbuilding inspired by Chinese folklore and the Siksiká Nation in Canada, LGBTQIA+ representation, and a sapphic romance, Aunt Tigress is at once familiar and breathtakingly innovative.

Aunt Tigress by Emily Yu-Xuan Qin. Releases in March 2025 from DAW Books. I’ll admit it was the cover that caught my eye, I mean isn’t it gorgeous? I’m intrigued by the combination of Chinese and First Nation folklore, so this will be a must read.

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What do you think of this week’s Future Fiction picks? Let me know in the comments!