Queer (adult) Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Releasing in 2022

Returning Heroes (The Galactic Captains #6) by Harry F. Rey

• scifi
• gay
• bi
• poly

Heroes and villains return to the galaxy, unleashing destructive forces and sliding the great powers toward a war from which no one will be safe.

Where the Drowned Girls Go (Wayward Children #7) by Seanan Mcguire

• fantasy
• sapphic mc
• intersex mc
• trans sc

There is another school for children who fall through doors and fall back out again.
It isn’t as friendly as Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.
And it isn’t as safe.

Quantum of Nightmares (Dead Lies Dreaming #2) by Charles Stross

• fantasy

he avuncular Prime Minister is an ancient eldritch god of unimaginable power. Crime is plummeting as almost every offense is punishable by death. And everywhere you look, there are people with strange powers, some of which they can control, and some, not so much.

Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore

• scifi
• sapphic mc

In modern day Los Angeles, a shadowy faction led by the Governor of California develops the arcane art of combat linguistics, planting the seeds of a future totalitarian empire.

Servant Mage by Kate Elliott

• fantasy
• bi mc
• agender sc
• poly

A lowly fire mage finds herself entangled in an empire-spanning conspiracy on her way to discovering her true power.

Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi

• scifi
• achillean mc

In the 2050s, Earth has begun to empty. Those with the means and the privilege have departed the great cities of the United States for the more comfortable confines of space colonies. Those left behind salvage what they can from the collapsing infrastructure. As they eke out an existence, their neighborhoods are being cannibalized. Brick by brick, their houses are sent to the colonies, what was once a home now a quaint reminder for the colonists of the world that they wrecked.

Light Years From Home by Mike Chen

• scifi
• sapphic MC

Every family has issues. Most can’t blame them on extraterrestrials.

Evie Shao and her sister, Kass, aren’t on speaking terms. Fifteen years ago on a family camping trip, their father and brother vanished. Their dad turned up days later, dehydrated and confused—and convinced he’d been abducted by aliens.

Some by Virtue Fall by Alexandra Rowland

• fantasy
• lesbian MC
• (All queer)

By the King’s Edict, men have been banned from performing on stage. Everyone else is still out for blood.

Sabajan Hollant, director and co-founder of the celebrated Lord Chancellor’s Players, has one resolution: This time they’re going to do it right. No accidents, no rising to other troupes’ provocations and taunts, and certainly no more duelling in the streets.

But their arch-rivals have different plans, and soon enough, Saba and her troupe are caught up once again in an escalating drama of revenge, betrayal, and outright sabotage.

Azura Ghost (The Graven #2) by Essa Hansen

• scifi
• ace mc

One man and his sentient starship are all that stand between the multiverse and its total destruction.

Bluebird by Ciel Pierlot

• scifi
• lesbian MC

Lesbian gunslinger fights spies in space!

The Thousand Eyes (The Serpent Gates #2) by A.K. Larkwood

• fantasy
• lesbian MC

What if you knew how and when you will die?

Sisters of the Forsaken Stars (Our Lady of Endless Worlds #2) by Lina Rather

• scifi
• sapphic

The sisters of the Order of Saint Rita navigate the far reaches of space and challenges of faith.

The Magic Between by Stephanie Hoyt

• fantasy
• BI MC

In a world where everyone has magic coursing through them, legend says magic itself craves a mate. Legend says those with opposite magics have the greatest chance of forming the unbreakable Bond it desires.

Legend never said anything about what to do when sparks fly between two people opposite in more ways than just magic.

Last Exit by Max Gladstone

• fantasy
• sapphic mc
• ff

A hitchhiker wizard gathers her estranged friends to defend the world from her long lost lover—and the monsters that return with her.

Scorpica (The Five Queendoms #1) by G.R. Macallister

• fantasy
• sapphic

A centuries-long peace is shattered in a matriarchal society when a decade passes without a single girl being born.

Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

• fantasy
• trans (masc) MC

When archivist Sol meets Elsie, the larger than life widow of a moderately famous television writer who’s come to donate her wife’s papers, there’s an instant spark. But Sol has a secret: he suffers from an illness called vampirism, and hides from the sun by living in his basement office.

City of Deceit (Isandor #3) by Claudie Arseneault

• fantasy
• aro
• ace

A multi-layered political fantasy led by an all QUILTBAG cast.

Inheritors of Power (The Broken Trust #3) by Juliette Wade

• scifi
• ACE MC

A deadly battle for power where brother is pitted against brother.

Moon Witch, Spider King (Dark Star #2) by Marlon James

• fantasy

Draws on a rich tradition of African mythology, fantasy and history to imagine a mythic world, a lost child, a 177-year-old witch, a deadly regal chancellor, and a mystery with many answers…

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

• fantasy

The Alexandrian Society is a secret society of magical academicians, the best in the world. Their members are caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity.

The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories

• scifi

A short story collection written, edited, and translated by a female and non-binary team.
In The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, you can dine at a restaurant at the end of the universe, cultivate to immortality in the high mountains, watch roses perform Shakespeare, or arrive at the island of the gods on the backs of giant fish to ensure that the world can bloom.

The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong

• scifi
• ace MC

A circus takes down a crime-boss on the galaxy’s infamous pleasure moon.

The City of Dusk (The Dark Gods #1) by Tara Sim

• fantasy
• bi MC
• sapphic
• ace
• FF
• MM

The Four Realms-Life, Death, Light, and Darkness-all converge on the city of dusk. For each realm there is a god, and for each god there is an heir.

But the gods have withdrawn their favor from the once vibrant and thriving city. And without it, all the realms are dying.

Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May

• Hist. Fantasy
• sapphic
• lesbian MC

In the aftermath of the First World War, a young woman gets swept into a glittering world filled with illicit magic, romance, blood debts and murder.

In a Garden Burning Gold by Rory Power

• fantasy

Twins imbued with incredible magic and near-immortality will do anything to keep their family safe—even if it tears the siblings apart.

Sanctuary by Andi C. Buchanan

• fantasy
• nb MC

Morgan’s home is a sanctuary for ghosts.

The once-grand, now dilapidated old house they live in has become a refuge for their found family. In a world that wasn’t built for their queer, neurodivergent selves, they’ve made it into a place they belong.

When a collection of ghosts trapped in old bottles are delivered to their door, something from the past is unleashed

Spear by Nicola Griffith

• fantasy
• sapphic

The girl knows she has a destiny before she even knows her name. She grows up in the wild, in a cave with her mother, but visions of a faraway lake come to her on the spring breeze, and when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she knows that her future lies at his court.

The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe

• scifi

Exploring how different threads of liberation—queerness, race, gender plurality, and love—become tangled with future possibilities of memory and time in such a totalitarian landscape…and what the costs might be when trying to unravel and weave them into freedoms.

Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky #2) by Rebecca Roanhorse

• fantasy
• bi
• nb

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

• fantasy
• ace mc

A tale of fate, family, courage, and heartbreak—of an extraordinary woman determined to leave her mark in a world where gods and men dictate the shape of things to come.

The Discord of Gods (A Chorus of Dragons #5) by Jenn Lyons

• fantasy
• BI MC

Gods, demons and dragons collide in one final epic battle in the unmissable conclusion to A Chorus of Dragons.

The Southern Magicks by Ashton K. Rose

• fantasy
• bi mc
• POLY

How do you prove your innocence when you don’t even remember whether you did it or not?

After a demon attack reveals Dexter’s secret – that his Gran taught him magic – the twenty-three-year-old librarian is forced to work for the local magical law enforcement agency in order to prove his loyalty.

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

• fantasy

A feminist tale set in 1950s America where thousands of women have spontaneously transformed into dragons, exploding notions of a woman’s place in the world and expanding minds about accepting others for who they really are.

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

• fantasy
• sapphic
• FF

An enthralling exploration of an outsider achieving stardom on her own terms, in a fantastical Hollywood where the monsters are real and the magic of the silver screen illuminates every page.

Misrule (Malice #2) by Heather Walter

• fantasy
• sapphic Mc

Does true love break curses or begin them? The dark sorceress of “Sleeping Beauty” reclaims her story.

Someone in Time: Tales of Time-Crossed Romance

• scifi
• (gender)Queer
• queer MC

Anthology of inclusive tales of people through time looking for one another and for ways for the world to be better.

Love brought together or torn apart by time travel.

Adrift in Starlight by Mindi Briar

• scifi
• ace MC
• nb mc

A gender-neutral courtesan is hired to seduce an asexual museum archeologist, and both are accidentally caught up in an illegal adventure when one of the museum’s alien artifacts comes to life.

Under Unfortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings

• scifi
• bi/pan

Fleeing the final days of the generations-long war, smuggler Jereth Keeven’s freighter the Jonah breaks down in a strange rift in deep space, with little chance of rescue—until they encounter the research vessel which claims to be from 152 years in the future

The Hourglass Throne (The Tarot Sequence #3) by K.D. Edwards

• fantasy
• mm
• ace

An Atlantis-inspired urban fantasy series about the heir to a lost throne who must navigate a cutthroat society with a ragtag band of allies and found-family

The Legacy of Molly Southbourne (Molly Southbourne #3) by Tade Thompson

• scifi

Whenever Molly Southbourne bled, a murderer was born. Deadly copies, drawn to destroy their creator, bound by a legacy of death. With the original Molly Southbourne gone, her remnants drew together, seeking safety and a chance for peace. The last Molly and her sisters built a home together, and thought they could escape the murder that marked their past.

But secrets squirm in Molly Southbourne’s blood…

Future Artifacts: Stories by Kameron Hurley

• scifi

Eighteen exhilarating tales giving glimpses into the warfare of tomorrow.

Let the Mountains Be My Grave by Francesca Tacchi

• fantasy

In 1944 Italy, partisan Veleno thinks of nothing but killing as many Nazis as he can before leaving this world.

Uncommon Charm by Emily Bergslien and Kat Weaver

• gothic comedy

In the 1920s, bright young socialite Julia and shy Jewish magician Simon decide they aren’t beholden to their families’ unhappy history. Together they confront such horrors as murdered ghosts, alive children, magic philosophy, a milieu that slides far too easily into surrealist metaphor, and, worst of all, serious adult conversation.

Perception Check (Mages of Velmyra Saga #1) by Astrid Knight

Her favorite tabletop roleplaying game is real, and her kidnapped childhood best friend is trapped in a far off land. Will she be able to save her? Let’s roll initiative!

The Reinvented Heart, edited by Cat Rambo, Jennifer Brozek

• scifi
• genderfluid
• non-binary

What happens when emotions like love and friendship span vast distances — in space, in time, and in the heart? The Reinvented Heart presents stories that complicate sex and gender by showing how shifting technology may affect social attitudes and practices, stories that include relationships with communities and social groups, stories that reinvent traditional romance tropes.

Wrath Godess Sing by Maya Deane

• fantasy
• trans MC

An #OwnVoices trans women’s literary epic fantasy pitched as reimagining of the Iliad, wherein Athena recruits the young trans heroine Achilles to defeat the omnipotent Helen and her Olympian enablers before she drowns the world in human sacrifice.

Odder Still by D.N. Bryn

• fantasy
• mm

A M/M fantasy novel with a biracial and class-crossing slow burn romance, murderous intrigue, and a Marvel’s Venom-style parasite-human relationship in an underwater steampunk city

All Their Astral Light by Quinn Caslan

• sFF
• All Queer

In a world where Seven Stars are worshipped by the inhabitants of Seven Provinces, violence and wonder bring together six impossibly dissonant people in a mad dash to save their world before a phantasmal insanity takes them.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

• fantasy

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department based in Manchester. However, when the genocide of all witches is foreseen by the agency’s oracles, consensus on how to tackle the prophecy threatens to tear apart a group of lifelong friends.

Vows of Empire (The Bloodright Trilogy #3) by Emily Skrutskie

• space opera
• mm

Two young princes on opposite sides of a war must decide between loyalty and love.

The Grief of Stones (The Cemeteries of Amalo #2) by Katherine Addison

• fantasy
• gay mc

The Godbreaker (The God-King Chronicles #3) by Mike Brooks

• fantasy

Two armies will clash – led by two fearsome generals. Rumour claims one is a demon, and the other is a god reborn…

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

• fantasy

Locklands (Founders #3) by Robert Jackson Bennett

• fantasy
• sapphic MC
• FF

A god wages war—using all of humanity as its pawns

The Sleepless by Victor Manibo

• scifi

In a near-future New York City where some people have lost the ability to sleep, a journalist realizes he’s the last person who saw his boss alive before the man’s mysterious death—and he realizes he has zero memory of what happened.

Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances (Dragons and Blades #2) by Aliette de Bodard

• FANTASY
• MM

It was supposed to be a holiday, with nothing more challenging than babysitting, but when dragon prince Thuan and his ruthless husband Asmodeus find a corpse in a ruined shrine and a hungry ghost who is the only witness to the crime, their holiday goes from restful to high-pressure.

The Origin of Storms (Lotus Kingdoms #3) by Elizabeth Bear

• fantasy
• trans mc

The Lotus Kingdoms are at war, with four claimants to the sorcerous throne of the Alchemical Emperor, fielding three armies between them. Alliances are made, and broken, many times over—but in the end, only one can sit on the throne.

Silk Fire by Zabé Ellor

• fantasy
• bi mc

Set in a planet-sized matriarchal city where magic and technology freely bleed together, a male courtesan’s quest for vengeance against his aristocrat father draws him into an ancient struggle between dragons, necromancers, and his home district’s violent history.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

• horror
• nb mc

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake.

(retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic “The Fall of the House of Usher.”)

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk & Robot #2) by Becky Chambers

• scifi
• agender mc

After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home.

They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe

• horror
• lesbian MC

They say Cape Disappointment is haunted.
That if you can hear the call of the water
It’s already too late…

When Meredith Strand returns to her childhood home on the eve of her divorce, young daughter in tow, the Cape seems more haunted by regret than any malevolent force.

August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White

• space opera

An alien race of enormous robotic AI have destroyed most of humanity’s outposts. But, on the eve of the Earth’s destruction, a musician makes one last desperate attempt to reach out and convinces one of humanity’s enemies to switch sides. Now, earth just might have a chance to survive…

Ion Curtain by Anya Ow

• scifi

The AI is brutal, vicious and efficient and humanity has to fight to survive.

Fault Tolerance (Captain Eva Innocente #3) by Valerie Valdes

• space opera
• PAN MC

Nothing wrecks Captain Eva Innocente’s vacation plans quite like an anonymous threat to vaporize billions of people. Hundreds of monoliths have suddenly materialized in space, broadcasting the same looped message: surrender or be exterminated. Is the universe being epically spammed?

Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Tsai

• scifi
• non-binary
• sapphic

A queer gender reversal retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

• fantasy
• Lesbian MC

Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book’s content after eating it.

Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters, raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories.

But real life doesn’t always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

• fantasy
• nb mc

High Times in the Low Parliament by Kelly Robson

• fantasy
• lesbian MC

A lighthearted romp through an 18th-century London.

“A lesbian stoner buddy comedy with fairies—about Brexit”

The Oleander Sword (Burning Kingdoms #2) by Tasha Suri

• fantasy
• FF
• lesbian MC

Newly-crowned empress Malini and powerful priestess Priya grappling with their choice to remake an empire—and realizing that their love might not withstand the fight.

Dance with the Devil (Mercenary Librarians #3) by Kit Rocha

• dystopian
• romance
• bi mc

Orphan Black meets the post-apocalyptic Avengers.

We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2021 edited by L.D. Lewis & Charles Payseur

A collection of 15 queer stories from 2021.

Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #3) by Tamsyn Muir

• scifi
• sapphic

Her city is under siege. The zombies are coming back. And all Nona wants is a birthday party.

Notorious Sorcerer (The Burnished City #1) by Davinia Evans

• fantasy
• MM

In a city filled with dangerous yet heavily regulated alchemical magic, a man from the slums discovers he may be its only hope to survive certain destruction.

The Unbalancing (Birdverse) by R.B. Lemberg

• fantasy
• nb mc

A group of queer and nonbinary magic keepers across an archipelago must come together to save their islands from an environmental catastrophe.

We Won’t Be Here Tomorrow: And Other Stories by Margaret Killjoy

• scifi
• fantasy

Spaceships, man-eating lesbian mermaids, swords, spears, demons, ghouls, thieves, hitchhikers, and life in the margins.

The Genesis of Misery (Nullvoid Chronicles #1) by Neon Yang

• scifi
• non-binary
• sapphic
• poly
• bi/pan

This is the story of Misery Nomaki (she/they) – a nobody from a nowhere mining planet who possesses the rare stone-working powers of a saint. Unfortunately, these saint-like abilities also manifest in those succumbing to voidmadness.

Will Do Magic For Small Change by Andrea Hairston

• scifi
• fantasy
• bi mc

A tale of alien science and earthbound magic and the secrets families keep from each other.

Deadbeat Druid (Adam Binder #3) by David R Slayton

• fantasy
• gay mc

Adam Binder has the Sight. It’s a power that runs in his bloodline: the ability to see beyond this world and into another, a realm of magic populated by elves, gnomes, and spirits of every kind.

Into the Riverlands (The Singing Hills Cycle #3) by Nghi Vo

• fantasy
• nb MC

Wandering cleric Chih of the Singing Hills travels to the riverlands to record tales of the notorious near-immortal martial artists who haunt the region. On the road to Betony Docks, they fall in with a pair of young women far from home, and an older couple who are more than they seem. As Chih runs headlong into an ancient feud, they find themselves far more entangled in the history of the riverlands than they ever expected to be.

The Atlas Paradox (Atlas #2) by Olivie Blake

• fantasy

Six magicians. Two rivalries. One researcher. And a man who can walk through dreams.

The Surviving Sky by Kritika H. Rao

• fantasy
• BI MC

An exploding jungle-planet, a world of cataclysmic storms called earthrages. No life can survive on land.

A floating city, made of plants, held together by magic and tech. But the city is crashing to the earthrage below. Survival is at stake.

Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell

• space opera
• mm

When Tennal—a rich socialite, inveterate flirt, and walking disaster—is caught using his telepathic powers for illegal activities, the military decides to bind his mind to someone with coercive powers strong enough to control him.

(Set in the same universe as Winter’s Orbit.)

A Restless Truth (The Last Binding #2) by Freya Marske

• (HIST.) FANTASY
• SAPPHIC MC

Magic! Murder! Shipboard romance!

The World We Make (The Great Cities #2) by N.K. Jemisin

• fantasy
• lesbian
• gay

Every great city has a soul. A human avatar that embodies their city’s heart and wields its magic. New York? She’s got six.

A Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares

• scifi
• gay mc

A race across the multiverse to save the infinite Earths – and the love of your life – from total destruction

Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk

• fantasy
• sapphic
• FF

An exiled augur who sold her soul to save her brother’s life is offered one last job before eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can’t resist—the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves.

The Last Hero (The First Sister #3) by Linden Lewis

• scifi
• NB MC
• ACE MC
• BI MC

The flame of rebellion burns across the solar system…

The Stars Undying by Emery Robin

• scifi
• bi mc

A space opera based on the life of Cleopatra. Everyone is bi in it.

The Map and the Territoryby A.M. Tuomala

• Fantasy
• ace mc
• gay MC

Cartographer Neera Masreen and wizard Eshusikinde learn to bear each other’s idiosyncracies on the long road home through a world devastated by an unexplained catastrophy.

The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard

• scifi
• lesbian MC

Lesbian Space Pirates.

The Ivory Tomb (Rooks and Ruin #3) by Melissa Caruso

• fantasy
• bi mc

A Necessary Chaos by Brent Lambert

• fantasy
• gay mc
• mm

In a world of magical empires and the anarchists that would tear them down, two mages are each assigned to spy on the other by opposing sides. But when they both catch feelings, what happens when they’re commanded to kill their target?

Luminescent Machinations: Queer Tales of Monumental Invention

A speculative anthology exploring the limits of machinery, the fragility and power of queer bodies, and mecha in all their forms.

Empire of the Feast by Bendi Barrett

To survive the ever-sharpening gears of war, Riverson, 32nd ruler of the Stag Empire, will need to mend the political schisms threatening to tear his empire apart while maintaining the erotic rituals holding off the eldritch horror known only as the Rapacious.

Wolfpack (Foxhunt #2) by Rem Wigmore

• fantasy
• bi mac

Untitled NeoG #3 by K.B. Wagers

• space opera

Loosing Gravity by Kameron Hurley

• scifi

Killing Eve Meets Die Hard (in space!)

New Life in Autumn (Autumn #2) by Michael G. Williams

• scifi

A far-future PI navigating underworld cults, organized crime, the remains of his old life, and the promise of a new one.

The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang

• fantasy
• genderqueer

A queer epic fantasy full of bandits, heroes, and revolution inspired by the Chinese classic Water Margin.

Threads of Power #1 by V.E. Schwab

• fantasy
• genderqueer
• gay
• bi

Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers and Other Stories by Alyssa Wong

• Fantasy

The collection includes 6 award-nominated/winning short pieces, two flash fictions published only digitally to date, and five entirely new short stories.