10 Contemporary Science Fiction Novels of 2022

The Candy House

Jennifer Egan

The Candy House opens with the staggeringly brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company, Mandala, is so successful that he is “one of those tech demi-gods with whom we’re all on a first name basis.” Bix is forty, with four kids, restless, and desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, “Own Your Unconscious”—which allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share your memories in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes.

Release Date: April 5, 2022

The City Inside

Samit Basu

Joey is a Reality Controller in near-future Delhi. Her job is to supervise the multimedia multi-reality livestreams of Indi, one of South Asia’s fastest rising online celebrities—who also happens to be her college ex. Joey’s job gives her considerable culture power, but she’s too caught up in day-to-day crisis handling to see this, or to figure out what she wants from her life. Rudra is a recluse estranged from his wealthy and powerful family, now living in an impoverished immigrant neighborhood. When his father’s death pulls him back into his family’s orbit, an impulsive job offer from Joey becomes his only escape from the life he never wanted.

Release Date: June 7, 2022

Enclave

Claire Coleman

Christine could not sleep, she could not wake, she could not think. She stared, half-blind, at the cold screen of her smartphone. She was told the Agency was keeping them safe from the dangers outside, an outside world she would never see.

She never imagined questioning what she was told, what she was allowed to know, what she was permitted to think. She never even thought there were questions to ask. The enclave was the only world she knew, the world outside was not safe. Staying or leaving was not a choice she had the power to make. But then Christine dared start thinking.

Release Date: June 29, 2022

January Fifteenth

Rachel Swirsky

For Hannah, a middle-aged mother, today is the anniversary of the day she took her two children and fled her abusive ex-wife. For Janelle, a young, broke journalist, today is another mind-numbing day interviewing passersby about the very policy she once opposed.

For Olivia, a wealthy college freshman, today is “Waste Day”, when rich kids across the country compete to see who can most obscenely squander the government’s money. For Sarah, a pregnant teen, today is the day she’ll journey alongside her sister-wives to pick up the payment­­s that undergird their community—and perhaps embark on a new journey altogether.

Release Date: June 14, 2022

48 States

Evette Davis

In 2042 the United States is recovering from a series of terrorist attacks that upended the government, rewrote our civil liberties, and erased two states from the map. River, a widow, single mother, and veteran of the Caliphate Wars, works as a waste hauling trucker in Energy Territory No. 1, formerly known as North Dakota. Living in a dingy motel room with nothing but her books and a semiautomatic pistol for company, she is weeks away from the end of her contract and returning to her young daughter. Finn Cunningham, a hydrologist with the United States Geology Survey (USGS) in Montana, is suspicious of environmental changes.

Release Date: June 7, 2022