10 Most Anticipated Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Coming Out in December 2026
December is usually the quiet month on the science fiction and fantasy calendar. The big autumn hardbacks have already landed, the award lists are winding down, and a lot of readers are more interested in catching up than in starting something new. December 2026 is quieter than November was, but it is not empty. The books that are arriving this month tend to do one of two things: close a story that has been building for years, or open a world people have been waiting to go back to.
The book everybody will be talking about is Neal Shusterman’s Rising Thunder, the first of a prequel trilogy set before his Arc of a Scythe novels. It is a genuine event release: a return to one of the most popular young adult dystopias of the last decade, written as the origins of the Thunderhead and the first scythes. Around it, Everina Maxwell makes a sharp turn from science fiction romance into epic fantasy with Call Me Traitor, and James Rollins brings his Moonfall series to an end as the moon itself bears down on the world.
It is also a strong month if you like your fantasy romantic and your science fiction uncomfortable. Fatima Al-Shemary’s debut, The Empire Burns at Dawn, sends two sisters into rival courts in a story pitched as The Arabian Nights meets romantasy. Carolyn Huynh’s Fetal Position imagines a start-up that offers burnt-out women a beautiful life in exchange for pregnancy, then starts making them disappear. A.K. Mulford opens a dark sapphic series in which a temple acolyte falls in love with a figure who turns out to be a nightmare, and Rebecca Thorne drops her exes into a flooding underwater city for the second Titan’s Wrath book.
What links the best of these books is a question about loyalty: to an empire, a god, a family, a company, or a version of yourself that no longer fits. Several of them are about what happens when the thing you were trained to serve starts to look like the danger. Others are about vows that will not break, even when breaking them would be the sensible political move. If you want a cosy end to the year, there is one of those too. Most of the list has rather more bite.
We’ve ranked the ten most anticipated books on three things: how excited readers already are, how strong each premise looks on the page, and how much each one adds to the month. A famous name was not enough on its own, and a smaller release could climb if the idea was sharp enough. You’ll find the UK and US release dates for each book, plus who it is best suited to, so you can decide what to pre-order and what can wait until January.
A quick note on timing, because December lists can get messy. A few big titles that show up on US December calendars are already out in the UK, including Nicholas Binge’s Exhumation (22 October) and Adrienne Young’s Chosen Son (10 November). They are well worth reading, but they are not new here this month, so they are not in the ranking.
Whether you are looking for new fantasy books for December 2026, the best new sci-fi books to finish the year with, fresh romantasy, a series finale, or something to read in the gap between Christmas and New Year, this list should give you a few good options.
Here are the 10 most anticipated science fiction and fantasy books coming out in December 2026. Let’s get into it 👇
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10. Til Quest Do Us Part by Ivelisse Housman
Release date: 1 December 2026 (US, Ace; UK, Zaffre) Genre: Romantic fantasy
Ten years ago, Princess Elysande Sybilla Aurelion of Estrachia made a vow to her knight, Faron, on the night before they expected to die. They were eighteen, the Thousand-Eyed Goddess was watching, and a raging sorceress was waiting for them in the morning. Then they lived. Ely took the throne, Faron became Knight Guardian, and they agreed they were too young and too important to be anything more than friends. Better to forget the whole thing than risk the kingdom’s new peace.
The problem is that the Goddess does not forget. A decade later, Ely needs to marry a neighbouring prince for a political alliance and discovers she is, technically, still married to her best friend. The only way out is to find the deity and ask to be released, which means travelling together to undo a promise neither of them has been honest about. Ivelisse Housman made her name with the Unseelie duology in young adult fantasy; this is her adult debut, and it is aimed squarely at readers who like their quests warm, witty and a little bit embarrassing for the people on them.
It sits at No. 10 because it is the gentlest book on the list, and December already has heavier hitters fighting for attention. The premise is lovely, and the early praise from Sarah Beth Durst and India Holton suggests it does the yearning well. It stays at the bottom because the stakes are personal rather than world-ending, which is part of the charm, but it also means this is a comfort read rather than the book the month will be remembered for. Ace publishes the US paperback on the same day Zaffre brings out the UK edition.
Read it if you like: Second-chance romance, princess-and-knight stories, cozy fantasy, and books about what happens after the chosen ones grow up.
Where to find it: Paperback from Ace in the US and the Zaffre edition in the UK. It’s a standalone.
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9. Lightning & Thunder by Sara Raasch
Release date: 29 December 2026 (US, Bramble; UK edition the same day) Genre: Contemporary fantasy, romantasy
In Sara Raasch’s new Heroes and Romance series, the modern descendants of the gods were supposed to protect humanity. Pollux “Lux” Keraunos, who comes from the Zeus line, has decided the Hero Council is not doing that job. He is a tech-savvy vigilante with a Robin Hood streak, and he has been undermining the Council his older brother leads. Then that brother disappears, the public panics, and Lux is asked to step up as heir. The person assigned to train him is Erik Thorson, his brother’s best friend, a Thor descendant, and the last man Lux wants to be in a room with.
Raasch is best known for young adult fantasy, including Snow Like Ashes and the set-in-the-same-world books that followed. This is an adult series with a very different flavour: New York, corrupt superheroes, and a romance that plays like an aged-up Percy Jackson story with the scepticism of The Boys. Macmillan’s library reviewers have already compared it to Starter Villain and Renegades, which gives you a sense of the tone: snarky, fandom-literate and more interested in what heroism costs than in another origin-story punch-up.
It ranks at No. 9 because the premise is a lot of fun and Raasch has a large existing readership, but it arrives on 29 December, which is a strange time to launch a new series. Most people will still be eating leftovers or starting the book they got for Christmas. It stays below the mid-list because this is more of a sparkling romance-with-powers than a heavyweight SFF release, and the month already has darker, stranger work fighting for the same slot. Still, if you want something to read in that odd week between Christmas and New Year, this is the obvious candidate.
Read it if you like: Adult Percy Jackson energy, rivals-to-lovers, corrupt hero organisations, and queer contemporary fantasy with a sense of humour.
Where to find it: Paperback from Bramble, including a deluxe edition with sprayed edges. It’s the first book in the Heroes and Romance series.
8. Warrior of the Shards by Sarah Hawley
Release date: 8 December 2026 (US, Ace); 10 December 2026 (UK) Genre: Romantic fantasy
Princess Kenna of Blood House has finally chosen which of the rival princes she will back as the next ruler of Mistei. One wrong move shatters the Accord, the fragile truce holding the kingdom together, and the result is civil war. Hundreds of faeries are dead. Kenna and the two rebel princes are captured. With the other potential rulers locked up, two faeries even crueller than the late tyrant king seize the throne, and Kenna is left with the knowledge that her misstep may have lost the war before it properly began.
This is the last book in Hawley’s Shards of Magic trilogy, which began with Servant of Earth and continued with Princess of Blood. The series has built a following on dark court politics, a ruthless heroine, and a romance that does not soften the knives. Penguin Random House is pitching the finale as the point where Kenna has to decide how far she will go to remake Mistei, and whether winning the war is worth losing the part of herself that still feels human.
It earns No. 8 because trilogy finales matter to the people who have already read the first two books, and Hawley’s readers have been waiting for this one. It stays in the lower half because a third book is almost impossible to recommend as a starting point, and December already has several series openers and standalones that a new reader can pick up immediately. If you are already in, though, this is not one to leave until the paperback. The UK edition follows two days after the US hardcover.
Read it if you like: Dark romantasy, faerie courts, morally grey heroines, and series that get meaner as they go.
Where to find it: Hardcover from Ace in the US, with the UK edition on 10 December. Start with Servant of Earth if you are new to the series.
7. This Crimson Ruin by Rebecca Thorne
Release date: 1 December 2026 (US, Tor Books); 3 December 2026 (UK, Tor/Pan Macmillan) Genre: Science fantasy, sapphic adventure
When Sergeant Nix Marr agreed to work as bodyguard for her ex, Kessandra, on a trip to the domed underwater city of Fall, she did not expect to come back. She also did not expect the journey itself to go so wrong that they would be stranded there. Fall is supposed to be a marvel. Instead the city has been abandoned, the once-grand streets are a ruin, and the only people still moving through them are feral, turned inhuman by an infection. The dome is flooding. Finding out what happened is now the same problem as getting out alive.
This is the second book in The Titan’s Wrath trilogy, following This Gilded Abyss, which reviewers compared to a sapphic, steampunk Titanic with a zombie problem. Thorne is also the author of the cozy Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea books, so the gear-shift into claustrophobic underwater horror is part of the interest. Pan Macmillan is aiming it at readers who like Arcane, BioShock and Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series, which is a useful cluster: stylish, messy, and more interested in damaged people than in clean-cut heroes.
It ranks at No. 7 because the setting is one of the most distinctive on the list, and a flooded ghost city is a brilliant place to put two people who already know how to hurt each other. It stays below the new standalones and series openers because you really do need to have read book one, and mid-trilogies are doing a different job from a book you can hand to anyone. The UK edition follows two days after the US one.
Read it if you like: Underwater science fantasy, second-chance sapphic romance, steampunk horror, and stories that trap two people in a place that wants them dead.
Where to find it: Hardback, ebook and audio from Tor. Start with This Gilded Abyss if you are new to the series.
6. Dreamslayer by A.K. Mulford
Release date: 1 December 2026 (US and UK, Harper Voyager) Genre: Dark romantasy
Acolyte Praer Dundariff is a year away from ascending to the dream world when a friend dies with a warning that splits her life in two. She goes looking for comfort in the one place she can be herself: her dreams, and the arms of Reverie, a warrior she invented after staring at a statue in the temple gallery. Then the dream stops behaving. Reverie tells her, violently, never to come back. Praer returns anyway, because Reverie is supposed to be imaginary. She is not. Praer has not fallen asleep at all. She has opened a portal to Hell, and the woman she has been in love with is a nightmare.
Mulford built a big romantasy audience with the Five Crowns of Okrith series, and Dreamslayer is the start of a new one, Her Dark Reverie. Harper Voyager is printing it in serious numbers, and the hook is unapologetically dark: a devout young woman bound to the very thing she was trained to destroy, on a journey through Hell to assemble the key to a gate. It is sapphic, gothic, and aimed at readers who want their romance tangled up with curses and terrible bargains rather than balls and banter.
It takes No. 6 because Mulford is one of the more reliable romantasy names working right now, and a series opener is easier to recommend than a finale. It stays out of the top five because “the dream lover is actually a monster” is a shape a lot of dark romance already knows, and the month’s strongest books have either a bigger cultural footprint or a stranger idea. If you want the most purely romantic entry in the top half of the list, though, this is it.
Read it if you like: Dark sapphic romantasy, enemies-to-lovers, hell-and-portal quests, and books in which the fantasy girlfriend is a very bad idea.
Where to find it: Paperback and hardcover from Harper Voyager. It’s the first book in the Her Dark Reverie series.
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5. Fetal Position by Carolyn Huynh
Release date: 1 December 2026 (US hardcover, Atria; UK ebook, Atria/Simon & Schuster) Genre: Dystopian science fiction
In a near future of falling birthrates and a so-called male loneliness epidemic, a start-up called Hatch has a pitch for “high-value” women. Leave the grind. Take the subsidised house, the security, the robot butler that handles every domestic job. The trade is simple and grotesque: swap corporate labour for childbearing, via insemination with a matched man’s sperm. Lena Do is tired, isolated and ready to be talked into a different life. Then the women around her start to vanish, the perfect surface cracks, and she has to work out what Hatch actually is before she cannot leave. She also has to decide whether the robot butler is on her side.
Huynh’s debut, The Fortunes of Jaded Women, was a Good Morning America book club pick. Fetal Position is a much colder book, closer to a Black Mirror episode than to family comedy, and early reviewers have reached for The Handmaid’s Tale and Ex Machina as the obvious neighbours. It is short, at 256 pages, and that is part of the appeal: a complete, nasty idea, delivered without a trilogy’s worth of worldbuilding. Simon & Schuster publishes the UK ebook on the same day as the US hardcover.
It climbs to No. 5 because it is the most timely science fiction novel of the month, and because you can start and finish it over a weekend. Shelf Awareness gave it a starred review, and the premise is strong enough that a famous surname was not required. It stays just outside the top four because it is a quieter literary release than the event books above it, and some readers may find the set-up almost too close to the present to feel like escape. That, of course, is the point.
Read it if you like: Black Mirror, bodily-autonomy dystopias, AI that might be a companion or a captor, and novels that make you put the book down to stare at the wall.
Where to find it: Hardcover from Atria in the US, with the UK ebook from Simon & Schuster. It’s a standalone.
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4. The Empire Burns at Dawn by Fatima Al-Shemary
Release date: 1 December 2026 (US and UK, Ace) Genre: Epic romantasy
The Adani sisters have never been free. Their father has spent years plotting to take the corrupt Shah’s throne, and he is perfectly willing to use his daughters to do it. Dunya, the warrior, is sent to a distant desert kingdom thinking she is there as a diplomat. She is not. She has been offered to the Bezouin King as a bride. She refuses to submit, even if it means she never gets home, and then finds the king is not the man she was told to expect. Shayda is sent into the Shah’s own court, married off to the dying ruler with instructions to learn his secrets and then get rid of him. A rebellion is coming, and she turns in secret to the Daggers, a rebel group, and their ruthless leader.
Al-Shemary’s debut is being sold as The Arabian Nights meets romantasy, which is a useful shorthand for the palaces, the schemes and the two-sister structure, but the book also has a much older threat moving underneath the court intrigue. Dark magic is spreading. A pantheon of ancient gods is waking up, and the sisters may be pieces in a game that has nothing to do with their father’s ambition. Nisha J. Tuli has already praised it as “fantasy at its finest,” which is the sort of quote a debut needs if it is going to cut through a busy winter.
It ranks at No. 4, the highest of the month’s new voices, because the set-up is rich, the sister split gives it real narrative range, and you can start here with no homework. It sits below the top three because it is still a first novel, and first novels in this mode sometimes take a while to find their pace. Even so, of all the December romantasy, this is the one that looks most like the start of a series people will still be talking about next year. Ace publishes it in the US and the UK on 1 December.
Read it if you like: Court intrigue, sisters on opposite missions, desert kingdoms, and romantasy with a mythic threat behind the politics.
Where to find it: Hardcover, ebook and audio from Ace. It’s the first book in The Ages of Alifan.
3. A Fist of Molten Fire by James Rollins
Release date: 1 December 2026 (US, Tor Books); ebook the same day from Tor in the UK Genre: Epic fantasy
The moon is falling. Earthquakes are tearing continents apart, storms are stripping the skies, and impact is no longer a distant threat. Nyx and her companions have one last hope: two enormous engines buried in the planet’s core, which might restore the world’s spin and throw the moon back into orbit. To use them they need a lost key, and they are not the only ones looking for it. An undying figure of bronze, an ancient enemy, wants the same power, and wants moonfall to become a weapon. The path to the Fist, a volcanic stronghold beyond the Mýr swamps, is going to break alliances before it saves anyone.
This is the fourth and final book in Rollins’s Moonfall series, which began with The Starless Crown and continued through The Cradle of Ice and A Dragon of Black Glass. Rollins is better known to many readers as a thriller writer, but this has always been a proper epic fantasy project: a tidally locked world, a found family under impossible pressure, and a ticking cosmological disaster. The author’s site is clear that Nyx will have to decide whether she is the world’s saviour or its destroyer, which is exactly the kind of choice a finale is for.
It takes No. 3 because a series ending with the literal end of the world is as high-stakes as December gets, and Rollins has the audience to make this a genuine event for the people already in the series. It stays below the top two because a fourth book is, by definition, for readers who have done the work, and because the two books above it will matter to a wider group of people who can start this month. UK readers can get the ebook from Tor on the same day as the US hardcover; check your usual retailer if you are waiting for a print edition.
Read it if you like: Big-finale epic fantasy, dying worlds, found-family quests, and books that treat a falling moon as a problem you might actually be able to fix.
Where to find it: Hardcover and ebook from Tor Books. Start with The Starless Crown if you are new to Moonfall.
2. Call Me Traitor by Everina Maxwell
Release date: 1 December 2026 (US, Tor Books; UK, Orbit) Genre: Fantasy adventure, sapphic romance
En is a weapon. Battle spells are carved into her skin, she has been trained to work through pain, and her loyalty to the archmagi is not a feeling so much as a compulsion. She is sent to the Far Peninsula, a land of unpredictable and deadly magic, to retrieve a group of exiled traitors who should already be dead. To have any chance of succeeding, she is paired with Tamol, a common soldier who seems flighty, silver-tongued and frankly bad at the job. Then Tamol saves her life, and En starts to fall for her, which would be complicated enough before she learns that Tamol is one of the traitors she has been sent to bring home.
Maxwell’s Winter’s Orbit and Ocean’s Echo made them one of the most distinctive voices in queer science fiction romance. Call Me Traitor is their first fantasy novel, and it looks like a smart use of the same strengths: opposites thrown together, institutional power that does not deserve the loyalty it demands, and a love story that has to happen in the middle of a mission. The exiles were once students who tried to build a better kingdom and lost. Now they have found something in the wilderness that the archmagi will pay any price to get, and something even worse is living on the Peninsula with them. Orbit publishes the UK edition on the same day as Tor’s US hardcover, and Reactor has been running excerpts through November.
It ranks at No. 2 because this is the adult science fiction and fantasy release of the month that people have actually been waiting for. It has already been flagged as a most-anticipated title by BookRiot, BookPage and Goodreads, and Library Journal’s early review is warm on the characters, the magic and the themes of ideology and identity. It stays just off the top spot because Shusterman’s book has a much larger built-in audience. If you care more about sharp, character-led adult fantasy than about a famous YA franchise, this is the one to put first.
Read it if you like: Queer fantasy adventure, slow-burn romance, dark academia gone wrong, and stories about soldiers who start asking who they are really serving.
Where to find it: Hardcover from Tor in the US and paperback from Orbit in the UK. It’s a standalone.
1. Rising Thunder by Neal Shusterman
Release date: 1 December 2026 (US, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers); 3 December 2026 (UK, Walker Books) Genre: Young adult science fiction, dystopia
As every school child in this world knows, December 2042 marks the end of the Age of Mortality. What nobody has properly understood is how the world got there. Death is starting to look optional. Twi-life centres store the nearly-deceased. Eco-nihilists threaten to end the human race rather than let it continue as it is. Public opinion fractures, systems strain, and behind it all two powerful artificial intelligences set out to protect the world, each with a different idea of what protection means. In an obscure online chatroom, a group of teenagers argue about the future, not realising that their conversations, and their lives, are going to matter far more than they think. When humanity is on the brink of immortality, somebody has to decide what survives, and what must be cut away.
This is the first book of First Blades, a prequel trilogy to Shusterman’s Arc of a Scythe. In a note for the cover reveal, Shusterman said he wanted to go back not only to the founding scythes but to the origins of the Thunderhead itself, including the moment its rival AI enters the story. That is a lot of weight for a prequel to carry, but it is also why the book is at the top of this list. Scythe is one of those rare young adult series that parents, teenagers and adult science fiction readers all know, and a novel about two AIs struggling for dominance in the years before official immortality feels uncomfortably close to the present. Walker Books publishes the UK hardback on 3 December, two days after the US release.
Rising Thunder takes No. 1 because it is the one December book that was always going to dominate the conversation. It has the largest built-in audience, the strongest series hook, and a premise that adds something to a world people already care about, rather than simply repeating it. You do not have to have read Scythe to follow a story set before the Scythedom exists, though plenty of readers will come to it that way. Maxwell might write the sharper adult novel of the month, and Rollins is closing a saga, but Shusterman is the name that will sell out first and the book most likely to still be discussed when January’s lists appear.
Read it if you like: Scythe, high-concept YA dystopia, stories about AI and immortality, and prequels that are willing to show how a world went wrong before it looked inevitable.
Where to find it: Hardback from Simon & Schuster in the US and Walker Books in the UK. It’s the first book in the First Blades trilogy, a prequel to the Arc of a Scythe. Age guidance is 14 and up.
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Conclusion
December 2026 is a shorter list than some months, and that is not a bad thing. The year is ending with a genuine event in Rising Thunder, a long-awaited adult fantasy from Everina Maxwell, and a finale from James Rollins that is quite literally about stopping the moon from falling. Around those three, Al-Shemary’s debut and Huynh’s start-up dystopia give the month a sense of new ideas rather than just unfinished business.
If you only read one book from this list, make it Rising Thunder if you already live in Shusterman’s world, or Call Me Traitor if you want the best new adult fantasy of the month. For romantasy, start with The Empire Burns at Dawn if you want something epic, or Dreamslayer if you want something darker and more intimate. If you have already been reading Moonfall or the Shards of Magic books, this is the month you get your ending. And if you want a complete story with no prior reading and a nasty aftertaste, Fetal Position is the one to slip into the holiday pile.
The thread running through the list is loyalty: who has a claim on you, and what it costs to notice. That feels like the right note to end the year on. December is for finishing things, and a surprising number of these books are about people who thought they had already made their choice.
Shusterman takes the top spot because Rising Thunder has the scale, the built-in audience and the timely hook to be the science fiction book a lot of readers carry into 2027. Maxwell comes extremely close. If your taste runs more to adult fantasy than to YA dystopia, you have our blessing to flip the top two.
Which December 2026 release are you most excited to read? Did we rank your favourite too low, or miss a book that should have made the cut? Let us know.
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FAQs About December 2026 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
1. What are the most anticipated fantasy books coming out in December 2026?
The biggest fantasy releases of December 2026 include Everina Maxwell’s Call Me Traitor, James Rollins’s A Fist of Molten Fire, Fatima Al-Shemary’s The Empire Burns at Dawn, A.K. Mulford’s Dreamslayer, Sarah Hawley’s Warrior of the Shards and Ivelisse Housman’s Til Quest Do Us Part. Between them they cover epic fantasy, dark romantasy, a series finale and a much cosier quest, so there is something for most fantasy readers.
2. What new science fiction books are out in December 2026?
The standout science fiction releases are Neal Shusterman’s Rising Thunder, a prequel to his Scythe series about the origins of the Thunderhead; Carolyn Huynh’s Fetal Position, a near-future dystopia about a start-up selling motherhood; and Rebecca Thorne’s This Crimson Ruin, the second Titan’s Wrath book, set in a flooding underwater city. December is a quieter science fiction month than the autumn, so if you want a longer list it is worth checking Reactor once their monthly new-releases round-up is up.
3. When does Rising Thunder by Neal Shusterman come out?
Rising Thunder is published on 1 December 2026 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers in the US, and on 3 December 2026 by Walker Books in the UK. It is the first book in the First Blades trilogy, a prequel to the Arc of a Scythe, and follows the years leading up to the end of the Age of Mortality in December 2042.
4. Do I need to read Scythe before Rising Thunder?
You should be able to start here. Rising Thunder is set before the Scythedom exists, so it is designed as an entry point as well as a prequel. That said, a lot of the excitement comes from seeing how the Thunderhead and the first scythes begin, which will mean more if you already know Scythe, Thunderhead and The Toll. If you have never read the original trilogy, you can still start with this one and go forward later.
5. Is Call Me Traitor a sequel to Winter’s Orbit?
No. Call Me Traitor is a standalone fantasy novel, not a continuation of Everina Maxwell’s science fiction books Winter’s Orbit and Ocean’s Echo. You do not need to have read those to start this one. It is a sapphic fantasy adventure about a magically loyal soldier sent to retrieve exiled traitors, and it is published on 1 December 2026 by Tor in the US and Orbit in the UK.
6. Which December 2026 books are series finales?
James Rollins’s A Fist of Molten Fire concludes the Moonfall series, and Sarah Hawley’s Warrior of the Shards concludes the Shards of Magic trilogy. If you are new to either, start with The Starless Crown or Servant of Earth. K.J. Parker’s Sister Svangerd and the Chosen One, also due in December, wraps up the Loyal Opposition trilogy for readers already following that series.
7. What romantasy books come out in December 2026?
Romantasy readers have a lot to choose from. Fatima Al-Shemary’s The Empire Burns at Dawn and A.K. Mulford’s Dreamslayer are the strongest new series openers. Ivelisse Housman’s Til Quest Do Us Part is the cosy option, Sara Raasch’s Lightning & Thunder arrives at the very end of the month, and Sarah Hawley’s Warrior of the Shards closes a trilogy. Everina Maxwell’s Call Me Traitor has a central sapphic romance but is more of a fantasy adventure than a pure romantasy.
8. Are UK and US release dates the same for these books?
Often, but not always. Call Me Traitor, The Empire Burns at Dawn, Dreamslayer, Til Quest Do Us Part and Lightning & Thunder share a UK and US date. Rising Thunder and This Crimson Ruin arrive two days later in the UK, and Warrior of the Shards follows two days after the US hardcover. Fetal Position has a US hardcover and a UK ebook on 1 December. A Fist of Molten Fire has a confirmed US hardcover and a UK ebook on 1 December; check retailers for a UK print edition.
9. Why isn’t Chosen Son or Exhumation on this list?
Both are December releases in the US, but they are already out in the UK. Nicholas Binge’s Exhumation was published by HarperVoyager on 22 October 2026, and Adrienne Young’s Chosen Son, the conclusion of the Fallen City duology, came out from Titan on 10 November 2026. US readers will get Exhumation from Riverhead on 1 December and Chosen Son from Saturday Books on 15 December. They are both worth reading; they just are not new December books for UK readers.
10. What is the best December 2026 sci-fi or fantasy book to start with if I only read one?
If you want the biggest book of the month, choose Rising Thunder. If you want the best new adult fantasy, choose Call Me Traitor. If you want a complete standalone with a sharp idea, choose Fetal Position. If you are in the mood for a new romantasy series, start with The Empire Burns at Dawn.
More Places to Find Great Books
Looking for more science fiction and fantasy recommendations? These sites are worth bookmarking:
- Reactor (formerly Tor.com) publishes monthly lists of new science fiction and fantasy releases, plus reviews and original short fiction.
- Locus covers science fiction, fantasy and horror publishing news, reviews and awards.
- Goodreads is useful for tracking your TBR and seeing what other readers are excited about.
- Polygon runs monthly most-anticipated science fiction and fantasy book lists alongside its games and TV coverage.
- Orbit and Tor Publishing Group share upcoming releases, extracts and news from two of the biggest SFF publishers.
- Kirkus Reviews publishes early, independent reviews of new books.
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