Science Fiction · December 2026
6 New Science Fiction Books Coming in December 2026
A company wants to manage motherhood, a detective is paid to find a dead woman, and four books return to worlds already changed by war.
Two of December’s science fiction releases stay close to home. In Fetal Position, a startup offers Lena Do a way out of corporate life on the condition that she have a child on its terms. In Exhumation, a London detective takes a missing-person job even though the woman he’s supposed to find was murdered months ago.
The other four return to established worlds. Homefront looks at who gains power after an alien invasion, while Cygnus puts a rescue decision in the hands of a soldier already on a mission. The dates below are scheduled U.S. releases. The reading notes explain where each story picks up.
At a glance
What science fiction books come out in December 2026?
Fetal Position, Exhumation, Homefront, and Vessels Grim and Daring are scheduled for December 1. Cygnus follows on December 8 and Wrath of Terra on December 15. Fetal Position and Exhumation are standalone novels. The other four build on earlier stories.
01 · Near-future dystopia
Fetal Position
By Carolyn Huynh
· US · Atria Books
Lena Do is burned out at work and has little family support. A startup called Hatch offers her a home, financial security, and a robot to take care of the household. In return, she would have a child with a man selected for her. The company sells the arrangement as a solution to falling birth rates and loneliness. For Lena, it also means handing over decisions about her body.
When women around her begin to vanish, Lena has to find out what Hatch is doing and whether she can trust the machine it sent into her home. The robot makes the offer look like freedom from housework. The more unsettling idea is that a company can make reproductive control feel like the only way to get some help.
A standalone novel. The Fortunes of Jaded Women and The Family Recipe are separate stories.
02 · Speculative mystery · Psychological thriller
Exhumation
By Nicholas Binge
· US · Riverhead Books
Arlo Abbas used to work for London’s Metropolitan Police. Now he’s a private investigator short on work when a stranger pays him to find Sophie Banik. Her murder is already on record. Someone still wants him to follow her trail, and it takes him into the tunnels beneath London, where an underground organization is conducting experiments.
The case begins with a name, a payment, and a death that has slipped out of public view. The experiments raise a question that the police file can’t answer. How can Arlo tell whether someone is conscious, asleep, or dead? Following the case also means looking at parts of his own past he would prefer to leave alone.
No earlier Binge novel is needed. Arlo’s investigation begins here.
03 · Political space opera
Homefront
By Charles E. Gannon
· US · Baen Books
In 2121, Earth learns that the Arat Kur, whose invasion it fought off two years earlier, have been defeated in their home system. The news leaves the young Consolidated Terran Republic with a different problem. Old grievances are resurfacing, and militant factions see a chance to turn public anger into power.
Veterans Ira Silverstein and David Weber are called back to investigate the factions threatening the republic. This corner of the Caine Riordan universe stays on Earth to follow the political consequences of first contact. Winning the war has bought people the chance to rebuild, but it has also given them room to reopen fights they set aside during the invasion.
Fire with Fire introduces Caine Riordan and Earth’s first contact with the Accord. Trial by Fire follows the invasion whose aftermath drives Homefront. Those two books give the clearest background for the shift to Silverstein and Weber.
04 · Military space opera
Vessels Grim and Daring
By Jason Cordova and Melissa Olthoff
· US · Baen Books
The Protectorate of Mars Foreign Legion gives recruits a route to citizenship. For Private Diego Tavi, it has also become a home. After the evacuation of Aurora, he has to work out what he owes the unit and whether he can live up to the oath he took. Pilot Astra “Blue” Eliassen has a new command, but Sir Percival Norwood is determined to make her answer for the rescue of Fourth Squad.
Blue still wants a place in the Survey Corps. Now her obligations to the people she flew out of Aurora can cost her the career she hoped to build. Where Homefront follows a republic trying to hold together, this sequel makes the politics personal by tying them to two people who have found a place in the same unit for very different reasons.
The Bronze Legion, book 2. To Tread Obsidian Shores comes first. It introduces Tavi and Blue and establishes why Aurora matters to them both.
05 · Military science fiction · Trilogy finale
Cygnus
By Marko Kloos
· US · 47North
Alex Archer, once a refugee from an occupied colony and now a special operations soldier, is on a mission when her team picks up a distress signal behind enemy lines. They have to decide whether to keep to their orders or cross hostile ground to reach whoever sent it. The terrain is dangerous even before they have to account for the Lankies.
Kloos narrows the war to a decision the team has to make before it knows enough about the people calling for help or the route ahead. Reconnaissance gear can tell Alex something about what’s in front of her. It can’t tell her what she owes the people on the other end of the signal.
Frontlines: Evolution, book 3. Read Scorpio and then Corvus for Alex’s story. The original Frontlines books follow Andrew Grayson and give the longer history of the war with the Lankies. Scorpio is the start of Alex’s trilogy.
06 · Warhammer · Military space opera
Wrath of Terra
By John French
· US · Games Workshop
The Horus Heresy has ended, the Emperor is silent, and the Traitor Legions are in retreat. The fighting has left Mars scarred by the Dark Mechanicum. Titus Prayto sees the Space Marines as essential to the Imperium’s survival, while Ortag Theokon of the Iron Warriors is trying to find refuge after his side’s defeat.
The two sides are living with different kinds of defeat. Theokon has lost the war. Prayto has to figure out what defending the Imperium means while primarchs and High Lords are fighting over power. The Scouring follows the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, thousands of years before the era of Warhammer 40,000.
The Scouring, book 2. Read Chris Wraight’s Ashes of the Imperium first. The Siege of Terra books cover the end of the Horus Heresy and explain why the Imperium is so fractured when The Scouring begins.
More science fiction to explore
The science fiction shelf includes both standalones and long series. The Revelation Space guide maps another shared universe, including which books belong to the main sequence and which can be read on their own.
Science fiction covered on Book Review GuideRevelation Space books in orderMore new and upcoming books