Tor Essentials’ goal is to provide readers with fresh new editions to science fiction and fantasy works of lasting value and merit, and we’ve got a whole collection of vital titles that the modern genre fan shouldn’t miss! So read on below for all the Tor Essentials coming in 2022, and once you’re through the list, take a trip to your local bookstore and/or library and read on, and on, and on.
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The Black Company by Glen Cook
With a new introduction by Steven Erikson, author of The Malazan Book of the Fallen.
Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must, burying their doubts with their dead. Until the prophesy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more. There must be a way for the Black Company to find her…
ON SALE 2/22/22!
Worlds of Exile and Illusion by Ursula K. Le Guin
With a new introduction by Amal El-Mohtar, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author.
These three spacefaring adventures mark the beginning of grand master Ursula K. Le Guin’s remarkable career. Set in the same universe as Le Guin’s groundbreaking classics The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, these first three books of the celebrated Hainish Series follow travelers of many worlds and civilizations in the depths of space. The novels collected in this Tor Essentials edition are the first three ever published by Le Guin, a frequent winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards and one of the greatest science fiction and fantasy writers of all time.
ON SALE 3/15/22!
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Up Against It by Laura J. Mixon
With a new introduction by James S. A. Corey, author of the Expanse novels.
Jane Navio is the resource manager of Phoecea, an asteroid colony poised on the knife-edge of a hard vacuum of unforgiving space. A mishap has dumped megatons of water and methane out the colony’s air lock, putting the entire human population at risk. Jane discovers that the crisis may have been engineered by the Martian crime syndicate, as a means of executing a coup that will turn Phocaea into a client-state. And if that wasn’t bad enough, an AI that spawned during the emergency has gone rogue…and there’s a giant x-factor in the form of the transhumanist Viridian cult that lives in Phocaea’s bowels. Jane’s in the prime of her career—she’s only a bit over a century old—but the conflict between politics and life-support is tearing her apart. To save her colony and her career, she’s going to have to solve several mysteries at once—a challenge that will put her up against all the difficulties, contradictions, and awkward compromises entailed in the human colonization of outer space.
ON SALE 4/26/22!
Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
With a new introduction by Michael Swanwick, author of The Iron Dragon’s Daughter.
The mystery of Ryhope Wood, Britain’s last fragment of primeval forest, consumed George Huxley’s entire long life. Now, after his death, his sons have taken up his work. But what they discover is numinous and perilous beyond all expectation. For the Wood, larger inside than out, is a labyrinth full of myths come to life, “mythagos” that can change you forever. A labyrinth where love and beauty haunt your dreams…and may drive you insane.
ON SALE 7/12/22!
Growing Up Weightless by John M. Ford
With a new introduction by Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill.
John M. Ford (1957-2006) was a science fiction and fantasy writer, game designer, and poet whose work was held in high regard by peers ranging from Neil Gaiman to Robert Jordan to Jo Walton to Roger Zelazny, alongside innumerable others. His novels include the World Fantasy Award-winning The Dragon Waiting, the Philip K. Dick Award-winning Growing up Weightless, and the contemporary thriller The Scholars of Night. His debut novel Web of Angels (1980) has been called “cyberpunk before there was cyberpunk.” He spent the latter decade-and-a-half of his writing life in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
ON SALE 9/27/22!
The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
With a new introduction by Brian Evenson, winner of the O. Henry Award.
Far out from Earth, two sister planets, Saint Anne and Saint Croix, circle each other in an eternal dance. It is said a race of shapeshifters once lived here, only to perish when men came. But one man believes they can still be found, somewhere in back of the beyond. In The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Gene Wolfe skillfully interweaves three bizarre tales to create a mesmerizing pattern: the harrowing account of the son of a mad genius who discovers his hideous heritage; a young man’s mythic dreamquest for his darker half; and the bizarre chronicle of a scientist’s nightmarish imprisonment. Like an intricate, braided knot, the pattern at last unfolds to reveal astonishing truths about this strange and savage alien landscape.
ON SALE 11/8/22!
Which book is at the top of your TBR? Let us know in the comments!
