Science Fiction and Fantasy New Releases: 2 August 2025
Sunday , 3, August 2025 Uncategorized Leave a commentEvery week, the Castalia House Blog spotlights some of the many new releases in independent, pulp, and web novel-influenced science fiction and fantasy.
Big Trouble, Little Earth – J. N. Chaney and Jason Anspach
Long after Earth’s destruction, Humanity is an endangered species…
When freighter pilot Dalton Thorne reunites with his old friend Kota at Little Earth’s best noodle shop, he’s expecting a straightforward job. Instead, he finds himself embroiled in a centuries-old mystery that could change humanity’s place in the universe forever.
Little Earth is a decaying city carved into an alien planet where humans live as refugees.
Beneath its neon-lit streets and crowded markets lies a secret: fragments of Earth’s past, preserved by a mysterious race of aliens and hidden from the ruling Consortium.
Now, Dalton and his fledgling crew must uncover a vital piece of evidence, long buried in depths of Little Earth—one that might lead to a real home for humanity.
With combat-enhanced martial artists, power-hungry crime lords, and the iron fist of the Consortium all hot on their trail, Dalton must navigate a web of divided loyalties and hard choices.
If only he’d kept eating his noodles, none of this would have happened.
Black Cloaks (Titan Hoppers #4) – Rob J. Hayes
The Enemies of your enemies…
Iro has left the home fleet to join up with the Black Cloaks, eager for the power and the answers they’ve promised him. But danger lurks in every corner deep in the TITAN core, and some revelations are more than he can bear. What if he was never a Corsair?
War has come to the Home Fleet and the new Squad Four Home find themselves on the front lines over and over again. Emil fights for his friends and for his ship, but what if Fleet Command isn’t trying to win the war?
A new threat lurks in the depths of the TITAN core. Monsters band together, all of them wearing a golden crown. Iro and Emil will soon learn some old enemies are not as dead as they believed.
Crown of Ink (Ash and Ink #1) – Jasper Aldan and D. K. Holmberg
He was trained to obey. But some oaths deserve to be broken.
Tavin Rivenhart—The Echo—is the most feared assassin in Valeir. For the right price, the Silent Oath Guild sends him to end lives with perfect precision. But Tavin has a secret: he always asks why.
His latest mission seems simple—kill a rogue scholar and retrieve the child she’s stolen. But in the quiet northern village, he discovers a truth that shakes everything he’s ever believed.
The woman isn’t a traitor. And the boy… the boy can unbind the magical contracts that hold the kingdom together.
Now hunted by his own guild, Tavin must decide: fulfill his deadly oath—or protect the only hope of breaking the chains that bind them all.
Some bindings are written in blood. Others, in justice.
Dark Wizard (The Starship In The Stone #7) – M. R. Forbes
Thomas thought he understood the enemy. He was wrong.
Some evils refuse to stay buried.
When a desperate search for answers leads Thomas to the isolated world of Ferraden, he discovers that Turquine’s ambitions run deeper than anyone imagined. What began as a hunt for a rogue Draconite has become something far more dangerous.
As the final pieces of an ancient puzzle fall into place, Thomas will learn that some battles can’t be won with starships and swords. Some enemies require a different kind of courage entirely.
The darkness is spreading. Time is running out. And somewhere in the void, an evil older than empires works to remake the galaxy in its own twisted image.
The dark wizard has returned.
Grimurth Shall Burn – Dave Martel
In the grim and haunted realm of Grimurth, ancient evils stir beneath the veneer of civilization. When Ser Lucius Lex—last of the divine Tivarian Order—answers a call to hunt mongrels in a remote hamlet, he uncovers a conspiracy that threatens to drown the world in alien perfection.
Betrayed by his closest ally and haunted by prophetic nightmares, Lex must forge unlikely alliances: with a healer who shares his divine blood, a roguish bastard seeking redemption, noble houses clinging to honor, and the giant kings of the frozen north. Together they face an enemy that promises to end all suffering—by transforming humanity into living geometry.
From the haunted depths of Wraithwood Caverns to the frozen peaks of Elderfrost, from besieged mountain fortresses to a final apocalyptic battle beneath a crimson moon, “Grimurth Shall Burn” weaves visceral sword-and-sorcery action with cosmic horror and mythic depth.
War By Other Means (Fall of the Censor #7) – Karl K. Gallagher
Dozens of worlds have been liberated from the oppression of the Censorate. The only thing they agree on is hating the Censor. Newly appointed ambassador Wynny Landry must convince her neighbors to cooperate—and prevent them from being taken over by a new oppressive regime.
It’s not going to be easy. The Mulians hate the Falxians. The Lompocans can’t get along with each other. The Fierans want some payback for the effort they put into liberating other worlds. And the ex-Censorate governor who brought his whole province into the rebellion keeps showing up when not expected—or wanted. She’d lean on her husband, if he wasn’t missing in action at the front.
Wynny needs to talk the rebels into keeping their guns aimed at the Censor, while hopefully smoothing over the worst of the conflicts. All she has to work with is her parent-in-laws’ ship, her adopted clanfolk, and trade deals for excess missiles. If it’s not enough, the rebellion will fall apart—and the Censor will return, out for blood.
A Warrior’s Devotion (Saga of the Known Lands #7) – Jacob Peppers
Death wears many faces.
And who knows this better than the Crimson Prince?
He has stood before those faces countless times, in countless places.
The first was the mugger who nearly took his life in a back alley of Daltenia, but there have been plenty more since. He has stood before the alien visages of feylings, unknown and unknowable, the snarling faces of beasts seeking to sate their hunger or men their hate.
Death wears many faces.
But none so forbidding, so inevitable as that of the Barrier Mountains.
Great jagged peaks of ice and stone stab into the clouds, monoliths that promise death to any who dare trespass along their paths. It is a promise they have kept time and time again. Dozens of expeditions have been launched into the mountains over the years, well-supplied and well-supported, in search of what they might find there. But the only thing they’d found was death.
Now, Cutter and his brother, his son, unsupplied and unsupported, are forced to follow the paths of those doomed caravans in hopes of finding a chance to destroy Shadelaresh, the Green Man, and end the war with the Fey.
Cutter has faced danger before, and always it has been his legendary strength or his famous will that has seen him clear of it. But this time, if he is to save his brother and son, if he is to save his people, it will not be because of a warrior’s strength or a warrior’s will. It will, instead, be because of a warrior’s promise to his people, his son.
It will be because of A Warrior’s Devotion.
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