Best New Science Fiction Books in March 2023

If there’s one thing that unites this month’s science fiction picks, it’s an interest in journeys. These books might be about journeys to other planets, to alternate versions of the same world, or to the perspective of a being almost entirely unlike oneself. Here are our top picks for the best new science fiction books in February 2023.

Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo

Type: Novel
Publisher: Tordotcom
Release date: March 14

Den of Geek says: Neurological implants are a great science fiction staple, but they’re usually used to ask questions about human existence and memory. Mandelo addresses animals instead in this bloody-looking experiment.

Publisher’s summary: What does it mean to “be-in-kind” with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s case, to be in-kind with one of the last remaining wild wolves? Using a neurological interface to translate her animal subject’s perception through her own mind, Sean intends to chase both her scientific curiosity and her secret, lifelong desire to experience the intimacy and freedom of wolfishness. To see the world through animal eyes; smell the forest, thick with olfactory messages; even taste the blood and viscera of a fresh kill. And, above all, to feel the belonging of the pack.

Sean’s tireless research gives her a chance to fulfill that dream, but pursuing it has a terrible cost. Her obsession with work endangers her fraying relationship with her wife. Her research methods threaten her mind and body. And the attention of her VC funders could destroy her subject, the beautiful wild wolf whose mental world she’s invading.

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

Type: Novel
Publisher: Tordotcom
Release date: March 7

Den of Geek says: Older’s name has been moving around in SF circles after her Centenal Cycle. Now, Charlie Jane Anders calls her new book “both a comfort read and a rousing, fist-pumping adventure.”

Publisher’s summary: On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. The enigmatic Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s erudite university—and Mossa’s former girlfriend, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems.

Pleiti has dedicated her research and her career to aiding the larger effort towards a possible return to Earth. When Mossa unexpectedly arrives and requests Pleiti’s assistance in her latest investigation, the two of them embark on a twisting path in which the future of life on Earth is at stake—and, perhaps, their futures, together.

Infinity Gate by M. R. Carey

Type: Novel
Publisher: Orbit
Release date: March 28

Den of Geek says: From the harder side of science fiction comes a vast world made of infinite possible Earths. This new entry in the popular multiverse subgenre has been praised for its characters and science.

Publisher’s summary: The Pandominion: a political and trading alliance of a million worlds. Except that they’re really just one world, Earth, in many different realities. And when an A.I. threat arises that could destroy everything the Pandominion has built, they’ll eradicate it by whatever means necessary.

Scientist Hadiz Tambuwal is looking for a solution to her own Earth’s environmental collapse when she stumbles across the secret of inter-dimensional travel, a secret that could save everyone on her dying planet. It leads her into the middle of a war on a scale she never dreamed of. And she needs to choose a side before every reality pays the price.