New Books Network

About Rob Wolf

Rob Wolf is the host of New Books in Science Fiction and the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape.

Rob's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Rob:

Science Fiction February 25, 2021

The Phlebotomist

Chris Panatier

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Humans have found many ways to divide and stratify—by skin color, ancestry, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, health status, body type or size, and so on. The list is …
Science Fiction February 4, 2021

The Light Years

R. W. W. Greene

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Arranged marriages have been around for centuries, and in The Light Years (Angry Robot, 2020), R.W.W. Greene imagines they’ll be around for centuries more. With the addition of speed-of-light travel, Greene’s …
Science Fiction January 14, 2021

Black Sun

Rebecca Roanhorse

Hosted by Rob Wolf
The first chapter of Rebecca Roanhorse’s new novel, Black Sun (Gallery/Saga Press, 2020), features a mother and child sharing a tender moment that takes an unexpected turn, ending in violence. It’s …
Science Fiction December 24, 2020

The Ministry for the Future

Kim Stanley Robinson

Hosted by Rob Wolf
The Ministry for the Future (Orbit, 2020) is a sweeping novel about climate change and how people of the near future start to slow, stop and reverse it. The story opens with …
Science Fiction November 25, 2020

The Once and Future Witches

Alix E. Harrow

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Alix E. Harrow’s The Once and Future Witches (Redhook, 2020) begins with the familiar phrase “Once upon a time” but the novel is anything but a traditional fairytale. Yes, there are …
Science Fiction October 29, 2020

Ring Shout

P. Djèlí Clark

Hosted by Rob Wolf
P. Djèlí Clark’s new novella, Ring Shout (Tordotcom, 2020) is a fantasy built around an ugly moment in American history—the emergence of the second Ku Klux Klan in the early …
Literature October 8, 2020

The Constant Rabbit

Jasper Fforde

Hosted by Rob Wolf
In Jasper Fforde’s The Constant Rabbit (Viking, 2020), residents of the United Kingdom live among human-sized anthropomorphized rabbits. The rabbits make fine citizens—more than fine, in fact. They in live …
Literature September 17, 2020

The New Wilderness

Diane Cook

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Diane Cook’s The New Wilderness (Harper, 2020) is a poignant portrait of a mother and daughter fleeing the polluted cities of a near-future dystopia for a hand-to-mouth existence in the …
Literature August 27, 2020

ReV

The Machine Dynasty, Book III

Madeline Ashby

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Writers and readers of science fiction love stories about artificial intelligence, robots, and mechanical beings whose sentience mirrors, matches or exceeds that of humans. The stories stay fresh for the …
Literature July 30, 2020

Beneath the Rising

Premee Mohamed

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Premee Mohamed’s debut novel, Beneath the Rising (Solaris, 2020) came out in March, but don’t call her a new writer. “I find it funny that people refer to people who …
Literature July 9, 2020

The Down Days

Ilze Hugo

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Few science fiction writers have their vision of the future tested upon publication. But that’s what happened to Ilze Hugo, whose novel about a mysterious epidemic, The Down Days (Skybound …
Literature June 18, 2020

Riot Baby

Tochi Onyebuchi

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Tochi Onyebuchi’s Riot Baby (Tor.com, 2020) tells the story of two siblings—Ella, who is gifted with powers of precognition and telekinesis, and her younger brother Kevin, whose exuberant resistance to …
Literature May 28, 2020

Velocity Weapon

The Protectorate, Book 1

Megan E. O'Keefe

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Velocity Weapon (Orbit, 2019) by Megan E. O’Keefe centers on siblings: Biran, a member of an elite cadre that controls the interstellar gates by which humans travel among star systems …
Literature May 7, 2020

Goldilocks

Laura Lam

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Laura Lam’s new book Goldilocks (Orbit, 2020) takes readers into space with an all-female crew bound for a distant Earth-like planet. The all-female crew isn’t the only twist; there’s also …
Literature April 16, 2020

The Imaginary Corpse

Tyler Hayes

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Tyler Hayes's The Imaginary Corpse (Angry Robot, 2019) offers an escape from the unending stress of the Covid-19 pandemic with three simple words: plush yellow triceratops. Nothing could be farther …
Literature March 26, 2020

The Hidden Girl and Other Stories

Ken Liu

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Ken Liu’s second collection of speculative stories explores migration, memory, and a post-human future through the eyes of parents and their children. Whether his characters are adjusting to life on …
Literature March 12, 2020

Docile

K. M. Szpara

Hosted by Rob Wolf
In Docile (Tor.com, 2020), the debut novel by K.M. Szpara, people pay off family debts by working as indentured personal assistants to the ultra-wealthy. Tor describes the book as a …
Literature February 27, 2020

Stealing Worlds

Karl Schroeder

Hosted by Rob Wolf
To catch the people who killed her environmentalist father, the main character of Karl Schroeder’s Stealing Worlds (Tor Books, 2019) disappears into a virtual world of overlapping LARPs—live action role-playing …
Literature February 13, 2020

Homesick

Stories

Nino Cipri

Hosted by Rob Wolf
When Nino Cipri entered the Dzanc Short Story Collection Contest, they had no expectation of winning, so when they won, they were shocked. The prize came with a publishing contract …
Literature January 30, 2020

The Light Brigade

Kameron Hurley

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Some war stories emphasize heroism and a higher purpose; others emphasize brutality and disillusionment. The first kind of story got Dietz, the narrator of Kameron Hurley’s military science fiction novel …
Literature January 16, 2020

A Beginning at the End

Mike Chen

Hosted by Rob Wolf
The end of the world is no excuse for eating French fries. That’s a lesson 7-year-old Sunny Donelly learns from her father, Rob, who tries to give her as normal …
Literature January 2, 2020

Middlegame

Seanan McGuire

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Science fiction and fantasy often feature characters who seek absolute control (over a kingdom, country, world, galaxy or universe), but few break down the secret to power as elegantly as …
Literature December 19, 2019

Famous Men Who Never Lived

K Chess

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Famous Men Who Never Lived (Tin House, 2019) is set in two Brooklyns. In one, people ride in trams; in the other, they take subways. In one, the swastika is …
Literature November 21, 2019

A Song for a New Day

Sarah Pinsker

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Sarah Pinsker’s A Song for a New Day (Berkley, 2019) explores how society changes following two plausible disasters: a surge in terrorism and a deadly epidemic. In the Before, people …