The Mimicking of Known Successes (The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti #1), by Malka Older

Tordotcom, ISBN 9781250860507, March 2023

Holmesian mystery! Sapphic romance!

Earth is no longer habitable, or perhaps, not yet habitable again. The surviving remnants of humanity are living in colonies in orbit around Jupiter. Mossa is an investigator assigned to investigate a man's disappearance at a rail station. She follows the limited evidence about him back to the university town of Valdegeld--where her former girlfriend, Pleiti, is a scholar working on the reterraforming of Earth. Awkward as it will be, she needs to talk to Pleiti to get the information she needs to investigate anything in the cuthroat academic politics of Valdegeld.

It's an awkward reunion indeed, but Pleiti is ready to help her.  

Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet, by He Xi / 人生不相见, 何夕(author), Alex Woodend (translator)

Published in Adventures in Space: New Short stories by Chinese & English Science Fiction Writers, Flame Tree Press, April 2023

At some point in our future, Earth has both a world government, and an interstellar space program. They've developed a faster than light drive, and have found some habitable planets.

Fan Zhe and Yelena are new graduates of the training program, and hope to soon be assigned to visit one of the new colonies, to assess how successful its development has been. He Xi is the older, experienced astronaut, who has himself spent some years on another colony world. He Xi soon reveals that he will be the leader of the mission Fan Zhe and Yelena are assigned to.

Mammoths at the Gates (The Singing Hills Cycle #4), by Nghi Vo

Tordotcom, ISBN 9781250851437, September 2023

Cleric Chih travels widely, gathering stories, with a talking hoopoe bird. The hoopoe, Almost Brilliant, has perfect recall and serves as Chih's neixin, ensuring that the stories will be retained perfectly, even as Chih records them on paper.

For the first time in years, Chih and Almost Brilliant are arriving home at the Singing Hills Abbey, to add their stories to the archives, and to rest. But there have been some changes at the abbey.

Cleric Thien, mentor to Chih and others when they were young and still new to the abbey, has died. Thien's hoopoe, Myriad Virtues, is mourning as only a being with perfect memory can, and it's been somewhat disruptive. 

Thornhedge, by T. Kingfisher

Tor Books, ISBN 9781250244093, August 2023

We have a princess, sleeping in a tower. The tower is entirely surrounded by tall, thick, dangerous thornhedge. We know this story!

But no, this is T. Kingfisher, and she does strange and wonderful things to fairy tales.

Our heroine is Toadling, born in the tower, but stolen away by fairies, and raised in the warm waters of faerieland, in the loving care of the toads. And then she is summoned to go on a mission, to make a blessing on a newborn princess in the tower, to prevent harm. Such a simple mission. What could go wrong?

Seeds of Mercury, by Wang Jinkang / 水星播种 (author), 王晋康, Alex Woodend (translator)

Published in Adventures in Space: New Short stories by Chinese & English Science Fiction Writers), Flame Tree Press, April 2023

Chen Yizhe is a successful businessman, with twenty billion yuan in assets, a beautiful wife, and a lovely son. Life is exactly how he wants it.

He gets a phone call from a Mr. He Jun, who is a lawyer representing the estate of Ms. Sha Wu, who has died and designated Chen Yizhe as her legatee. Chen Yizhe has dim memories from childhood of Ms. Sha Wu, a distant aunt of his, but has no idea why she would leave him her estate.

It turns out not to be the small and uncomplicated bequest he assumes. Ms. Sha Wu has been quietly working on a project to develop a new life form that will survive, and hopefully evolve, on Mercury.