Every month, Baen Books sends us a selection of their newest releases and we share them with you. They’ve been bringing readers science fiction and fantasy for decades. Here are the previews for Baen Books May releases.
Hell on Wheels
Written by: D.J. Butler & David J. West
Cover Artist: Kurt Miller
Format: Hardcover
RELEASED June 2, 2026
A CANNONBALL RUN ACROSS AN AMERICA FULL OF MAGIC
Silas Danger can’t stop running.
The year is 1975. Silas drives a red Pontiac GTO. Trapped in the back of his muscle car are the ghost of his sister Betty and half of the demon that killed her. He doesn’t know how she died, and he hasn’t figured out how to save her yet, but he knows that if he spends three days in any one place, the other half of the demon will catch up, kill him, and drag Betty down to hell.
Silas works as a scout, messenger, courier, herald, and sometimes spy across the weird, fragmented, magical world of Other America. Dodging bridge trolls as well as alien grays, lamiae along with snallygasters, undead blues singers and also bison-headed giants, he runs errands in exchange for information that will help him save his sister.
The Ishtar Deception
Written By: James K,, Cambias
Cover Artist: Dominic Harmon
Format: Paperback
RELEASES June 2, 2026
A SPY, A MURDER, AND ONE SARCASTIC AI; MYSTERY, ACTION, AND ADVENTURE FROM THE BILLION WORLDS!
The Billion Worlds’ Greatest Spy Faces His Greatest Challenge
At the end of the Tenth Millennium, Sabbath Okada, agent of a nameless branch of Deimos’ labyrinthine government comes to the vast city of Ishtar on Venus to investigate the suspicious death of an undercover agent. His companion, Daslakh, is an old and cunning AI with its own self-imposed mission: to act as Okada’s conscience.
Searching for the truth takes Sabbath and Daslakh to the glittering towers of Ishtar’s elite, a brutal combat sport arena, and the unforgiving, wind-lashed face the highest peak on Venus. Along the way they face ruthless Lunar Republic spies, double agents, and sadistic Ishtar police, but Sabbath’s greatest challenge comes from Meili Tewa, his deadliest enemy—and his only love.
Each twist in the case reveals a new layer of deception, another betrayal. Hunted and on the run, with no one he can trust and no help from home—it’s time for Sabbath Okada to remind everyone why he’s the greatest spy in the Billion Worlds of the Solar System.
Toll of Honor
Written by: David Weber
Cover Artist: David Mattingly
Format: Mass Market Paperback
RELEASED May 5, 2025
A NEW SOLO NOVEL IN DAVID WEBER’S NYT BEST-SELLING HONORVERSE
“It is our duty to pay for our liberty with our own blood. The freedom that we shall win through our sacrifice and exertions, we shall be able to preserve with our own strength.” —Subhas Chandra Bose
Lieutenant Brandy Bolgeo has come home from the Battle of Hancock Station wounded in both body and spirit. She will need months to regenerate her lost leg, but how long will it take to heal her heart?
She’s come home to find that her wounds, her ship’s brutal damage, the deaths of so many friends, were the fault of an arrogant, aristocratic coward who broke and ran in the face of the enemy. Who left her ship to pay the price for his craven desertion under fire. And whose powerful political allies are determined to protect and preserve him at any price.
They have held hostage the declaration of war until Lord Pavel Young escaped the consequences of his cowardice. They didn’t care what it cost the Navy. They didn’t care what it cost the entire Star Kingdom of Manticore. Their tactics have cost the Royal Navy the priceless initiative as revolution and military purges wrack the People’s Republic of Haven, and that lost window of opportunity will cost the Star Kingdom seventeen years of bloody warfare and hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Now Young is free to seek vengeance on the people he feels have “wronged” him. People like Paul Tankersley and Honor Harrington. Paid duelists, smear tactics, hired assassins in public restaurants . . . nothing is beneath Pavel Young. But Captain Harrington can look after herself, and Pavel Young is about to face the fury of the woman the newsies call the “Salamander.” Yet who will save the Star Kingdom from the repercussions of his actions?
Women and men like Brandy Bolgeo are about to pay the toll for the Star Kingdom of Manticore’s honor.
Publisher – Baen Books
Founded by Jim Baen, Baen Books has been bringing readers pulse-pounding, thought-provoking adventures straight from the heart of science fiction and fantasy for decades. We publish books in hardcover, paperback, and electronic form, and are one of the few traditional publishers that maintains its own ebooks webstore (with at least four new titles added every month). We are also perhaps the only book publisher to make our electronic advanced readers copies (eARCs) available for sale to devoted fans before a book’s official release date. In addition, we also sell ebooks from other publishers. We sell more than 2000 books from over 500 authors published by 24 different companies. Good reading to all!
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