Senan Mahon's 3 favorite reads in 2026

The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game...a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.Praise for Iain M. Banks:"Poetic, humorous, baffling, terrifying, sexy -- the books… show more.

Karl Schroeder is one of the new stars of hard science fiction. His novels, "Ventus" and "Permanence", have established him as a new force in the field. Now he again extends his reach into Larry Niven territory, returning to the same distant future in which "Ventus" was set, but employing a broader canvas, to tell the story of Teven Coronal, a ringworld with a huge multiplicity of human civilizations. Brilliant but troubled Livia Kodaly is Teven's only hope against invaders both human and superhuman who would destroy its fragile ecologies and human diversity. Filled with action, ideas, and intellectual energy,… show more.