Top Five Tuesday: SFF Trilogy Finishers I Can’t Wait to Release

One of my ongoing reading goals these last few years has been to keep up with book series I’m reading, whether that means finishing a backlist series I start, or keeping on top of newly released sequels as they come on.  One of the pleasant side effects of being a book blogger is that review copies have made it a little easier for me to keep up with new series.  So it is that I find myself 2/3 of the way through several trilogies, enduring the agonizing wait for the final book to release.  So what books am I watching drift on the horizon until they are one day in my grasp?

All covers here link to Goodreads, and I’m including links to my past reviews where they exist, should you want to check out a series!

   

THE BURNING GOD by R.F. Kuang
Release Date: November 17th, 2020
Review: THE POPPY WAR
Review: THE DRAGON REPUBLIC
The final book in a series that is heart-breaking and utterly engrossing, THE BURNING GOD will release at the end of 2020. The series has followed Rin, an orphan determined to rise to power at any cost. A calculating character who is a terrible human being, she is still utterly “watchable,” and it’s hard to stop reading as she claws her way through the ranks of various armies and governments in a war-torn land.

   

OUT PAST THE STARS by K.B Wagers
Release Date: February 23rd, 2021
Review: THERE BEFORE THE CHAOS
Review: DOWN AMONG THE DEAD
#AllHailTheGunrunnerEmpress!  OUT PAST THE STARS is the final book in the second trilogy featuring Hail Bristol, a princess who ran away from home as a teenager and spent 20 years living a life of smuggling and crime, before a series of assassinations left her improbably next in line to the throne.  The first trilogy saw fight her way through coup attempts and civil wars as she fought to maintain her throne.  This second trilogy put the Indranan Empire in the middle of a intergalactic struggle with the alien race known as the Farians.  With the fate of humanity in the balance, Hail and her band of guards and smuggler allies have thrown themselves into a war they’re ill-prepared for, but when has that ever stopped Hail?

   

JADE LEGACY by Fonda Lee
Release Date: 2021
Review: JADE CITY
Review: JADE WAR
Some of the best character work and world-building I’ve seen in the last few years can be found in the first two books of this series. Kekon feels like a real place with real history, and is an unusual in it’s early-modern time period feel.  These books take place in a fully imagined Asian-inspired world, but one that has cars and planes and early TV, reminiscent of the 1950s/60s.  The struggle of the No Peak clan, one of two gangster families that control the trade of magical trade both in their country and internationally, is utterly engrossing, and I can’t wait for the final installment in this series.

 

CATALYST GATE by Megan E. O’ KEEFE
Release Date: TBA
Review: VELOCITY WEAPON
Review: CHAOS VECTOR – in progress, I’ll update this post when it’s live!
There’s never a dull moment in THE PROTECTORATE space adventure. Just when you think you know what’s up, another rug is pulled out from under you. Sanda is the epitome of a heroine who is stuck saving the day because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now she’s trying to unravel a conspiracy that’s got its tendrils into every part of the galaxy, and she’s got one more book to do it in. It’s so hard to talk about this series because of all the turns it takes, but if you like spaceships and AI and a setting 1200 years or so in our future where humanity has finally spread out amongst the stars, you should check this series out!

 

SKYWARD Book Three by Brandon Sanderson
Release Date: TBA
Review: SKYWARD
Review: STARSIGHT
Sanderson’s YA series about a dying human colony fighting off an alien threat has taken many wild twists and turns, with STARSIGHT ending on a monumental cliffhanger. I mean, the book just stopped and there were no more pages and what do I do with that?? Sanderson took a break to get the next STORMLIGHT ARCHIVES book out, but at the speed he writes I’m hoping we’ll see book three in fall of 2021.  Guess we’ll have to see what the State of the Sanderson report says at the end of the year!

  

THE FOUNDERS Book Three by Robert Jackson Bennett
Release Date: TBA
Review: FOUNDRYSIDE
Review: SHOREFALL
Okay, yes, this is entry six on a list of five, but with SHOREFALL on track to be one of my favorite reads of the year (if not THE favorite), you can absolutely bet I’m scouring the internet for the slightest hint of when the final book in the trilogy is releasing. Set in a world where magic happens by “scribing” runes onto objects to make them behave in certain ways, Sancia is a thief who accidentally obtains a device that let’s her break all the rules of magic – and there’s plenty of people willing to kill to get their hands on it. After an explosive finale to book two, I’m desperate for book three to come out.  Please, please, please, publishing gods?

And those are the finales I’m looking forward to!  What’s on your radar?

(Note: I’ve been doing my own topics this month, but I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to Meeghan at Meeghan Reads who is currently maintaining the Top Five Tuesday meme, taking over from the fabulous Shanah at Bionic Book Worm!)