Lucas Stoffel

Here is the pitch: aliens show up, flatten every building on Earth, and kill everyone who was outside. The survivors get dropped into a massive underground dungeon — a multi-floor death game broadcast live to the entire galaxy for entertainment. Carl, our guy, was outside in a bathrobe walking his ex-girlfriend's cat when the world ended. The cat, Princess Donut, gains the ability to talk. She immediately becomes the most famous celebrity in the known universe and demands to

Let me just say it: I was nervous about this one. Prequels to beloved series have a lousy track record, and even The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes had its skeptics. But Suzanne Collins walking back into the Hunger Games arena to give us Haymitch Abernathy's story? That's either going to be brilliant or it's going to break something sacred. It's brilliant. It might also break you, but that's a different problem. Sunrise on the Reaping is set during the fiftieth Hunger Game

Blake Crouch has this particular talent that I both admire and resent: he can take a premise that sounds like a B-movie pitch and turn it into something that keeps you checking your door locks. Run is earlier Crouch—published before Dark Matter and Recursion made him a household name—and you can feel the raw edges. This isn't polished. It's feral. And I mean that as a compliment.