“The Scent of Memory” by Zhao Haihong, translated from the Chinese by S. Qiouyi Lu (Clarkesworld, May 1)

“The Girl Who Stole Life” by Zhou Wen, translated from the Chinese by Xueting C. Ni (Asimov’s, May/June)

Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun by Mónica Ojeda, translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker (Coffee House Press, May 12)

In the near future, best friends Noa and Nicole flee their home in Guayaquil, Ecuador to attend the Solar Noise Festival, a week-long, retro-futuristic gathering at the foot of an active volcano. While Noa fully embraces the haze of narcotics and hedonism in an effort to obscure her true reason for attending, Nicole senses something darker at play behind the festival’s so-called “celebration of life.” Amid technoshamanic poetry, collective hallucinations, and ritualistic dances, each girl navigates her own path in an effort to escape her past and reclaim her right to a future.

China + 100: Stories from a Century After the Outbreak, edited by Xueting C. Ni, various translators from the Chinese (Comma Press, May 14)

China + 100 poses a simple question to ten leading Chinese science fiction writers: what might China look like in the year 2119 – a century after the first outbreak of Covid-19. How might this event – which triggered a global health crisis, and altered the world’s relationship with China – impact the development and position of China a century later? Exploring everything from big tech, class warfare, transhumanism, government infringements on personal freedoms, and global security, these stories ask all the difficult questions: will China and the world have learned from the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic, and be prepared for even greater health threats in the future, or will new, man-made dangers have emerged?

Teddy Bears Never Die by Cho Yeeun, translated from the Korean by Sung Ryu (Run For It, May 26)

A young woman and a possessed teddy bear set out on a revenge quest unlike any other in this stylish slasher from Cho Yeeun, a rising star in Korean horror. 

Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir, translated from the Icelandic by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Nightfire, May 26)

Unnur was living a normal, if lonely, life until a black cat showed up at her door. Trying to do the right thing, Unnur reunites the lost pet with its owner—a young woman named Ásta who is in desperate need of some help. Unnur reluctantly agrees to take in the cat until Ásta is able to care for it again herself. Soon, Ásta becomes a fixture in Unnur’s life and the two form an unlikely friendship. But like a black cat, trouble is tailing Ásta, and Unnur is the only one there when things take a violent turn. Nothing tests a friendship like blood on your hands.