October brings several long-awaited treats to your bookshelf, including a new Culture novel, the sequel to Connie Willis' Blackout, and Scott Westerfeld's Behemoth. Plus spying Victorian streetwalkers and Miles Vorkosigan! Here are the October releases you can't skip.

Tonight at 8 PM EST, we'll be hosting the livestream of io9 contributor Chris Braak's new play The Empress of the Moon. It's an alternate history about the life of writer and spy Aphra Behn, featuring lots of swordfights.

io9 contributor Chris Braak will be staging the world premiere of his alternate history play, Empress of the Moon, next week. And you can watch the livestream here on io9!

What sort of book is The Translated Man? We could throw labels like New Weird, Steampunk, Gothic Horror, Urban Fantasy, or even (ugh) Slipstream around, but I'm going with Lovecraftian Police Procedural.