Best Sci-fi and Fantasy Books
Reviewed by Annabel Gooder, Helen van Berkel and Ethan Sills
THE CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
by Charlie Jane Anders (Titan Books, $25)
One side of the planet January always faces the sun and human colonies survive in the perpetual twilight between light and dark. Sophie, a shy and awkward girl trying to fit in at the university, becomes enamoured of a wannabe revolutionary. When she is exiled to certain death, she is saved by one of the Gelets, indigenous inhabitants of the dark side whom the humans do not recognise as sentient. Sophie meets Mouse, a smuggler moving goods between the estranged cities of regimented, timebound Xiosphant, and licentious, mafia-run Argelo. As human survival becomes more precarious, the colonists ignore the effect they are having on the planet they barely see and it is up to Sophie to forge a new path. As Anders intertwines the stories of Sophie, Bianca, Mouth and Alyssa, she reveals the interconnectedness of peoples, societies and the planet itself through the details of their languages, stories and technologies. City in the Middle of the Night is a masterful first-contact story that seems certain to become a classic. (AG)
A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE
by Arkady Martine (Pan Mcmillan, $38)
When the Teixcalaanli Empire urgently requests a new ambassador from Lsel Mining Station they send Mahit. However, she does not go alone; she carries the hastily implanted memories of previous ambassadors, an imprint now 15 years out of date. Despite Mahit’s fluency in Teixcalaanli language and culture, she feels out of her depth at a court where business is conducted through abstruse poetry. Grateful for the service of her assigned cultural aide, Three Seagrass, she finds herself caught up in uncertainty over the Succession, a looming rebellion and technology changes in how the world-spanning city can be controlled. The Emperor Six Direction wants something the previous ambassador promised, someone wants to kill her and Mahit cannot tell if the imperial companion Nineteen Adze is rescuing or detaining her but the Lsel Council are relying on her to preserve their fragile autonomy. Arkady Martine, an expert on the Byzantium Empire, blends characters and action into a fascinating and very readable story about assimilation and cultural legacy. (AG)
SANCTUARY
by V.V. James (Orion Books, $35)
At a time when witchcraft is an acceptable and regulated part of society, star quarterback Daniel Whitman dies in a tragic house fire at a party of his school peers. It is up to Detective Maggie Knight to determine whether it was an accident or murder. Sarah is a witch and when her daughter Harper, former girlfriend of the dead boy, becomes a suspect in the case, she must use all her powers to get to the truth. The prejudices of her community come to the fore and friends she has known and loved turn against her. And as the community descends into almost Stephen Kingesque chaos, divided along high school popularity lines, it becomes clear to Sarah that the Angel of Death may not yet have finished with the town. Dismiss the spells and charms as tosh if you will but there’s enough depth here to make Sanctuary a worthwhile read. (HVB)
GIDEON THE NINTH
by Tamsyn Muir (Tor Books, $48)
Gideon Nav, reluctant indentured servant of the Locked Tomb, has her escape off-planet all mapped-out. Her plans are thwarted and what follows is a rollicking skeleton-packed adventure as the heirs to eight houses are sequestered in a ruined castle on a haunted planet. New Zealander Tamsyn Muir embraces half a dozen genres and thumbs her nose at as many more in a first novel that has obviously been a long time coming. Muir has a wonderful sense of pacing and a shrewd understanding of what not to include and the language, from the glorious insults to the Baroque descriptions to Gideon’s anatopic snark, is pitch-perfect throughout. A fantastic tale with an irreverent Kiwi tenor to the humour, Gideon the Ninth is the book I most enjoyed this year, and I am very pleased to see the sequel, Harrow the Ninth, will be published in June 2020. (AG)
LIGHT BRIGADE
by Kameron Hurley (Saga Press $21.95)
In a corporation-controlled future, Dietz joins the Light Brigade, looking for glory and revenge (and maybe citizenship) fighting against the Martians who obliterated Sao Paulo in the blink of an eye. Soldiers are converted into light so they can be beamed anywhere on Earth — or in the solar system. But on their first deployment, not everyone returns quite right. And as the war drags on, the missions take their toll on morale, corporate propaganda notwithstanding. Light Brigade
is in conversation with Heinlein’s Starship Troopers
and its responses, such as Haldeman’s The Forever War and Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. Like those works, it includes the privations of boot camp, radical new military technologies, comradery and loss and a protagonist grappling with politics and loyalty. And yet the writer to whom Light Brigade really pays homage is C.J. Cherryh, both in the disorienting nature of each drop and in the inevitability of the choice Dietz faces. Relentless and fiercely anti-war, this may be the closest thing to hopepunk Kameron Hurley has written. (AG)
ABSOLUTE BOOK
by Elizabeth Knox (Victoria University Press, $35) This book has stayed with me in a way no other book this year has. What begins with our hero, Taryn Cornick, seeking revenge for her sister’s murder, spirals, develops and transforms into a magical, surreal odyssey through our world and those beyond, fuelled by grief, regret and the power of stories. Elizabeth Knox has created a world infused with magic and wonder but her story is more interested in human nature and what defines our species. It is barely a fantasy novel, those elements dissected and reassembled in such a fresh and exciting way that they are almost unrecognisable. It is a book you want to devour and savour all at once, and then force on to everyone you know so you can bask in Knox’s grounded magic together. (ES)
LIGHT FROM OTHER STARS
by Erica Swyler (Bloomsbury, $44)
Nedda is in the advance party of an attempt to colonise another planet when their spaceship’s engine malfunctions. As the crew works together to keep the mission on track, Nedda must come to terms with the childhood event that made it possible for her to be in space so many years later. When she was a young girl her father nurtured her dreams of space but he also dreaded her growing older, building a device to try and keep her by his side just a little longer. As his invention starts to impact the whole town, 11-year-old Nedda, still traumatised by the Challenger explosion, has to find a way to stop it. One of the book’s strengths is that although it starts as yet another daughter-and-father story, Nedda’s mother Betheen is also vital with an active role in saving the day and is an important part of who Nedda is as a person. Erica Swyler makes science feel like magic as she explores family dramas, hidden trauma, small-town indiscretions and parental sacrifice. (AG)