SCI-FI AND FANTASY

JAMIE BUXTON STRONGER, FASTER, AND MORE BEAUTIFUL

(Voyager £8.99, 384pp) One sickly teenage twin is sacrificed to save the other, but is bio-blending really that simple? What happens when a submarine human, complete with flippers, starts to hate his job as manatee shepherd and goes on a voyage of self-discovery? Finally, what could possibly go right in a topsy-turvy future where real humans, or ‘protos’, are held in reservations, and ‘humans’ can grow wings and pretty much anything else they fancy?

Gripping, provoking and elegantly written, this interlocking suite of stories explores the implications of genetic modification on our destiny.

There’s something of Ursula Le Guin in its calm, intelligent examination of human nature’s impact on technology, politics and religion. And there’s a twist at the end worthy of H. G. Wells.

A BOND UNDONE by Jin Yong

(MacLehose £14.99, 528pp) VOLUme 2 of Legends of the Condor Heroes sees the heroes and heroines of medieval China embark on all manner of quests: to avenge wrongs, make up for transgressions and achieve honourable resolutions to situations of delicious complexity.

Dependable and wholly lovable Guo Jing is back, still painfully developing his kung fu. By his side, fate and plot permitting, is the beautiful, mercurial Lotus Huang. each is accidentally betrothed to at least one other person so double trouble looms!

Add in a secret martial arts manual that promises invincibility, a background of political turmoil, a cast of villains that includes Twice Foul Dark Wind, (my favourite by a Chinese mile), and we have a glorious, involving, kinetic epic that gets right to the core of human nature: its flaws and beauty, its lusts and loves.

OUR CHILD OF THE STARS by Stephen Cox

(Jo Fletcher £14.99, 496pp) SmALL town U.S.A. during the Cold War. We’re scared of Commies, nukes and nixon, but Gene and molly don’t care, because they’re young, in love and nothing can go wrong. Until it does. A miscarriage leads to molly’s alcoholism and then the sky falls in, literally, when a space ship crashes and the only survivor is an alien baby.

It’s a beautiful, bold concept that doesn’t shy away from the yuckier side of raising a moonchild, and when paranoid military maniacs get suspicious there’s nailbiting action, too. Can love conquer all?

This strong and generous first novel wears its heart on its sleeve and embeds all the thrills and chills in credible human, and non-human, emotions.