JAMIE BUXTON

SCI-FI & FANTASY

A LITTLE HATRED by Joe Abercrombie

(Gollancz £18.99, 480 pp) ChAnge is afoot in the Union. Slummy factories breed insurrection down south, while bloody broadswords clash up north.

There are extremes of good and evil, but, as ever in the world of Joe Abercrombie, the really interesting stuff happens in between.

In this new story cycle, four tyros — a prince and a lordling, a princess and a queen of industry — are about to discover all that. By turns hotheaded, sybaritic, icily calculating and passionate, they are splendidly poised to bring out the best and worst in each other.

Although crammed with characters and detail, the intricately woven story never slackens its merciless grip as we follow our heroes and heroines through battlefields, boardrooms and bedrooms to their destinies — deserved and undeserved alike.

AFTER THE FLOOD by Kassandra Montag

(Borough Press £12.99, 432 pp) The world is underwater, and America has been reduced to isolated communities living on mountain peaks.

With her eightyearold daughter, a boat and a certain skill in fishing, Myra has a sort of life as she drifts from settlement to settlement, trading fish while searching for the older daughter her worthless husband has stolen.

It’s a searing, deeply moving story, especially when Myra finally finds out where her daughter is. The physical risks — whether from storms or pirates — are palpable.

harder still is the moral jeopardy brought on by human contact, and, when the solitary Myra joins a new ship, choices become even starker: how can she fulfil her quest as a mother without losing her humanity?

THE SOLAR WAR by A.G. Riddle

(Head of Zeus £18.99, 400 pp) eArTh is up against it. An alien force known as the grid want our sunlight and don’t care who freezes. They have reduced our population to a few million and bombarded us with giant meteorites, and, just as our hero, Dr Sinclair, thinks he has a plan, up pops his nemesis to make trouble.

This is apocalyptic scifi at its best. Plot and character are masterfully woven together and the action — which is anything but frozen — slingshots from stage to stage like an intergalactic spaceship.

Themewise, it’s right on the money, with a world of strong men, disruptors and sarcastic commentators, in the form of an alien emissary.

As ever, the biggest threat comes from within.