JAMIE BUXTON

MUSE OF NIGHTMARES by Laini Taylor

(Hodder £16.99, 528 pp) The massive metallic angel, home to a clutch of desperate godspawn, is still tethered above the desert city of Weep.

In its cavernous depths, monstrous little Minya still controls her siblings with her indomitable will and an army of ghosts.

But events take things out of her hands: Lazlo Strange, her sister’s lover, offers the chance to avenge her family’s slaughter by eril-Fane.

Then another character, even more intent on revenge, enters the fray . . . No one writing in fantasy today rivals Laini Taylor for precisely sensual prose, extraordinary characters and awesome imaginative power.

Readers are swept along like bedazzled prisoners as twists are negotiated, truths exposed and the cruellest emotional pain is beautifully explored — and wonderfully resolved.

ROSEWATER by Tade Thompson

(Orbit £8.99, 298 pp) TheRe’S no right or wrong, good or bad, in the Nigerian town of Rosewater, a new community that’s grown around a massive alien construction. even the barriers between mind and matter have been dissolved.

Kaaro, a psychic sneak thief-turned-government agent, uses his powers to enter the minds of enemies of the state via the xenosphere — cyberspace for telepaths — but can he also contact the aliens?

This richly textured book shows how our flawed antihero deals with his past and future and how humanity manages a fungal invasion, flatulent carnivorous balloons, the undead and an unknowable threat.

When Kaaro uncovers the mystery, he is left with no easy choices — just a horrendous dilemma about which side to take.

SALVATION by Peter F. Hamilton

(Macmillan £20, 544 pp) IN The not-toodistant future, a mystical race of space pilgrims, the Olyix, will kick-start a gene therapy revolution as they swap their tech for ours. Meanwhile, space-shrinking portals offer not just free travel, but also the easy disposal of radioactive waste and various human miscreants across the universe.

Creation myth, detective thriller, epic — it’s nigh-on impossible to sum up this vast, intricate sci-fi showstopper.

Caught in the middle of mysteries that cross universes and time periods is a sprawling cast of engineers, detectives, assassins and specially trained interstellar guerrillas.

Suffice to say that, as we unpick the mystery of why the human race faces annihilation, the journey grips just as hard as the reveal.