The Mirror Empire

Fantasy with Fringe benefits

Release Date: 4 September 540 pages | £ 8.99 ( paperback)/£ 5.49 ( ebook) Author: Kameron Hurley Publisher: Angry Robot

Epic fantasy isn’t always the place to look for innovation, often preferring to remix past glories for entertaining literary comfort food, rather than give us something new. So it’s a relief when a book like Kameron Hurley’s The Mirror Empire comes along, proving that the genre can still strike out in daring and bold directions.

Set in a lush world of carnivorous plants and blood magic, The Mirror Empire kicks off the Worldbreaker saga, as portents threaten change for the troubled kingdoms of Dhai and Dorinah. An invading army is causing chaos, while the appointment of a new ruling Kai has set off an explosion of political in- fighting. Then the truth is discovered: the invaders are from a parallel universe, and the people of Dhai and Dorinah are battling different versions of themselves...

Playing like a crazed mash- up of Game Of Thrones and Fringe, The Mirror Empire is a complex, demanding fantasy novel that tackles difficult subjects, but is also inventive enough to avoid feeling like a Grimdark copycat.

Hurley intelligently tackles issues of culture and gender, while also throwing in plenty of bloodthirsty action and well- rounded characters. The pace is a little too frantic at times, leading to an occasional lack of storytelling focus, but otherwise this is a fresh, exciting fantasy epic that’s looking to the future and asking important questions. Saxon Bullock

As a young child, Hurley believed in an imaginary friend so much, she kept locking the bathroom so her “friend” could bathe.