Sci-fi/fantasy
Annabel Gooder
BLACKFISH CITY
by Sam J. Miller (Little, Brown Book Group, $35) Qaanaaq is a city floating off Greenland, peopled by those displaced by climate change amid the resulting unrest; rich shareholders control the city from the shadows, computers take care of everything on a day-to-day basis and refugees are packed into capsule and container slums. When a woman arrives with an orca and a polar bear, rumours abound that she is the last of the nanobonded, an experimental population that became one with their animals. Blackfish City follows an oddball cast of characters whose lives are more linked than they realise. Gradually the stories strands join into one satisfying tale of revenge and rejuvenation.
ROSEWATER
by Tade Thompson (Orbit, $25) Kaaro’s day job is working in a Nigerian bank but not as a teller. Instead, he reads classic literature as white noise to block rogue psychics from stealing customer information. It is 2066 and the town he lives in, Rosewater, grew up around an alien biodome, which opens once a year to bestow healing — or grotesqueries — on hopeful pilgrims. A series of sometimes confusing flashbacks recount Kaaro’s larcenous youth, military training and work for a secret government organisation and also reveal the history and nature of Rosewater and the alien incursions, all of which Kaaro has been far more immersed in than the start of the story suggests.
ZERO SUM GAME
by S.L. Huang (Tor Books, $50) Cas Russell has a superpower, mathematical skills that allow her to calculate trajectories, velocities and statistical chances — and the physical ability to move in time to take advantage of her knowledge. She uses this to work as a mercenary retrieval expert, until a simple job to rescue a kidnapped drug dealer from a cartel turns out to more than it seems and Cas finds herself battling a shadowy group whose manipulative leader is bent on remaking society. Twentysomething Cas is the kind of violent, hard-drinking loner endemic to the genre but she starts to seriously interrogate her choices, goaded by an ex-cop turned PI she is repeatedly forced to work with and trust. This is a story that will appeal to Jessica Jones fans, though Cas lacks female friends. Despite the dark themes, Zero Sum Game is an enjoyable and absorbing read. A hinted at origin story is never revealed so there is probably another Russell book to come.
GODS, MONSTERS AND THE LUCKY PEACH
by Kelly Robson (Tor Books, $23) In a future where environmental degradation sent humans underground for 200 years, environmental restoration is big business. Minh is from the plague baby generation, who survived in the hells and hives and returned above ground to create habitats for the next generation. Kiki belongs to the next generation who feel stifled by their lack of control as any innovation is suppressed by private banks. When they are offered a riparian remediation contract involving time travel to Mesopotamia in 2000 BC they leap at the chance but the proprietary technology of time travel is a big unknown and Mesopotamian culture may be more sophisticated than the travellers are expecting. Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach’s immersive world-building takes some to adjus to and it does feel like it is all prologue, but it is a story that will stay with you.