SCI-FI FANTASY
RED SISTER by Mark Lawrence (Harper Voyager £14.99) IN THE sheltering environment of the Convent of Sweet Mercy, devoted nuns raise girls to be secret assassins by bringing out their inherited gifts: brute strength, telepathy or murderous speed.
But even in that world, nona Grey is different. Sold into slavery, she shows her mettle by half-killing a vicious bully and is saved from the gallows only when the abbess whisks her off to the convent.
Sure, she’s fast, but does she possess other abilities?
The first in a series, red Sister is set in a dying world of ice and dreary darkness. as ever with Lawrence, the story throbs with violence, hums with intrigue and is plotted with gripping intensity as young nona discovers that secrets in her troubled past place her right in the middle of a murderous political powerplay.
STRANGE THE DREAMER by Laini Taylor (Hodder £14.99) IN THIS stunning, sensory feast of a novel, Laini Taylor creates a world where sexy blue seraphs indulge psychopathic lusts, and glamorous alchemists clash with rugged librarians.
Meet Strange, the ultimate impractical bibliophile, who is granted a once-in-alifetime opportunity to realise his dream of crossing the howling desert to visit the fabled city of Weep. But Weep is blighted.
a vast metal palace shaped like an angel floats above it, casting it into perpetual shadow. Once home to brutal seraph overlords, it is now an empty shell — or is it?
When a beautiful blue woman starts to appear in Strange’s dreams, he realises the seraphs may not be quite what people say, and the story’s plotting, emotional charge and sheer sensuality sweep the reader along with ever rising intensity.
THE SONG RISING by Samantha Shannon (Bloomsbury £12.99) LIKE treasures unearthed by mudlarks, Samantha Shannon’s alternative world is studded with fabulous language: mime queens and mime lords have their mollishers; gutterlings jostle with amaurotics in the meatspace; the country groans under the rule of the Scion republic.
With a sharp eye on the politics of identity, Shannon transports us into a world where the oppressed are pitted against one another in the struggle for survival. Once a mollisher, young clairvoyant Paige Mahoney has beaten her mime lord to become mime queen, but now must face the challenges of command.
To convince her peers to unite, Paige has to travel the country to uncover the real threat to the clairvoyant community and, in an explosive supernatural climax, face down the enemy in its own seat of power.