|
Fantasy and Science Fiction July 2021
|
|
|
|
| The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie LiuWhat it is: A short story collection that centers the "emotional complexity, diverse physicality, and layered sexuality of resourceful women".
Don't miss: "The Briar and the Rose," a sapphic Sleeping Beauty retelling; the trope-subverting title novella, about a runaway princess and an enchanted forest.
About the author: Prolific novelist and comic book writer Marjorie Liu is perhaps best known for the Monstress graphic novel series. |
|
| Rabbits by Terry MilesWhat it is: A fast-paced SF conspiracy thriller set in the world of the popular podcast of the same name.
"What do you know about the game?" It's a underground, alternate-reality game with an unlimited number of players and a rumored "Circle" of anonymous winners. The game has seen ten iterations since 1959, with an 11th about to go live. But something is wrong.
For fans of: The pop culture references of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One; the paranoid suspense of Philip K. Dick's "Adjustment Team;" the high-stakes games of Walter Jon Williams' Dagmar Shaw novels. |
|
| The Kingdoms by Natasha PulleyWhat happens: Diagnosed with amnesia, Joe Tournier, an enslaved man in a 19th-century England ruled by the French, receives a postcard of a modern lighthouse from "M." that was somehow sent 93 years ago.
Why you might like it: This moving novel by the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street "combines history, speculative fiction, queer romance, and more into an unputdownable whole" (Publishers Weekly).
You might also like: Ian McDonald's Time Was, Courttia Newland's A River Called Time. |
|
| The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi VoWhat it is: An atmospheric, magic-infused riff on The Great Gatsby, narrated by Jordan Baker, a queer, Vietnamese American socialite and pro golfer whose outsider status informs her keen observations of the glittering social scene that swirls around her.
About the author: Nghi Vo is the author of the novellas The Empress of Salt and Fortune and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain.
Want a taste? "Everything was dripping with money and magic, to the point where no one questioned the light that flooded the house from the ballroom and dining rooms to the halls and secluded parlors." |
|
| The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee NewitzWhat it's about: The Daughters of Harriet, a coalition of feminist activists, and the Comstockers, a men's rights group, travel through time, editing history like a Wikipedia page.
Reviewers say: "A matryoshka doll meditation on the pointlessness and necessity of violence...bathed in pop culture references (real and imagined)" (NPR).
For fans of: the LGBTQIA-friendly change wars of Amal El-Mohtar's and Max Gladstone's This is How You Lose the Time War. |
|
| Permafrost by Alastair ReynoldsWhat it's about: In 2080, 71-year-old Valentina Lidova, a last-minute recruit for the Permafrost Retrocausal Experiment, travels to 2028 to change history in the hope of preventing an ecological disaster.
Why you might like it: This intricately plotted post-apocalyptic climate thriller offers memorable characters and an inventive approach to time travel.
For fans of: Charles Stross' Palimpsest or the Netflix series Travelers. |
|
| Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly RobsonWelcome to: 23rd-century Earth, where, centuries after moving underground, humanity is once more venturing to the planet's ecologically devastated surface to rebuild civilization.
Where you'll meet... Octogenarian ecologist Minh, who assembles a team and travels back in time to 2024 BCE Bronze Age Mesopotamia to gather data for a potential river restoration project.
Why you might like it: This Nebula-nominated novella boasts a fierce heroine with prosthetic tentacle legs and detailed world-building in two separate timelines. |
|
| Now, Then, and Everywhen by Rysa WalkerWhat happens: Crossing paths in the 1960s, Madison "Madi" Grace (from the year 2136) and CHRONOS agent Tyson Reyes (from 2304) attempt to fix history.
Can you start here? Officially a prequel to the Chronos Files series, this 1st installment of the Chronos Origins series can be enjoyed on its own.
Next up: Red, White, and the Blues, which picks up where this novel leaves off. |
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
|
|
|