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Fantasy and Science Fiction June 2019
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| Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan; translated by Ken LiuWelcome to: "Silicon Isle," the e-waste recycling capital of southern China, which serves as the setting of this class-conscious, cyberpunk-inflected debut.
Featuring: "waste girl" Mimi, who sorts trash; Luo Jincheng, Mimi's boss and the scion of the family that controls the industry; American businessman Scott Brandle; and his translator, Chen Kaizong.
Try this next: Director Jiulang Wang's 2016 documentary Plastic China, which takes viewers behind the scenes of China's recycling industry and looks at the lives of the low-wage workers who make it possible. |
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Fall; or, Dodge in hell
by Neal Stephenson
In his youth, Richard “Dodge” Forthrast founded Corporation 9592, a gaming company that made him a multibillionaire. Now in his middle years, Dodge appreciates his comfortable, unencumbered life, managing his myriad business interests, and spending time with his beloved niece Zula and her young daughter, Sophia. One beautiful autumn day, while he undergoes a routine medical procedure, something goes irrevocably wrong. Dodge is pronounced brain dead and put on life support, leaving his stunned family and close friends with difficult decisions. Long ago, when a much younger Dodge drew up his will, he directed that his body be given to a cryonics company now owned by enigmatic tech entrepreneur Elmo Shepherd. Legally bound to follow the directive despite their misgivings, Dodge’s family has his brain scanned and its data structures uploaded and stored in the cloud, until it can eventually be revived. In the coming years, technology allows Dodge’s brain to be turned back on. It is an achievement that is nothing less than the disruption of death itself. An eternal afterlife—the Bitworld—is created, in which humans continue to exist as digital souls. But this brave new immortal world is not the Utopia it might first seem . . .
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| A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel KayWhat happens: Elderly courtier Guidanio Cerra recounts how his life changed forever after a fateful encounter with assassin Adria Ripoli. His story, and hers, intertwine with other people's perspectives on the event.
Read it for: an evocative setting inspired by Renaissance Italy, and a richly detailed tapestry of a narrative that explores the ripple effects of individual actions and choices.
Want a taste? "It was interesting, I suppose it still is, how vicious men can take power and be accepted, supported by those they govern, if they bring with them a measure of peace." |
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| Middlegame by Seanan McGuireWhat it's about: Created by alchemists, twins Roger (linguistically talented) and Dodger (mathematically gifted) can communicate via quantum entanglement yet can't escape their fate.
Is it for you? This dark and stylistically complex novel by the author of the Wayward Children series opens with the line, "There is so much blood," giving readers some idea of how much violence to expect.
For fans of: the complex characters and exploration of moral gray areas in V.E. Schwab's Villains series. |
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| The Gordian Protocol by David Weber and Jacob HoloIntroducing: 21st-century history professor Benjamin Schröder, who has two sets of conflicting memories, and 30th-century time traveler Raibert Kaminski, who has an explanation for Schröder's plight that involves multiverse theory and temporal knots.
About the authors: David Weber is best known for his Honor Harrington series; Jacob Holo wrote the military SF novel The Dragons of Jupiter.
Reviewers say: "time travel enthusiasts will enjoy the moral dilemmas, nonstop action, and crisp writing" (Publishers Weekly). |
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A borrowed man
by Gene Wolfe
It is perhaps a hundred years in the future, our civilization is gone, and another is in place in North America, but it retains many familiar things and structures. Although the population is now small, there is advanced technology, there are robots, and there are clones. E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human. A wealthy patron, Colette Coldbrook, takes him from the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was in the possession of her murdered father, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. It is lost, and Colette is afraid of the police. She borrows Smithe to help her find the book and to find out what the secret is. And then the plot gets complicated.
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| A Study in Honor by Claire O'DellStarring: Dr. Janet Watson, a disabled veteran of America's second Civil War, and her new roommate, the enigmatic Sara Holmes.
Why you might like it: Full of literary references (Watson is very well-read!), this near-future gender-swapped Sherlock Holmes adaptation introduces a pair of LGBTQIA women of color who solve mysteries.
You might also like: Alexis Hall's The Affair of the Mysterious Letter. |
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| Half-Resurrection Blues by Daniel José OlderWhat it's about: Neither fully alive nor fully dead, "inbetweener" Carlos Delacruz, an agent of the New York Council of the Dead, must apprehend a malevolent sorcerer who plans to open an entrada to the Underworld, literally unleashing Hell upon an unsuspecting city.
Crossover alert: This 1st book in the Bone Street Rumba series is loosely linked to the author's YA Shadowshaper Cypher series.
Try this next: For more urban fantasy about the thin line between life and death, check out Doug Dorst's Alive in Necropolis. |
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| Rosewater by Tade ThompsonWelcome to: Rosewater, a doughnut-shaped Nigerian city that rings the mysterious alien biodome that has become an object of veneration since it first appeared back in 2055.
Meet: government agent Kaaro, who owes his psychic abilities to the biodome. When his fellow "sensitives" start dying, Kaaro investigates and makes some unsettling discoveries about his past -- and his future.
Book buzz: Rosewater, the 1st installment of the Wormwood trilogy, made the 2019 Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist. |
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| Bannerless by Carrie VaughnIn a (post-apocalyptic) world... where giving birth is a privilege to be earned and murder is almost unheard of, Enid of Haven and her partner Tomas investigate a suspicious death.
Why you might like it: If there's such a thing as a post-apocalyptic cozy mystery, Bannerless is it.
Series alert: This Philip K. Dick Award-winner kicks off a series that continues with The Wild Dead. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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