New & Notable Books, January 2024
Naomi Alderman, The Future (Simon & Schuster 11/23) Dystopian near-future technothriller about two women alarmed by new tech developments that seem to both predict the future and threaten it, and three tech billionaires willing to do anything to make sure they profit from the end of the world. An entertaining outing with ‘‘thriller pacing, efficient vibrant characterisation, a fondness for broad-brush satiric extrapolation that sits somewhere between Margaret Atwood and early Neal Stephenson, and a willingness to push the premise to an unsequelable place.’’ [Niall Harrison]
Eugen Bacon & Andrew Hook, Secondhand Daylight (Cosmic Egg 11/23) Bacon & Hook blend their unique talents in this fast-paced SF novel of a desperate time-travel rescue attempt in two directions. It follows two people, one an ordinary man jumping uncontrollable forward in time, while a future scientist risks her own place in time as she jumps back in time, hoping to intersect his path.
Travis Baldree, Bookshops & Bonedust (Tor 11/23) Baldree returns to the world of Legends & Lattes, the big bestselling fantasy novel which introduced the retired mercenary orc Viv, living her dream of opening a coffee house. This prequel shows Viv as a new member of the mercenaries, whose over-eager fighting gets her injured and forced to recover in a small town, where she discovers the joy of bakeries and books. As with the first, this is a fun adventure, full of quirky characters, plenty of humor, good food, friendship, and ultimately a serious battle against a necromancer.
Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport (Tordotcom 10/23) This far-future SF novel, inspired by the story of Aladdin, serves up an action-packed romp about a young woman in a decaying city, her monkey-bot brother, a tech billionaire, and an artifact rumored to be able to reshape reality.
Tobias S. Buckell, A Stranger in the Citadel (Tachyon 10/23; revised from a 2021 Audible Originals audiobook) Echoes of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit451 resonate in this postapocalyptic SF novel with a fan tasy feel, set in a city cut off from the rest of the world, where reading and writing are forbidden. After the ruler’s youngest daughter saves a stranger carrying a book from immediate execution, she ends up exiled, and learns that the world is not what she thought. ‘‘A well-told and at times provocative addition to the long SF tradition of tales of postrationalist dystopias who blame scientists and intellectuals for their plight.’’ [Gary K. Wolfe]
Tananarive Due, The Reformatory (Saga 10/23) History, with a healthy dose of the supernatural, provides plenty of horror in this powerful novel set in 1950 Florida, following two Black teens, one a boy who sees ghosts and gets sent to a segregated reform school haunted by boys who died there, while his sister outside tries everything she can to free him in the Jim Crow South – and things just get worse when the abusive men who run the place want the boy to catch the vengeful spirits. ‘‘If you like your horror with strong social commentary and deep connections to real history, you need this novel.’’ [Alex Brown]
Nicola Griffith, Menewood (MCD 10/23) Griffith returns to the story of seventh-century seer St. Hilda of Whitby in this associational historical novel, sequel to Hild. Now 18, and working to build a community in the titular valley while outside war threatens, the saint’s powers might be more intellectual than supernatural, but genre readers should appreciate the novel’s detailed past, in its way an alien world in which magic is very real to its inhabitants, even if not seen on stage: ‘‘If Hild showed us that close observation and inference could be mistaken for magic and vision, Menewood convinces us that the magic is embedded in history itself.’’ [Gary K. Wolfe]
Alix E. Harrow, Starling House (Tor 10/23) Harrow spins a haunting tale in this Southern Gothic horror novel about a haunted house in a fading Kentucky town. Opal, a desperately poor 26-year-old woman, is obsessed with the house and fascinated by the 19th-century children’s fantasy novel written by one of the house’s former owners. She manages to get a job there and gets to know the house, which has a mind of its own, and soon learns the house, the town, her own family, and even the children’s book are entangled in dark secrets.
Patrick Rothfuss, The Narrow Road Between Desires (DAW 11/23) Fans of Rothfuss’s hugely popular Kingkiller Chronicle get a novella to help tide them over until the next novel. It’s an expansion of the story ‘‘The Lightning Tree’’ (now twice as long) about a day in the life of the fae Bast, with a lengthy endnote from Rothfuss on his struggle rewriting the story.
Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (Tor 10/23; Gollancz 10/23) Sanderson’s third fantasy novel in his ‘‘secret projects’’ series funded through Kickstarter (this is the first trade edition) is a standalone in the Cosmere universe. Two lonely people meet and have to figure out why, or risk the world they’ve fought to protect: Spirit summoner Yumi dreams of a normal life while Painter dreams of being a hero, and together they have a chance to change things.
From the December & January 2023 issue of Locus.
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