New & Notable Books, March
Kelley Armstrong, Cocktails & Chloroform (Subterranean 12/23) The latest volume in the A Rip Through Time Series (“Outlander meets The Alienist”) sees contemporary homicide detective Mallory Atkinson stuck in Victorian Edinburgh, where she investigates a sex-trafficking scheme. “A quick read… with reliable companions tackling all sorts of villains while also engaging in the sort of banter at which Armstrong excels.” [Colleen Mondor]
Marie-Helene Bertino, Beautyland (Farrar, Straus, Giroux 1/24) Adina Giorno believes she’s an alien, sent from another planet to live disguised as a human, and she sends regular reports (via fax!) to her extraterrestrial relatives about the oddities of life on Earth. “A very funny and empathetic book that unravels the contradictions, complexities, and weirdness of this thing we call life.” [Ian Mond]
Seth Dickinson, Exordia (Tordotcom 1/24) Buzz is building for this strange SF novel, which mingles elements of first contact and alien invasion tales with moral philosophy. A woman meets an eight-headed alien in Central Park in 2013 and learns about Exordia: an interstellar empire that uses magic and technology to prevent its subjects from rebelling… but humans might be able to change all that, if they don’t get wiped out in the process.
Christopher Golden, The House of Last Resort (St. Martin’s 1/24) The veteran horror author delivers a compelling haunted-house tale set in a dying Italian town, where the mayor offers an amazing deal: Anyone can purchase one of the vacant homes for a single euro, as long as they agree to stay for at least five years. The offer tempts an Italian-American couple… but their house has an ugly history, and hidden depths.
Shubnum Khan, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years (Viking 1/24) Khan is an award-winning writer in South Africa, but this is her first book published in the US. After her mother dies of a cancer, a girl moves with her father to a haunted mansion turned boardinghouse, where she discovers the diary of a dead woman, becoming obsessed with her story – while a grieving djinn watches from the shadows. “Brimming with evocative prose, well-developed characters, and fantastical elements rendered so realistically you forget you’re reading speculative fiction.” [Alex Brown]
Stephen Kotowych, ed., Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, Vol. 1 (Ansible Press 12/23) This is the first in a new annual series created to shine a light on the often-overlooked Canadian SF scene, featuring stories by Canadian citizens and residents. Volume one covers work from 2022, with 26 stories, including one translated from the French, and 11 poems, by authors including Ai Jiang, Premee Mohamed, Peter Watts, and Dominik Parisien.
Aric McBay, Inversion (Black Dawn 11/23) This utopian novel (with hints of space opera) is set on a planet where an endless wave of renewing fire sweeps across the land, both destroying and rejuvenating, occupied by collectivist inhabitants who’ve learned to live with the flames. They have a peaceful society… until a militaristic invasion forces them to defend their way of life. “Every once in a while, I run into a new science fiction story that feels remarkably classic… in the tradition of utopian and anarchist science fiction. With a snappy plot and tons of ideas, this is a real treat.” [Jake Casella Brookins]
Nisi Shawl, Kinning (Tor 1/24) Shawl returns to the Neo-Victorian, alternate-history, steampunk-inflected world of Everfair, this time set in 1921 in an Africa transformed by the rise of “kinnings”: affinity groups whose members take a drug that allows them to form powerful bonds with one another, approaching the level of psychic powers. With “intriguing, complex, and rapidly evolving characters,” it’s “a rare sequel that says something entirely new, while deepening the central themes of the original.” [Gary K. Wolfe]
Tlotlo Tsamaase, Womb City (Erewhon 1/24) This astonishing debut dystopian Africanfuturist horror novel has been described as a fusion of The Handmaid’s Tale and Get Out, mingling SF with elements of body horror and the ghost story, as a woman under constant surveillance tries to hide an affair from her husband… until an accident raises a vengeful ghost. “Incandescent, furious prose.” [Ian Mond]
Maud Woolf, Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock (Angry Robot 1/24) In this dazzling romp of an SF noir novel, the titular has-been celebrity decides it’s time to get rid of her dozen clones, and creates a 13th clone to eradicate the others… but the assassin develops a conscience, and falls in love with one of her intended targets instead.
From the March 2024 issue of Locus.
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