New & Notable Books, April
Katherine Arden, The Warm Hands of Ghosts (Del Rey 2/24) A combat nurse in WWI searches for her brother, believed dead, but rumors of haunted trenches keep her looking In this historical fantasy novel of supernatural events during the war. This ‘‘hits hard as a novel of survival, horror, and the melancholia of fleeting hope…. a stunner.’’ [Colleen Mondor]
Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup (Del Rey 2/24) This fantasy mystery novel, the first in the Shadow of the Leviathan series, introduces a detective duo reminiscent of Holmes and Watson yet delightfully different, investigating the strange death of an engineer who was killed when a tree erupted from within his own body. The brilliant detective Ana Dolabra investigates with the help of her new magically altered assistant Dinios Kol, working in a totalitarian empire that revolves around repelling monstrous leviathans, ‘‘a fascinating world with fantastic mechanics.’’ [Jake Casella Brookins]
Kacen Callender, Infinity Alchemist (Tor Teen 2/24) Young alchemists risk much to study their science of magic in this young-adult fantasy novel of dark academia. Ash Woods, rejected by the Lancaster College of Alchemic Science, secretly – and illegally – studies alchemy while working as groundskeeper at the school, but a student finds out and blackmails him into helping her find a book that will give her great power.
Traci Chee, Kindling (Harper 2/24) The horrors of war and the cruelty of its aftermath are dealt with in dramatic fashion in this critically acclaimed young-adult fantasy novel inspired by The Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven. Kindling warfare using teens trained to be magic-wielding soldiers is outlawed, but seven such teens band together in their war-torn land to help a village facing a violent siege.
Kamilah Cole, So Let Them Burn (Little, Brown 1/24) Cole’s first novel, a young-adult fantasy, opens the Divine Traitors series about a Jamaican girl chosen to become the host for the gods of her nation. Channeling the gods’ power let her free her people from their dragon-riding conquerors – but the new peace is threatened when her sister bonds with an enemy dragon, and the only way to break the bond is death.
Premee Mohamed, The Butcher of the Forest (Tordotcom 2/24) Questions of power, individual and governmental, natural and unnatural, inform this fascinating, rather dark tale of a village woman forced to enter the weird and deadly nearby forest to rescue the children of her country’s foreign tyrant. ‘‘Mohamed’s forest is an eerie, alien place, hauntingly atmospheric, and never to be trusted… a compelling and effective story.’’ [Liz Bourke]
Ray Nayler, The Tusks of Extinction (Tordotcom 1/24) Russian attempts to resurrect the woolly mammoth species are threatened by poachers in this SF eco-thriller novel. A murdered human scientist’s digitized mind is put in a mammoth in hopes of teaching the resurrected herd how to behave naturally – and fend off the hunters until the species can re-establish itself. A powerful exploration of connections between humans and nature, and why some try to build and others to destroy, no matter how dire the potential consequences.
Aimee Pokwatka, The Parliament (Tordotcom 1/24) A small-town library is besieged by thousands of deadly owls in this fantasy thriller in the vein of Hitchcock’s The Birds, but this adds a love of books as librarians and patrons hunt for information that could help them survive, and find comfort by reading a children’s fantasy adventure together, in a novel that ‘‘takes the notion of murderous birds to a whole new level.’’ [Colleen Mondor]
Nir Yaniv, The Good Soldier (Shadowpaw Press 1/24) This fun SF satire offers a simple premise: an amiable fool meets a bureaucratic empire’s military, and the empire loses – badly. This is described by some as Catch-22 meets Starship Troopers, and Heinlein elements (from many works) are clear; other influences include Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, and most of all Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek’s famous military satire The Good Soldier Švejk. Notes on Yaniv’s sources and various ‘‘literary mischiefs’’ add extra depth and humor.
Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Equimedian (Hex Publishers 2/24) Compared to the reality-bending fiction of Borges and Philip K. Dick, this first novel by a noted critic offers a tribute to mid-20th century SF, with some satirical touches about fans. In an alternate 1979 in which moon bases exist, Jason Velez scrapes by installing virtual reality machines and maintaining his unwieldy SF collection, but starts having strange dreams, then people and things around him change, and he’s the only one who seems to notice.
From the March 2024 issue of Locus.
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