New & Notable
Jesse Ball, The Repeat Room (Catapult 9/24) This absurd dystopian (and possibly truly Kafkaesque) SF novel details a jury system where a single juror is chosen to relive the defendant’s experience; in this case, a menial worker experiences an illicit psychosexual relationship with a tragic end. “It’s in the novel’s absurdity that we are asked to view justice and the worth of a single human life in a new light.” [Ian Mond]
Nabarun Bhattacharya, Beggars’ Bedlam (Seagull Books 11/24) The chaos of carnival and insurrection mix in this wild and surreal fantasy novel set in West Bengal, India. A search for crude oil reserves instead unearths a cache of old weapons – swords, daggers, and a cannon – leading the sorcerer Bhodi to declare war on the local Marxist-Leninist goverment, joining his cult with a group of rowdies for an implausible war fought by unlikely characters in a magical realist version of Calcutta. Translated by Rijula Das from the Bengali.
Nick Cutter, The Queen (Gallery 10/24) This grotesque yet moving SF horror novel mixes visceral horror, insect-based elements, and coming of age in the story of a young woman following a trail of clues to find her missing best friend, who turns out to have been the unknowing subject of clandestine genetic modifications, unexpectedly activated by a traumatic event – with devastating results.
Genoeva Dimova, Monstrous Nights (Tor 10/24) The Witch’s Compendium of Monsters fantasy duology, with its combination of Slavic lore and Soviet life, comes to a powerful conclusion in this second volume. The witch Kosara has her magic and position back in the city of Chernograd, but sinister events show things aren’t settled – and Kosara thinks it might be her fault.
Manuela Draeger, Kree (University of Minnesota Press 10/24; translated by Lia Swope Mitchell from the French) Violent, morbid, funny, and absurd, Draeger’s “post-exotic” novel blends SF and fantastic elements in “a midapocalyptic story set in a succession of afterlives, rife with intense bodily detail and hallucinatory visions and ideas… a bizarre but entrancing meditation on endings and returns…. Whenever Kree faces death, it’s less ‘oh no’ and more ‘this again!”’ [Jake Casella Brookins].
CG Drews, Don’t Let the Forest In (Feiwel and Friends 10/24) Two high school boys at boarding school try to stop creatures coming to life from one’s macabre drawings of the other’s twisted fairy tales, in this young-adult LGBTQ+ horror novel, a potent mix of toxic romance, obsession, and botanical nightmares.
Isabel Ibañez, Where the Library Hides (Wednesday Books 11/24) A young woman faces magic, betrayal, potential heartache, and her limited rights as a woman in 19th-century Egypt in this enthralling young-adult historical fantasy novel, second in the Secrets of the Nile duology begun in the bestselling What the River Knows. Inez, back from ancient Egypt, still has unfinished business in her present, but the uncle who controls her fortune orders her back home to Argentina, and her only path to independence seems to be marriage to her ex-nemesis, Whit, who has secrets of his own.
John Kessel, The Presidential Papers (PM Press 10/24) This collection, part of the Outspoken Authors series edited by the late Terry Bisson, shows Kessel in truly outspoken mode, with four stories and a one-act play about “past or future US presidents, ranging from an alternate history in which George W. Bush became a mediocre professional baseball player to a cheerfully pulp-flavored space war satire involving a verbally challenged future president whose familiar cadences are – well, let’s just say that the short play, ‘A Brief History of the War With Venus”… is the collection’s trump card.” [Gary K. Wolfe]
Julie Leong, The Teller of Small Fortunes (Ace 11/24) An immigrant fortune teller travels around smaller towns telling “small” but true fortunes in this sweet, fun cozy fantasy novel. Along her way she starts accumulating an odd crew of companions, including a thief and an ex-mercenary who believe she can help them find the mercenary’s lost child, leading to plenty of offbeat encounters, unexpected consequences, and a charming conclusion.
Charlene Thomas, Streetlight People (Dutton 11/24) Streetight is an eerie small town with a big secret in this twisty young-adult fantasy novel. When Kady gets some magic that lets her relive past moments, she uses it to revisit good times with her absent boyfriend, and maybe change some bits, but people have noticed, she’s being harassed, reality gets weird, and she starts to realize the town is filled with monsters, possibly including her.
From the January 2024 issue of Locus.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.
©Locus Magazine. Copyrighted material may not be republished without permission of LSFF.
