Mad Sisters of Esi, Tashan Mehta (HarperCol­lins India 978-93569-94188, 412pp, INR599.00, tp). September 2023. Cover by Upamanyu Bhat­tacharyya.

Towards the end of Tashan Mehta’s scin­tillating second novel, Mad Sisters of Esi, there is a single-page chapter titled “Breathe”. “We pause here,” the narrator tells us. “We sit down. We rest…. There is no rush.” It comes at exactly the right time. The “we” speaking at this point (this ...Read More

Cahokia Jazz, Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber 978-0-57133-687-6, £20.00, 496pp, hc) October 2023. (Scribner 978-1-66802-545-1, $28.00, 464pp, hc) February 2024.

Francis Spufford’s enthusiasm for science fiction, and the variants of it that engage with historical process, is hardly a secret, but it’s taken a while for him to move from observer to participant. As long ago as 1996 he published a thoughtful essay on William Gibson & Bruce Sterling’s The ...Read More

The Future, Naomi Alderman (Simon & Schuster 978-16680-25680, $28.99, 432pp, hc) November 2023.

Early in Naomi Alderman’s latest novel The Fu­ture, the protagonist, Lai Zhen, falls in lust, and perhaps love. A sardonic survivalism vlogger who escaped ‘‘the fall of Hong Kong’’ and then did a significant amount of growing up in an offshore British refugee camp, she finds herself at a confer­ence in London a couple of ...Read More

Nefando, Mónica Ojeda (Coffee House Press 978-1-56689-689-4, $17.95, 184pp, tp) October 2023. Cover by Kyle Hunter.

Describing the scenario that confronts the reader in Nefando is easy enough. Six people who were sharing an apartment in Barcelona have had their lives upended by the titular, highly disturbing video game. “El Cuco” Martinez helped to design the game for “the siblings,” Irene, Emilio, and Ce­cilia. Iván Herrera and Kiki Ortega, ...Read More