Caren Gussoff Sumption

Light Years from Home, Mike Chen (MIRA 978-0-7783-1173-7, $28.00, 353 pp, hc) Janu­ary 2022.

The American painter, Conrad Marca-Relli, was known best for his abstract depictions of the body. He often relied on cut paper forms to build his work, famously stating, ‘‘You get a linear quality from collage that is more rapid than the swiftest drawn line.’’

While Mike Chen’s newest novel, Light Years from Home, is ...Read More

Under Fortunate Stars, Ren Hutchings (Rebel­lion/Solaris 978-1-78618-592-1, $24.99, 480pp, hc) May 2022

It takes less than ten pages to understand the deep love Ren Hutchings has for space operas. Classic ones, modern ones. Movies, series, adaptations. From Firefly to The Forever War, the homages run deep in Under Fortunate Stars. But this is no cookie-cutter hack or half-baked collage. Under Fortunate Stars manages to tease out the ...Read More

Freaks, Brett Riley (Imbrifex 9781945501531, $18.99, 283pp, hc) March 2022.

Hey, speculative fiction reader, indulge me on a hunch. Here it is: high school was not… great. Probably not a time you look back on with much fondness. Not one you’d willingly return to for all the money in the world. The awkwardness. The delicately balanced social rules – trying to balance being an individual with fitting in, wanting ...Read More

The Bone Orchard, Sara A. Mueller (Tor 978-1-250-77694-5, $27.00, 432pp, hc) March 2022.

Sara A. Mueller’s debut novel, The Bone Or­chard, is a brilliant, cautionary tale about the dangers of repressing trauma, disguised as a sweeping fantasy about political machinations and magic. Charm, proprietor of Orchard House – the high-class pleasure club of Boren – is also the mistress of the Emperor. It’s a relationship built less on ...Read More

The Beholden, Cassandra Rose Clarke (Erewhon 978-1-64566-025-5, $18.95, 523pp, tp) January 2022.

The De Malena sisters are desperate. Or­phaned and destitute, they’ll do anything to save their estate and their titles – even bargain with the Lady of the Serpentine, the un­predictable Airiana goddess of the river.

In The Beholden, the latest novel by Cassandra Rose Clarke, the Lady grants the sisters their wish. Celestia, beautiful and delicate, ...Read More

Can’t Find My Way Home, Gwynne Garfinkle (Aqueduct Press 978-1-61976-212-1, $20.00, 342pp, tp) January 2022.

Two days shape young Joanna Bergman’s life: when she both got the lead role in her high school’s production of ‘‘Saint Joan’’ and began her friendship with the beautiful, popular Cynthia ‘‘Cyn’’ Foster, and when, three years later, Cyn dies in a botched protest bombing of a storefront Vietnam War draft board office. And, ...Read More

House of Glass Hearts, Leila Siddiqui (Yali Books 978-1-94952-877-0, $13.99, 278pp, tp) September 2021.

It has been a decade since Meara’s older brother, Asad, disappeared from their maternal grand­father’s house in Karachi during the family’s summer-long visit. And the years since have been difficult for Meara and her mother, Ammi. They’ve simultaneously buried their pain of losing Asad, but, by never discussing him or the incident, never healed the ...Read More

The King of Infinite Space, Lyndsay Faye (Putnam 978-0-52553-589-8, $27.00, 384pp, hc) August 2021.

Of all the Shakespearean dramas, has there ever been one more discussed, more widely adapted, one that has become more of a Western cultural artifact than Hamlet? It seems unlikely anyone, even a writer like Lyndsay Faye – with previous successes turning Sherlock Holmes and Jane Eyre on their ears – could find a fresh ...Read More

The Perishing, Natashia Deón (Counterpoint 978-1-64009-302-7, $26.00, 320pp, hc) November 2021.

There’s no way to overstate our obsession with immortality. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Marvel’s Eternals, humans have always dreamt of living forever, and speculated on what it would be like to do so. And with so many examples in existence, it’s difficult to present readers with a fresh take on the sempiternal trope, but Natashia ...Read More

Light from Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki (Tor 978-1-250-78906-8, 384pp, $25.99, hc) September 2021.

Good speculative fiction has long been a shell game. We think we’re escaping into a cool story about first contact, intergalactic wars, reluctant fulfillers of life-or-death prophesy… you know, stuff not about here. Or now. Until, of course, we realize, it’s all a gorgeous deceit: we’ve swallowed a heap of nutri­tious vegetables believing it to be ...Read More

A Marvellous Light, Freya Marske (Tor 978-1-250-78887-0, $27.99, 384pp, hc) November 2021.

In Freya Marske’s debut, A Marvellous Light, Edwardian London is mostly familiar: those with titles, like young baronet Robert “Robin” Blyth, are awarded positions based less on qualifications than on family connections, and Robin knows his career in His Majesty’s civil service – middling as it is – is the result of, simply, inheriting a minor ...Read More