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There is plenty on offer for all science fiction fans in August
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August is another great month for science fiction fans, whatever your taste. You can take a journey to the multiverse courtesy of the award-winning Lauren Beukes or enjoy a sci-fi take on the haunting myth of Eurydice and Orpheus from Temi Oh. If first contact is your thing, there’s a novel from Karen Lord, or if you prefer speculative horror, there’s plenty available. And welcome to a debut sci-fi novel from H is for Hawk memoirist Helen Macdonald, which Neil Gaiman is calling “fabulous”. Time to make space on our bookshelves for new riches.
I have loved all of Lauren Beukes’s books, from The Shining Girls, her terrifying sci-fi thriller adapted by Apple TV+ and starring Elisabeth Moss, to her Arthur C. Clarke award-winning Zoo City. Bridge, which I read on holiday and can highly recommend, is another blend of sci-fi and thriller, with added multiverse fun. When Bridge’s mother dies, Bridge goes to sort out her house and finds the “dreamworm”, something she vaguely remembers from her childhood, when it took her to other realities. She has since persuaded herself, with the help of her therapist, that none of this really happened… but what if it did? And what if her mum is waiting for her in another universe?
Prophet by Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché
Helen Macdonald’s memoir H is for Hawk was wonderful, so I am excited to read their first venture into science fiction, on which they have collaborated with author and musician Sin Blaché. Described as “fabulous” by Neil Gaiman, it sees an American diner appear overnight in a British field, in which treasured mementoes of the past appear – pets, toys, fairground rides. When deaths start to follow, ex-MI6 agent Sunil Rao investigates.
Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías (translated by Heather Cleary)
This story of a port city in the grip of an ecological crisis has won all sorts of awards already: the Uruguayan National Literature Prize for Fiction, the Bartolomé-Hidalgo Fiction Prize and the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Literature Prize. Narrated by someone who stays behind in the city while the wealthy escape inland to safety, the river fills with toxic algae and a deadly wind blows through the streets, it sounds bleak and brilliant.
A scuba diver is swallowed by a sperm whale in Daniel Kraus’s Whalefall
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After reading Erika Nesvold’s top 10 space movies, chosen for this magazine last month, I have had a yearning to read and watch The Martian again. So, when I found out that Daniel Kraus’s new book is described as The Martian meets 127 Hours, I put it straight to the top of my “urgently needs to be read” pile (full disclaimer: this pile is toweringly large). It’s the story of scuba diver Jay, who is trying to find the remains of his late father when he’s swallowed by a sperm whale – and has just an hour to escape before his air runs out. It sounds more thriller than sci-fi, but my reviewer Neil McRobert tells me it’s heavy on the science of how Jay might escape, and I can’t wait. I just hope no innocent sperm whales were harmed in the making of this story.
The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord
I love a first-contact story, and this one, which adds a pop megastar to the mix, sounds really intriguing. It’s set in a future in which Earth has been transformed by rising temperatures and seas, and in which other civilisations are preparing to make contact with humanity. Those on Earth preparing for this moment include an inventor, a celebrity icon and the charismatic popstar Owen, who, apparently, has unique abilities that could unite the planet.
Already out in the UK, I’m including this reimagining of the Greek myth of Eurydice and Orpheus, set in a near-future London, because it’s released in August in the US. That and our inimitable sci-fi columnist Sally Adee really rates it. “It weaves an intriguing tapestry of references, from the classical story of Eurydice to the neuroscience of consciousness, set against a drumbeat of dread,” she wrote, in our holiday reading round-up in June.
Lessons in Birdwatching by Honey Watson
Apech is a planet plagued by a time-distorting illness. When a brutal murder sparks a civil war, five students sent there for a temporary research project find themselves caught in the middle. The body count looks like it’ll be high in this dark comedy.
Spin a Black Yarn by Josh Malerman
Dip into this collection of five novellas from the author of Bird Box, a mix of speculative fiction and horror. I’m particularly looking forward to The Jupiter Drop, in which a tourist takes the ultimate trip to outer space, and also to Egorov, in which a triplet is murdered and his surviving brothers carry out a fake haunting on the unsuspecting killer, playing their dead brother’s ghost and hoping to drive his murderer mad.
A town is plagued by twisters in James Kennedy’s Bride of the Tornado
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Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy
Pitched as a blend of Stephen King’s The Mist and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, this speculative horror novel sees a plague of sentient tornadoes coming to destroy a small town – with only a teenage boy able to stand in their way. But the adults are hiding a secret about where the tornadoes come from, and who the boy really is.
More speculative, eldritch horror can be found in a coming-of-age tale about an 11-year-old boy growing up in South Carolina. When his estranged grandfather arrives, secrets begin to emerge, and the boy starts to feel something within him changing into something monstrous.
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