Black Gate

Max Barry is the author of Lexicon, the tale of a secret war between rival poet factions, which Time called “Unquestionably the year’s smartest thriller;” the New York Times Notable Book Jennifer Government; and Syrup, adapted as a 2013 film starring Amber Heard.

His latest is an interstellar thriller which Publishers Weekly calls “a terrific sci-fi thriller,” and which Paul Di Filippo describes as “a blend of Starship Troopers, UK cult TV show Red Dwarf and the cinematic Alien franchise, with Barry’s own unique slant and voice.” That sounds pretty compelling to me. Here’s an excerpt from Paul’s Locus Online review.

We are in a future era — say, fifty to one hundred years ahead of 2020…  this world has FTL travel, and pretty soon there’s a First Contact. The aliens, eventually dubbed “salamanders,” are inherently and implacably hostile… After witnessing the initial slaughter of kindly human ambassadors, we jump ahead to a time when humanity seems to be winning the war against the salamanders. A fleet of enormous battle-ready starships, the Providence class, has taken the fight to the native territory of the aliens, who seem to occupy not planets, but artificial “hives,” located at various random points in interstellar space. The Providence ships, run by very clever but non-self-aware artificial intelligences, each have a crew of four humans, who are present mainly as operational backups — and also as media-friendly faces for humanity’s self-esteem.

Our focus is on the crew of the newest war vessel: Isiah “Gilly” Gilligan, the techie; Paul Anders, the warrior; Jolene Jackson, the captain; and Talia Beanfield, the life-support expert… However, two years into their intermittently deadly cruise (a section that occupies about the first third of the book, during which we learn all the important parameters of the war and the emotional mechanics of the crew interactions), after effortlessly wiping out all the salamanders they encounter, things start to go wrong. Anders begins to go screwy, as does the ship’s AI. And the salamanders exhibit new refinements of strategy that eventually pose a mortal threat to the crew and their ship. How the humans react in the face of these challenges forms the last two-thirds of the tale…

When the battle klaxon sounds, Barry shifts into suspenseful military-SF mode, delivering tense and suspenseful depictions of warfare. His speculative elements are top-notch, as is his technological gadgetry. And when we eventually get a peek into the salamander home world, his crafting of their ecology and culture surprises and astounds.

Providence was published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons on March 31, 2020. It is 320 pages, priced at $27 in hardcover and $13.99 in digital formats. The cover artist is uncredited. Read a lengthy excerpt here.

See all our recent coverage of the best new SF and fantasy here.

I first met Alex Irvine at a reading at the World Fantasy Convention around 14 years ago, where he read the short story “Wizard’s Six,” which was eventually collected in Jonathan Strahan’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Two (2008). It was memorable and strange, and I think that applies to most of Alex’s fiction I’ve encountered.

It seems like an apt description for his new shot novel Anthropocene Rag, anyway. Described as a “nanotech Western,” it’s the tale of Prospector Ed, an emergent AI who seeks to understand the people who made him, and who gathers a ragtag team to journey to the mythical Monument City. Jeffrey Ford calls it “a rare distillation of nanotech, apocalypse, and mythic Americana into a heady psychedelic brew.” And in a feature review and interview at The Chicago Review of Books, Amy Brady describes it this way:

Set in a future United States, Anthropocene Rag is told from a variety of perspectives, including adventurous, meaning-seeking humans and “nanoconstructs” designed by all-powerful AI — called the Boom — to look like archetypes plucked from a classic American Western.

Two such characters are Henry Dale, a God-worshiping human, and Prospector Ed, an AI-construct that wants to better under the intelligence that created him. They’re joined by a motley crew of other humans and constructs, and together, they set out to find Monument City, a mythical place where humans and AI have learned to live in harmony.

To get there, they traverse a planet that looks quite different than our own. Climate change has ravaged the land, and the Boom have developed capabilities to transform landscapes instantaneously and with a grand sense of absurdity. Early on we witness a children’s playground come to life; the animal-shaped rides and swing sets having been granted the ability to speak. The novel is awash in the tropes of westerns and science-fiction, while playing with the familiar arcs of American myth. And yet, very little is familiar in this stunningly innovative book.

Anthropocene Rag was published by Tor.com on March 31, 2020. It is 256 pages, priced at $14.99 in trade paperback and $4.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Drive Communications. Get all the details at the Tor.com website.

See all our recent coverage of the best new SF and Fantasy here.

It’s good to see Andrew Liptak back in the saddle, doing what he does best — telling the world about great SF books. Liptak left The Verge last August, but it wasn’t long before he landed at Polygon, and his book column doesn’t seem to have suffered for it. His list of the best books for April includes nine we’ve already discussed here — such as Titan’s Day by Dan Stout, Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang, and Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett — but more than a few tantalizing titles we somehow managed to overlook. Here’s three of the most interesting.

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie (Del Rey, 320 pages, $27 in hardcover, $11.99 in digital formats, April 7, 2020)

Bonds of Brass is the first installment of Emily Skrutskie’s Bloodright trilogy. Set in the far future, the book introduces 10-year-old Ettian Nassun, whose life was turned upside-down when the oppressive Umber Empire invaded his homeworld as it fought against the Archon Empire. Years later, Ettian enters the Empire’s military academy — a way for a war orphan like himself to move up in society. There he meets and befriends Gal Veres, the heir to the empire that irrevocably changed his life. When their classmates try to assassinate Gal, Ettian comes to his aid, then is forced to make a devastating choice: side with the man who stands to inherit the system that killed his parents, or join the growing rebellion to take it down.

Kirkus Reviews says that Skrutskie’s “thoughtful SF portrayal of children navigating war, displacement, and PTSD while finding love and friendship in unimaginable circumstances is very much worth the read.”

Read an excerpt.

Emily Skrutskie is the author of Hullmetal Girls and The Abyss Surrounds Us, both of which were reviewed right here by Elizabeth Galewski.

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What is it about the Victorian Era that entrances modern readers? I’m not sure exactly, but something about investigating ghastly crimes on the gas-lit streets of London at midnight appeals to us all, I think. It certainly appeals to Jess Kidd, anyway. Her latest novel is Things in Jars — love that title! — which Kirkus Reviews calls “Creepy, violent, and propulsive; a standout gothic mystery.”

Things in Jars is the tale of a formidable female sleuth in Victorian London (with a ghostly suitor) who is pulled into the macabre world of fanatical anatomists and crooked surgeons while investigating the kidnapping of a very special child. The Guardian offers a more substantial summary, calling it:

High-camp crime… A pipe-smokin’, crypt-crashin’ heroine brings originality and freshness to this Victorian detective drama. This pacy piece of Victorian crime fiction delivers chills galore: pickled babies, wicked surgeons, a head in a hatbox and other unsettling discoveries.

Jess Kidd is the author of Himself, a “supernaturally skilled debut” (Vanity Fair) about a haunted Irish town, and Mr. Flood’s Last Resort, a tale of “Irish magical realism… mistaken identities, and a hoarder’s creepy house” (Library Journal), among others. Things in Jars was published in hardcover in February; here’s the description.

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