The Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy
An exciting selection in the sci-fi and fantasy section this winter. Proper escapism, to help you procrastinate your end of year deadlines but escapism that, like all good sci-fi, reminds you that real escape is ultimately futile. Firstly in this vein, we have the latest from Ottessa Moshfegh: Lapvona. Set in a medieval village soaked in mysticism, religiosity and inexplicable natural disasters; a motherless shepherd boy finds himself at the centre of a violent power struggle. Written during the pandemic, Moshfegh’s most exciting literary development yet is dripping with the dread borne of that period. A perfect gift for the miserable person in your life.
Up next, a 1989 classic of feminist science fiction, we have Sheri S. Tepper’s ,Grass. Amid an interplanetary plague, we follow the fate of the planet Grass, an aptly named edenic haven, which seems to be immune to the growing spread of this apparently unstoppable virus. One of Tepper’s earliest novels to explicitly link high concept sci-fi ideas to gender and social inequalities, this Hugo winner is a must read.
Continuing with sci-fi, we have to let you know about Neuromancer by William Gibson. Considered one of the earliest and best-known works in the cyberpunk genre, it is the only novel to win the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award. The book follows an out of work hacker recruited for one last job. At times scarily prophetic, or perhaps simply so influential that the things it first depicts have become fictionalised protoforms of the cyberscape reality we all now live in; this classic is certainly worth your time.
Sparse, brief, and haunting, Jon Bilbao’s The Strangers, depicts the everyday meeting the otherworldly on the unassuming Cantabrian coast. Pulling no punches in its mere 120 pages, Bilbao’s original Spanish is translated beautifully by Katie Whittemore. Introduced here to the English speaking world for the first time - don’t miss out on one of the most important figures of Spanish narrative in the twenty-first century.
Finally, something to take your mind off the cold, Desert Creatures by Kay Chronister. We follow the perilous pilgrimage of a father and daughter across a post-apocalyptic American landscape, blasted by disease and famine, where hopeless horizons wobble with heat. A doomed journey across the Mojave Desert to the Holy City of Las Vegas, this vivid and uncanny tale of outsiders in a dangerous world is perfect for fans of Lucy A. Snyder, Jeff Vandermeer and Cormac McCarthy.
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