Chris Pickens

Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

Anyone

Review by Chris Pickens

It seems every new generation gets to witness at least one incredible technological advancement. Something as transformative as the internet or as wondrous as the telephone often redefines life as we know it forever. In Anyone, comics writer-turned-sci-fi scribe Charles Soule builds a world around a similarly staggering invention, but it’s his interest in the people who create it, use it and profit from it that captivates the reader. If you could transfer consciousness to another body, would you be ready for the consequences?

Gabrielle White, a brilliant and determined researcher, is at the end of her rope. Out of funding and losing confidence, she has one last chance to prove that her work to cure Alzheimer’s disease hasn’t gone to waste. When she flips the switch on the laser array in her backyard laboratory, something miraculous happens. For an hour or so, she transfers her consciousness into her husband Paul’s body and back again. Knowing that her financial backers would kill for this technology, Gabby must find a way to keep it a secret while she figures out how to reveal it to the world and ensure that it’s hers.

Twenty-five years later, the introduction of “flashing” has changed the course of world history. Annami is a secretive loner with a chip on her shoulder. By day, she’s a brilliant engineer at Anyone, the company that oversees consciousness transfer worldwide. By night, she moonlights as a dark share, lending her body as a vessel for criminals to take over for a fee. When a dark share deal goes bad and she loses everything, she takes matters into her own hands to fight the evil that flashing has brought to the world.

It is impossible to write about Anyone without first acknowledging the depth of thought and structure Soule has put into flash technology and its potential impact on the world. In chapters written from Annami’s point of view, small details reveal how consciousness transfer affects international relations, sex workers, criminal operations, military aid and more. However, flashing takes a personal toll on everyone in the story. Annami and the characters she interacts with are all direct victims of Gabby’s invention, and Soule’s Blade Runner-inspired cityscape is full of fascinating, often broken people searching for answers.

This gritty future is especially interesting when compared to Gabby’s chapters, which juxtapose perfectly against Annami’s. While Gabby by no means has an easy time of it (some of the troubles she runs into during flash technology’s infancy are gut-wrenching), the promise of a new future that will be better for millions contrasts beautifully with the actual future, where we see that even the purest intentions can be warped into pain and suffering.

In today’s world, we are given glimpses of possible futures impacted by vast technological advancements. But we don’t often consider the costs that might come with those futures. If we really could be anyone, would we want to?

In Anyone, comic writer-turned-sci-fi scribe Charles Soule builds a world around a staggering invention. But it’s his interest in the people who create it, use it and profit from it that captivates the reader.

Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

Fortuna

Review by Chris Pickens

Family life can be tough. Sibling rivalries, parental scrutiny and personal boundaries can sometimes make it hard to remember that you love one another. It’s even more difficult when your mother is an intergalactic smuggler with a frigid demeanor, your brother is enlisted in a far-away war, your younger siblings love nothing more than a good gunfight, and you’re an alcoholic. Yep, Kristyn Merbeth puts a lot of pressure on Scorpia Kaiser and her family. But with a few huge risks, some real bravery and quite a bit of cursing, things might turn out okay for the crew of the Fortuna.

Long after humans left Earth, they settled across a small group of hospitable planets in a far-off sector of space. Each one of these planets developed differently and, despite an alliance, isolated themselves from one another. The only way to gain access to each planet is to be born there. Momma Kaiser, an enterprising individual, adopted a child from each planet so that she could smuggle freely across the galaxy. It’s about as rag-tag a group as you can imagine, but they work together to make a life running contraband. When the family finds itself in the middle of an intergalactic massacre because of cargo they delivered, the two eldest Kaisers, Scorpia and Corvus, must put aside years of differences to figure out how to keep the family safe from a universe certain to track them down.

Fortuna spends time in the separate POVs of Scorpia and Corvus, a storytelling choice that superbly elevates the narrative. Brother and sister have completely different voices, so it’s easy to appreciate how different they are. Scorpia’s casual, devil-may-care style contrasts beautifully with Corvus’ rigidity, economy and self-loathing. The reader finds real sympathy for each of them, which blurs the line between who is right and who is wrong. Merbeth shows herself to be adept with dialogue and character building with all of the Kaisers, and some of the funniest and most powerful moments happen when the family is trading jabs or bickering. It gives the whole story a warm, lived-in feeling. But this book is also full of action, and the pace shifts very naturally between intimate conversations and breakneck space adventure.

Though I found myself loving the different origin accounts of Scorpia and Corvus, I wanted them to collide sooner in the narrative. When their paths do converge, the main conflict really starts cranking. Perhaps that’s the best compliment that could be paid here: No matter what’s happening outside the hull of Fortuna, family is always strongest when everyone is together.

Family life can be tough. It’s even more difficult when your mother is an intergalactic smuggler with a frigid demeanor.

Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

Empress of Forever

Review by Chris Pickens

I’ll admit it—sometimes I can’t keep up with science fiction novels I read. It’s not for lack of trying; I’ll keep doggedly reading even if the complexities of the plot confuse me or the science has gotten too “science-y” or the concepts are so philosophical I feel like I’m back in lectures just trying to maintain a C for the course. It can be downright exhausting. Thank goodness that, despite being a wild ride across the galaxy, Max Gladstone’s Empress of Forever has the perfect amount of self-awareness and heart to maintain its wilder moments.

Vivian Liao is tired of being herself. A Steve Jobs-esque super CEO in Earth’s near future, she controls a vast technological empire, but increasingly suspects that her enemies are closing in on her success. In a last-ditch effort to take control of her life (and the world), Viv fakes her own death and breaks into a server room where, with a few quick keystrokes, she’d be able to take over all data on earth. Just as the last loading bar creeps toward 100 percent, a woman bathed in light grabs Viv and, somehow, rips her out of her existence and into a far future galaxy full of robots where she is the only human. With nothing but questions and a few fantastic companions by her side, Viv must scour the galaxy for an answer to a simple question: “How the heck do I get home?”

The answer involves a kaleidoscopic journey through space on a ship called, of course, the Question. And the journey wouldn’t be half as fun without the ensemble cast Gladstone builds around Viv the moment she arrives in the post-human future. There’s a forest-dwelling Viking princess-pilot, a robed monk who treats Viv like a miracle, a creature called Gray who steals dreams and Zanj, a wrathful demigod hell bent on the same thing as Viv—finding the Empress and exacting revenge. Each core member of the team is given plenty of page time, and in its best moments, Empress feels like Guardians of the Galaxy mixed with a healthy, swashbuckling dose of Pirates of the Caribbean.

With Empress, Gladstone stands confidently on the shoulders of his Craft Sequence to create a confident, poignant, expansive world. Though he never holds back in the imagination department, it’s the smaller interactions between characters that forms the foundation. It might be hard to build a new universe, but it is even harder to fill it with people that readers instinctively know both belong and deserve to be there.

So I need not have worried that Gladstone would leave me behind. Though the Question finds itself hurtling through a dizzying, incredible universe, Viv and her friends were right there to keep me company.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Go Behind the Book with Max Gladstone.

I’ll admit it—sometimes I can’t keep up with science fiction novels I read. It’s not for lack of trying; I’ll keep doggedly reading even if the complexities of the plot confuse me or the science has gotten too “science-y” or the concepts are so philosophical I feel like I’m back in lectures just trying to maintain a C for the course. It can be downright exhausting. Thank goodness that, despite being a wild ride across the galaxy, Max Gladstone’s Empress of Forever has the perfect amount of self-awareness and heart to maintain its wilder moments.

Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

Winds of Marque

Review by Chris Pickens

When I was a kid, my father would read to me to help me fall asleep. Most of the books he read to me were books he had inherited or owned when he was young. As luck would have it, almost all of these were sea-faring adventures like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Dead Man’s Chest and Treasure Island. I recalled those moments with quite a bit of nostalgia while finishing Winds of Marque, which consistently evokes the danger, the promise and the daring of life on the open ocean. However, one detail in this new novel by Bennett R. Coles would have blown my 9-year-old brain: It’s in space?!

Commissioned to capture enemy vessels, the spaceship HMS Daring sets sail under a false flag to pursue and engage pirate ships. Liam Blackwood, the ship’s second-in-command, leads a crew of “sailors” in undercover missions meant to locate the pirates. When a series of dangerous moves from his new captain threaten the safety and morale of the crew, he must uncover the truth about his captain and keep the mission on course before pirates strike out from a hidden base.

Coles cleverly preserves many of the naval traditions that have become synonymous with historical seafaring adventure stories. The leadership structure aboard Daring, the divisions between the sailors and the officers, and even the commands shouted out in the middle of battle feel ripped from the pages of a Patrick O’Brien novel. In fact, the environment of the ship is perhaps Coles’ greatest achievement in Winds of Marque. A former officer in the Royal Canadian Navy himself, it’s no surprise that Coles bring that knowledge into this fictional world.

Winds of Marque maintains a brisk pace from the get-go. Action scenes are crisp and tense, with special attention paid to the visceral feeling of hand-to-hand combat and firing cannon batteries. Because of Daring’s secret mission, the stakes are high at every encounter and as the adventure becomes more and more desperate, each skirmish reinforces what failure means for everyone. Adding to this tension is the interplay between a set of colorful characters, particularly the officers. I loved the tenacious Chief Sky, leader of the boarding party, and Virtue, the talented new quartermaster. Coles achieves a real sense of camaraderie amongst his characters and I found myself wanting to see more banter even before the book was over.

I might not have had my dad drowsily reading Winds of Marque to me, but I did feel that same sense of adventure I felt as a kid. And though it isn’t set in the chilly waters of the northern Atlantic, Winds of Marque takes you to a place just as full of danger and intrigue.

When I was a kid, my father would read to me to help me fall asleep. Most of the books he read to me were books he had inherited or owned when he was young. As luck would have it, almost all of these were sea-faring adventures like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Dead Man’s Chest and Treasure Island. I recalled those moments with quite a bit of nostalgia while finishing Winds of Marque, which consistently evokes the danger, the promise and the daring of life on the open ocean. However, one detail in this new novel by Bennett R. Coles would have blown my 9-year-old brain: It’s in space?!

Science Fiction & FantasyFictionScience Fiction

Ancestral Night

Review by Chris Pickens

In Elizabeth Bear’s richly textured Ancestral Night there’s a hole in space-time, and the good ship Singer is going to see what’s on the other side. A sentient ship capable of complex thought, Singer is helmed by Haimey and her shipmate Connla. When Haimey boards a derelict ship the crew hopes to salvage and inadvertently discovers a heinous crime, the team realizes they’re in way over their heads. Bear gives her characters the space to develop on their own terms, never missing a chance to world build in the interim. It’s often by the slimmest of margins that our heroes avoid disaster, and only a thin layer of metal separates the “slowbrains” (read: things that breath air, according to Singer) from the vastness of space. But the profound connection between man and machine at its heart will keep readers turning the pages.

In Elizabeth Bear’s richly textured Ancestral Night there’s a hole in space-time, and the good ship Singer is going to see what’s on the other side.

Science Fiction & FantasyFictionScience Fiction

The Raven Tower

Review by Chris Pickens

Sci-fi heavyweight Ann Leckie pens a unique fantasy debut in The Raven Tower. The ruler of Vastai is bound to the Raven, a god who watches over the city. If the god dies, so does the ruler. Mawat, the heir to the throne, returns to Vastai to find his uncle sitting in his father’s seat. Eolo, Mawat’s attendant, captures the attention of another god, who needs a physical vessel to carry out his will. What is uncovered is a lifetime of conspiracy and agendas that threaten the lives of everyone in the kingdom. In a characteristically ambitious move by Leckie, first- and second-person perspectives alternate, mixing palace intrigue with the new god’s mythical backstory. Eolo’s sections are narrated by this god, who may or may not be reliable, lending the entire tale a voyeuristic, ephemeral quality. Leckie’s confidence pays off here, establishing her unique perspective in an entirely new genre.

Sci-fi heavyweight Ann Leckie pens a unique fantasy debut in The Raven Tower.

Science Fiction & FantasyFictionFantasy

For the Killing of Kings

Review by Chris Pickens

Do you ever find yourself wondering what the next blockbuster epic fantasy series will be? Howard Andrew Jones’ For the Killing of Kings might be it. When Elenai’s mentor is murdered after discovering that a legendary sword hanging on display is a fake, she has no choice but to flee the city of Darassus with the help of Kyrkenall, a reckless warrior who knew the sword’s owner. While wandering the wilds and struggling to keep ahead of a vengeful conspiracy that traces all the way back to the queen, Elenai and Kyrkenall must unravel the mystery of the sword in order to clear their name and bring justice to the dead. This is a traditional epic fantasy with all the stops pulled out—an interesting magic system, squabbling warrior factions—but its vivid, varied characters set it apart. And Jones puts additional weight into the history just prior to the story’s setting, adding mystery and depth to this perfect introduction to a new fantasy universe.

When Elenai’s mentor is murdered after discovering that a legendary sword hanging on display is a fake, she has no choice but to flee the city of Darassus with the help of Kyrkenall, a reckless warrior who knew the sword’s owner.
FictionSpeculative Fiction

The Water Cure

Review by Chris Pickens

On a small island in the middle of the sea live three girls. The first, Grace, is practical and protective. The second, Lia, is brave and loving. The third, Sky, is pure and innocent. Three sisters, set apart from a dying world, safe from it all. It might sound like a dream or a poem, but in Sophie Mackintosh’s beguiling, eerie debut novel The Water Cure, the island is real. But is the island to keep the girls safe, or to keep them prisoner?

King, the girls’ father, has created a haven to protect them from the toxicity being spread across the world. Never permitted to leave the sanctuary of the island, the girls and their mother participate in rituals and rote therapeutic behaviors to keep themselves clean. When King leaves the island for supplies and doesn’t return, the girls and their mother are left alone to wonder what happened. But then, the unthinkable happens: a boat arrives on the beach. A boat that doesn’t carry King, but three strangers, three men. The girls have never seen men before other than King. With no sign of when King might return and no idea of what these men might want, the girls and their mother must decide what to do with the strangers on their shore.

Sometimes, it’s the most human books that chill us the most. Plenty of recent books amp up the action and violence in the name of pure entertainment. Indeed, it’s the bread and butter of the sci-fi and fantasy genres. But no other book in the last year has left me feeling simultaneously frayed and mesmerized. Mackintosh is such a strong writer sentence by sentence that the reader feels an inescapable pull from the narrative. You can’t help but keep turning the page, wondering, with dread, what will happen next. One of the rituals the girls undertake is to decide who gets to be loved by the others in a given year. The others won’t return that love. It’s a twisted take on self and group preservation, and one that’s being encouraged by both mother and father. What would a trio of girls who haven’t known the outside world think of love? Is the concept of love universal? Is love owned? This is just one example of how small moments become so much larger in Mackintosh’s hands.

I think it would be a mistake to categorize this book as purely a work of science fiction. However, it would be an even larger mistake to miss such a powerful book because it didn’t have robots or time machines. In the same way that The Handmaid’s Tale and The Children of Men reflect women’s experiences back to us, The Water Cure is written in the future, but it’s about us now.

On a small island in the middle of the sea live three girls. The first, Grace, is practical and protective. The second, Lia, is brave and loving. The third, Sky, is pure and innocent. Three sisters, set apart from a dying world, safe from it all. It might sound like a dream or a poem, but in Sophie Mackintosh’s beguiling, eerie debut novel The Water Cure, the island is real. But is the island to keep the girls safe, or to keep them prisoner?

Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy

Review by Chris Pickens

Let’s face it: We all want to feel cool. We want to place ourselves in our favorite story and imagine what it would feel like to win. Of course this vision is different for everyone. Yours could be belting out a hit song on stage in front of thousands, or making a last-second buzzer beater with your high school crush looking on or mowing down hordes of zombies before croaking out a one-liner. Here’s the good news about Alex White’s A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy: You get to feel unbelievably cool reading it. This genre-mixing sequel to White’s A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe turns up the action and attitude to 10 and never lets up, making for one hell of a ride.

In a future when humans have conquered the stars, the motley crew of the Capricious has almost no time to rest on their laurels from saving the Galaxy. Nilah, the temperamental yet brilliant racer, and Boots, the world-weary former treasure hunter, team up with the crew to investigate rumors of a galactic cult bent on unlocking the secrets to an ancient and dangerous magic. Determined to thwart the designs of the cult’s mastermind, Nilah, Boots and the rest of the crew must use all the tools at the Capricious’ disposal to infiltrate and combat a group bent on galactic control.

This is a well-developed world with layer upon layer of detail and nuance. Not only does White meticulously script small things like how the crew communicates in combat situations, but they've also managed to build out large-scale geopolitical movements with similar ease. Keep in mind, this is the second book of a series, so this world and these characters have had some time to expand. It can sometimes be a bit daunting when details rush past in the heat of battle, but the payoff is a feeling of being plugged into the action.

Some might say a magic system doesn’t belong in a space opera, but White makes it work. Many characters in this world are able to control specific magical capabilities like hacking electronic systems or reading minds. It’s an interesting way to give the crew a different level of interactivity, both with each other and their adversaries (of which they seem to have many). In one sequence, Nilah is trying to outrun a massive enemy machine, but chooses to try to hack its systems with a magic spell. Readers can look forward to many other small magical moments throughout the narrative.

It’s clear from the get-go that A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy wants to take you on an action-filled adventure across space. But at its core, it’s a story about a close-knit group of people, with both talents and scars, just trying to do the right thing. That’s what had me reading past my bedtime. It’s anything but a bad deal for the reader.

Here’s the good news about Alex White’s A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy: You get to feel unbelievably cool reading it. This genre-mixing sequel to White’s A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe turns up the action and attitude to 10 and never lets up, making for one hell of a ride.

Science Fiction & FantasyHistorical FantasyFantasy

Creatures of Want and Ruin

Review by Chris Pickens

In many fantasy stories, making a deal with a demon starts out as a good idea. Maybe you end up with superhuman strength, riches beyond your wildest dreams or the admiration of those around you. But what do you have to give to receive these gifts? In the case of Molly Tanzer’s fun and atmospheric Creatures of Want and Ruin, two women from very different walks of life have to figure out what the demon wants before Long Island is swallowed by an evil they don’t understand.

The first character you meet is Ellie. It’s the height of Prohibition, and she smuggles liquor by boat to paying customers all over Long Island. When she discovers a wrecked ship stocked with bottles of a mysterious liquid, she naturally takes them for herself. Meanwhile, Fin, a socialite visiting the island to escape the city, feels disconnected from her husband and the rest of her friends from high society. She’s coaxed into hosting a party and enlists Ellie’s help to supply the all-important booze. Fin ends up taking a sip from one of Ellie’s unmarked bottles, and sees a vision: a man bowed before a monstrous thing, submitting to a dark will that she is unable to understand. Bound together by shared experience, Ellie and Fin must work together to find the source of the unholy presence gripping the island.

The vision Tanzer paints of Long Island during Prohibition is nostalgic, tactile and just a little bit creepy. One can almost hear the creak of Ellie’s boat or the tinkle of Fin’s expensive champagne flutes as we float into and out of each character’s perspectives. That being said, the setting never overtakes the interplay between the characters. Both Ellie and Fin maintain complex, multidimensional relationships that ebb and flow as real relationships do. And, thankfully, not even Ellie and Fin are blameless in how they treat others. No one is perfect in this vision of the past.

The back-and-forth between the two heroines is worth celebrating. Ellie, the hard-nosed, what’s-it-to-you liquor smuggler balances perfectly with thoughtful, lonely, demure yet determined society maven Fin. The way they gain each other’s trust and play off one another’s strengths feels natural and unforced, a testament to Tanzer’s gifts with dialogue and pacing. Indeed, the book does a wonderful job of knowing when to lean into an action sequence (the climax gets a large chunk of time at the end of the story) and when to step back and let the characters inhabit the world.

Creatures of Want and Ruin is the second of a trilogy of books revolving around the impact of a demonic presence in a small community. How these communities are split by fear and hatred is telling and relevant in today’s divided public forum. It’ll be a sad day for readers when Tanzer’s trilogy is complete, but at least we didn’t have to sell our souls for such a fantastic journey.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Molly Tanzer.

In many fantasy stories, making a deal with a demon starts out as a good idea. Maybe you end up with superhuman strength, riches beyond your wildest dreams or the admiration of those around you. But what do you have to give to receive these gifts? In the case of Molly Tanzer’s fun and atmospheric Creatures of Want and Ruin, two women from very different walks of life have to figure out what the demon wants before Long Island is swallowed by an evil they don’t understand.

Science Fiction & FantasyHistorical FantasyFantasy

The Sisters of the Winter Wood

Review by Chris Pickens

At first glance, the town of Dubossary might appear to be a simple Jewish town at the edge of the woods. Pious and cheerful villagers bustle about in the snow, going to market and celebrating shabbas together. But for sisters Liba and Laya, who live in the forest outside of town, things aren’t quite as idyllic as they seem. Odd noises and rumors of wandering strangers suddenly make life in the woods a little less welcoming. Maybe the folk tales are true after all?

When Liba and Laya’s parents leave to visit a dying relative several towns away, they tell the girls two massive secrets. Both of their parents are shape-shifters—and so are they. Liba inherited her father’s bearlike shape and dark features; Laya has her mother’s swanlike beauty and light hair. These changes start to manifest as each sister’s feelings for each other, boys, tradition and temptation collide. When Laya is tempted by a group of young outsiders, Liba knows it’s up to her to protect her sister and, if necessary, call on the swan people to defend her and her sister from whatever lurks in the woods.

One very distinct stylistic choice separates Rena Rossner’s The Sisters of the Winter Wood from all of the other history-meets-legend tales out there. Liba’s perspective is written in prose and Laya’s in poetry. Throughout the book, the differences between Liba’s stalwart, rule-abiding nature and Laya’s strong-willed, rebellious character play out beautifully as the two styles Rossner employs perfectly reflect each sister’s emotions. I was particularly drawn to Laya’s airy yet intense chapters, which seem to fly by in an instant.

Equally intriguing is how Rossner evokes the sensation of breaking the strict rules that govern the sisters’ existence. Dubossary’s identity is based on a very strict interpretation of Orthodox Judaism, which forbids men and women to physically touch before they are a couple. When Liba finds herself just thinking the natural thoughts of an 18-year-old woman, the reader feels the push-and-pull through Rossner’s prose. Amplifying this conflicting feeling is the uncontrollable shape-shifting transformations each sister starts to undergo, a touching and painful representation of what it feels like to grow up.

Rossner’s family came to America as a way to escape the pogroms and hatred visited upon Jews in Eastern Europe. She mentions in the (highly recommended) author’s note that she heard her grandmother’s voice in her head as she wrote The Sisters of the Winter Wood. There’s a lived-in, folklore feeling to this story, a mystical and ominous glow you can’t shake. However, at its heart, this is a novel about two sisters loving and understanding each other during a difficult time in life. And luckily, we get to take that wonderful, strange journey with them. Rossner’s The Sisters of the Winter Wood is a dreamlike ode to sisterhood, mythology and family that you won’t be able to put down.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Rena Rossner.

At first glance, the town of Dubossary might appear to be a simple Jewish town at the edge of the woods. Pious and cheerful villagers bustle about in the snow, going to market and celebrating shabbas together. But for sisters Liba and Laya, who live in the forest outside of town, things aren’t quite as idyllic as they seem. Odd noises and rumors of wandering strangers suddenly make life in the woods a little less welcoming. Maybe the old folk tales are true after all?

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same

Review by Chris Pickens

Imagine at the very instant of your birth, your soul’s twin was born somewhere in the world. From the moment you could walk, you were given a weapon and told that you existed to defend your soulmate. You are forged into a perfect warrior, a living avatar of the desert god, Parkoun the Scouring Wind. You have never felt fear. Maybe you’d think the world is filled with certainty. In Jaqueline Carey’s consistently enthralling and surprising Starless, you’d find there’s a lot more to the world than you first believed.

Khai is born into such a world. His soul’s twin, the Princess Zariya, lives in the House of the Ageless and is a member of an ancient ruling family blessed with near immortality. It is Khai’s purpose to be the princess’ Shadow and keep her safe from all danger. Though the connection he and Zariya share is achingly real, he is out of his element amongst the court, where the dangers aren’t as easy to spot as swords. But all of this doubt is pushed aside when an ancient darkness starts to rise. Pushed into an impossible mission by an ancient prophecy, Khai and Zariya hope that their link, and all the gifts it provides, is enough to help them survive a catastrophe of celestial proportions.

The gods in Starless walk the earth. Cast down from the sky for rebelling against their father, each god’s unique persona informs the people who worship it. Elemental, wondrous and terrifying, these deities are memorable, and each time the characters encounter them is epic. A tornado of sand and heat, an unseen jungle menace and a graceful rain spirit all make appearances on our heroes’ quest.

At its heart, Starless is profoundly interested in very personal questions. Khai must confront a significant truth about himself early in the story, and the resulting doubt and ambiguity are rendered with great care and tenderness. Even as the undead rise from the sea, we can’t help but be drawn to the feelings Khai must be grappling with in the wake of his personal revelation. It is one of the very best parts of the novel.

Another fantastic element is the back-and-forth between Khai and Zariya. In the hands of a lesser writer, the fated spark they share might not seem earned or, worse, believable. Let us dispel that thought—Carey has put to page one of the best pairs of protagonists in the last few years. Her lush, vibrant world just serves as the perfect backdrop for a relationship worthy of the prophecies it fulfills.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Jacqueline Carey.

Imagine at the very instant of your birth, your soul’s twin was born somewhere in the world. From the moment you could walk, you were given a weapon and told that you existed to defend your soulmate. You are forged into a perfect warrior, a living avatar of the desert god, Parkoun the Scouring Wind. You have never felt fear. Maybe you’d think the world is filled with certainty. In Jaqueline Carey’s consistently enthralling and surprising Starless, you’d find there’s a lot more to the world than you first believed.

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

An ascendant fantasy debut

Review by Chris Pickens

In Nikan, opium opens the gateway to the gods. Confined to their Pantheon in the spirit realm, they can only hope to influence the choices of those on earth with whispered promises through the haze of pipe smoke. For Rin, an undersized orphan, the thought of communing with the gods is terrifying. But as the drums of war begin to beat in R.F. Kuang’s extraordinary debut novel The Poppy War, Rin discovers that a day might come when she has no choice.

After testing into Sinegard, the most elite military academy in Nikan, Rin Fang discovers she is special. Through training with a seemingly insane professor, her shamanistic ability to conjure fire starts to blossom. When Mugen, a militaristic empire who defeated Nikan in previous Poppy Wars, invades their homeland, the students find themselves dispersed into the middle of a horrific ground war. Rin, conscripted into a misfit band of shaman outcasts, must fight both the ever-advancing Mugen army and her increasing sense that something inside her desperately wants to escape. Her sanity might be the price of finding the answers.

R.F. Kuang must first be congratulated on seamlessly drawing on and then reshaping Chinese history as influence for the world Rin inhabits. Martial arts sparring sessions and colorful street parades instantly conjure images of western Asian culture, but at no point does this world ever feel like a simple reflection of our own. Nikan’s richly detailed culture and history feel substantial and authentic, supporting the characters’ actions as the war unfolds.

And when that war begins, it’s almost shocking in its realness. It is not a conflict fought far away as Rin sits idly in a classroom. The violence is immediate, visceral and wrenching, pulling on the reader’s sense of disgust and anger. The “war is hell” trope plays out solemnly and intimately here, leaving no character untouched. By the climax of the narrative, everyone the reader meets is scarred.

Thank goodness we have Rin to lead us through it. Her tenacity, stubbornness and insecurity are instantly sympathetic and Kuang’s attention to Rin’s feelings opens up oceans of emotional depth. There’s a definite weight to Rin’s conflicting choices that only builds as the suspenseful final act plays out. It would be a thrill to see Rin, fresh from the crucible of The Poppy War, on the pages of a sequel novel. With such a brilliant start, one can’t help but think how certain hers and Kuang’s futures surely are.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with R.F. Kuang about The Poppy War.

In Nikan, opium opens the gateway to the gods. Confined to their spirit realm, Pantheon, they can only hope to influence the choices of those on earth with whispered promises through the haze of pipe smoke. For Rin, an undersized orphan, the thought of communing with the gods is terrifying. But as the drums of war begin to beat in R.F. Kuang’s extraordinary debut novel The Poppy War, Rin discovers that a day might come when she has no choice.

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