Laura Hubbard

There are plenty of science fiction books that tell stories of people voyaging to a new beginning, filled with intrigue, dystopias and subjugation. Relic and Record of a Spaceborn Few don’t tell those stories. Perfect for fans of both science and literary fiction, both books deal with what comes after humans have found their place in the stars.

Alan Dean Foster’s Relic tells a thoughtful story of survival. Once a midlevel administrator on the planet of Sebaroth, Ruslan is now the last of his kind. Homo sapiens—a species that had once settled countless worlds—has been destroyed by a disease of its own making, the Aura Malignance. Alone and miraculously disease-free, Ruslan has been given a new home by the Myssari, tripedal aliens whose enthusiasm for “human studies” is only outweighed by their politeness. When Myssari scientists decide they wish to clone Ruslan to reestablish his species, Ruslan is given a choice. While the aliens will not stop the cloning program out of deference for Ruslan’s feelings, they do want his willing cooperation. In exchange for the willing donation of his genetic material, the Myssari agree to look for humans’ ancient home world, a place called Earth.

Foster’s book reads like a slow, methodical mystery, building to something that isn’t quite clear until the last pages. While the discussions of Ruslan’s continued existence and the intricacies of his relationships with the blunt, three-gendered Myssari could have been tedious, Relic is anything but. It is nuanced, with a surprise lurking behind every shadow, making it impossible to put down. Foster’s story also strikingly echoes our own world, where we fight tooth and nail to avoid losing species, even if it means those species live out the rest of their days in dreary captivity. Ruslan’s experience asks, if it were us, would we want the same? Relic will not just keep you entertained. It will keep you thinking.

Becky Chambers’ Record of a Spaceborn Few, the third installment in her Wayfarers universe, tells the story of an entire fleet, as opposed to Relic’s solitary survivor. Hundreds of years after humans left Earth to find a better home, the Exodus Fleet has settled in a new solar system, locked into orbit around a new star and been accepted into the greater galactic community. Most Exodans have left the Fleet, determined to make their homes planetside. Record of a Spaceborn Few tells the stories of a few people who chose to stay in the Fleet, torn between integrating into greater galactic life and preserving the only way of life they have ever known. When an accident destroys one of the Fleet’s homesteader ships, its remaining residents are forced to struggle with what it means to still be an Exodan now that the Exodus is over.

Chambers’ characters are beautifully drawn, and they seem like they could be people next door as much as they could be people from a galaxy away. Her writing allows the reader to inhabit those nuacned characters with feeling, but without maudlin sentimentality or forced emotion. The result is an experience that will leave lovers of both science and literary fiction wishing they had just one more chapter to go back to.

Science fiction and fantasy novels are filled with roguish misfits, from heroic starship captains who just can’t stay on the good side of the law to ghoulish assassins who dispense justice from the shadows. Because this trope is so popular, authors sometimes lack the ability to surprise and delight readers with new twists on this old tune, and it takes a clever mind to turn it into something exciting, but both Suzanne Palmer’s Finder and Sam Sykes’ Seven Blades in Black do just that.

Finder is the kind of science fiction you’d get if “Firefly” and Pierce Brown’s Red Rising had a baby—an adrenaline-packed, heist-filled ride with a heavy side of political intrigue. Set against the backdrop of deep space colony Cernee, Palmer’s debut novel follows repo man Fergus Ferguson as he attempts to complete a seemingly straightforward mission: find (and reclaim) the stolen spaceship Venetia’s Sword from one Arum Gilger, local trade boss. When the colony is suddenly pulled into a civil war, Fergus must balance his job against protecting the lives of the locals who he has—unfortunately—begun to care about.

Palmer spins a story that pays homage to the rogue archetype so common to space operas without feeling like a stale copycat. As Fergus Ferguson careens from one end of Cernee to another, we are treated to not just frenetic fight scenes, daring escapes and tense intrigues, but also to the crushing uncertainty of what it would feel like to live in a human colony at the edge of the alien unknown. This contrast enhances an already complex (and not always predictable) plot that captures readers and drags them through to the book’s unlikely and unsettling end.

Like Finder, Sykes’ first entry into the Grave of Empires trilogy is, at first blush, a simple story. Sal the Cacophony is slated for execution but refuses to go until someone hears her final words—even if that means roping an officer of the Revolution into listening to her and being late to her own death by firing squad. Part Gunslinger and part Kill Bill, Seven Blades in Black is a revenge story both classic and wholly original. Sykes brilliantly weaves a tale of adventure, loss and revenge that is set against the backdrop of a countryside torn from decades of magical warfare between the magic-wielding Imperium and the Revolution, which is led by their former slaves.

What stands out most about Seven Blades in Black isn’t the characters, although Sal and her companions are beautifully crafted and far more nuanced than first meets the eye. It also isn’t the magic system, which is both complex and thoughtful in its execution. It isn’t even the breath-stealing plot, which makes the novel’s roughly 700 pages fly by. Instead, what makes Seven Blades in Black so compelling is the depth of the world Sykes has constructed. Sykes isn’t afraid to ask more questions about his world than he answers, leaving readers knowing that there’s more adventure around the corner. That ability to immerse readers in a new world without over-explaining things is difficult in the first book in any series, but Sykes deftly rises to the occasion.

Although radically different in setting and tone, both Finder and Seven Blades in Black offer fantastic, fantastical stories that are sure to delight. Either would be a great pick for anyone who loves rascals, rogues and high-octane adventure.

From orcs to elves to dragons, non-human beings in fantasy books often fall into two camps. Some are presented as basically human, if often exoticized. The rest are generally presented as bestial: They may or may not be able to speak, but at their core they’re not too different from beasts of burden. Regardless of the archetype, their thoughts, feelings and cultures (when they have any at all) are described in relation to a human or human-like surrogate. Both Unnatural Magic by C.M. Waggoner and The Deep by Rivers Solomon (with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes) buck this tradition, creating non-human characters that are defined not by their relationship to humans but in the context of their own societies.

In her debut novel Unnatural Magic, C.M. Waggoner spins a coming-of-age tale of love, friendship and murder that is both universal and completely new. Unnatural Magic’s first strand of story is that of Tsira, a half-troll whose heritage has made it difficult to fit in among her home clan. When confronted with first a half-dead solider and then with an attempt on her own life, Tsira is forced from her solitary existence. The book’s second strand is that of Onna, a girl with a prodigious gift for magic and the guts to blaze her own academic path when she’s denied a higher magical education due to her sex. But as she embarks on her new scholarly adventure, Onna quickly becomes pulled into a hunt for a troll murderer—and unknowingly sets out on a crash course towards Tsira. Equal parts romance, bildungsroman and murder mystery, Unnatural Magic can’t decide on a genre archetype, and that’s a good thing. The resulting amalgamation is delightfully unpredictable.

Rivers Solomon’s The Deep, in contrast, is a story of pain and new beginnings. Holding the collective memories of an entire race of people isn’t easy. It is even less easy if your underwater-dwelling people are descended from the children of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by their captors and left to drown. Yetu’s duty is to remember the pain of her ancestors so that the rest of her people can live in the moment, free from the trauma of the past. She is freed from the memories only during an annual ceremony in which Yetu shares the history with her people. Overwhelmed at the prospect of taking back the memories of her ancestors, Yetu flees to the surface in the middle of one of these Tellings. On the surface, she will learn not just of the world her people left behind, but also of her people’s future. Philosophical and atmospheric, The Deep is not just a story of trauma. It is a story that looks carefully at the individual’s place in society and explores what it means to collectively heal and to move forward by accepting, but not forgetting, the past.

Unnatural Magic and The Deep are as different in tone, writing style and subject matter as two fantasy books can be. But what the two share is a deep sense of empathy. As readers, we are not meant to identify with either Yetu or Tsira as though they were human. Instead, both Solomon and Waggoner ask us to imagine beings different from ourselves and then to meet them without trying to force them into human-shaped boxes in our minds. The results are as challenging as they are enjoyable, and any reader willing to try something different will be rewarded handsomely for the effort.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Go Behind the Book with C.M. Waggoner.

The two novels featured here represent speculative fiction escapism at its best—a gentle, magical love story and a story as refreshingly strange as it is affecting.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is the story of a rather round man named Linus Baker. Linus is used to rain and dour prospects. As a case worker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, he must perpetually deal with the inanity of a 1984-esque bureaucracy that decides the fate of orphanages for magical youth. But Linus’ bubble of depressed rule-following is popped when he is sent to investigate an island orphanage with potentially volatile charges and an eccentric orphanage master.

The book is also the story of a man named Arthur Parnassus. Arthur—the master of the orphanage in question—is a man whose trousers are perpetually too short but whose kindness and love for his charges is endless. As Linus goes deeper into his inquiry, both men begin to understand exactly what was missing in their lives.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is the book that I never knew I needed, but now that I have it, I could never bear to live without it. In its pages, TJ Klune shows us the worst bureaucracies and mundane cruelties of a fictionalized version of our own world. But he also shows us what we could be. Marsyas Island, with its enthusiastic magical children and eccentric caretaker, wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”—if Mr. Rogers tried to teach Lucifer moral philosophy, that is.

Simultaneously fluffy and heart-rending, The House in the Cerulean Sea is the perfect pick-me-up for anyone stuck inside or wishing for a peaceful day by the sea.

Where Klune’s work shows us a lighter world, Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink’s latest installment in the world of Night Vale shows us a stranger one. Set in a slightly off-kilter world where dog parks can be gateways to other dimensions and where a Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency hovers in helicopters overhead, much of The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home is remarkably normal historical fiction. The Faceless Old Woman tells us her story in a series of flashbacks, recounting first an idyllic childhood on the Mediterranean and then a life of crime and revenge after the tragic murder of her father. The story culminates with her death and travel to the town of Night Vale, where today she secretly lives in everyone’s homes.

Between chapters telling of swashbuckling adventures, the Faceless Old Woman talks to one of her hosts, a man named Craig. And while those talks feel like just another of the woman’s monologues made famous in the “Night Vale” podcast, they are anything but. As the story progresses, we learn that the Old Woman’s past and present are—unfortunately, horrifyingly—linked.

For readers unfamiliar with the Night Vale universe, never fear. While there are callbacks for readers in the know, the book requires no knowledge of the podcast in order to enjoy. (That said, you may find yourself reaching for a pair of headphones as soon as the book is over.) For fans of the podcast and the other Night Vale novels, The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home likely feels long overdue. Equal parts running joke and legitimate character, the Faceless Old Woman’s history has been rarely alluded to, but here she—and her world—comes alive, tempting readers with sweet oranges, the smell of the sea and the bitter taste of betrayal. Although we know the Old Woman’s fate, we also know that something remarkable must have happened along the way.

Readers and gamers alike will be well served by two refreshing science fiction novels that are both exciting and thought provoking.

Whether you’re looking for a trippy walk through the American Pacific Northwest or a Modern Warfare-esque tromp through a dystopian hellscape is up to you. The only question is this: Are you playing?

Woodpeckers photographed decades after they are thought to have gone extinct. A game in an arcade that suddenly has a level that no one has ever seen before. Videos of violent crimes that never actually happened. These are the hallmarks of the alternate reality game Rabbits, known by its players as just “the game.” Some think the game was created by spy agencies as a way to find new recruits. Others think the game is far older and that it has been going on for centuries. But there are two things that all who know about Rabbits can agree on. First: You don’t talk about the details of Rabbits, ever. Especially with outsiders. If you do, things will go poorly for you. Second: Playing the game, nevermind winning, will change your life.

K (yes, it’s short for something, but don’t ask what) learns this firsthand on an otherwise normal Seattle night. After giving his regular presentation about the history of the game at a local arcade, he is approached by eccentric billionaire (and rumored Rabbits champion) Alan Scarpio. Over rhubarb pie and coffee, Scarpio tells K that there’s something wrong with the game—something that Scarpio needs K’s help to fix before the next iteration of the game begins. K is skeptical at first, but when Scarpio disappears soon after their late-night meeting, K is pulled into a warren of intrigue and danger that will change not just K’s life, but reality itself.

Set in the same world as his pseudo-documentary podcast of the same name, Terry Miles’ debut novel, Rabbits, is all about reality: discrepancies, changes and patterns. Or, more precisely, it’s about the moments of unreality that we tend to shake off, like a store we swore closed a year ago that’s actually still open or a movie we remember watching as children that never actually existed. Miles masterfully evokes this sense of unreality by thoroughly grounding his novel in a sense of place. His depictions of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest are spot on, so tangible that you can nearly feel the constant drizzle and smell the roasting coffee. From his description of the Capitol Hill neighborhood to his exploration of the outer neighborhoods of the cloudy city, reading Rabbits feels like you are walking in step with K for every page of the novel.

That is, until the changes start. Miles slowly chips away the steady ground he’s built for you until it feels as if you are about to step into a sinkhole or a well where gravity has been reversed. The effect is so unsettling that it will leave you looking for those discrepancies—in a sense, playing your own game of Rabbits—long after Rabbits is over.

Where Rabbits deals with the breakdown of reality, Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Firebreak is about the opposite: a game meant to shape our perceptions of reality. The novel's heroine, Mal, lives in a world where the implants she uses to stream virtual reality games are free, but water is a tightly rationed commodity you have to pay for ounce by precious ounce. It’s a world where refugees from a never-ending war live eight or more people to a room, each working three jobs merely to scrape by on instant noodles and soda.

So when a mysterious benefactor offers to sponsor Mal's VR stream of the war game SecOps for five gallons of water a week, it’s hard to say no. But the sponsor has a strange request: She wants Mal to prioritize capturing in-game close-ups of SecOps’ superstar nonplayer characters (NPCs). Modeled on real supersoldiers grown in vats by Stellaxis, the corporation that runs both Mal’s city and SecOps, the NPCs are cultural icons. But the sponsor claims that the story everyone has been fed about the super soldiers is a lie: The soldiers weren’t grown in vats at all. They were orphaned children, just like Mal, who were turned into soldiers when it was clear that they wouldn’t be missed. As the evidence for the strange theory piles up, Mal realizes her sponsor's claim wasn’t so far-fetched after all, and she will have to risk everything in order to make things right.

On the surface, Firebreak may seem familiar. A book about virtual reality in a war-torn corporate dystopia? It’s been done. But after just a few pages in, it’s clear that Kornher-Stace’s novel breaks the mold. Part Snow Crash, part spy novel, part Twitch stream, Firebreak raises serious questions about the power of corporations and the potential to shape public sentiment through virtual reality. Where corporations rule, necessities are commoditized to control the public. Stellaxis, for example, controls the water supply so tightly that even trying to purify rainwater for personal consumption can get you fined or worse.

The level of worker and consumer regulation portrayed is chilling, but it comes nowhere near Kornher-Stace’s terrifying, imaginative depiction of the intersection between war propaganda and VR gaming. In this world, virtual reality games are used to maintain and grow support for a war that has decimated entire cities and left untold thousands of children orphaned. The result is both exhilarating and deeply disturbing, as it shines a light on how easy it can be to manipulate people through the media they consume.