In his novels, Peter Clines likes to dwell in the overlap of genre niches. With his Ex-Heroes series, Clines has created a world where super heroes are a thing, but so is the zombie apocalypse. In 14, he keeps things apocalyptic in flavor, but adds a healthy dose of building-based horror. With his latest, Clines seems to have shifted course a few degrees once more.

The Fold begins and spends much of its time as a pretty straightforward sci-fi-flavored mystery. Mike Erikson has that Holy Grail of a trait for any protagonist in a mystery—an eidetic memory, or the ability to retain a complete, fresh-as-if-it-just-happened record of anything he sees. He also has an I.Q. to match his gift, which is useful, since remembering all the dots doesn’t mean much if one cannot actually connect them. As The Fold begins, we see what Erikson has decided to do with his gift—basically nothing. He’s teaching high school English in a small town and striving to lead a low-key existence. That all ends when an old friend persuades Erikson to help him vet the progress of a particularly interesting, government-funded project.

Once he arrives at the San Diego facility where a group of scientists are conducting research that’s potentially world-changing, both Erikson and the reader assume a familiar and fun position—trying to figure out exactly what is going on. (The clues are there, and whether the reader will guess the truth before Erikson is just a matter of how well he or she connects the dots.)

When the initial mystery is solved, though, it’s as if Clines has just been waiting for it as a cue to make a much sharper genre turn than the reader will expect. Revealing exactly which genre that may be would risk unnecessarily spoiling the denouement for which Clines has spent so much time preparing. Suffice to say that for some, it will be jarring and perhaps even off-putting. For others, well, it’ll still be a bit jarring, but also very satisfying.

Little more than a year after the U.S. publication of his award-winning Dark Eden, Chris Beckett returns readers to the alien, hostile planet of Eden and the humans stranded there. In Mother of Eden, 150 years have passed since the events of the previous novel. The human descendants of John, Jeff, Tina, David and the rest—themselves born of the original castaways—have, for the most part, splintered into thriving communities spread across Eden (as opposed to the small, huddled group featured in Beckett’s debut).

Much as with Dark Eden, Mother of Eden features a central, story-driving protagonist even as plenty of pages are given to the first-person perspectives of the supporting cast. Taken out of context, the plot is the stuff Lifetime dramas are made of: Starlight Brooking is a headstrong inhabitant of a small fishing village who decides to leave her people behind to be with a man from a far-off land. But this is Eden, and Beckett has got much more on his mind than happily ever afters. Humanity’s foothold as a species may have grown more secure, but at the same time, the more traditional, intraspecies dangers have multiplied. Starlight and new husband, Greenstone Johnson, find themselves engulfed in what any Earthling will recognize as more traditional—and treacherous—politics. No one can accuse Beckett of Utopian leanings: Starlight’s new home is replete with all the worst behaviors quasi-religion, ego and gender dynamics have to offer.

As plot developments go, it all makes for a compelling read. Yet just as humans and their drama have spread across Eden, the planet itself, with its gloriously alien array of flora and fauna, feels as if it has receded. In part, this is just an illusion. The creatures and ecology of the planet are expanded upon and given plenty of page time—they just don’t represent near the threat to Starlight that other humans do.

To an extent, Mother of Eden seems to continue a thought experiment derived from a simple “classic sci-fi” premise—how would a small group of humans survive marooned long term on an alien world. Dark Eden focused on the politics, psychology and power struggles that exist between individuals in a group, while Mother looks at those same dynamics as they exist between groups in society as a whole. I can’t say I’m very heartened by Beckett’s conclusions thus far. Nor I am surprised—it’s one way he’s made this particular alien world all too human