Karen Lord, The Blue, Beautiful World, Del Rey, 2023.
Audiobook available.

The Blue, Beautiful World is a fascinating science-fiction stand-alone novel about first contact.

Owen is a global music star. The crowds flock to his concerts, commune in his music which celebrates the countries where he tours. Beyond his fame and talent, he's also investing in virtual reality, and in a particular corporation he supports. He's surrounded by loyal aides and managers. But there's more to Owen than meets the eye.

Lord wrote a polyphonic novel and although the first part is very much focused on Owen, he is rarely the point of view character. New characters appear as soon as we move into the second part and take centre stage for a while.
Out of them all, I particularly enjoyed Kanoa, a young Polynesian man, who is about to join a mysterious global diplomatic program. His loyalty to his roots, to his family and to his duty, but also his need to understand the world are very endearing.
Owen was a fascinating character but he often remains aloof. It makes it difficult to relate to him, but it reflects accurately the face he presents to the world and his Messiah-like statute.
More than any individual character though, it is the ensemble cast as a whole which is meant to make sense and support the theme of the novel.

Please note that mild spoilers follow--it was impossible to review the novel without them.

The Blue, Beautiful World is a first contact novel, but it starts before the first contact itself. It's difficult not to see the metaphor here--whether intentional or not--about colonialism on Earth. What if the indigenous Antillean nations had been united, had prepared for first contact with the Europeans, then would they have been recognised as equals? Because Owen is laying the ground to prepare Earth for first contact so that people can face the galaxy which is already rife with conflicts and alliances, full of technology far superior to human technology. It's a difficult task as Owen must act in secret. At the same time, aliens are already on Earth, influencing administrations and corporations so that they can easily swoop in.
Lord refuses to offer us a saviour in Owen and amphasises instead the importance of intelligence, knowledge and cooperation. Nonetheless, it's difficult not to read Owen as a reluctant Messiah, one who refuses the mantle, even if he is often presented with his faults and frailties. The complexity of this situation--the need for a leader when the leader only wants to enable others--is done with remarkable nuance by Lord.

At times, the novel is almost impressionistic. It might feel frustrating for readers who might want to know more about the sentient ships, about Owen's father, or about the galactic factions. But in the end, The Blue, Beautiful World isn't a run-of-the-mill first contact novel, but rather an intellectual experience about this theme and offers solutions which feel like missed opportunities when we consider our past.
Lord writes a polyphony made of many voices, all focused about a goal. It makes for a pace that sometimes feels meandering, but which will bring you to its demonstration and avoid all the traps of didacticism along the way.

It's Lord at her best, with a prose and a structure unlike what you might expect, celebrating humanity and cooperation, humility and the sharing. It might not be the best entry point into her work, but it'll delight those who have enjoyed her novels before.

If you've liked The Blue Beautiful World, you may also enjoy

Juliet McKenna, The Green Man's Quarry, Wizard's Press Tower, 2023.

Welcome to your yearly review of the latest instalment in the Green Man series by Juliet McKenna!

My previous reviews: The Green Man's Heir, The Green Man's Foe, The Green Man's Challenge, The Green Man's Gift.

A big cat is killing bad people. Except it's not just a big cat. It's a big supernatural cat. Dan and his friends must intervene quickly before the mundane police gets involved and the secrets of the supernatural world are revealed.

Meeting the characters again is a bit like meeting old friends. Since The Green Man's Challenge, McKenna has worked towards creating a network among her characters and it's now fully operational. The story may be told from Dan's point of view, but he's part of a team. This shift from the traditional lone hero is always welcome as far as I'm concerned. It's realistic--hence completely in line in this series of very grounded novels. It gives McKenna plenty of characters to play with--I particularly enjoy Eleanor and Hazel who both have their time to shine in The Green Man's Quarry, and Fin is growing on me. It also allows for a novel that can jump around Britain without too far-fetched coincidences--because someone always knows someone who saw something.
Nonetheless, Dan is also very much the focus as he's facing a development of his abilities. Those are closely linked to the plot, but they also seem ominous considering an unlikely supernatural pairing appearing in the novel--something big this way may come.
It shoud be noted though that The Green Man's Quarry may not be the best entry point now that many characters and their relationships are established, so I'd advise to going back to an earlier point to fully enjoy that aspect of the novel.

Our world's issues blend with the plot as always, this time taking us across the Scottish border and hint at a past that wouldn't be out of place in a Tartan Noir novel.
The vigilante theme in The Green Man's Quarry is dealt with realistically and without any of the glorification you might find in other novels, something I appreciated. It also emphasised how rich and complex McKenna's world is. Actions have consequences and unintended ripples that threaten secrets and long established status quo.
It was interesting to see it in conjunction with a sub-plot about a busybody at Blithehurst. The way people appropriate the life of others' as if it were a public debate upon which they can pass judgements or discuss at length has always existed--as people who grew up or lived in a village can attest--but the border between the public and the personal has now become porous for everybody--stars or anonymous, living in a city or in a remote corner of the map. McKenna deals swiftly with her subplot, but when examined with the big cat threat and the entitlement of passing judgements and carrying death sentences, it becomes chilling.
Last but not least, the theme of cooperation is front, right and centre in the novel. In no uncertain terms, McKenna states that we are stronger together and that talking to an estranged not-an-enemy-but-who-knows is always better than letting silence be filled with lies and misunderstandings.

When you reach the fifth instalment in this series of stand alone fantasy novels, you know what you step into when opening the book with anticipated pleasure. This is very much The Green Man's Quarry: you know there'll be a challenge linked to the supernatural world to solve for Dan and the gang, that Dan will call someone a bastard, and that you'll have a bloody good time!

Disclaimer: a free copy was received but with no obligation attached to review it.

If you've liked The Green Man's Quarry, you may also enjoy

E. G. Condé, Sordidez, Stelliform Press, 2023.

Sordidez is a near-future novel, tangling the fate of three indigenous characters of Central America and the Caribbean, as they are confronted to climate catastrophes and colonisation.

Vero is a young man from Puerto Rico. After a devastating storm, he heads into the jungle with his friends and siblings, in the hope of building a network of indigenous communities. But Puerto Rico is sold to the Chinese who crush the indigenous community. Vero leaves to fight differently. In Central America, he'll meet Doña Margarita, a woman who holds together a small community of refugees in a landscape of drought, and a young woman, Aleja, who claims to work for the government.

The characters aren't the main focus of Sordidez. Many aspects of their lives that would be developed in a novel corresponding to the British and UK traditions of trad publications are swiftly mentioned and forgotten, like the romance Vero had on his island with a man who will meet an untimely death. The secondary characters are barely portrayed. It can be unsettling and it may prove an obstacle for some readers to enter into the story.
On the other hand, all the characters are here for a purpose. Each of the three main characters embodies a different choice in the extreme circumstances that are theirs, but all have the same goal: liberation and community. What Condé offers us is an examination of the changes those choices wrought, of their effectiveness in achieving the goal. This exploration offers fascinating moral dilemmas and reminds of Butler. But where Butler often focused on survival, Condé affirms that this can't be enough.
Whereas Margarita chooses forgiveness and patience, Vero wants to play the colonisers' game in the hope he'll gain their support and attention. On the other hand, Aleja is driven by revenge.
Condé doesn't preach as to which character would be "right" but his ending states clearly that the characters' purpose remains the only valid choice and the only capable of bringing hope in a drowning world.

Sordidez deals very explicitly with the ongoing climate catastrophe and the relationship between the land and the characters is a fundamental one. Condé, in a brilliant quip by one of the main characters, sweeps aside the myth of the "noble savage who lived and died in passive harmony with their surroundings". But he shows instead the characters' deep love for their land, home of their ancestors, and their pain at seeing it mutilated. This is, without a doubt, the novel's aspect that resonated the most with me.
I also enjoyed how the ending blurred the genre lines by introducing fantasy elements in a near-future world that relies heavily on technology. The technology is also particularly interesting in Sordidez as it studies the intent behind its uses. Whereas some will use it for the common good, in most instances it's only used for war and violence, from impressively described war machines to the hydrophage, a engineered virus creating a drought. Of course, who wields the technology results on what it'll end up doing.
Condé doesn't pull any punches. He is the storyteller bringing the fight through his words to those who exploit colonised lands and peoples in a time of climate emergency.

Sordidez is a novel best read without false expectations. The story is structured with short chapters that follow one of the characters, then another, although their lives are entangled by the purpose they share. It's also a short novel that doesn't expand on characters or worldbuilding. If those elements aren't a deal breaker for you as a reader, then you will fall deeply into its prose and pace as Margarita, Vero and Aleja's fates unfold.
Condé's novel reflects the remarkable boldness of small presses in speculative fiction, as only one of them could bring us this tale that rings so deeply true.

Sordidez is a fascinating read which, despite some aspects that may not be everyone's cup of tea, states loud and clear some hard truths. It becomes urgent to hear them with each passing day.

Disclaimer: A free copy was received but with no obligation attached to review it on The Middle Shelf.

If you enjoyed Sordidez, you may also like

Ned Beauman, Venomous Lumpsucker, 2022, Sceptre.
Audiobook available.

Venomous Lumpsucker is the winner of the 2023 Clarke Award. This scifi novel will make you both laugh and scream in rage as it paints the painfully hilarious reality of mass extinctions driven by capitalism.

Karin Resaint is a scientist. As she releases into the wild a dozen of endangered venomous lumpsuckers, a species of fish, little does she know that she sends them to their death. A mining drone has, by error, destroyed their habitat.
Mark Halyard wouldn't give a care about the venomous lumpsucker. In fact, he's in the business of making money thanks to extinction credits--like carbon credits, but for when a species disappears. But when he realises that the extinction of the venomous lumpsucker would lose his company a lot of money all by his own fault, he needs to reach Resaint so that he and she can find survivors.

The novel alternates two points of view: Karin Resaint and Mark Halyard.
At first, it's hard not to empathise with Resaint. She's a driven character, determined to save a species in the maelström of the extinction events, and she doesn't take shit, particularly not from someone like Halyard. Halyard, on the other hand, you hate from the start. He's self centred, egotistical, only focused on money and gustatory pleasure, and he doesn't care at all about dying animals.
Yet, as the novel progresses, Resaint reveals how intense a character she is. Maybe too intense? On the other hand, Halyard seems almost refreshing. After all, isn't he exactly like we all are? The only difference is that he states clearly his egoism. And he has moments of saving grace, moments when you think that this character is going to learn, is going to become a better person.
They both travel around the Baltic Sea, encountering a gallery of characters who seem always more improbable and yet entirely believable. This mad dash has something of an absurdist comedy in it.

Venomous Lumpsucker relies heavily on gallows humour, and it works. We are in the near future, and a near future that seems extremely close as days go by. The extinction credits system Beauman invents had me both screaming in rage and laughing hard because it is absolutely realistic. (We already have carbon credits, don't we?) Beauman paints a future Earth humans are consciously killing for more money, to the delight of consumers and shareholders. (Oh wait, no. We're already doing that.) Having no background in economy or conservation, I can't comment on how probable Venomous Lumpsucker's world is but in any case, this very much feels like the next stage.
The novel though isn't so much a mad dash across the Baltic Sea than an exploration of characters in a world dominated by capitalism. Resaint lives in guilt but has to work for the enemy to survive; Halyard is only interested in ingratiating himself, and that means money. Resaint looks for a very particular type of atonement; Halyard wants to save his arse. Both characters are human beings broken by a system they cannot not be a part of, and you can't help but feel that the planet is screwed because we all are like Resaint and/or Halyard.
Beauman's novel is deeply nihilistic, but it's a joyous ride into the darkest nihilism. I, for one, am very thankful to Sceptre for publishing this novel that so goes against the current trends.

The pace is lively and Venomous Lumpsucker takes you to different places. Humour is born from all those different situations, all those characters that Resaint and Halyard meet. From the crypto-libertarian city in the sea, to the camp of British--sorry, Hermit Kingdom citizens--refugees, to say nothing of expensive restaurants, the satire is ferocious. The prose is as lively as the pace in Halyard's chapters, exposing unflinchingly his faults and the state of the wold. Resaint's chapters are more quiet, just like the character, and we share her mordant thoughts.

If you want a Disney story or thrive on so-called hopepunk, this isn't a novel for you. If you want to bury your head in the sand, or if you live in a georgraphically privileged place where you don't have to face climate change and its consequences daily, it's not a novel for you.
On the other hand, if you need to laugh in the face of everything that's happening around us because there's laughter in despair too, then Venomous Lumpsucker is for you.

If you liked Venomous Lumpsucker, you may also enjoy

Micaiah Johnson, The Space Between Worlds, Hodderscape, 2020.
Audiobook available.

If, like me, you missed The Space Between Worlds back in 2020, now is the time to catch up on this brilliant scifi take on the multiverse and class struggles.

You can travel to one of the 380 alternate realities that have been found provided you work for Adam Bosch, the genius who invented the device, and that there isn't a version of you who is alive there. This is why Cara works for Bosch. She comes from a poor family and only 8 versions of her exist. The others have died due to neglect, abuse or violence. Except she isn't the original Cara. The original died when arriving in her reality and she took her place. So when her supervisor, Dell, sends her to a world where her alternate is supposedly dead and she barely survives the trip, she's determined to understand what is going on.

TWs: domestic abuse, parental neglect due to drugs.

Johnson's story is written with a first person point of view and you are from the start plunged deep into Cara's thoughts. She's snarky, determined, but she also lives constantly in fear that she might be found out as an impostor. She comes with a history of abuse that left deep marks on her, both physically and mentally. It's difficult not to root for her almost immediately, and I loved her no-nonsense attitude and her deep sense of loyalty, misplaced or not. Cara questions her place in the city because she knows she's an impostor, but even the original Cara came from outside the city. Her goal to become a citizen is born from her decades of poverty so she needs to be the perfect multiverse traveller and steal other worlds' data to finally get that secured status.
By contrast, Dell, her supervisor, belongs to the city and the upper class. Because of this, their relationship is often abrasive, but Johnson manages to show us that there's much that Dell feels and doesn't tell.
Among the secondary characters, I particularly enjoyed Cara's sister, her quiet determination and conviction. The alternate versions of Cara's antagonists, whether they were her abuser or his brother, are interestingly drawn. Johnson plays with the roll of the dice, how changes in the past influence who a person becomes but how some aspects remain the same, even if they take different shapes. It makes for nuanced portraits.

Above all, The Space Between Worlds is a story of survival.
Surviving domestic abuse by escaping or confronting your abuser. By getting every inch of power you can find to leverage him. Surviving the odds of poverty and race too. Only eight Caras survived out of 380 worlds and it paints the stark reality of the obstacles faced by people on the wrong side of the fence. Surviving the class divide too. Cara navigates between the city and the outside, not really belonging to either anymore, desperate to become a citizen yet unable to forget where she comes from. Johnson gives a very realistic vision of those in-between feelings.
But The Space Between Worlds is also a story of acceptance and trust. It is quite the journey for Cara to find her place, but also to create connections that will help her understand what is going on and take a stand.

The story is fast paced and could be read like a techno-thriller.
Nonetheless, Johnson writes a very intimate story. Not only because of Cara, but also because the conspiracy she will face finds its roots--and its resolution--in very human relationships. There's a lot to unpack in the novel, most that would be too spoilery to tell, but beneath that thriller exterior The Space Between Worlds hides thoughtful human, social and political takes. The prose is carried by Cara's voice and thoughts, making it often delightful to read.

The Space Between Worlds is a brilliant scifi novel that questions identity, class, race, and survival, through a character that you'll easily love and a compelling story.

If you've enjoyed The Space Between Worlds, you might also like

Ally Wilkes, All the White Spaces, Titan, 2022.

All the White Spaces is a psychological horror novel built on the tension of the unseen. It will take you on a doomed expedition to Antarctica.

Jonathan's brothers die at the end of the war in 1918. Ravaged by grief and trapped by the constraints of the gender he was assigned at birth, he decides to leave on an expedition to Antarctica which was a dream for his brothers. Helped by Harry Cooper, his brothers' best friend, he hides on the Fortitude, the ship that'll bring the famous James "Australis" Randall to the Wendell Sea. But tensions during the voyage soon appear.

Jonathan is a fascinating character and not someone easy to like. We follow him from the moment he learns of his brothers' death and it's very much his grief and his relationship to them that centre the novel and the later horrific events. Because he was born female, his brothers always left him aside whereas he idolised them. In the same way, he didn't go to war while they did. The guilt, but also this idolisation, will define Jonathan's relationships with the crew of the Fortitude, including with Tarlington, a conscientious objector that the men despise because of this.
The war and its meaningless deaths weighs on everyone. Harry Cooper, Jonathan's brothers' friends, must deal with grief too but also trauma. All in a time when masculinity refused those words. He also has feelings for Jonathan and fails to realise that Jonathan is finally his true self, which leaves him befuddled and hurt.
Randall, on the other hand, appears like the hero. A famous adventurer, off to one last expedition and determined to reach the Wendell Sea and beyond. He'll prove fallible, of course.
The definition of masculinity and the horrors inflicted on the men during the First World War create an imbalance between the image they're supposed to project and their frailty or fallibility, leading to disaster.
The crew was a mixed bag for me. Although Tarlington, the scientist and "conchie" is very clearly well defined within the first pages of his appearance, the others sometimes blurred and lacked a precise identity to me.

All the White Spaces deals with grief, trauma, but also with identity. The horrors that await the crew of the Fortitude will prey on their guilt, sadness, narrow-mindedness, and desires. Jonathan will have to face up who his brothers were and who he is as a person, if he defines himself solely through them, the heroes of his childhood, the boys then soldiers he couldn't be, or if he exists apart from them and from his grief.
As horror novels go, Wilkes has very much written a slow burn of a book although the tension appears fairly quickly. I particularly enjoyed how she played with her setting. It's a novel of the unseen, of the liminal spaces, where people disappear and things are left unsaid. Revelations and epiphanies may only happen to those who aren't tormented by the self-delusions they cannot let go of. The enemy remains as much unseen, appearing in familiar forms but unknowable and unpredictable, a great metaphor for the grief that may hit each of us.
The pacing won't suit someone who wants a fast read with shocking twists and gore. But it fits perfectly with the themes. We slowly discover the main characters, we watch them take bad decision after bad decision and hope for salvation or glory while the austral winter closes in, the light dwindles, and the enemy prowls in darkness.

All the White Spaces is a novel that'll leave you wondering at the elegance of the characters' web Wilkes has woven. This journey to Antarctica is also a moving journey to a time when people were trapped by expectations, whether they were related to gender, patriotism, class, family, or glory. It's a novel that will remain with you.

If you've liked All the White Spaces, you may also enjoy

Vajra Chandrasekera, The Saint of Bright Doors, Tordotcom, 2023.
Audio version available.

The Saint of Bright Doors is a fascinating fantasy novel dealing with cults and revolutions, the fragility of time, space and truth, and the sometimes abusive relationship between a child and his parents.

Fetter has been raised by his mother to kill his father, the leader of a cult, and she tore his shadow from him at birth. Now adult, he has fled her and his home region to live in Luriat. He becomes a fixture of the community of refugees who end up in his area of the city and finds some peace for himself with his boyfriend and a support group for people who almost were the Chosen Ones. He still retains from his education the ability to see monsters that no one else can see and to levitate. But the balance and anonymity he has found will collapse when his father decides to come to Luriat.

Fetter is a very endearing main character. Although it could be said that he stagnates in his marginalised life, he's mostly recovering from an abusive relationship with his mother and trying to find himself. Through the course of the novel, he'll have to take decisions and to try on new identities until he finally finds where he wants to stand. His awakening will be political, because the political and the religious are inextricably linked in Luriat, but also moral as he learns that he can't be a bystander.
Luriat, the city, is very much a character in its own right. Chandrasekera paints it vividly: the different areas according to the different social status and castes, the bright doors of the title which are a mystery in itself, but mostly, the people who compose Luriat, and in particular the poor and the cast-off. The city is a maze that Fetter navigates and explores, and through it the unfair politics that holds it together and the hatred seeping through.
The gallery of secondary characters could only emerge from this city: Koel, who belongs to the support group but also to a revolutionary group, Caduv, a newcomer to the support group, Hejmen, Fetter's privileged boyfriend, the members of the committee in charge of one of the bright doors, and Pipra who studies the bright doors. Chandrasekera does a tremendous job in painting them and anchoring them deeply in Luriat.

The first half of the novel isn't fast-paced. It gives you time to explore Luriat and to get to know the characters better. The second half, on the other hand, increases the tension as Fetter needs to take action. Then in the last chapters, Chandrasekera flips the narrative and plunges us through a point of view that keeps us removed from more action. Because, in the end, The Saint of Bright Doors isn't a story about a revolution or a story about mysterious doors. It's a story about a man and his relationship with his abusive parents.
The religious and caste hatred form the background, but also a delicate and wonderful take on truth and lies, and how they bend reality around us, both geographically (or geopolitically) and chronologically. Fetter can make his own choices only when he understands the world and the web of lies it is made of.
Another element I particularly enjoyed in the worldbuilding is the mix of different-eras items, which is logical considering a certain revelation that happens later in the plot. But it gives a remarkable texture to Luriat and makes it feel truly lived in.

The Saint of Bright of Bright Doors is a unique and impressive novel that plunges you deep into a fascinating world. Smart and thoughtful, it offers an examination of a fragile country held by exclusion and lies presented as truths, but also of a man who tries to find himself after the scarring left by his parents. More than highly recommended!

If you've liked The Saint of Bright Doors, you may also enjoy

Neil Williamson, Queen of Clouds, NewCon Press, 2022.

Queen of Clouds is a chonky fantasy stand-alone novel which, under the guise of very familiar tropes, tackles topical themes.

Billy is sent by his master to the celebrated city of Karpentine to deliver a sylvan, a sentient humanoid figure made of wood. But Karpentine is a city dominated by its guilds and politics machinations lead to the destruction of the sylvan while Billy is sent to jail. Indentured to the family ruling the weather he soon realises, with the help of Paraphernalia, the heiress of the Weathermakers family, that something is very wrong.

My first contact with Billy wasn't the best. Give me a naive young man coming from the countryside and sent to a big city in a fantasy setting, and I roll my eyes hard. Been there, done that, read all the books in the 90s.  Happily, Billy graduates very soon out of this category and shows qualities I could appreciate, and his grief late in the book when he fails to help someone was nuanced and expressive.
I preferred Paraphernalia, although she doesn't escape some stereotypes either. Nonetheless, her determination and conflicting loyalties gave life to the character.
What I particularly enjoyed though was the impressive gallery of characters Williamson offers. From Guild leaders to street urchins, he populates his novel in a convincing way, with a hint of Weird for his more original and interesting characters and a lot of inventiveness when it comes to the creatures and devices.

The plot and the city are inextricably linked in Queen of Clouds and expansive. All the machinations and shenanigans of the Guild leaders as they try to gain power form a large part of the plot. It includes twists, reversals of fortunes, and dramatic revelations aplenty. Beyond the halls of power, Karpentine is a grim place, with poverty, refugees left out to beg outside the city wall, and an inhumane carceral system.
Nonetheless, it is the weather and the sylvans plot that I enjoyed the most. Without it, you'd be reading something you have already read. With it, you're reading a very topical novel in which the weather has gone mad because humans have tinkered with it for their own gain and in which sentient not-exactly-automatons try to find their own way while being needlessly sacrificed because of a sense of loyalty towards humans. Queen of Clouds is a story about a world that is irredemiably changing while humans are still embroiled in their petty schemes and blind to the coming catastrophe.

The pace is quick, with plenty to keep you entertained (see above about the twists, reversals of fortunes, and dramatic revelations aplenty). Billy runs to and fro, desperate to find answers and help. The reader's expectations are more than once subverted, particularly when it comes to the ending which is both satisfying, believable, and a welcome change to some current trends.
I was impressed by the way Williamson weaves some truly original aspects in his novel and he goes seamlessly from action scenes to creepy and heart wrenching moments.

Queen of Clouds will be the perfect read for someone who wants a substantial story, with a solid plot, an expansive world and gallery of characters, and that tackles topical themes.

Disclaimer: A free copy was received but with no obligation attached to review it.

If you've enjoyed Queen of Clouds, you may also like

Ann Leckie, Translation State, Orbit, 2023.
Audiobook available.

Translation State is a very enjoyable stand-alone coming-of-age scifi novel, set in the same universe as Leckie's previous scifi novels.

Enae has spent hir life taking care of hir grandmother until she dies and leaves hir nothing but the right to remain in the house with the now rightful owner. But said now rightful owner has a proposal for Enae: that sie becomes a diplomat and goes to search for a missing Presger Translator. Enae accepts, after all it's a routine mission and no-one expects hir to succeed. Just an occasion to travel around. Except that Enae likes to do things well.

CW: attack on a character that could metaphorically be read as rape.

Translation State follows three points of view: Enae, Reet, a man in his thirties who was adopted, and Qven, of whom we know little until later in the novel but who grows up in a violent place. All three are missing something: a purpose for Enae, the sense of belonging for Reet, a sense of self and the certainty e won't die as a result of becoming an adult for Qven.
One thing I regretted was how, by the middle of the novel, Enae is pretty much sidelined in favour of Reet and Qven. The two are very endearing characters and although the novel was very recently published they've already captured the imagination of many readers as can be seen from allusions on social media, and (apparently) fanfic and memes, proving their popularity. And it's justified: Reet is a perfect counterpart to Qven who is still suffering from the trauma of an attack and both support each other in strange circumstances. Qven sometimes odd behaviour can also offer some light-hearted moments. Enae remains my favourite though: hir sense of doing what's right and of doing the tasks that no-one wants to do really struck a chord with me.
The novel is also populated with a gallery of secondary characters who are often well defined. They aren't only plot devices to push the plot further, like Reet's "friends", they also ground the characters, like Reet's family, or hint at the larger universe.

Translation State is a novel about consent. There's of course the assault on Qven. But there's also the question of what you want to become. Leckie writes a coming-of-age novel for all three characters: it's a tale of choosing your own path, even when you don't have much choice because of your status or biology.
Because it's set in the Radch universe, we have plenty in terms of aliens, AIs, political machinations and secrets, conspiracies and treaties--and of course, the usual extremely refreshing take on gender. Leckie doesn't simply rely on an existing universe but add to it, through political alliances, hints about the wider universe, or media Qven and Reet enjoy (the Pirate Exiles of the Death Moons!).
I didn't re-read Leckie's Rach trilogy or Provenance before getting into this one and, although I felt I was missing a reference here and there, I actually didn't need to. It makes Translation State a good entry point for anyone who would like to discover Leckie's work without committing to a trilogy.

The novel reads quickly and keeps a sustained pace throughout. I particularly enjoyed the spiral corridor with its hidden doors, an inventive way of putting our characters in a tense situation that renewed the pocket universe trope.
The prose conveys effectively the mystery, the sense of urgency or the characters' emotions.

Translation State is a very entertaining story that isn't as mind-blowing as reading Ancillary Justice for the first time can be, but that will bring you to interesting characters and a solid plot in a wide universe.

If you've liked Translation State, you might also enjoy

Indra Das, The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar, Subterranean Press, 2023.

Indra Das is too rare an author. This new fantasy novella offers us glimpses of dragons and of another world in exile, through dream-like memories.

Ru is a child in Calcutta* in the 90s. An only child, he stands apart from his school mates, looking Indian but not Bengali, with a family that evades all his questions about where they come from. Sometimes, he remembers strange rituals, or dragons growing up in the tree in the backyard. As a teenager, he finally finds his first friend, a Chinese girl his age whose parents own a restaurant next door.

The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar is told from Ru's first person point of view which offers us only glimpses into memories he doesn't remember that well himself. Sometimes, they're out of chronological order, sometimes they're just too incomplete. Others bring us closer to understanding the story of his family, their beliefs, their role and their power. When Ru befriends Alice and they find his father's novel, the mystery finds explanations through fiction, reinforcing the interstitial aspect of the novella.
In a sense, Das wrote the anti-Ann McCaffrey novel (although her novels are mentionned explicitly in Das' novella). There's no dashing adventure, but a lonely child who tries to understand who he is while his parents' past is forever closed to him. We read about the ordinary one who doesn't go on an adventure and never quite know what happened.
Because of this, there's a pervasive and beautiful melancholy infusing every page, the promise of a truth that you never quite grasp and eludes you, shining ahead.

Ru is an endearing character and Das perfectly captured the loneliness of a child, and later the shyness of a teenager. Alice, his friend, is another endearing character, bringing to Ru's life a breath of fresh air and a certain freedom--the freedom to explore what the adults are hiding, the freedom to go out in Calcutta. Their relationship is a beautiful one, tottering between friendship and maybe more, revealing the depths of their feelings for each other.
We see Ru's grand-mother and parents through Ru's eyes. The choices they make to protect him might seem outrageous but they also reveal their love for the child. The adults are fallible, and Ru, like every teenager, will come to recognise that. It's from bits of conversation that we know more about where they come from, about their gender-non-conforming culture, their magic, and relationship to dragons and reality.

Das embraces fully the interstitial aspect and the prose itself becomes a vehicle for the dream-like quality of the story. The sentences in Ru's memories follow a rhythm that meanders, loses itself, or turns abruptly. It also fits wonderfully this tale of a lonely outsider who never fully grasps his own life because he's condemned to remain in the margins while others who belong can seize opportunities.
Nonetheless, the ending isn't a bleak one and offers possibilities. But it would be an entirely different story.

The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar is a mesmerising story, telling beautifully about loneliness and being in exile of your own life. It is a coming-of-age novella unlike any other, full of onirism and powerful untold tales.

* One lives and learns. For instance, I learned that the name Kolkata was the official name of the city only from 2001.

If you've liked The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar, you may also enjoy

N. K. Jemisin,

• The City We Became, Orbit, 2020.
• The World We Make, Orbit, 2022.

With this fantasy duology, Jemisin confirms once more what a fantastic writer she is, this time tackling cities in an epic and fun story.

A young homeless graffiti artist wanders in New York. When the city comes alive, he becomes its avatar. But an enemy threatens it, coming from another dimension, full of tentacles and white fronds, bent on destroying it. The young artist wins the first fight, then falls exhausted in an enchanted slumber. At this moment, five more people awaken, each of them an avatar for the five boroughs of New York. But the war against the Enemy isn't over and they'll have to pick it up where the graffiti artist left it while discovering their new identities.

The City We Became and The World We Make are very much stories about New York. Each of the five characters that the first novel focuses on represent a borough and embody its characteristic: Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island. Happily, the characterisation doesn't stop with just a few traits and they're all well layered. I've particularly enjoyed Queens, a young woman named Padmini, who immigrated from India and who's a maths genius. Her rationalisation of the powers they gain through equations grounded the story effectively and her human qualities makes her very endearing while still showing her strength of character. Brooklyn and the Bronx were also highlights for me, the first one a middle aged Black woman, secure in her place in the world and her power, the other an older Lenape woman, an artist with a no-non-sense attitude and big boots.
Staten Island, on the other hand, is the Karen of the novels and you'll certainly enjoy shouting at her and hoping someone will knock some sense into her. Jemisin nonetheless offers a nuanced portray of her through her family and her fears. That probably won't prevent you from wanting to slap her.

Jemisin's duology is of course an ode to New York by a New Yorker. Nonetheless, she also captures a universal truth: that love/hate relationship we can have with the city we live in. She writes about New York, but it could have been my city or a friend's I discussed the novel with, both located on a different continent.
The novels offer also glimpses of other cities, through their avatars mainly, but I appreciated that Jemisin tried for a global feeling, although awkwardly at times.
The Enemy is a Lovecraftian entity coming from another dimension that wants to erase all the human cities. It allies with racists, entitled dude bros and homophobes, and Jemisin puts her name on the list of other BIPOC writers determined to reclaim and subvert the Lovecraft "heritage" in SFF while offering a satire of her country's politics.
In the end, though, the most American thing in the novel isn't that it's focused on New York and New Yorkers but the "us vs. them" trope.

The City We Became was to me the stronger of the two novels but The World We Make provides a necessary and satisfactory conclusion to the story. It's difficult not to be reminded of the Cold War and the "Pax Americana" but it also tied neatly all the threads and even offered a possible hope for redemption.
Both novels have a fantastic pace and weave seamlessly from action scenes to humour to more intimate moments. Jemisin demonstrates once again her skills as a storyteller and carry us along effortlessly.

The City We Became and The World We Make are fantasy novels that don't shy from current issues but that'll also keep you engrossed in a fast paced, fun, and epic story.

If you've enjoyed The City We Make / The World We Became, you might also enjoy

Sara A. Mueller, The Bone Orchard, Tor, 2022.
Audiobook available.

The Bone Orchard is a fantasy novel with an impressive world building, a magical system that will intrigue and impress, and is overall a sweeping story about a revolution and a woman's quest for her autonomy, in body and mind.

Charm is the Emperor's mistress. She didn't look for the position. Her country was invaded by the Emperor's nation and she was taken prisoner because of her psychic abilities. To survive, she has split her personality into "ghosts": Justice, Pride, Pain, Shame. They've become prostitutes for the nobility and gained safe status. But they hide another secret woman, the Lady, that no-one must find in Charm's mind. When the Emperor dies, he gives Charm a command: she must find who killed him.

TW: paedophilia (not described on page), physical abuse, slavery, death of a child, non consensual sex (not on page)
Disclaimer: I know nothing about sex workers so I'm unable to say if the representation is harmful and/or bad.

The complexity of the characters is a tremendous highlight in The Bone Orchard. None of the women is easy to love. They can be unbending or unfair, they make bad decisions or fail to act. Among them all, my favourites were Pain and Charm. Pain receives all the physical pain the others have to endure, but she's also someone with remarkable compassion. Charm is someone you can dislike at times, but in the end, you find yourself rooting and cheering for her. Because of this complexity, you empathise with them fairly quickly and the pain and injustice glue you to the book because you hope that someone--a lot of someone actually--will get their just desserts for what they put Charm and her ghosts through.
Mueller put them in a world populated by many other characters. The nobility are the most developed among them, from those who hold to ideals, to the pragmatists, to the irretrievably corrupted. The gallery is impressive and very well done. But I regret that, for a story that takes a political stance, the popular characters are more hastily sketched. Among them though, the seamstress stands out.

The Bone Orchard is first and foremost a novel about a woman's quest for her autonomy, both in body and mind. The splitting of her personality through the ghosts allows Mueller to study how women can deny some of their experiences to keep going, or allow themselves to be blind to what is truly happening to them or around them. I particularly appreciated that Mueller's gallery of characters included a non-binary transmasculine character in an act of inclusive feminism that is currently sorely needed.
But The Bone Orchard is also a story about a revolution. The Emperor's sons are all appalling and there's no argument to be made for divine right by birth. The enslaved psychics will fight to free themselves from the device that keeps them obedient. And the people? This is where Mueller fails in my opinion. They remain in the background, often bodies strewn on the ground, without agency and left to the mercy of whoever will win the fight.
In the end, both themes are linked. A woman's quest for her autonomy is one part of a larger revolution that must happen. It may be a cultural gap between me and Mueller that I found her revolution not radical enough.

The novel starts slowly and the mystery of the magic system might throw off some readers. Although never properly explained, I thought it wasn't necessary and once you're past the initial confusion the story grabs you. The pace picks up about one third in, and it becomes very hard at this point to let go of the book. Although The Bone Orchard is on the long-ish side, it's difficult to say that it should have been trimmed down. Every scene is important in the overarching story and brings us to a conclusion that feels satisfying for every character.
(OK, almost. One or two were dispatched a bit too hastily in my opinion, but I've just said it was on the long-ish side so I'm trying to remain cohesive!)

The Bone Orchard is a sweeping but not easy story. Despite my niggles, I dived into it and read way past the time it was reasonable to switch off the light. It's carried by fascinating characters that will remain with me for a while.

If you've liked The Bone Orchard, you may also enjoy

Arkady Martine, Rose House, Subterranean Press, 2023.

Arkady Martine offers us in this excellent scifi novella a locked-room mystery with a potentially homicidal AI and a focus on architecture, all wrapped beneath a stunning cover.

China Lake is a sleepy town in the Mojave desert. Its only claim to fame is that Basil Deniau, the famous architect, built on the edge on the town his masterpiece, Rose House, entirely administered by an avant-garde AI. When he died, his body was left to rest in the house and it was sealed. Except for Selene, Deniau's archivist, who can go back there once a year. One evening, the China Lake precinct receives a phone call from the AI. A corpse is in the house, or rather another corpse.

I went into Rose House first for the architecture. I wasn't disappointed. Martine paints extremely well the power games and the devouring ambition in this field. She also describes beautifully and vividly the unique house, with some tidbits here and there about how to architecturally "read" a building that add a layer to the situation the characters are in.
I also went into Rose House for the locked-room mystery. It's rare that one of those enthuse me these days, but Martine very cleverly didn't make it a battle of wits with the reader. She plays with it by venturing into the haunted house trope with great effect, thanks to the AI. She also makes it an aspect of a tragedy we unfold as we step further into the house and the characters' past.

Because in the end, it's all about the characters. The two officers from the China Lake precinct are endearing characters. Detective Maritza Smith is a persistent and clever woman, who doesn't shy away from risks to solve the mystery. She accepts her limitations and the limitations of her training with equanimity, which gives us a very grounded character we can easily empathise with. Her colleague, Oliver Torres is a more light hearted character, who prefers banal jobs, like stolen water, rather than this mystery involving what he considers a creepy house. His loyalty to his colleague may get him into trouble though.
Selene, Deniau's former pupil and now archivist of his estate, is the most fascinating of the three characters. She has the perfect alibi, but she's also very obviously a broken character, forced to endure solitude in Rose House once a year, among the memories of a man she disliked and with an AI that idolised him.

Rose House is a novella and it was the perfect length for this story. The pace is lively, the plot doesn't need more and is both self-contained and satisfying. Martine gives us some gothic chills... in the middle of the Mojave desert and with an AI, but gothic still. We also have some deliciously (slight) gruesome details that fit perfectly well with the oppressive atmosphere of the house.

Arkady Martine delivers a brilliant novella, perfectly formed, with a story that'll keep you awake past your bedtime.

If you've liked Rose House, you may also enjoy

Juliet McKenna, The Cleaving, Angry Robot, 2023.

Amidst the few Arthurian retellings being published at the moment, The Cleaving by Juliet McKenna stands out because of its point of view, but also because of its ambitious span.

Nimue has served Queen Ygraine for a long time now. Hiding that she is fae, she also knows that were she to go back to her people, she'd be rejected for having spent too much time among humans. But life changes when Uther Pendragon decides to unite Britain, with Merlin in tow. Very soon, Nimue realises that Merlin uses his magic to further Uther's ambitions which angers the faes.

TW: rape (heard but not seen, early in the novel.)

The Cleaving focuses on the female characters in the Arthurian legend, and Nimue's point of view is central. Through her eyes, we see the different events, and we also see how she and others try to fight against actions that could lead to disaster. It's particularly interesting to see how those women - Nimue, Ygraine, Morgana, Guinevere - try to circumvent their lack of agency in a patriarchal society, even more so when two need to hide their magical powers. In some cases, it's impossible and Ygraine is raped by Uther disguised as her husband so that Arthur can be born. In others, they seduce or try to look as harmless as possible. In a last recourse, they show their power. One thing I particularly appreciated was how those women also try to help each other, even though they have different goals.
I really enjoyed McKenna's take on Morgana (and wish we had seen more of her!), and Nimue was an intriguing character, with divided loyalties and only led by her sense of justice and balance.
The men, just like the women, are incredibly realistic and that means describing them with all their flaws. Arthur's portrayal isn't idealised, and I was glad to see Merlin as a scheming, ambitious old man, obsessed with power and his puppets.

Of course, such a point of view means that some events are witnessed sideways, battles between the knights in particular - although there are still aplenty. The magical battle between Nimue and Merlin is a highlight and the tale of Sir Balyn reveals the tragedy of the senseless fighting.
This sense of doom is pervasive throughout the novel too. McKenna doesn't tell us an epic story made to inspire the foundation of an empire. She tells us about a failed attempt at a grand destiny. From the start, you can see the violence, the rot, the decay. You know - because everyone knows - that Arthur will die without an heir. Conceived in the most abbhorrent way, he drags more and more people to death until his own, meaningless.
In the meantime, the women try to survive.
There's in The Cleaving a bitter lesson about kingdoms and wars. More than an epic fantasy story, I read it as a thoughtful take on balance and politics.

The novel starts before Arthur's conception and ends with his death. It spans many decades, although McKenna uses some clever time skips here and there to progress through the story faster. To the point that it may seem too fast sometimes.
The research that went into the novel was impressive. The Cleaving borrows from Geoffroy of Monmouth and Malory, but also Chrétien de Troyes (if you're a fan, beware: the wood cart episode may leave you wrong footed!) and is firmly grounded in the historical realities of the time in Britain.

The Cleaving is a brilliant retelling of the Arthurian legend that deserves to be on your reading list if you enjoy Arthuriana. Its unique perspective offers much to revive the tradition and subtly shows how it infused our own expectations, including our political expectations.

Disclaimer: a free copy was received but with no obligation attached to review it on The Middle Shelf.

If you've liked The Cleaving, you may also enjoy

Rhiannon A. Grist, The Queen of the High Fields, Luna Press, 2022.

The Queen of the High Fields is a contemporary fantasy novella that'll take you deep into Welsh myths.

Carys and Hazard only ever wanted to escape their lives. Carys has always been drawn to the sea, to something just off the coast. Hazard, only caring about her grandmother, and wilting in this little seaside town with a family she despises. Both decide to unite to find out what is it that calls Carys, those fabled High Fields, out there in the sea. But it'll be a long way to reach it and the dream may turn into a nightmare.

The Queen of the High Fields alternate chapters in the present and in the past, both from Carys' point of view. While the present takes us pretty much straight away to the High Fields and their strangeness, the past slowly unfolds the tragic events leading to Hazard and Carys falling out, with one back to living in the mainland while the other is still in the High Fields.
It's an interesting choice because it not only reveals what happened between Hazard and Carys, but also who Carys is. Driven, as much as Hazard is, but also taking decisions on her own or lying by omission to reach her goal when Hazard falters. The present is much more focused on Hazard and we can see that everything the two friends left untold contributed to their falling out, much more surely than the events in the High Fields.
Grist plunges us deep into those two characters' lives and it's easy to empathise with them both and their quest for meaning and hope.

The High Fields itself is a fascinating place and Grist gives us all the strange and weird vibes you can hope for in a mythical island. The nature is wild and magical, and in the present broken. There's this place that you don't want to see--why? You'll have to find out. There are four seasons in a day, but nowadays the food germinates and becomes inedible almost straight away. There are people who have been missing - but where are they? And there's this memory Carys carries, of something inhuman, that was on the island and isn't there anymore. Or maybe it's still here, waiting and biding its time to come back. The question of the creation of life and death is also prominent throughout.
Welsh mythology is inherent to the story and infuse deeply every aspect of it, while, at the same time, it doesn't shy away from the current reality of Wales.

The novella is a delight to read. Grist has written a story that flows and that you'll read very quickly, untangling the past from the present, although it might not be possible because causes have consequences. The prose describes artfully the magical island and the inhumane, deftly bordering on horror to convey the uneasiness and fear. It also expertly draws us into the characters and their feelings and their desires. The Queen of the High Fields isn't a story about a magical island. It's a story about a friendship between two misfits desperate to find their place in the world.

The Queen of the High Fields is a page-turner that'll take you to dark and fantastical places, through a broken friendship and broken characters who you'll deeply empathise with.

If you enjoyed The Queen of the High Fields, you may also like

Okwiri Oduor, Things They Lost, Oneworld Publications, 2022.
Audiobook available.

Things They Lost is a mesmerising magical realism tale about mothers and daughters, with a fascinating and rich world, and a very endearing main character.

Ayosa is 12 and lives alone in her family home. From time to time, her mother comes back to her. She promises to stay with her daughter, but always she leaves again. In the meantime, Ayosa eats well thanks to Jentrix the apothecary, her neighbour, tries to escape wraiths who try to snatch her, listens to Mrs Temperance, the poet, on the radio, and befriends Mbiu, another lonely girl. The problem is, Ayosa remembers everything, even things from before she was born, things her mother tried to forget.

CW: death of a child, child neglect, child abuse (implied, not on page).

Ayosa, the main character, is an absolute delight and one of the reason I've loved the novel so much. She's a very endearing girl, at this age when you start to question the world and the adults around you. She often asks "Because why?" and this leitmotiv is also a wonderful way to define the novel. Things are this way, but why? What caused them to be this way? Through her memories, Ayosa delves into the past of her mother, Nabumbo Promise, of her grandmother, Lola Freedom, and of her great-grandmother, Mabel Brown. It's a family tragedy, entirely played between mothers and daughters, each generation repeating the mistakes in a cycle that seems endless. But because Ayosa can remember so much, maybe she can step away, maybe she can say stop, even if doing so is harrowing. Her mother, Nabumbo Promise, lost her sister, but maybe she, Ayosa, can find a sister, one who will love her, not with the broken love her mother can barely offer.
Because Nabumbo Promise is broken. It's difficult not to empathise with her, despite all her faults. Her seizures bring Nabumbo Promise to another world where she lives years, and through this we can see how she tries to escape her own life but never succeeds. Her own name recalls harshly the promise to never leave she tells again and again to her daughter, only to break that promise again and again.
It'd be a mistake to think that Things They Lost is a sad novel because of those two characters. First, because Ayosa herself is quite fun. Also because there are many characters who bring some light relief. Mbiu, the other lost girl with a harrowing story of her own and yet filled with joy and hope; Sindano, the café owner who crosses herself in relief every time she hears the cow bell ringing because the cow is dead. The gallery of secondary characters is a delight.

The novel main focus is on mothers-daughters relationships, but it also offers a sharp satire of village life, with the holier-than-thou and gossiping villagers. It touches on colonialism with Ayosa's great-grandmother, Mabel Brown, a violent white woman. Finally, Ayosa's fascination for Mrs Temperance's poems reminds of the power of poetry to put words on feelings we cannot express.
The worldbuilding is an extremely strong aspect of Things They Lost. It's filled with fascinating creatures and characters like the jolly annas, never properly explained and whose ha-ha-ha punctuate the novel; the wraiths who crave for what Ayosa has and they lack; the Fatumas, the spirits living in Ayosa's attic; the Sister-Maker... Oduor has written a novel that teems with life. And everything brings back endlessly to the question: is it better to be alone than to be loved by someone who actually doesn't know how to love you? And maybe, just maybe, there's a corollary to this question: is it better to leave them behind and be loved by someone else instead?
In the end, what did they lose? Memories and love, and both are inextricably linked.

The story takes its time, meandering through the past, poems, and Ayosa's mundane life. But because the prose is quite simply outstanding, you get carried away. Oduor's words take you on a journey which isn't only to the broken hearts of her characters, but also to a world full of surprises she unpacks slowly, one at a time, with elegance and ease.

Things They Lost is a wonderful novel that people who love literary SFF and magical realism must read. The harshness and harrowing moments are amazingly balanced with humour, endearing characters and an amazing world. Without a doubt, Oduor is a new-to-me novelist I'll now follow keenly.

If you've liked Things They Lost, you might also enjoy

Ray Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2022.
Audiobook available.

The Mountain in the Sea is a fascinating short scifi novel that'll particularly enchant those of you who like first encounters and semiotics.

On the coast of Vietnam, the island of Con Dao has become a refuge for wildlife since it's been bought by a tech corporation, Dianima. Ha, a marine biologist, is hired by Dianima to study a unique species of octopus native to Con Dao. Her partners are Evrim, the first and only sentient android ever created, and Alantsetseg, a mercenary in charge of defending their mission, with violence if needs be. The three of them are isolated on the island, but are they really alone?

Ha is an interesting character. A lonely woman, her drive forward is relentless, but she remains a character you can empathise with thanks to a very close thrid person that gives us glimpses into her past and her hopes. What makes her also incredibly human is how she tries to make a connection, not only with Evrim and Alantsetseg, but also with the elusive octopus.
But it was Alantsetseg who was my favourite character.  I've loved her humour, how she makes no excuse about who she is - a competent warrior - and also how she uses her translation tools to sever communication or to make a connection too, how the tool reflects her moods much more than anything else.
Weaving in and out of the main story, we also follow Rutsem, a hacker, and Eiko, a man taken into slavery on a fishing boat, and their stories will intersect with the main plot.

The Mountain in the Sea won't be for everyone. The characters have a tendency to monologue, and the trick is repeated a fair few times so it could put off anyone who doesn't enjoy that. It also makes no excuse that it's about biosemiotics and although it's very accessible, including to people who are a bit hazy about what semiotics is. If your idea of fun isn't discovering how language and culture arise, then the book might become tedious very fast. If, on the other hand, you enjoy semiotics, you'll be delighted to know that it builds wonderfully on Charles Peirce's theories (more than Saussure's) wonderfully and it even has a kind of bibliography in the acknowledgements to know more about biosemiotics specifically (cue to nerdy squees). Nonetheless, the novel could also be described as a techno thriller, so I guess there's a balance in there and a little bit of everything for everyone.
One aspect I particularly enjoyed was how Nayler dehumanised his human characters, one way or the other: Eiko, as a slave, is considered no more than a machine; Alantsetseg finds her place in the world through her drones and her translation devices. By comparison, Evrim and the octopus are presented as much more alive, and often much more human than the humans themselves.
The octopus' plot is very well done. It includes a lot of tension, the reveals come at a very reasonable pace, and, above all, the communication and culture are described in a very realistic and believable way. It's a grim world that Nayler paints but through this attempt at first contact, glimpses of hope can be seen.

A couple of irrelevant details threw me off while reading, but The Mountain  in the Sea is otherwise an engrossing story about humanity and communication, about sentience and justice. Gautam Bhatia described it to me as Darmok but geekier, and it encapsulates Nayler's novel perfectly.

If you enjoyed The Mountain in the Sea, you may also like

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Memory, Tor, 2022.
Audiobook available.

Children of Memory is the third instalment in the scifi series by Adrian Tchaikovsky which started with the Clarke Award winner, Children of Time. Like its predecessors, it offers a thoughtful and inventive take on progress, humanity and communication.

The review is spoiler free and is followed by a Q&A with the author about his series. The Q&A includes spoilers for all three volumes in the series, but a large red banner will warn you that you enter spoiler territory.

Heorest Holt was the captain of one of the arkships sent by Earth in a desperate attempt by humans to survive.  The planet they arrive to should have been terraformed, but the process was left unfinished. Nonetheless, Holt and his crew are determined to build a colony and survive.
In the meantime, the former human Avrana Kern gathers an unlikely team--octopi, Portids, the Nod entity and a pair of maybe-sentient corvids--to find the surviving human colonies.

Children of Memory isn't the best entry point in the series since Tchaikovsky builds on situations and civilisations from the previous volumes. For returning readers, it's a joy to meet Kern again who is as abrasive and arrogant as she's always been. The Nod entity is back too, and often takes centre stage. Named Miranda, she explores this brave new world while still questioning herself and she's fascinating to read.
Nonetheless, it's the new characters, the pair of corvids, who stole the show for me. Their sentience is questioned by everyone in Kern's crew because they have to work in pairs to achieve not only meaningful action, but also meaningful thought. A couple of chapters are written from the corvids point of view and were a delight to read to me as they're bright, sarcastic and have neurodivergent traits.
The colonists provide an interesting gallery of characters, showcasing humanity, not really at its finest, but determined to survive. Liff, a child of the colony, is from the start an intriguing character and it's around her that things start to unravel.

The mystery is the central point of the novel. It provides well written twists which fit the SF tradition the series builds upon. I particularly enjoyed some of the moments of confusion, when the answer is staring you in the face yet you cannot see it.
Tchaikovsky uses this mystery to explore the lengths desperate humans can go to. Xenophobia, paranoia, mob rule, leaving people behind... At times, it's not a pretty sight, but sadly, it's a familiar and realistic one. Nonetheless, Children of Memory offers, if not hope, at least solace and the joy of new discoveries.
As ever in the series, communication, hybridation and progress are major themes. They're explored with the thoughtfulness and inventiveness that characterise Tchaikovsky's novels. Children of Memory is, like Children of Time and Children of Ruin, an ode to meeting the unknown and embracing change.

The novel's pace offers an apparent twisting path, but with hints that come steadily and then reveals that add up, one after the other, to untangle the mystery. Miranda's musings offer some quiet moments while the corvids banter can come as a comic relief.
The ending provides satisfying answers and opens the possibility of more adventures.

Children of Memory is another excellent addition in the series. Although it shouldn't be your point of entry, it'll delight previous readers of the series by exploring always further the themes and introducing fascinating new characters.

Adrian Tchaikovsky kindly accepted to answer my questions about the animals in the Children series. Please note that it includes spoilers for Children of Time, Children of Ruin and Children of Memory.

Spiders, ants, octopi and corvids. How did you choose the animals who would feature in the trilogy?

The species involved are all remarkably intelligent. They are, as they exist on Earth, good candidates to become a fully sapient species. Octopuses and corvids are notoriously intelligent tool-using species. Portiids were found, in some remarkable research, to possess cognitive powers vastly exceeding expectations given how small and neurologically simple they are. So honestly I’m mostly following the science.

How did you balance science research and speculation to create your bestiary?

CoT was inspired entirely by the research of Dr Fiona Cross & others. CoR drew heavily on Godfrey-Smith’s Other Minds, and I read several books on birds for CoM (as well as refamiliarizing myself with Irene Pepperberg’s parrot work, which I remembered from university). In all cases, having digested those starting points, I let my imagination run through the permutations of how those current cognitive capabilities might expand and develop, given the chance. The process is similar to more freeform worldbuilding after a certain point – it’s just that the original foundation is constrained by real-world understandings rather than created out of whole cloth.

The question of the corvids sentience is asked repeatedly in Children of Memory. Yet, some of their traits remind traits of neurodivergent people. Their "otherness" is questioned by Avrana Kern in particular. Was it a way for you to explore the many different ways a brain can function or a way or to explore what humans consider as other (which is a recurring theme in the novels)?

The corvids-as-neurodivergency is addressed in the book, I think – specifically it’s a case where the chance origination of a specific neurodivergent setup within the species allows them to survive the harsh environment they find themselves in, and so becomes the dominant mental structure for the species. The prevalent narrative for neurodivergency in fiction is often people struggling to fit in, against a wider society that doesn’t work in the same way – it’s often seen as a ‘modern’ problem that either didn’t exist in the past or where neurodivergent people just wouldn’t have been able to survive without modern allowances. I’ve been fascinated by the suggestion that various neurodivergent traits might have been enormously useful to a community – someone who thinks differently, or who can hyperfocus on a task (making stone tools is one I’ve seen mooted), say.

How did you decide on the ethics of the various animal societies in your bestiary?

As with most of the elements of their cultures, the ideas arose organically from prior decisions I’d made, and from the research. In the cases of spiders and octopuses, this was particularly because I was dealing with inherently solitary animals becomes a society, which is going to require a lot of accommodation and compromise over time. This comes out in the sexual politics of the spiders, which are still quite brutal even when they have a very complex society, and by the fact that the octopuses are very standoffish with each other even when they’re gadding about in spaceships, delegating the mundane inter-individual interactions to their capable subconscious cognitive elements.

The octopi language in Children of Ruin delighted me, even more than the spider language in Children of Time. How did you devise fictional linguistics based from actual animal communication?

The octopus cognition almost broke me, honestly. And communication is a huge part of that. It’s by far the most alien mental model I’ve ever attempted (and that includes the slime mould-style intellect from Nod). But like everything else, you start with what is and extrapolate, and try to find a system that makes sense, and fits the evidence, and leaves room for fun narrative.

The trilogy is an ode to communication, hybridation and progress. But apart the Nod entity and the machine in Children of Memory, all that humanity ever encounters is sentient life they already knew on Earth, albeit in an augmented state. Even the alien machine found in Children of Memory takes the form of a wolf. Why were animals the best characters to question humanity?

I mean, the next book in the series might have blaster-wielding bug-eyed monsters, who knows? Nod is a world with a full non-Earth ecosystem, as well as the entity itself, so I’ve certainly opened the door to spontaneously arising alien life in that universe, as well as terraformed Earth-derived worlds. Animals (and especially the animals most people don’t like) have always been an enormous part of my world, though. I grew up on nature documentaries, David Attenborough was my hero. Animals are just inherently interesting. And especially so once you start diving into the complexity of their behaviour, which always turns out to be so much more intricate than you’d think, even with relatively simple creatures.

Many thanks to Adrian Tchaikovsky for his time and his answers!

If you've enjoyed Children of Memory, you might also enjoy

Darcie Little Badger, Elatsoe, Levine Querido, 2020.

Elatsoe is a YA fantasy novel I enjoyed tremendously thanks to great characters, a wonderful worldbuilding and magic system, and meaty themes.

Ellie is a normal American teenager, except for one thing: she can raise ghosts. The gift comes from her family who is Lipan Apache. So when her older cousin dies brutally, he contacts her to reveal he's been murdered. Travelling with her mother and father to visit his widow and their baby, Ellie finds herself in a strange town where nothing is as it seems. Thankfully, she can count on her ghost dog and her friends to find the truth.

Ellie is a wonderful character. She's a sunny young woman, but also determined and brave. Although there are some instances of "I'll do what my parents said I shouldn't do", there's none of the angst you could expect from YA novels. On the contrary, Ellie finds her strength in her family and in their traditions. Her friend is also another source of strength, and I particularly appreciated that very early on, Ellie identified as ace and there was no romance plot in sight. It makes their friendship shine instead and there's a lot of joy in seeing them both playing sleuths.
My favourite character though has to be Kirby, the ghost dog, who was a very good boy throughout.
Ellie's family is another high point. Although her father is mostly in the background, Ellie's relationship with her mother is very much to the forefront. The mother is portrayed as a competent woman, the kind you could see Ellie becoming, and she's also the repository of the family's stories that are nestled throughout the novel.

Darcie Little Badger balances exquisitely the cute aspects (that'll be mostly the dogs for me, sorry but they're all good boys!) and meatier themes. She addresses unflinchingly the colonialism and racism and they're both a major plot point.
Little Badger also creates a fascinating world. Magic is real and recognised. A vampire can get married with a human, there are fairy rings in all majoy cities for transportation of people the fairies feel kinship with, and evidence obtained by magic can be presented in court. It offers a lot in terms of plot, with a white vampire being defeated because Ellie's mother claims the land she stands on as home, or Ellie's friend being able to go back and forth easily.

Since it's YA, the prose reads easily, but some passages are extremely poetic thanks to a wonderful use of imagery. I've been very impressed by the onirism of the scene when Ellie finds herself in the ocean. Little Badger plunges the reader with Ellie and you share her awe at seeing it alive.
The novel is also wonderfully illustrated, although my ereader failed at making the most of those illustrations. The artist, Rovina Cai, apparently outdid herself in the hardcover edition.

Despite not being at a time of my life when I usually enjoy YA novels, Elatsoe won me over. It's a wonderful story, full of hope and magic, with a main character who is endearing and a great role model for any teenager who would read it.

If you've liked Elatsoe, you might also enjoy

Eloghosa Osunde, Vagabonds!, Fourth Estate, 2022.
Audiobook available.

Vagabonds! is a remarkable magical realism story - or rather multiple stories of life in Lagos, and particularly stories of LGBTQIA+ persons and women.

CWs: "Night Wind", child abuse.  "After God, Fear Women", domestic abuse. "There is Love at Home", graphic BDSM (consensual). Also, violence against LGBTQIA+ people scattered throughout (mostly references).

Vagabonds! presents a colection of what seems to be loosely connected short stories. Connected because they're all taking place in Lagos, presented from the first chapter as a god with its yoruba name, Èkó. Connected also because as you progress in the book, you realise many characters have a connection with each other and that Wura Blackson is a central character among them because of the impact she's had on people's lives. Connected finally because everything leads to a finale where everyone we've met will join together. Tatafo, a being serving Èkó provides intermissions, commenting on the city, the way it treats its inhabitants, and its relationship with the sea.

The structure of the novel might make it a challenging read because the overarching narrative isn't immediately visible and you spend little time with some characters. Nonetheless, some of the chapters are an absolute delight to read.
Among my favourites are "After God, Fear Women", in which women disappear from their abusive homes, because fleeing can be empowerment; "Rain", in which we meet Wura Blackson as she's about to die; "Overheard: Fairygodgirls" in which fairies strive to find the best book for each woman and girl who needs to escape or find empowerment, or simply the will to resist and find her own path. This last one in particular left me grinning, a perfect read for any bookworm or librarian.
Even though some of the chapters are very dark, there's also a lot of joy (including LGBTQIA+ joy) and hope in them.
Osunde doesn't hide her bias: Vagabonds! asserts loudly the existence and the right to live, love and be happy of LGBTQIA+ people and women in Nigeria. A feminist and pro-LGBTQIA+ book, it uses fiction to describe their reality in contemporary Nigeria, and fights against the 2015 law that criminalises homosexuality in Nigeria.

Of course, in such a novel, the city itself is a character. We see Èkó through Tatafo's eyes, but we also visit Lagos, from the private estates to the market, through all the people who live in it, in particular those that the city doesn't want in.
Wura Blackson was among them all the character who struck me the most. Her own story makes her shine, but we also see her through her friends and relatives' eyes after her death. She embodies the importance you can have in the world, simply by being yourself, even if you're a reclusive person, or by creating works that move people.

Osunde's prose is an absolute delight to read, moving from Nigerian pidgin to PE, some sentences full of cheek and joy, others pregnant with grief and pain. She weaves in and out of different rhythms, suiting her prose to the story and its theme, until the irresistible cadence of the last chapter.

Vagabonds! is another superb example of Nigerian fantasy/magical realism. It asserts with strength and joy the existence of those who are brutally treated and opens a window towards hope.

If you've liked Vagabonds!, you might also enjoy