A new science fiction novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky is out this month
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March is lining up to be packed with treats for science fiction fans. For starters, we get to return to the universe of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series, this time in the company of a huge mantis shrimp. We’re also being offered a take on Moby-Dick, set in space, and what sounds like a must-read: a forgotten speculative novel from 1936, which imagines the last woman left alive in Britain after a pandemic. If instead you’re after a cosy sci-fi mystery, a slice of horror or a mission to Europa, then you’re in luck, because all of those are on offer too.
The latest in Tchaikovsky’s excellent Children of Time series is due to hit our shelves this month, and according to our sci-fi reviewer Emily H. Wilson, it is brilliant. The premise is that centuries earlier, a terraforming team ended up creating something terrible on a distant planet. Now, scientist Alis and human-sized mantis shrimp Cato must venture onto the planet to discover what has happened to their missing fellow crew members.
What an endeavour – this is a speculative retelling of none other than Herman Melville’s doorstopper, Moby-Dick. In this version of the white whale tale, Earth is dead and humanity lives on deadly planets under domes that need to be fuelled by (wait for it) “cerebrospinal fluid, harvested at great risk from gargantuan space monsters”. Our protagonist is hunting, of course, “the greatest leviathan of all”.
The white whale breaches in the 1956 film adaptation of Moby-Dick
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First published in 1936, this speculative novel imagines Britain in 1985, when only one woman is left alive following a pandemic caused by a poisonous gas. It’s introduced by TV presenter Graham Norton, and sounds like a fascinating addition to the classics of 20th-century science fiction.
Ober is one of the writers of the Netflix series The OA. Here, he tells the story of The Sinker, whose home was destroyed by a floating machine known as The Construct when she was a child. She survived by fleeing into the seemingly infinite nothingness of the void – but half a lifetime later, she learns that The Construct is nearing her again, and sets out to end its tyranny. Ober’s vision of the void sounds pretty compelling: it’s filled with floating, vertically stacked rocks, some of which are magnets, some of which “burn with eternal flame”, and some of which “defy physical laws”.
The director of Interview with the Vampire and The Company of Wolves turns to science fiction with this story set in 2084, in which librarian Christian Cartwright spends his days archiving the world’s most painful memories. But when his lover Isolde dies in a car crash, he resurrects her, secretly, as a digital consciousness – and discovers a conspiracy with a long history.
The publisher says this is perfect for fans of Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, an excellent book, so I have high hopes for what sounds like a blend of horror and sci-fi. It’s set in 1899, when scientific illustrator Sonia Wilson is offered a job illustrating the vast collection of insects owned by the reclusive Dr Halder. In the North Carolina woods, however, she discovers that Halder has been embarking on some monstrous entomological studies into parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh…
Jupiter’s icy moon Europa features in Cecile Pin’s new novel
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I loved Cecile Pin’s first novel, Wandering Souls, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her second, in which she venturs into science fiction, sounds great too: it tells the story of Ollie, born as the Challenger shuttle falls from the sky in 1986, who grows up to become a renowned astronaut and embarks on a 10-year mission to Europa. But what will be waiting for him when he returns?
Ava by Victoria Dillon
This “blend of speculative fiction and social commentary” is set in a world where a groundbreaking technology has enabled gestation to be replaced with incubation, so women have “true control over their reproduction”. Larkin has her second daughter in this way, but as Ava grows up she begins to question the choice that created her.
Mystery stalks the corridors of an interstellar spaceship in Olivia Waite’s latest novel
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This is the second in what’s being described as a cosy sci-fi mystery series, a concept I love the sound of. It’s set on the interstellar cruise ship HMS Fairweather, and sees ship’s detective Dorothy Gentleman investigating when a baby is mysteriously left on her nephew’s doorstep. That’s surprising enough – but fertility is supposed to be on pause while the ship cruises through the stars.
And finally, because it’s not science fiction but may be of interest to us sci-fi fans: this sees Walton and Palmer examining modern science fiction and fantasy writing – the nature of the genre, how it’s written and how it’s read… great!
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