The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup
Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang (Del Rey, £18.99)
This powerful and engaging novel by a formerly self-published author (The Sword of Kaigen) bears comparison to groundbreaking works by Ursula K Le Guin: it features a fascinating magical system and explores social and moral issues affecting the real world. After years of hard work, Sciona achieves her goal, becoming the first woman admitted as a highmage at the University of Magics and Industry, but she’s shunned and mocked by her male colleagues. Instead of a qualified lab assistant, she must make do with Tommy the janitor, a refugee from the barren lands beyond the city walls. But as the two outsiders learn to work together, they discover a dark secret at the heart of the magic powering the city, and must make a dangerous, life-changing decision. For me, the best fantasy novel of the year.
Jackal by Erin E Adams (Dead Ink, £10.99)
In this outstanding horror debut from a Haitian American author, Liz has reluctantly returned to her home town for her best friend’s wedding. During the celebration, the couple’s small daughter disappears into the woods. Searching for her, Liz remembers the awful event that has left her with a terror of this place: Keisha, the only other Black student at her school, disappeared, her mutilated body later found with the heart missing. Her death was ruled an accident, the injuries caused postmortem by animals. But many other Black girls have met the same fate, before and after Keisha’s death; entrenched racism has allowed a predator to get away with terrible crimes for decades. Liz faces up to the evil in a thrilling, addictive tale that adds elements of the supernatural to very real human horrors.
The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis (Gollancz, £18.99)
Francie has come to New Mexico to be her former college roommate’s maid of honour, secretly hoping she’ll manage to talk her out of marrying a UFO nut. But on the way she’s kidnapped by a writhing heap of tentacles, and forced to drive it around: her attempts to escape are foiled, and others are roped in too. Fear quickly changes to sympathy for the little lost alien’s plight, as the captives struggle to communicate with it and work out what it needs. Taking in conspiracy theories, UFO sightings and classic westerns, this lighthearted first-contact road trip has much to enjoy.
Curdle Creek by Yvonne Battle-Felton (Dialogue, £20)
Like the author’s first novel, Remembered, this gothic tale weighs the lasting impact of slavery in America, here as the origin story of the isolated all-Black town of Curdle Creek. A century has passed since the town was founded in 1865 as a place of safety for the formerly enslaved, and for the narrator, Osira, it feels more like a prison. The elderly ruling matriarchs cling to their power, controlling numbers – “one in, one out” – and insisting that only by obeying every law, and performing the annual rituals of Moving On, Warding Off and the Widows’ Race, can the community be kept safe. From the start, there are echoes of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, but readers who think they know where this is going will be surprised, as Osira’s story has many weirder twists and turns ahead.
The Incubations by Ramsey Campbell (Flame Tree, £20)
The latest from an icon of modern British horror imagines fear as an infectious disease, incubated in nightmare and spread by contact with others, an idea sharply relevant in our world of alternative truths and handled with customary allusive skill. Celebrating his 60th anniversary as a published writer, this special edition includes an afterword and a new short story. Matching volumes are devoted to short stories by HP Lovecraft (The Invocations) and MR James (The Damnations) – early influences on Campbell, and an excellent addition to any horror-lover’s library.
