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Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley 

A strange, quiet book, where the speculative elements are painted so lightly, you won’t realise you’re reading sci fi until you’ve been sucked into a story about love, family and community in a forgotten West Country village.

Jem runs a small rural Inn, serving brew to a smattering of locals alongside her immigrant partner, Isely; a love affair that seems both intensely intimate and frustratingly unconsummated. The community where they live, forms part of The Protectorate, a partitioned area of the UK that separated itself from the outside world in protest over the invasion of Qita, Isley’s home planet. The battle for Qita ended before it begun, won by humanity without a shot fired, a fact explained away by the pacifist nature of Qita’s people.

Jem lives a carefully compact existence; innkeeper, resentful sister to the local councillor, and estranged mother to a wayward son, until outsiders arrive to penetrate the studied calm.

The guide laughed at him. ‘Somebody told me that [Where to babies come from?] was the most difficult question you can human. Is that true? I heard you squeeze them out of yourselves, and cut them free. They do not decide to come free themselves!’

The book holds its cards close to its chest and although I was sucked in from the beginning, it wasn’t until the final quarter that I really sat up and realised I was reading something important. Expertly woven into a story about intimacy and independence, selfhood and community, are deeper questions about how and why we reach for each other, and what we might be prepared to sacrifice not to feel alone.

The novel was a finalist for the 2021 BSFA Award for Best Novel and Arthur C. Clarke Award, as well as being named one of the five best science fiction novels of the year by the Financial Times. It has been monikered a ‘modern classic’, something which gets bandied around a lot, but that I think in this case is valid. This book is grappling with something timeless and vital, and doing it in a perfectly paced and plotted story that I believe will hold out against the test of time.

If you’ve read Skyward Inn, let me know what you thought in the comments, and as always, don’t forget to sign up for future blog updates. 

Buy on kindle £5.99 

Paperback from Awesome Books £6.05

Follow the author @AliyaWhiteley

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Speculative Reader’s Best of 2022

I read lots of great books this year, but have whittled it down to my favourite five. If you have any recommendations for books I should read in 2023, I’d love to hear them, so please drop me a note in the comments, and as always, don’t forget to sign up for future blog updates. 

My top five reads from 2022, in no particular order…

 

Best space opera: A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine 

Overflowing with wonderful characters, a charming love story, elegantly rendered intergalactic politics and some fascinating philosophical questions to boot, this is an exciting, glorious book and you should read it.



 

 

Best sci-fi:  This Is How You Lose The Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

I can’t stop recommending this to everyone who’ll listen. A heart-wrenching story of love, friendship, and solidarity, staged against an ideological cold war for the fate of the universe. I doubt you’ve read anything like it before and you should absolutely read it now.



Best historical fantasy: She Became The Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan

An epic story of human will, set in 1300’s China. The heroine is irresistible, the world achingly real and the story of a peasant monk’s mission to rewrite their own fate is and change the world is utterly captivating, you won’t be able to put it down.


 

 

Best speculative detective: The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton

If you’re a sucker for a classic whodunnit and you’re down for some speculative genre-bending, you will absolutely adore this book. Everyone I know who’s read it has raved about it, so if you’re looking for something gripping and eminently readable, get ready to be charmed.



Best novella: Agua Viva, by Clarice Lispector

An absolute flying gut punch of a book. To say it’s a novella is slightly misleading, but I don’t know what else to call it. It’s an immersive experience in which you enter the current of another’s mind; a mind painfully astute, exquisitely poetic, and utterly consuming. Brace yourself, breathe deep and dive in.



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The long way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers

This debut novel, originally self-published via a kickstarter campaign, has since become a critically acclaimed series, totalling four novels and a short story.

Unusual in its tone and pacing, the story follows the multi-species crew of The Wayfarer, a  tunnelling ship, contracted to build wormholes in space. Books in this genre usually focus on intergalactic politics, space exploration and battles, but this one centres itself on the day to day lives of its characters. It is a small and wholesome story, refreshingly cheerful—more a feel-good soap opera that happens to be set in space, than a traditional space opera.

“All you can do, Rosemary – all any of us can do – is work to be something positive instead. That is a choice that every sapient must make every day of their life. The universe is what we make of it. It’s up to you to decide what part you will play.”

The book meanders through a series of planetary stops and chance meetings which are designed to develop the characters and the world, rather than to push the plot forward. Key moments of tension simply happen, and then pass by, the repercussions reassuringly small scale, as the crew (and therefore the reader) get to know each other and their world a little better.

There are some lovely depictions of friendship and acceptance, and the alien species, with their physiognomical and cultural differences, are well conceived and crafted. The author makes full use of the opportunities she creates to muse on our earthly history and customs, with everything from nuclear families, war, property and gender, coming gently and generously under the microscope.

This is a great, easy read, with lovingly painted characters and plenty of heart, and as a bonus, if you like it, there’s four more to get stuck into.

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Buy on kindle £4.99 

Paperback from Awesome Books £4.59 

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Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer

This is a massive, multiverse-traveling, post-human piece of apocalyptic fiction, the likes of which—I’ll wager—you have never seen before. The book is extremely experimental, packed with ideas and risk, and VanderMeer’s prose is an experience all in itself; succulent and mellifluous.

“Woken from a dream of blossoms into a swaying disintegration. For that was what bodies wanted: To come to rest. To know no more.” Dead Astronauts

We start out as three almost-human/all-too-human warriors, fighting to save an earth which has been made uninhabitable by the machinations of The Company and its puppet; the mad, tortured scientist, Charlie X. The warriors cannot be sure if the dark bird and the blue Fox are fighting with, or against them, but they are in love—with each other and the world—and they will throw everything they have at this last-ditch attempt at survival.

Then you are Sarah, a homeless woman, camping under a bridge, building a relationship with a salamander. You are behemoth, a gargantuan mud fish; you are the dark bird, you are the blue fox. Everything is fractured, infiltrated, genetically modified and collapsing, until at times the narrative itself falls apart, the death throes of consciousness and ego, descending into free form poetry and on occasion, just numbers.

Like I said, it’s VERY experimental. The prequel, Borne, was wonderful and brave but let itself down with a disappointingly trite ending. If Dead Astronauts was VanderMeer’s effort to fix that, it certainly didn’t fall short on originality, but in the end, lacked heart. The book ends up feeling cold, missing the warmth that made Borne so special. The problem with a human trying to write post-human sci-fi, is the trap of generating distance from your own species by revelling in its degeneration. Ultimately this falls flat. Not only is it depressing, it is all too navel-gazingly human.

There is no arguing with the fact that this is an important work, full of necessary questions and ideas, but unfortunately, it’s not a great story. Read it for the prose, read it for the discombobulation, but read Borne first, and if you make it to Dead Astronauts afterwards, let me know what you think. 

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Buy on kindle £5.49 

Paperback from WOB £5.49 

Follow the author on twitter @jeffvandermeer

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The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird 

There have been many pandemic books written since COVID, and this is one of them. Drawing on the themes of terror, political incompetence and social collapse, End of Men does something a little different with this device, using it to poke around in some ’what-ifs’ of current gender politics.

The concept is simple, a new deadly disease appears out of nowhere and rampages through the population, but it only affects men. Women can carry the disease, but only men die, and die they do in droves. The story is told from the perspectives of different women; politicians, medical professionals, researchers, journalists, daughters, mothers and wives, and it isn’t afraid to get it hands dirty with some pretty sharp-toothed social commentary.

“I have never felt so powerful. This must be what men used to feel like. My mere physical presence is enough to terrify someone into running.”

With the recent experiences of COVID still fresh in our minds, the stories cut close to the bone, giving heart-breaking accounts of loss and the terrifying inertia of being trapped indoors not knowing when, or if, it will ever be over. There are some compelling characters including ‘good’ men and ‘bad’ women to give balance, and for the most part, things tick along as you might expect them to. The book’s pace is solid and the world is extremely convincing, but there’s not much to surprise or many new insights to be gleaned, either about the role of women in society, or our handling of major health catastrophes.

All in all, a decent read, but nothing to get overly excited about. If you’re curious about the premise, it’s worth a look, and if you’re nostalgic for the gut-gripping terror that you might lose all your loved ones while trapped alone in quarantine, you’re in for a treat.

If you’ve read it, let me know what you thought in the comments, and as always, don’t forget to sign up for future blog updates. 

Buy on kindle £5.49 

Paperback from World of books £4.79

Follow the author on twitter @ChristinaRoseSB

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A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine 

If you haven’t read, A Memory Called Empire, I strongly suggest you put it at the top of your reading list and line A Desolation Called Peace up next.

An ambassador from a small mining station is trying to avoid becoming political lunchmeat, when her handler—and one-time lover—from the heart of the Empire, arrives stowed away on a goods transport and demands her help. The mission is to make first contact with a vicious and incomprehensible alien civilisation, which is currently eating ships and wiping out whole planets on their doorstep.

Arkady Martine (pen name of academic and author, Anna Linden Weller), is one of the new queens of the space opera, and if you’re at all attracted by the idea of political intrigue played out over giant intergalactic empires, you will love this book. If you’re not, I’d seriously recommend putting any prejudices aside and giving it a go.

“It is the minds of a people that have to stay free. Bodies die, or suffer, or are imprisoned. Memory lasts.” A Desolation Called Peace

I don’t like space ship sci-fi that puts the ‘sci’ before the ‘fi’, but this is a few hundred light years from that (sorry, no more space travel puns, I promise). Every single character in this vast, ambitious story, is delicious. They are fleshy and real and so seductive that you can’t wait to leave one to get back to another, but then are just as hungry to return. The themes of language and memory and ultimately what it means to be ‘a person’, are handled with sophistication, and the civilisation at the heart of the story is crafted with a loving attention to detail that is frankly intimidating.

This is a master storyteller at work, and the skill with which she draws together layer upon layer of complex narrative for the big finale, is orchestrated with the studied flair of a symphony conductor. The book will demand your time and attention, but it more than repays the effort. If you’ve already read it, let me know what you thought in the comments. If you haven’t, I’m jealous! You’ve a treat in store.

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Buy on kindle £4.99 

Paperback from Waterstones £7.49

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Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

It’s halloween, and watching from an upper window, Jen sees her son kill a man. Her loving teenage boy barely looks at her, as tight-lipped and apparently indifferent, he is cuffed and taken away.

At some point later that evening, shell-shocked and devastated, Jen falls asleep, and when she wakes, it is the day before halloween and the murder hasn’t happened yet.

Yet another time travelling detective novel (there must be something in the water), but this one is a little different. Instead of travelling in loop, Jen can only fall backwards, further and further into her family’s past, until the secrets hidden there—the ones that will drive her son to murder—can be dragged into the light and untethered from the family’s fate.

She suddenly thinks of Kelly. The easy humour they’ve always had. But when has Kelly ever told her how he felt? If she observes him dispassionately, what might she see? Wrong Place, Wrong Time

This is a family drama with a splash of crime fiction, and a speculative element that works well with the story being told. It is a smartly executed mystery, with plenty of enticing twists and shocking reveals, and a refreshing lack of gory horror. If you’re in the market for an easy-to-read crime thriller that isn’t going to put you off your dinner, I’d say this one is a good bet.

If you’ve already read it, let me know what you think in the comments and as always, don’t forget to sign up for future blog updates.

Buy on kindle £7.99 

Paperback from World of Books £4.49

Follow the author on twitter @GillianMAuthor

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The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel

In a world were you can get limbs and organs replaced as easily as car parts, Kobo is addicted to his own transformation. Or he was, until his funds dried up. Now this one-time baseball star spends his days scouting talent, and avoiding a pair of inanely vindictive, but motivated, debt collectors. 

In a cyber punk New York, sports teams represent corporations, not cities, and Kobo’s adopted brother, JJ, is the star of the Monsato Mets, a bioengineering conglomerate. The brothers have drifted apart, but Kobo still watches all the Mets matches, and so sees the day a vacant-eyed JJ drops dead on the home plate.

Intent on finding out the truth behind his brother’s death, Kobo’s investigation takes him into unlikely company, and uncovers some uncomfortable truths about his idolised big brother, and the dark machinations of the companies they both work for.

“Venom was quick, capitalism killed you nice and slow. Then sent you a bill.” The Body Scout

Picked for Esquire’s Top 50 Sci-Fi Books of All Time, and winner of the New York Times Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novel of 2021, this is solid tech noir. The sci-fi elements are fun—neanderthal bodyguards, dinosaur hamburgers, living organ artworks—and the story slaloms along in satisfying hardboiled fashion. I found myself occasionally slowed down by the amount of background, but in general the pacing is good and it definitely kept me entertained to the very end. 

If you’re a fan of baseball, detective fiction and/or sci-fi, you’ll probably get a huge kick out of The Body Scout, and if you’re in the market for a genre-bending page turner, this is an excellent choice.

WANT A FREE BOOK? Drop me a comment below, and I’ll be in touch to send you your free paperback copy of this month’s book: The Body Scout, by Michel Lincoln.

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Paperback from Abe Books £11.16

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The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Winner of the 2019 Nebula, Locus and Hugo Awards, I had high hopes for this, the first in the Lady Astronaut Series. Honestly, I was disappointed. 

Overall I would say the set up is good and the world building is pretty solid: A comet hits 1950’s America and doesn’t wipe out life as we know it (for now), just the whole east coast. Leaving a humanitarian crisis in its wake, the comet also triggers a slow motion extinction event and a world which must now come together with a plan to colonise space. 

So far, so good and the story carries along OK, but all in all, it feels overly long and too schmalzy for my taste. The feminism is heavy handed, there’s not much character development, and the romantic elements quite honestly stray into gag-inducing (if I ever some across another bit of rocket/blast off innuendo I will punch someone).

I guess if you like airport literature and are intrigued by the idea of historical sci-fi, this might be your bag. It wasn’t mine and I won’t be continuing with the series.

Disagree? Let me know why in the comments and don’t forget to sign up for future blog updates.

Buy on kindle £5.99 

Paperback from Blackwells £7.77

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The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

This is a sophisticated book, long and meandering, which makes sense as it follows a character destined to live, die and be born again with his memory in tact, ad infinitum; a strange sort of immortality.

After his entirely ordinary first life (and death), it takes Harry August a couple more (believing himself mad, possessed or cursed), before he is found by others of his kind and initiated into The Cronus Club. This shadowy organisation exists to support and shelter its members (the Ouroboran), and defend the secret of its own existence. Other than rescuing Ouroboran children from their linear parents to save them from the boredom of endlessly repeating their childhoods, the club is mostly social in nature, though it does have one strict rule: No interfering with linear time. 

It is on his eleventh death bed, that Harry receives a message. A small girl bearing a warning passed back in time through future generations of Ouroboran that something is wrong. The end of the world is getting faster.

Already a little tired of immortality, Harry begins an investigation into the cause of this acceleration, a search which gets him entangled with a formidable nemesis, and leads to a ferocious battle of wits played out across multiple lives, while the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

“Men must be decent first and brilliant later, otherwise you’re not helping people, just servicing the machine.”

The premise is intriguing, and underneath the skilful world-building and juicy vignettes about life as a Ouroboran, the text is full of big questions about what it means to live well. On its release, it received widespread praise in the media and had since reached Bestseller status, extremely impressive for a book of this length and complexity. If you have the patience for it, it’s well-written, expertly crafted and rich which space for contemplation.

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Buy on kindle £4.99 

Paperback from World of Books £4.19

Follow the author on Twitter @ClaireNorth42

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