The end is nigh in this week’s science fiction: Mortedant’s Peril by R.J. Barker, We
Mortedant’s Peril is available now
Mortedant’s Peril by R.J. Barker (Tor £22, 432pp)
R.J. Barker’s books are brimful with wonderful words. Mortedants, spurriers and ventrans jostle for our attention; names like Niofa, Miriel, Holder Mrun – not to mention Irody Hasp our reluctant and acerbic hero – defy the spellcheck.
Unjustly accused of murder, Irody is given days to prove his innocence. This leads him on a quest through the multi-tiered city of Elbay, down to the dank depths of the citycore, upwards to its godly heights and all the while delving into conspiracies and secrets resistant to delvage. With plots and mysteries, unexpected friends and foes alike, strap in for a baroque romp of squalor and grandeur, horror and humour. Fabulous, frantic and moving.
We Burned So Bright is available now
We Burned so Bright by T.J. Klune (Tor £18.99, 176pp)
It would be no exaggeration to call this bold and unflinching book the ultimate road trip.
Before a black hole tears the world apart, elderly husband and husband Don and Rodney set off across America in a motorhome to make their peace. Their end-point is kept for a big – and heart-breaking – reveal but the beating heart of the story lies their chance encounters along the way.
They meet the mad, the bad, the sad and the fab all facing the end of the world, all revealing another facet of humanity and a bit more of Don and Rodney’s back story.
Terrible and beautiful, haunting and humane: a masterpiece in miniature.
Japanese Gothic is available now
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker (Hodder £22, 368pp)
East meets West in this blood-slicked, unsettling and immersive tale of a double haunting – past on present, present on past. We’re in an old Japanese Samurai house, where the low ceilings are meant to stop sword swings but in the end offer little protection to its inhabitants. One is brain-befuddled Lee – escaping from New York because he thinks he’s murdered his room-mate but can’t remember where, why or how.
The other is Sen, daughter of the last Samurai and determined to stop her family from being slaughtered.
Time is dissolved by Lee’s misery, dismembered by Sen’s katana, so each haunts the other until somehow release and resolution comes.