Book Clubs

January 10 – The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

The multiverse is real. From Earth Zero, there are people trained by the Eldridge Institute as traversers: people who can safely go to the other 379 Earths and gather data to help influence the economic security of their home. “Safely” means they do not have living doppelgangers on the other Earths, which means the least privileged can go. This includes Cara, who grew up in the Wastes in Ashtown, and is now on her way to citizenship in the affluent Wiley City. She doesn’t fit in either place. When Cara is sent to a world where her counterpart has died under mysterious circumstances, she finds a new realm that contains a secret—one that will have force her to make choices that will not only reveal some of her own past and determine her future security, but will also affect the multiverse. VERDICT This exciting debut is intelligently built, with clever characters, surprise twists, plenty of action, subtly detailed worlds, and a plot that highlights social and racial inequities in astute prose.

February 14 – Circe by Madeline Miller

Having reinterpreted Homer’s Iliad in her Orange Prize-winning The Song of Achilles, Miller now turns her attention to the Odyssey from the perspective of Circe , the sorceress who changed Odysseus’s men into swine. The daughter of the sun god Helios and the nymph Perse, Circe  is despised by her parents and siblings for her less-than-divine abilities. Seeking comfort in human companionship, she discovers her own special powers of witchcraft when she turns Glaucus, the mortal man she loves, into a sea god. But Circe ‘s tranformation of Scylla, her rival for Glaucos’s affections, into a monster, leads to her banishment to the deserted island of Aiaia. Over the centuries, she hones her magical skills while encountering some of the most famous figures in classical mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus, Medea, and, of course, the crafty Odysseus. Along the way, Circe  evolves into the powerful witch feared by the Olympian gods. But after a lifetime of lonely immortality, is this enough for Circe ? Her final act of transformation will move and surprise readers. VERDICT This beautifully written and absorbing tale of gods and mortals will delight Miller’s many fans and have them reaching for Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.

March 14 – Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission–and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.

April 11 – The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin

People feel the moods of the cities they live in. Sometimes the cities themselves become living things, connected to all the lives within their limits. New York City has been born, but there is an otherworldly and dark force determined to destroy those connections and overlay itself. It will take the soul of the city to deal with the enemy. Of course it isn’t so simple: New York is six souls: the five boroughs and the whole, and getting them to work together will be challenging. The pains of gentrification, bias, and hatred for anyone “other” is starting to take root, spread by the power that wants to take over. Can these distinct souls find a way to come together before the enemy takes hold, or will the city bend to a power literally out of this world? VERDICT Jemisin (The Broken Earth) writes a harsh love story to one of America’s most famous places. As raw and vibrant as the city itself, the prose pushes the boundaries of fantasy and brings home what residents already know—their city is alive.

May 9 – A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen

It’s been six years since the MGS pandemic took out much of the world’s population. In America, urban areas are rebuilding their culture, but governmental rules have tightened around stabilizing the future of family units, with strong oversight and intervention by the Family Stability Board. In San Francisco, former teen pop star Moira has been building a new life and identity, until her father decides to use the media to find her. Event planner Krista throws herself into helping those who were traumatized to move on with life, whether they want to or not, and avoiding the losses within her own family. Rob raises his young daughter, Sunny, after losing his wife to the pandemic, and tries to keep them a solid, under the radar, family unit. However, when the Family Stability Board threatens to separate Rob and Sunny, he must find ways to connect with other people, crossing paths with Krista and Moira and forcing them all to confront their family issues as a new outbreak threatens to take away everything. VERDICT Sometimes it is not the violent battles of post-apocalyptic stories that pull readers in; it is the emotional connection of humanity finding their way. Chen’s (Here and Now and Then) prose lights a brilliant, fragile path through the darkness.

June 13 – Wendy, Darling by A. C. Wise

For those who lived in Neverland, it was a magical place where children’s games and adventures went on forever. The Darling children left Neverland to return to London, but Wendy Darling never let go of the place. Throughout an adulthood of doctors and sanitariums, marriage and motherhood, Wendy has stood firm in her belief of Neverland and the boy who lost his shadow, who wanted a mother to love him. Darkness lies at the heart of Neverland and Wendy’s memories of it. Now Peter Pan is looking for a new Wendy—and he does not want a grown-up—so he returns to the Darling nursery, where Wendy’s daughter Jane now sleeps. Writing from both Wendy’s and Jane’s perspectives, Wise depicts a brutal reality underlying the world created by J. M. Barrie. Against this harsh backdrop are stories of found families, love beyond romance, and the will to survive. VERDICT Feminist twists and creeping dread abound in this intriguing retelling of Peter Pan.

July 11 – Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares.

August 8 – The Complete Stories, Volume 1 by Isaac Asmiov

Originally published in various magazines, this volume includes some of Asimov’s self-described personal favorite short stories, including “Franchise” and “The Last Question.” It also includes “Nightfall,” a story about a planet that only experiences night once every 2,049 years, which the Science Fiction Writers of America has voted as the best science fiction story ever written. The many fans of Isaac Asimov’s work won’t want to miss this wonderful collection of short fiction from the sci fi master.

September 12 – The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang

As a war orphan from Rooster Province, Rin’s future looks grim. Her guardians are already planning to marry her off, so why not work to pass the Keju, the Empire’s test to discover the smartest, most talented youth to study at the Academies? Rin shocks everyone by acing the exam, but her success is not necessarily for the better, as she is targeted by classmates who look down on her as a dark-skinned peasant girl. Yet it is under this duress that Rin discovers she has a gift for shamanism. It takes an unbalanced teacher and hallucinogenic substances to help her control her powers and prove the gods are still alive, and her talent comes at a cost; when one is chosen by the gods, one becomes subject to their whims. With war looming, Rin must rely on her shamanic abilities to save herself and her people. VERDICT Drawing on the bloody history of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), debuter Kuang balances strong, graphic details of violent warfare and its effects with a young woman’s struggle to succeed and her desire for vengeance in this strikingly grim military fantasy that summons readers into an East Asian-inspired world of battles, opium, gods, and monsters.

October 10 (off site due to Columbus Day) – Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.

But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind’s worst nightmare.

Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

November 14 – The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove

Ancient Egyptian gods have defeated other gods (including Jehovah, Allah, Odin and Zeus), and now specific dieties control various earthly power blocs in Lovegrove’s thought-provoking futuristic adventure. The gods gain strength from their followers’ worship, so each nation lives according to its god’s demands, up to and including warring with other countries. When British Lt. David Westwynter leads his paratroopers into a desert reconnaissance mission, arming them with god-powered light weapons, medieval flails and ancient maces, they encounter mummies and annihilating duel-cell fusion bombs. In Freegypt, the only country not controlled by religion and a specific deity, David meets the enigmatic masked Lightbringer, who challenges the gods for control of the earth. Lovegrove (Provender Gleed ) deftly weaves social commentary on religion, family, love and war into the contest between theocracy and humanism.

December 12 – Swords and Deviltry (first in the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series – swords and sorcery) by Fritz Leiber

First in the influential fan-favorite series, Swords and Deviltry collects four fantastical adventure stories from Fritz Leiber, the author who coined the phrase “sword and sorcery” and helped birth an entire genre.

In “Induction,” in the realm of Nehwon, fate brings young prince Fafhrd and apprentice magician the Gray Mouser together to mark the beginning of a loyal and lifelong friendship. Consumed by his wicked mother’s enchantments, Fafhrd finds freedom by pursuing the love of a beautiful actress in the Nebula and Hugo Award–nominated “The Snow Women.” Studying sorcery under a great wizard in a land where it is forbidden, Mouse crosses the thin line between white and black magic to avenge a great wrong in “The Unholy Grail.” And in the Nebula and Hugo Award–winning novella “Ill Met in Lankhmar,” Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser disguise themselves as beggars to infiltrate the Thieves’ Guild—only to pay a horrible price for their greed when they come face-to-face with a monstrous evil.