Nine voices weave a complex tapestry of horror and hope in an all-too-believable dystopian future. All the different narrators are somewhat confusing at first. However, they soon hit their stride and become an unparalleled cast. By 2140, sea levels have risen 50 feet. New York is still a vibrant city with horribly uneven income distribution, and all the angst that goes with it. The wonderful narrator Robert Blumenfeld often introduces whatever main character is featured at the time. This works beautifully to tie together the many characters and the voices that portray them. All the voices are distinctive and compelling—from the parentless urchins to the tough female cop and a dozen others. M.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2018 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
There are plenty of great long-running series in the science fiction and fantasy section, but it can be tough to walk in on the middle of a story. With that in mind, here are some great, recent SFF novels—each is either a completely standalone read, the very beginning of a series, or a story that […]
It’s a science fiction tradition so reliable, you can all but set your watch by it: another year, another Kim Stanley Robinson novel that uses a theoretical future as a mirror to examine the nature of humanity today. Just as New York 2140 made it clear we ignore climate change at our peril, and Aurora […]
N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy is about the end of history. At the 2018 Hugo Awards, presented last night at WorldCon 76 in San Jose, California, she made history. “I am on this stage accepting this award for pretty much the same reason as every previous Hugo winner,” Jemisin said. “Because I worked my ass […]
In his science fantasy novel Blackfish City , Sam J. Miller posits that “all cities are science experiments.” As experiments go, the climate change-afflicted floating city at the center of Miller’s novel—the arctic burg of Qaanaaq—looks quite a bit different than the drowned Manhattan of Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140. Though released within a […]
The earth is in a constant state of change. Sometimes this change is gradual. Sometimes, it is sudden. Sometimes, it is catastrophic. And at least half the time, that change is man-made. In science fiction, these changes can be shifted, distorted, and taken to their logical extreme, creating terrifying natural disasters that serve as alarm […]