One of the joys of reading science fiction and fantasy is discovering a made-up world that feels so rich and well-imagined, you want to stay there forever. An immersive setting needs more than cool scenery: It has to include a well-thought-out history, rules for how things work and a strong sense of place. If any of those things fail, you’re out of luck.
So it’s delightful to encounter four new books that take place in fictional worlds that are downright irresistible.
Case in point: “Ink Blood Sister Scribe” by Emma Törzs weaves an intricate mythos around a simple idea: spell books written in human blood. Two sisters, Joanna and Esther, have been separated for 10 years by a mysterious threat, and meanwhile the sensitive Nicholas has been bleeding himself to write more magic books for his uncle. Before you know it, there are mirror-portals, vampire volumes, feuding libraries and a whole secret world concealed inside our own, built around complicated family legacies.
“Ink Blood Sister Scribe” keeps the surprises and twists coming, revealing more hidden layers (though at times, the backstory starts to feel more urgent than the main plot). Through it all, Törzs stays grounded in her characters’ emotional lives, including their tangled family relationships but also their love for the books in their care. By the end you’ll gladly follow these people anywhere.
If you’re craving something more bizarre, “The Archive Undying” by Emma Mieko Candon will drop you headfirst into a dazzling kaleidoscope of weirdness. In Candon’s world, AI gods used to rule cities, but now they’ve become “corrupted,” leaving behind giant killer robots (or mechas) and a few human survivors with special powers (called “relics”).
Advertisement
You might have to read “The Archive Undying” twice to make sense of the often bewildering plot, but the damaged, tender characters will make it worth your while. Chief among them is Sunai, a chaotic empath who sleeps with random men, ignores warnings and can never resist opening his heart to people who’ve already hurt him. (We really need more reckless empaths in our adventure fiction.) Candon laces the whole thing with lovely prose like: “Both their brains are riddled with scars earned by enduring the faithless whim of the universe, hopped up on their ill-advised impulse to survive.”
Young women disguising themselves as men to survive a patriarchal world is an age-old trope from antiquity through Shakespeare and into the present. It’s natural to wonder: Are these characters transgender or merely doing what it takes to survive? Two recent works treat this ambiguity in rich, thought-provoking ways, while also crafting magical reflections of real-life history.
In “She Who Became the Sun” by Shelley Parker-Chan, Zhu Yuanzhang stole her dead brother’s identity and rose to become the Radiant King in a world based on Yuan dynasty China. The second half of the duology, “He Who Drowned the World,” is even better than the first, pitting Zhu against a host of other characters who also chafe against patriarchal gender roles, including the eunuch Ouyang and Wang Baoxiang, an effeminate man. Zhu’s relationship to her gender identity grows more complex the second time around, complicating her feelings about leadership.
The true magic of this duology lies in how Parker-Chan injects sweetness into what could be a standard grim-and-bloody story of throne-chasing. These novels beautifully capture the feedback loop wherein queer-coded characters are reviled, which drives them to unbearable viciousness, which in turn fills them with self-loathing. Parker-Chan’s characters struggle to break this cycle, and the nuance with which they’re portrayed makes us root for them. In the end, Parker-Chan seems to suggest, power belongs not to the most ruthless but to those who are most successful at self-forgiveness.
In “Relentless Melt” by Jeremy P. Bushnell, Artie Quick works as a salesgirl at Filene’s department store in 1909 Boston, but by night, Artie wears men’s clothing and studies to become a detective. With the help of the patrician Theodore, Artie uncovers a supernatural mystery involving kidnapped girls and a tree that doubled in size overnight. Artie and Theodore make a delightful pair, and it quickly becomes apparent that Artie’s male clothing is no mere costume.
Advertisement
A lot of the fun of “Relentless Melt” comes from watching the clever-but-naive Artie discover the ugly reality of detective work and the corruption of Boston’s establishment. As in “Ink Blood Sister Scribe,” a simple conceit gives rise to an ornate picture, full of conspiracies and dense lore. “Relentless Melt” passes the ultimate test of world-creation: The more you learn, the more you still want to discover.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZK%2Bwu8qsZmtoYmh8cYKOaW9orJ%2Bnx7R5wpqlnaeeYr2ivsqeqWabmJa7bq7UrJ%2BnnZyhfA%3D%3D