science fiction & fantasy

THE ESSENTIAL PETER S. BEAGLE, VOLUME I Lila the Werewolf and Other Stories

Beagle, Peter S.

Tachyon (352 pp.)

$28.95 | May 16, 2023

9781616963880

The first part of a two-volume retrospective from the author of The Last Unicorn (1968).

Volume 1, introduced by Jane Yolen, contains some of Beagle’s most classic stories, including “Come Lady Death,” in which a jaded British woman meets her match when she invites Death to her ball, and “Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros,” about a socially awkward academic’s relationship with a somewhat unusually presented and philosophically minded unicorn. “Lila the Werewolf” features the first appearance of Joe Farrell, the protagonist of Beagle’s novel The Folk of the Air (1986); fans of that book will be delighted to encounter Farrell in an additional story that takes place after the novel and features some interesting character growth on his part. The collection also contains the absolutely chilling “We Never Talk About My Brother,” the story of a news anchor with a secret and impossibly powerful control over the stories he reports, and the sweetly melancholy “Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel,” concerning a painter’s divinely compelling model. There are also whimsical works like “Gordon, the Self-Made Cat,” starring a mouse who refuses to accept that biology is destiny. Whether set in a fantastical landscape, the New York City of Beagle’s youth, or the invented northern California town of Avicenna, these are fables that explore how a brush with the uncanny can either change a life or simply spotlight what is already present. Magic is the lens through which the author shows us how fraught a mother-daughter relationship can be, how difficult it can be to let go of a dead friend or lover, and how a greater threat can unite two squabbling siblings. Delicate line drawings by artist Stephanie Law add a charming coda to each tale.

Brimming with magic, lyrical prose, and deeply felt emotion, this is, indeed, essential reading.

THE ESSENTIAL PETER S. BEAGLE, VOLUME II

Oakland Dragon Blues and Other Stories

Beagle, Peter S. Tachyon (352 pp.)

$28.95 | May 16, 2023

9781616963903

The second part of a two-volume retrospective from the acclaimed fantasist. This installment, introduced by SF and horror writer Meg Elison, draws more directly from Beagle’s past, featuring multiple stories purportedly chronicling otherworldly encounters experienced by Beagle and his friends in their youth. Two other tales attribute unearthly abilities to Beagle’s dear friend Avram Davidson, the late (and somewhat quirky) writer. Some of the stories draw from others’ literary works, including a Tarzan/ John Carter crossover that also serves as a not-so-subtle criticism of creator Edgar Rice Burroughs’ bigotry and a gripping Patricia Highsmith–inspired story of a meek housewife summoning previously unknown inner strength when confronted by a new member of her bridge club who views her as prey. Two stories have something of a Twilight Zone resonance about them (which isn’t intended as a criticism of these two powerful tales): “Sleight of Hand,” involving a woman mourning the recent death of her husband and child who’s granted an impossible second chance, and “Vanishing,” about an unhappy man forced to confront his dark memories serving as a young American soldier monitoring the Berlin Wall. Of course, there are two tales of dragons invading California (one a work of metafiction and the other a buddy-cop story) and a chronicle of werewolf revenge that draws from an entirely different cultural tradition than the first volume’s “Lila the Werewolf.” There are perhaps many readers who know Beagle only from his classic novel, The Last Unicorn (1968), unaware of his considerable body of long and short fiction; others are longtime fans already familiar with such gems as A Fine and Private Place (1960), The Folk of the Air (1986), and The Innkeeper’s Song (1993), among others. This twovolume collection is a must-have for all of them.

Yes, essential, for whomever you are.

THE BOOK THAT WOULDN’T BURN

Lawrence, Mark

Ace/Berkley (576 pp.)

$29.00 | May 9, 2023

9780593437919

An aspiring librarian and a young man trapped in her library attempt to unravel its mysteries in this tightly paced fantasy.

Livira came to Crath City as a refugee after sabbers—wolf-men who prey on humans—destroyed the tiny desert village she called home. In a stroke of good fortune, the city’s internal bureaucracy sends her to train at its vast library. Lawrence’s young and uneducated protagonist quickly finds her feet, gaining literacy at a frenetic pace, but soon realizes she may not be cut out to follow all the library’s rules. Meanwhile, in a distant corner of the same library, a young man grapples with his weighty relationship to the cavernous building that acts as his prison. Over several generations, five children disappeared inside the library’s Mechanism, a well-guarded mystery structure that can bring any book to life. Years later, the Mechanism spat Evar and his four “siblings” out together, un-aged, into a world in which they may now be the last of their kind—and though they’ve left the Mechanism, they still can’t leave the library. Each child emerged with a particular skill set honed by the book they happened to be carrying at the time of their disappearance. All except for Evar, that is. Where the others returned with advanced knowledge in combat, subterfuge, and the humanities, “Evar had emerged with nothing, just the sense that something had been torn from his memory, leaving a chasm so wide he could fall into it and never be found.” More than 10 years after his return, a full-grown Evar sets out to track down the mystery woman he lost in the Mechanism, who now exists only as a gap in his memories. In his search, he crosses paths with Livira, who becomes preoccupied with his mission herself. What follows is a madcap adventure full of political intrigue, time travel, philosophy, and romance. Lawrence works with many threads here, but none feels misused or insufficiently explored. Rather, the author unspools them masterfully, leaving behind a tightly woven tapestry that readers will ache to see finished even if they can predict one or two of the tale’s myriad twists and turns.

Gripping, earnest, and impeccably plotted.

Translation State

Leckie, Ann Orbit (432 pp.)

$29.00 | June 6, 2023

9780316289719

A seemingly pointless quest ignites a political firestorm in this space opera follow-up to the Imperial Radch trilogy and Provenance (2017).

Enae Athtur (whose pronouns are sie/hir) is forced from hir childhood home and hir comfort zone to take a job for the Saeniss Polity’s Office of Diplomacy that’s intended as a sinecure: searching for traces of a fugitive Presger Translator who disappeared 200 years ago. Meanwhile, despite having been raised by kindly foster parents, Reet Hluid has never quite fit in anywhere. Ignorant of his origins, trapped in a dead-end job, friendless, and tormented by strangely compelling daydreams of vivisecting the people he meets, he thinks he’s finally found community with the Siblings of Hikipu. On what appears to be very little evidence, they claim that Reet is a Schan, a scion of their long-vanished royal line, and welcome him to their fellowship, which celebrates their cultural heritage…and perhaps dabbles in a little terrorism. And Qven, brought up in the innocently violent nursery of the Presger Translators, fears losing themself in the transition to adulthood, which involves a physical and mental merging with another person; their attempt to escape that apparent inevitability leads to Qven’s permanent disgrace. When Enae does what no one expects—actually finding the trail of the lost Translator—it upends the lives of Enae, Reet, and Qven and threatens the treaty that protects humanity from the Presger, an impossibly powerful and enigmatic alien race. It all sounds very complicated—and it is, enjoyably so—but basically, this is yet another opportunity for Leckie to explore her favorite themes: the meaning of family, humanity, and the right to one’s personhood. Although the novel is mostly set outside the Radch Empire, the events of that trilogy and of Provenance have a profound effect on the action here, and they also share some characters. This work also addresses many questions from the previous books about the peculiar behavior of Translators, whose originally human DNA has been substantially reengineered by the Presger.

Another of Leckie’s beautiful mergings of the political, philosophical, and personal.

More Perfect

Oh, Temi

Gallery/Saga (544 pp.)

$19.99 paper | May 30, 2023

9781982142834

In the near future, technology brings minds and dreams together—but to what end?

Despite her family’s concerns, Moremi is elated to receive a Pulse, which will finally allow her brain to tap directly into the internet. With the Pulse, Moremi no longer has to be alone: She can message everyone she knows from inside her head or run a search on anything she sees or anything she might wonder. Meanwhile, Orpheus’ father has raised him alone on an island, dodging the authorities, until a misstep sends him into a London full of technology that he doesn’t wholly trust. As Orpheus learns how to use the Pulse to manipulate dreams, Moremi continues to seek solutions for her depressive episodes, and the two will eventually find themselves in each other’s lives. Meanwhile, technology and politics entwine as, on one side, the inventors of the Pulse push for technological singularity while, on the other, Revelators like Moremi’s sister advocate for a more analog lifestyle. Moremi and Orpheus simply want to focus on their own lives and concerns, but plans have been made since before they were born that they may never escape. The world of dreams blends seamlessly with the world of big tech as author Oh explores the drawbacks and positive aspects of living plugged in. The depiction of a near-future London easily portrays the diversity of the country—Moremi is British Nigerian, and Orpheus is mixed race—and deftly underscores the inequalities and problems that are still present. While the pacing leaves time for the reader to sink into emotions, the plotting is tightly crafted, weaving science fiction, mythology, and more to tell a tale that feels pertinent right now.

An emotional tale exploring light and dark and the gray areas in change and progress.

Ink Blood Sister Scribe

Törzs, Emma

Morrow/HarperCollins (416 pp.)

$27.99 | May 30, 2023

9780063253469

Two half sisters work to protect their dead father’s collection of magical books in Törzs’ bewitching debut.

Esther and Joanna Kalotay are keepers of an impossible secret: that magic exists, and it’s channeled through certain enchanted books. Esther and Joanna’s father, Abe, is fanatical about his collection of these books, but despite having devoted his life to magic, he’s never been able to figure out how they were written. One terrible day, he tries to enact a spell from a mysterious book and is killed. This tragedy leaves Joanna, who shares her father’s ability to sense magic humming in a book, to tend to the library. Before he died, Abe had warned Esther, who is mysteriously immune to all magic, that she must take care never to stay anywhere for longer than a year, always leaving on Nov. 2, or she will risk being hunted down and killed by the same people who murdered her mother. Only once did Esther test this rule, and after barely escaping a strange man bent on killing her in her bedroom, she’s careful not to put down roots. But when Esther’s travels take her to a science station on Antarctica, she discovers that someone who knows about magic has finally found her, and her only chance to save herself is to trust a stranger who sent her a note and a plane ticket through an enchanted mirror. When Esther uses that ticket, she soon meets more people who know about magic and is forced to decide whom she can trust as she tries to discover why someone wants her dead. Törzs’ simple magic system of books is straightforward, with clear rules set out for readers early on, leaving her plenty of space to explore how an obsession with power can twist people so deeply that they betray the ones they love. Esther and Joanna’s complicated but loving relationship is wonderfully rendered, and Törzs pulls off such an expert series of twists that readers would be advised to cancel their plans until they get to the end.

A fantastic magical adventure, not to be missed.