From dragons bigger and badder than Smaug to Sorority Trad Wives - our picks of the month's best Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels: King Sorrow by Joe Hill, Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake, All That We See Or Seem by Ken Liu
By JAMIE BUXTON
Published: | Updated:
King Sorrow is available now from the Mail Bookshop
Behemoth, Leviathan, Juggernaut: think of anything big, scary and mobile, then apply it to this blockbuster of an epic by Hill.
It’s about evil coming at a group of friends out of the blue, and then the possibility of revenge appearing out of the darkness.
From millionaire mansions to high-security prisons, from rare books in libraries to trolls in Cornish caverns, the scope is vast, as befits a multi-layered, rich response to the horrors and hopes of living today.
Put simply, when evil comes knocking, don’t do worse stuff to make it better. It won’t work, especially when it involves the biggest, baddest dragon since Smaug.
Girl Dinner is available now
Nina will do whatever it takes to get into The House, the sorority of sororities on an unnamed campus.
Dr Hartley just wants peace – a near impossibility given the demands of motherhood, wifedom and tenure pathways.
And when she thinks a House alumnus – an unlikely Trad Wife – might make a suitable sociological study, she bites off more than she can chew. Slyly addictive and meaningfully moreish, Blake’s takedown of sororities is assassination by stiletto – of the Jimmy Choo variety.
It dissects with delicious precision the perfectly conditioned eroticism of girl power and the depth-charge perils of perfectionism. Feline and gruesome, think glossy gothic: a whole new genre.
All That We See or Seem is available now from the Mail Bookshop
Like a high-tech cross between Lisbeth Salander and Jack Reacher, computer genius Julia Z doesn’t go looking for trouble . . . but trouble finds her.
Her life takes a turn down a dangerous digital highway when a desperate lawyer comes knocking at her door.
His wife, an online dreamscaper, has vanished into thin air and he wants her back.
So far so thrillerish: good guys chase bad guys chase good guys.
But what really gives this book its propulsive force is the brain-blistering exploration of AI, and its potential for good or evil.
Be very careful what Big Data knows about you: those in the know fly right under the radar.
Daily Mail
