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<\/div>Tim Winton\u2019s new novel Juice is being compared to the post-apocalyptic Station Eleven and The Road<\/p>\n
Buena Vista Images\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
We science fiction fans are going to have our work cut out for us to make it through all the riches on offer this month. There are at least four books published in October that are must-reads for me, including the new Stephen Baxter, an epic story of a future destroyed by climate change from Tim Winton, time travel from Alan Moore and J. Lincoln Fenn\u2019s tale of a creepily mysterious plant on a remote island. I\u2019ve also included some interesting-sounding new spooky sci-fi reads, because it is October, after all \u2013 which reminds me, time to crack out my Shirley Jacksons for their annual reread\u2026<\/p>\n
Our sci-fi columnist Emily Wilson, whose judgement is impeccable, tells me this is stunning (her review will be out later this month) \u2013 and it sounds it. It follows a man and a child in a climate-ravaged future, travelling across a stony desert until they find an abandoned mine site and decide to take refuge. Comparisons are being made by its publisher to Station Eleven<\/em> and The Road<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is the story of Rab, whose mother cut off his hand as a 2-year-old to prevent him having to work in the mines of Mercury. An adult now, he lives on the Mask, a huge structure hiding the Solar System from aliens to keep it safe \u2013 but then a spaceship, which has travelled for 100 years from a forgotten colony planet, arrives\u2026 I have many old Stephen Baxter novels<\/a> filling up my shelves, and this latest outing from one of the UK\u2019s top sci-fi writers sounds like it\u2019ll have to nestle in there too.<\/p>\n Remember when Pride and Prejudice and Zombies<\/em> came out, and us literary types thought \u201cwhatever next?\u201d, and then it was all actually rather fun? Well, now we have the adventures of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy \u2013 in space. Elizabeth, in this version of Jane Austen\u2019s classic tale, lives on a small moon in the \u201cLondinium lunar system\u201d with her sisters and parents, only for their lives to be shaken up by the arrival of Mr Bingley on the Netherfield StarCruiser.<\/p>\n First we had the Bennet sisters facing off against zombies\u2026now they\u2019re in space<\/p>\n Jay Maidment\/Lionsgate\/Cross Creek\/Kobal\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n Journalist Julia is offered a lot of money to travel to a remote Pacific island to collect samples of a peculiar flower \u2013 an island where her sister, botanical researcher Irene, died in 1939. Julia will also be digging into the island\u2019s secrets, and the rumours that ghosts rise from their burial sites on moonless nights. Fenn\u2019s publisher has compared this to The Last of Us<\/em>, which makes me think that flower is going to have some disturbing properties\u2026<\/p>\n Tipped by our podcast editor<\/a> Rowan Hooper as \u201cfascinating\u201d, this is the latest in top literary author Knausgaard\u2019s new cycle of novels, set in a town in southern Norway over which a bright new star has risen. People, it turns out, have stopped dying ever since the star\u2019s appearance. \u201cThe books are concerned with meaning, of life in the modern world, and of reality,\u201d says Rowan in his write-up.<\/p>\n Alan Moore<\/p>\n Kazam Media\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n In 1949, 18-year-old second-hand bookseller Dennis stumbles upon a novel that is fictitious \u2013 a figment from another book \u2013 yet it is there, in his hands. It turns out Dennis has found a book from a version of London beyond time and space, known as the Great When, but this magical London needs to remain a secret, and Dennis must take the book back to where it belongs. A time-travelling epic from the mighty Moore? Yes please.<\/p>\n I have thought often about Jeff VanderMeer\u2019s Annihilation<\/em>, and the eery strangeness of Area X, a zone on the US coastline where anyone who enters disappears, since its publication 10 years ago. Now we are being gifted a surprise fourth volume in the Southern Reach series \u2013 a prequel, which opens decades before the formation of Area X, and then jumps to follow the first expedition after the border comes down around the dangerous zone. I absolutely can\u2019t wait to find out more about a world I thought VanderMeer was done with.<\/p>\n Natalie Portman in the film adaptation of Jeff Vandermeer\u2019s Annihilation<\/p>\n Universal\/Everett\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n This sounds like my perfect Halloween read \u2013 an AI twist on Frankenstein<\/em><\/span>, in which engineer Henry creates an artificially intelligent consciousness he names William. Henry is fixated on his project, staying away from everyone but William, including his pregnant wife Lily, but when Lily\u2019s coworkers show up, Henry\u2019s smartest of smart homes starts to go (scarily) wrong.<\/p>\n Blake Crouch is the author of the pleasantly crazy (and now adapted for TV) sci-fi thriller Dark Matter<\/em>. This month his publishers are reissuing an initially self-published early novel, Run<\/em>, in which everyone who witnesses strange aurorae (echoes of John Wyndham with fewer deadly plants) becomes filled with a murderous rage for everyone who didn\u2019t see the mysterious lights. Our perspective is narrow and rather thrilling, following Jack, his wife Dee and their kids, as they flee for their lives. I\u2019ve read this already, and I can attest that it is just as pleasantly crazy as Dark Matter<\/em>.<\/p>\n As we\u2019re heading into spooky season (my favourite season), I\u2019ve indulged myself a little and included this anthology of horror writing: after all, there\u2019s often a lot of crossover between sci-fi and horror, and there are some great names here, including Michel Faber and James Smythe, who have both written some excellent pieces of speculative fiction (if you haven\u2019t read Faber\u2019s Under the Skin<\/em> or Smythe\u2019s The Explorer<\/em>, then please do so). The stories sound deliciously creepy \u2013 a long-dead parent\u2019s corpse being perfectly preserved decades later; disfigured girls \u201cwilling to pay any price to fit in\u201d. Happy Halloween to us all.<\/p>\n Love reading? Come and join our friendly group of fellow book lovers. Every six weeks, we delve into an exciting new title, with members given free access to extracts from our books, articles from our authors and video interviews.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n This co-authored sci-fi thriller follows pilot Jose Carriles as he sets out on the first mission to outside our solar system \u2013 only for a series of strange malfunctions to occur and people to start turning up dead. As events escalate, Carriles finds himself \u201cface-to-face with a reckoning that could destroy humanity as we know it\u201d.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t science fiction, but I\u2019m mentioning it because I am an Ursula K. Le Guin completionist, and I thought others might be interested in this revised and updated edition of this master of her craft\u2019s guide to \u201csailing the sea of story\u201d. Telling us \u201chow \u2013 and why \u2013 to write\u201d, it sees the author of The Left Hand of Darkness<\/em> and The Dispossessed<\/em> give us her guide to narrative, with a new introduction from Kelly Link (check out her awesome short story collection Magic For Beginners<\/em>), Karen Joy Fowler, Molly Gloss and Le Guin\u2019s son, Theo Downes-Le Guin. I\u2019ll definitely be reading it.<\/p>\n Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/01084426\/sei223853065.jpg\")
<\/div>![\"Alan](\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/01084600\/sei223852741.jpg\")
<\/div>![\"Natalie](\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/01084641\/sei223853029.jpg\")
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\n <\/picture>\nNew Scientist book club<\/h3>\n
Dark Space<\/em><\/a> by Rob Hart and Alex Segura<\/h2>\n