The best new sci-fi this month from George R. R. Martin to a Three-Body Problem graphic novel

December is traditionally a quiet month in publishing, and that holds true this year, with fewer than the usual number of new books out to tempt us sci-fi nerds. There are some novels that sound like a lot of fun, though – Makana Yamamoto’s debut, described as a “swashbuckling love letter” to Hawai’i by its publisher, for one. And less fun but equally tempting is Arthur C. Clarke award-winner Jane Rogers’s new collection of short stories, which are all climate fiction and (says her publisher) “pose questions about personal responsibility that cannot be easily answered”. I may well also be putting the huge and pricey 10-volume graphic novel adaptation of Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem on my Christmas wishlist – it sounds absolutely epic.

Pitched by its publisher as Ocean’s 8 meets Blade Runner – and what’s not to love there? – this follows Edie, just paroled from an icy prison planet, who is met by Angel, the woman who sold her out eight years ago. Angel is offering Edie one last job: to bring down a trillionaire “tech god” they failed to thwart last time round. This comes with big publisher hype behind it, and it sounds like so much fun. Hammajang, by the way, is a borrowing from Hawaiian Pidgin, we’re told, and means “in a disorderly or chaotic state; messed up”.

This is the latest anthology set in the Wild Cards universe, in which an alien virus unleashed on the world has given 1 per cent of those exposed to it superpowers. Edited by Martin and featuring writing by a range of authors, this is the third volume in Wild Cards’s “British Arc”, after Knaves Over Queens and Three Kings. It takes place on the fictional island of Keun, which is connected to the Cornish mainland only by an ancient tidal causeway.

Jane Rogers won the Arthur C. Clarke award, the UK’s top science fiction prize, in 2012 for The Testament of Jessie Lamb. (I liked this a lot – it’s set in a world where all pregnant women have been affected by a deadly virus, and it’s narrated by a teenager.) This new book is a collection of climate fiction stories, stretching from the covid-19 pandemic to the end of the 22^nd century, and from the Australian outback, where bushfires are raging, to Oxfordshire, where an old man has chained himself to an ancient beech tree that is about to be cut down. I particularly love the sound of the one set in space in the far future, when Earth is barren but may be starting to heal.

This slice of space opera is the follow-up to the excellently titled August Kitko and the Mechas from Space. It features – of course – a “ragtag band of misfits” who are up against “an army of giant mechas” out to annihilate humanity. Our protagonists are ultra-glam popstar Ardent Violet and their new boyfriend August Kitko. The book also promises a “mysterious all-powerful AI” and an alien coalition.

Running to 10 volumes, this epic graphic novel adaptation is one for the Cixin Liu completists out there – but I suspect that may include some New Scientist readers. Nominated for the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story or Comic, it features some added extras, including, I’m told, the transcript of the character Ye Wenjie’s interview by the Beijing PSB Criminal Investigation Detachment. Liu himself has said that “I am now convinced that the graphic novel provides the broadest possible canvas for science fiction”. Maybe one to put on the Christmas list?

After romantasy (romance + fantasy), sci-fi romance appears to be a growing genre these days, and I for one am all for it. This follows Ada, who is given an undercover mission by a rebel group that happens to take place at a charity gala – where she finds Rian, who is out to stop her. Described by its publisher as for fans of Becky Chambers and Martha Wells: that’s me, then.

Late in the 21^st century, the US is ravaged by global warming and a mother and daughter escape from a climate change relief program, The Inside Project, where they have been treated as lab rats for the past 22 years. They go on the run and meet a woman from the mother’s past, as weather conditions continue to worsen and what remains of humanity struggles to survive.

This is the latest in Zahn’s Icarus series, set in a universe in which, 10,000 years ago, an alien race called the Icari vanished, leaving behind portals that can transport people across the stars. In this outing, Gregory Roarke and his partner Selene are tasked with finding these alien artefacts – but find themselves on a distant planet facing a group of aliens called the Ammei, who have their own plans for the portals.

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