www.rosemont.edu/publishing
high in the Peruvian mountains where
air and facts are thin. Merrick Tremayne
is hoping to steal quinine tree cuttings
that will save India’s British colonizers
from malaria; he’s surprised to meet a
young priest who may somehow have
known his grandfather. Eloquent prose
and compassionate portrayals of the
myriad relationships among men elevate
this extraordinary work.
A Closed and Common Orbit
Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager)
Chambers’s second novel is a polished, subtle work of near-future science fiction. Lovelace is an AI trying to
learn how to live in a body; her friend
Pepper’s cheerful, no-nonsense attitude
stems from a deeply traumatic childhood as an enslaved clone. The surface
story of interstellar adventure is accompanied by deep explorations of sentience, emotion, and the necessity of
self-determination.
their mission. Lostetter evokes an almost
old-fashioned sense of wonder that will
move the hearts and excite the minds of
science fiction readers.
The Stone Sky
N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
Jemisin concludes her tour de force
Broken Earth trilogy with a work of consummate craftsmanship. In a world
rocked by cataclysms, two powerful
wielders of earth magic and ancient technology face off. Aging, grieving Essun
wants to save the planet; her traumatized
young daughter, Nassun, wants to
destroy it. Jemisin pushes speculative
fiction to a new level, challenging
readers to acknowledge—and fix—the
broken parts of our own societies.
An Unkindness of Ghosts
Rivers Solomon (Akashic)
This striking debut novel, set aboard
a generation ship where white supremacists enslave black laborers, combines
sharp allegory with poetic metaphor.
Aster Grey, a literal-minded medic,
hopes to undermine the ruling
Sovereignty with the help of notes left by
her mother, but decoding them is an
almost impossible challenge. Solomon
addresses numerous daunting topics
with incision and insight in this stunning achievement.
The Witch Who
Came in from the
Cold
Lindsay Smith et al.
(Saga)
This creative compilation of 13 novella-length episodes hauls
readers into an alternate Cold War–era
Prague where two factions of magic users
are trying to control unwitting humans,
known as Hosts, who channel elemental
magic. The writing team includes several of the genre’s rising stars, who
enhance the catchiness of the serial
format with gripping writing and
shocking double-crosses.
In Calabria
Peter S. Beagle (Tachyon)
In this brief, magnificent story, in
which a unicorn gives birth in a hollow
on the scraggly farm of a misanthropic
Calabrian poet, legendary fantasy author
Beagle displays his unmatched facility
with the nuances of language and the
juxtaposition of the timeless and fantastical with the modern and mundane.
Each word is precisely chosen and placed
for vivid effect, the story soaked with
unabashed emotion and strewn with
Technicolor set pieces.
Noumenon
Marina J. Lostetter (Harper Voyager)
In Lostetter’s sweeping debut, a
convoy of clones sets out from Earth to
examine an unusual star whose light may
have been altered by intelligent aliens.
Over the centuries, different iterations of
the clone lines grapple with questions of
identity, sovereignty, and the value of
