#neil gaiman is an ever weirder case

[dayscapism]

All of yous "neutrals" are on the wrong side of history. Imagine saying "I'm not with the nazis but I'm also not against them. I don't want to talk bad about Hitler 😪"

??????? Does that sound absurd because that's how these people sound.

Authors. Do better. Especially if you have a big platform. You write about liberation and freedom and oppresed disabled young people, yet this is too hard of an issue to take a firm stance on?? This is an international humanitarian emergency. We need all the pressure, all the eyes on Palestine, all the support, all the words possible to amplify the voices of Palestinians. We should do as much as we can. We need all the pressure on Israel and its western supporters (looking at you USA, UK, Australia, France, Germany, etc.) But these authors are either straight-up Zionists (SJM, for example) or refuse to do the bare minimum (Riordan).

the problem with all these white authors like rick riordan who are revealing their stances on the israel-palestine apartheid is that they barely do anything but virtue signal when they claim “i’m on the side against war” “i’m anti-violence” “i abhor terrorism.” zero people are going to disagree with you. zero people believe what hamas did is justified. zero people think israel shouldn’t have a right to defend itself against terrorism. but that isn’t what israel is doing when they collectively punish all of palestine, who doesn’t even have an official army. when rick riordan says some wishy-washy bullshit about the violence suffered on both sides of the conflict, and words his whole dumbass blog post like it’s violence that is in any way equal, that literally helps no one. in fact, it’s so damn negligent of the 75 years of violence that palestine has suffered and been oppressed for. yes, there are innocent civilians in israel who are suffering, no one is disagreeing with you. that doesn’t erase the fact that israel is a disgusting state that has used state-sanctioned violence on a systemic scale since its conception, and the oppressed people have responded to that in violent retaliation (because OBVIOUSLY they would). israel is built on the subjugation of palestine, there is no equal suffering between the two.

[starsandsteelandbrokenglass]

Retellings Ranked: Classic Literature

We all had to read some classic literature in school (or at least we were supposed to), some good, some bad, some that we forgot as soon as we took the test. There’s lots of literary retellings out there, and as always I have some thoughts on a few. (Also, sorry there’s no Pride and Prejudice retellings on here I just don’t like Pride and Prejudice that much.)

(Please don’t come after me for rating your favorite retelling badly, reading is subjective, etc. Post periodically updated.) 

A Good Time!

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White- We read Frankenstein junior year of high school and it was difficult but very enjoyable. And I LOVE a good feminist retelling. Elizabeth is such a sidelined character in the original, seeing her perspective was great! Also just a lot of interesting dynamics and issues in conversation.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman- This middle-grade retelling of The Jungle Book is spookier and less racist than the original, but just as much fun. Neil Gaiman delivers again with a creepy, delightfully morbid, family-friendly tale.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray- Lord of the Flies but with teenage beauty pageant contestants. Read this a while ago, so may not hold up quite as well as I remember, but there’s at least some diverse representation, and a lot of girls supporting girls which is always excellent.

I Killed Zoe Spanos by Kit Frick- This one brings Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca into the modern age. Frick works in a lot of modern elements, and I really liked the way she framed and handled the mystery. Not quite as gothic-spooky as the original, but definitely a fresh and fascinating new take!

Pros/Cons

My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Jodie Meadows, and Brodi Ashton- Jane Eyre, but with a super casual voice. Gothic atmosphere, ghosts. Struggles with some success to deal with some of the weirder aspects of Jane Eyre. You have to lean into the vibes, but if you can do that, there’s a lot to enjoy.

The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant- Full disclosure, I’ve never actually read Les Mis, but it’s one of my grandmother’s favorite musicals so I’ve seen it onstage like 3 times and the movie. Extremely neat world building. Way too many love interests. Very definite character portrayals that I didn’t always agree with, but followed.

The Madman’s Daughter trilogy by Megan Shepherd- These books use the same characters to retell The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Frankenstein, which is a lot, but mostly works? I did like books 1 and 2 more than 3, unfortunately, but some of the crossover is really neat. There is at least one love triangle though :(

His Hideous Heart edited by Dahlia Adler- A short story collection with 13 tales based on Edgar Allen Poe works. As always with short story collections, there were some I liked much more than others, but there was a lot of rep from marginalized groups, and some clever twists.

I Don’t Remember Anything, But I Did Rate It 3/5 Stars

Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne- Jane Eyre in space. I’m a big fan of Jane Eyre, wrote my first-ever research paper on it. This retelling did not make much of an impression on me, I guess.

...Pass

Anna K by Jenny Lee- Okay I feel very bad putting this one in this category because I...have not read Anna Karenina. Probably, I would have liked this more if I had. But I did not vibe with the plot. Love to see diversity, but this one was not for me. 

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys- I feel like this novel did important work by opening up Bertha Mason’s story in the 1960s. However, I did not actually like it. Also, kind of racist, which, you know, the 60s, but not great.

Want more of my thoughts? Check out Retellings Ranked: Greco-Roman Mythology, Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast

[the-desolated-quill]

Nightmare In Silver - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Neil Gaiman writing a Cyberman story? What could possibly go wrong?

...

Fucking EVERYTHING!

I... You... Wha... What the hell happened?! This came from the same guy that wrote The Doctor’s Wife, Coraline, The Sandman and American Gods? This piece of shit came from him?... THIS?!?!

Look, the Cybermen are very precious to me. They’re my all time favourite Who baddies due to their timeless themes and limitless potential. Which is why it breaks my heart whenever I see them mistreated like this. I mean... Jesus Christ!

Nightmare In Silver picks up where The Crimson Horror left off with those two kids blackmailing Clara into getting a free ride in the TARDIS (yeah, that didn’t make sense in and of itself. The girl Angie says she’ll tell her dad that Clara is a time traveller, but what are the chances of her dad actually believing her? Come off it!). Normally I despise children (both in real life and in fiction) and this episode very handily reminds me of all the reasons why. God I hate these brats! The little boy (Arty I think his name was) is this big wooden dork and Angie is quite possibly the most spoilt, arrogant, ungrateful little shit I think I’ve ever seen. She’s travelled to another planet in a spaceship that’s bigger on the inside, and what’s her reaction? ‘Oh this is so boooooooring! Oh Clara you’re so stupid! You always spoil everything! I want to go home!’ Oh go fuck yourself, you moaning little bastard! What’s worse is that these kids don’t actually play any sort of role other than needing to be rescued. You know characterisation has gone seriously wrong when their personalities are actually improved by Cyberfication.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about the new Cybermen. While I do prefer the RTD Cybermen in terms of design, these new ones are quite cool. More robotic looking this time around and I’m fascinated by the suggestion that at this point in their history they’re less cyborgs and more biomechanical, converting flesh directly into metal. It’s been a running thing that each new Cyber design in the series represents another advancement in their evolution, and this feels like a very logical leap to me. I also really like the Cybermites. Much prefer them to the Cybermats, which I’ve never liked. What I really don’t like however are the superpowers. My jaw hit the floor when that Cyberman started running at super speed like the Bionic Man, not just because the effect looks like shit and there’s no way Angie would have survived being hit with such speed and velocity, but because it’s a leap too far. Same goes for Cyber body parts detaching and operating by themselves, as well as Cybermen being immune to lasers and upgrading themselves so that they can’t be electrocuted. They’ve effectively become an army of Cyber-Supermans. They can just do anything now. They’re way too overpowered to the point where it all starts to become laughably absurd, and because we no longer know what their limitations are, they become more vague as a threat, and therefore more dull. (Also how come the Cybermen never use their super speed ever again? That ability could have come in useful multiple times).

Actually I tell a lie. They do bring back one limitation from the classic series. It’s... hmph... their weakness against gold.

For those of you who don’t know, in the classic series they introduced the idiotic and nonsensical idea that the Cybermen were vulnerable to gold because it’s a non-corrosive substance that can clog up their breathing apparatus and suffocate them. First of all, since when did Cybermen need to breathe? Second, what does being non-corrosive got to do with clogging up anything? And third, why specifically gold? Couldn’t you clog up their breathing apparatus with something else? Like water for instance? And it just got worse and worse when it developed from gold suffocating them to gold just affecting them in general. Despite being bulletproof, apparently you can kill a Cyberman with golden arrows. Rubbing Adric’s gold badge on the Cyberleader’s chest plate in Earthshock was enough to hinder it, and there was one really low moment in Silver Nemesis where the Cybermen were destroyed by Ace using some gold coins and a slingshot. It’s quite possibly the most embarrassing aspect of Cyber lore and it makes me cringe whenever I think about it, so you can probably imagine my relief when the Cybermen first arrived in New Who back in 2006 and there wasn’t a single mention of gold anywhere.

Now imagine my horror and disappointment when the Doctor is able to briefly incapacitate the Cyber-Planner inside his head by slapping a golden ticket on his face. And somehow Gaiman managed to make it even worse by implying that cleaning fluid can have the same effect. Yes. Cleaning fluid. So the Cybermen are an unstoppable force that will not rest until they’ve hunted you down and converted you, and you should be very afraid of them... unless you’ve got a bottle of Toilet Duck to hand, in which case you’re basically fine.

Yes the Cyber-Planner makes its first appearance since The Invasion way back in the 1960s. It’s no longer a brain inside a giant metal apparatus however. It’s now a Cyber hive mind/network that assimilates other beings into its consciousness, mostly children in order to use their imaginations for military strategies. Until it catches sight of the Doctor that is and tries to assimilate him. Which leads to quite possibly the worst thing about this episode. Mr. Clever. 

The Doctor being cyber-converted could be legitimately frightening, seeing this manic, warm hearted adventurer become a cold, calculating menace. Unfortunately that’s not what we end up getting. Instead we end up getting more of Matt Smith’s goofy bollocks. Mr. Clever (ugh) is just too emotional. He’s not his own character. He’s just the Doctor but evil. What’s even weirder is that the Cyber-Planner talks about how emotions are useless and that everyone is better off without them whilst it’s displaying emotion. It’s really inconsistent. I was astounded by the number of critics at the time praising Matt Smith for his performance because I honestly thought it was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. Watching him yelling and gurning his lines like an insecure pantomime villain was just embarrassing, and it shows a complete lack of understanding of who the Cybermen are (and I don’t just mean the whole emotions thing). As I’ve said numerous times in the past, the Cybermen aren’t evil like the Daleks. They’re altruistic foes. They honestly believe what they’re doing is helping us. That’s what makes them so frightening. By making the Cyber-Planner the default cackling baddie who’s evil just because, it makes the Cybermen less interesting and, as a result, less scary.

Speaking of actors giving bad performances, Jenna Coleman, I know you’ve been lumbered with a really shit character, but can you at least try to deliver your lines in a manner that isn’t smug or smarmy. Every single line has this air of snugness about it, which is irritating in and of itself, but there are occasions where it becomes really inappropriate. There are Cybermen about to breach the comical castle and the kids are in danger, and yet Clara is wandering around without a care in the world. Um Clara, shouldn’t you be panicking? Just a little? And there’s one really shocking moment where one of the soldiers informs her that someone has died, and Clara doesn’t even so much as react. In fact she’s surprisingly glib about the whole thing. I don’t know if it’s bad acting or bad directing. All I know is somebody fucked up. (Also I could have done without the bit at the end where the Doctor describes Clara as a mystery inside an enigma wrapped in a skirt that’s a bit too tight. Just... ew).

Beyond that, there isn’t really a whole lot to discuss. The theme park setting is nice, but we don’t really get to explore much of it. Jason Watkins is always good in everything he’s in, but he’s barely in this before he gets converted and is left to stand silently in the background with the kids. In fact the whole thing feels really rushed and under-developed. The punishment squad could have been interesting to explore, particularly in the context of the setting. It’s 1000 years after the Cyber Wars. The Cybermen have become the equivalent of mythological bogeymen, and now this rag tag group of failures and rejects are about to come face to face with their worst fear. The return of the long thought extinct Cybermen, now more powerful than ever. Think of the drama you could wring out of that. Instead they barely get a look in. They’re just a bunch of nameless redshirts that we don’t give a shit about. Same goes for Porridge. Warrick Davis gives a decent performance, but his character just isn’t very well developed. You could have expanded his character greatly. Given him a whole arc with him coming to terms with the horrible decisions he made in order to end the Cyber Wars (wait. He’s over a 1000 years old? Well I suppose if Liz 10 can survive well past 300 years in The Beast Below, I guess it’s possible) and finally reaccepting his position as Emperor. Instead it just feels like he’s going through the motions. He never actually changes or evolves. He just returns to being Emperor because... the script said so.

Nightmare In Silver is bad. Like Revenge Of The Cybermen/Silver Nemesis bad. The plot is weak, the characters are under-developed, the kids are annoying, the Doctor and Clara are still just as obnoxious as ever, and they completely botch the Cybermen. I pity anyone who tries to write a Cyberman story in the future after this disaster.

[justbloggingit-blog]

The Best Books of 2017 (So Far)

Now that we’re one-third of the way through the year, we decided to round up our picks for the best books of 2017 (so far). From thrilling sci-fi to Latin American fiction, illuminating memoirs to eclectic short stories, our favorite titles promise enthralling reads for every literary taste.

We’ve assembled 20 books released from January through April, including novels, short story collections and nonfiction books. Browse our favorites below (listed in alphabetical order by title), and check out our lists of the best novels and best nonfiction books of 2016 for more great reading recommendations.

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster

4 3 2 1 kicks off with as challenging a premise as Auster has ever constructed: four parallel narratives chronicling four different lives of the same character, Archie Ferguson. Although Auster chooses not to reveal why we’re reading about four versions of the same guy until the last half-dozen of the novel’s nearly 900 pages, 4 3 2 1’s real power radiates from each Archie’s adventures with love, sex, friendship, risks, books, writing and ideas. With this book, Auster has delivered the finest—though, one hopes, far from final—act in one of the mightiest writing careers of the last half-century. —Steve Nathans-Kelly

All the Beloved Ghosts by Alison MacLeod

MacLeod blends memoir and fiction to stunning effect in her short story collection, blurring the lines between life and death as she explores the nature of memory. In “Sylvia Wears Pink in the Underworld” and “Dreaming Diana: Twelve Frames,” she examines our relationship to celebrities after their death. While in stories like “The Thaw” and ‘The Heart of Denis Noble,” MacLeod crafts intimate portraits of individuals at the end of their lives. The collection’s haunting prose is by turns heartbreaking and uplifting, transforming the stories’ heavy themes into something entirely unique. —Bridey Heing

The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker

Brimming with electricity, Whitaker’s novel boasts witty prose and two vibrant main characters. Sharon and Mel, a straight laced go-getter and a troubled-genius wild card, are rising stars in the indie-animation scene. Theirs is not so much a relationship story as a portrait of Gen-Y creatives navigating the pressures of success (and their own baggage). And by combining their engaging personalities with a handful of intriguing twists, Whitaker has crafted one of 2017’s first page-turners. —Jeff Milo

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Hamid has always had a finger on the global pulse, publishing stories hot on the heels of the latest headlines. And though Exit West was completed nearly a year before Trump’s travel ban on Muslim-majority countries, its timing is perfect. The novel opens in an unnamed city (feasibly located in one of said countries) that’s tipping towards civil war and swollen with a sea of refugees. Then we meet Saeed and Nadia, young adults falling in love just as their world is falling apart. Their hope is kindled by rumors of mysterious doorways that transport people to undetermined locations. These doors have supernatural powers, but the way Hamid weaves his story, you’ll believe that they’re real. And, in a way, they are. —Jeff Milo

Flâneuse by Lauren Elkin

Elkin’s latest book draws on literature, art and history to create a globe-spanning study of women walking alone in cities. The title comes from the French word “flâneur,” a term for privileged men who meander through a metropolis. Women, Elkin argues, have just as much claim to cities as men, but their relationship with cities has long been ignored. From George Sand to Virginia Woolf to Sophie Calle to Martha Gellhorn, Flâneuse demonstrates how women have staked their independence in urban landscapes around the world. By including her own experiences in cities like Paris, London and Tokyo, Elkin crafts an expansive portrait of what it means to be a woman in a city. —Bridey Heing

Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh

A great deal of (digital) ink has been spilled comparing Moshfegh to Flannery O’Connor, but Moshfegh’s short story collection establishes a firm connection to “horror-adjacent” writers Angela Carter and Shirley Jackson. Like Carter, Moshfegh finds near-infinite literary possibilities in the world of fluids and bodily flaws, from colostomy bags to sagging private parts to foul teeth. And like Jackson, Moshfegh’s characters are often young people on paths toward self-inflicted destruction—or at least continued unhappiness, for happy endings are all but nonexistent here. Moshfegh’s skill lies in her ability to present horrid people without judgment. She isn’t here to moralize, but to deliver enough dark humor that we can almost understand where the nastiness comes from. Almost. —Steve Foxe

How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell

Press surrounding Marnell’s book deal was dripping with venom. Yellow headlines blared—even a publication as august as The Atlantic couldn’t resist running the headline, “Cat Marnell’s Book Deal Could Buy a Lot of Drugs.” The entire saga was laced with hatred, because although Marnell was achieving media success directly because of her sickness, she was not afflicted with something relatable like cancer. Her main condition, the least pitied of all pathologies, is addiction. Yet Marnell’s memoir is fucking wonderful. Her voice is her single greatest asset—a pure stylist who can tackle both beauty tips and the savage electricity of a life on amphetamine. How to Murder Your Life turns the addict, trucked with so many gallows watchers’ outrages, into her own fully-formed person. —B. David Zarley

The Kingdom by Emmanuel Carrère

The latest book from France’s master of groundbreaking nonfiction is pure Carrère: forthright, ruthlessly self-analytical and endlessly brilliant. The bestselling author of novels, screenplays, biographies and essays, Carrère begins the book by confronting his past as a devout—if comically pretentious—Catholic, a past the middle-aged writer had apparently forgotten before re-encountering the notebooks he kept from that time. The Kingdom soon transforms into something much weirder, though, as Carrère fictionalizes the early decades of the Church, transforming the book into an extended parable of his own enthralling life. —Lucas Iberico Lozada

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

After decades of brilliant work in the brief yarn vein, Saunders has released his first novel. Set in 1862, Lincoln in the Bardo features the 16th President and a Washington graveyard full of ghosts—including the president’s recently departed son, Willie Lincoln. Saunders’ host of voices provides us with a chance to see what lies on the doorstep of the beyond, and it’s a humdinger; spectral psychology is alternatively denial and dismemberment of the things of this world. By turns moving and hilarious, Lincoln in the Bardo proves there is life after death—and more than short stories in the splendid Saunders. —Jason Rhode

The Lucky Ones by Julianne Pachico

By turns surreal, confounding, terrifying and improbably funny, The Lucky Ones explores Colombia’s specter of guerilla violence through the adventures of a few young women. While the characters’ common history as boarding school students provides a loose framework for the novel’s interlocking stories, The Lucky Ones presents a view of the conflict that is endlessly fascinating, but more prism than lens. Its perpetual perch on the edge of disaster leaves the reader in a state of dread, but Pachico creates a palpable anguish with a light touch, a combination that makes this astounding first novel as irresistible as it is unnerving. —Steve Nathans-Kelly

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Gaiman has built a decades-long career out of weaving myths into new shapes, perhaps most prominently in American Gods, which borrows from Norse legends. So Norse Mythology reads like a natural culmination of Gaiman’s allusion-heavy path through literature, as the master storyteller joins the ranks of bards who have kept the fragmented pieces of Norse legend alive. Beginning at creation and ending at Ragnarök, Gaiman brings his signature wit and humor to a saga known for its violence and ever-impending doom. His Thor is a lunkhead; his Loki is conniving. And his Norse Mythology is both intrinsically Gaiman and exactly what the title promises. —Steve Foxe

Notes on a Banana by David Leite

The James Beard Award-winning food writer’s memoir is about being Portuguese, gay and in love with food. But it is first and foremost about being bipolar. Leite’s work belongs in the great Canon Of Mental Illness, a rending portrait of a bipolar sufferer’s parabolic life—with an extra emphasis on mania, the less understood phase of the disease. It’s Leite’s deft portrayal of mania, written with the celerity and buzzing hagiography that are hallmarks of the condition, that gives Notes On A Banana its chimerical quality: equal parts memoir, case study and, for those who suffer along with Leite, both signal and solace. —B. David Zarley

The Novel of the Century by David Bellos

Not everybody loved Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, Les Misérables, when it was first published in 1862. As Bellos writes in his new book, opinions varied widely: Flaubert and Baudelaire loathed it, but Confederate soldiers christened themselves “Lee’s Miserables.” Bellos shows that Hugo’s giant tome, le Léviathan of French literature, was huge in every way: in its scope (the totality of the 19th century), physical volume (over a thousand pages) and morals—Hugo aimed at nothing less than the salvation of humanity, France and, incidentally, himself. Everything you ever wanted to know about the classic is included; this is the definitive book of the novel of the century. —Jason Rhode

A Separation by Katie Kitamura

Kitamura’s new book is a novel-length meditation on what it means to belong to someone else—and then, suddenly, to not. The unnamed narrator has recently separated from her husband of five years, Christopher, but the information isn’t public yet. It’s a private wound that begs to be explored. But when Christopher goes missing in Greece, it’s the narrator who must search for him—despite questioning if she even has the right to find him. Gorgeous, lyrical and provocative, A Separation asks challenging questions about the nature of coming together and breaking apart. —Swapna Krishna

The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel

The latest book from journalist and author Michael Finkel hangs on one tantalizing question: How was a man able to live in solitude for 27 years in the woods of central Maine? The capture of the so-called North Pond Hermit (during one of the 1,000+ break-ins that sustained him over the years) became major news in 2013, catching Finkel’s attention across the country. The author patiently pursued interviews with the hermit, crafting a fascinating and empathetic portrait of a man who turned his back on the world. —Eric Swedlund

Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez

Enríquez’s first short story collection to appear in English is part of a wild and weird wave of contemporary Latin American fiction reaching American readers this year. (Enríquez’s translator, Megan McDowell, can claim a significant amount of credit for that happy fact—she’s translated some of the past few years’ most exciting books.) The stories in Things We Lost in the Fire unfold in unexpected ways, tending to descend into horror while remaining very, very funny along the way. Enríquez successfully transforms the banal routines of middle-class life into a terrifying grotesquerie, all while threading a faint whiff of punk rock delivery throughout. —Lucas Iberico Lozada

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti

In the nine years since her debut novel, The Good Thief, was published, Tinti has crafted another masterpiece. The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley explores a captivating father-daughter relationship, weaving the pair’s saga through two narrative timelines. The first follows a young girl named Loo as she comes of age in a small Massachusetts town. The second reveals her father’s past through 12 stories chronicling the events that led to his 12 bullet wounds. The result is a fascinating literary thriller, with Tinti building the tension as both timelines count down to the final gunshot. —Frannie Jackson

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle

The second novel from The Mountain Goats’ frontman delivers an unsettling journey to the late-1990s era of video rental stores and dial-up Internet, a recent past that feels strange enough to carry this edgy mystery. In small-town Iowa, a twenty-something video clerk sets out in search of answers after discovering that someone has been splicing homemade footage into the store’s VHS tapes. With Darnielle’s inimitable voice driving a narrative that’s both sad and frightening, Universal Harvester explores loss, grief, resiliency and the never-ending search for human connection. —Eric Swedlund

Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel

Countless authors have answered the question, “What if we’re not alone in the universe?” But Neuvel’s response sets him apart. His Themis Files series, launched in 2016 with Sleeping Giants and continued this year with Waking Gods, begins with a deceptively simple premise: a child discovers a giant metallic hand buried in South Dakota. What follows is a global hunt for the artifact’s significance, relayed through interviews conducted by an unnamed man (who quickly becomes a favorite character) and peppered with transcripts, journal entries and other forms of media. Sleeping Giants may have debuted his thrilling saga, but Waking Gods proves that Neuvel’s scope is more daring than readers could have imagined. —Frannie Jackson

The Wanderers by Meg Howrey

What comes before a Mars mission? Why, simulations, of course. In The Wanderers, Howrey tackles the behind-the-scenes drama at Prime Space—a private aerospace company attempting to place astronauts on Mars within four years. Protagonist Helen Kane has just retired after 21 years at NASA, but now Prime Space wants her for a full Mars simulation mission. And once it’s completed, she’ll be the top candidate for the actual journey. Howrey’s literary novel is as much a character study as it is about space, exploring Helen and her crewmates’ profound isolation on their simulated journey.