Four Must-Read Science Fiction Debuts
2014 has kicked off with some extraordinarily entertaining sci-fi debuts! If you’re a fan looking for some exciting new voices to add to your bookshelves, you can’t go wrong with any of these four new titles:
The Martian, by Andy Weir
This is a fast-paced story about an astronaut stranded on Mars and his struggle to stay alive. During a deadly sandstorm on the red planet, the crew of Ares 3 is forced to evacuate immediately. In the chaos, it appears that the team’s botanist and mechanical engineer, Mark Watney, has been killed by flying debris. Left for dead on a barren wasteland of a planet, Watney must somehow figure out a way to survive. While the soul-crushing loneliness associated with space exploration has certainly been examined before, this novel is noteworthy in large part because of the sense of humor that Weir gives his protagonist. It’s an edge-of-your-seat, hardcore science–powered thriller, yes, but the sardonic comments and pop culture references throughout make it a towering homage to geekdom as well. Bottom line: The Martian is a page-turner of the highest order.
RedDevil 4, by Eric C. Leuthardt
A science-fiction thriller that is as thematically powerful as Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, this debut novel—set in the year 2053—is flawless. Featuring a cast of brilliantly developed characters, breakneck pacing, and literally nonstop action, the storyline revolves around the spread of a virus in neuroprosthetic implants (used by the majority of the population to stay connected to the Internet) that turns ordinary people into mindless murderers. Not only is Leuthardt’s portrayal of the near future meticulously described and incredibly plausible, the social and political implications of humankind “upgrading” their consciousnesses are chilling to say the least. If you like your thrillers heaped with a healthy dose of scientific speculation, you’re going to love RedDevil 4.
The Waking Engine, by David Edison
Featuring a storyline that is more speculative than science fiction, the premise of this novel is absolutely fascinating: what if death was just the beginning of your existence, the first step on a journey that encompasses endless incarnations on endless worlds? The protagonist, Cooper, awakens from death to find himself in a Byzantine realm known as the City Unspoken, the place where mortals eventually come to find True Death. Cooper has no idea how or why he is in the City Unspoken, but others, who may or may not be gods, realize that he is the key to repairing their bloated and broken city. Thematically, this novel was very much like Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt, a visionary masterwork that explored the significance—or lack thereof—of religion, faith, and the power of the human spirit. While not quite as profound as Robinson’s novel, this is still a wildly thought-provoking work.
A Darkling Sea, by James L. Cambias
Set on the planet of Ilmatar, which is surrounded by a layer of ice a kilometer thick, this story follows a crew of human scientists as they attempt to study a sentient race of aliens that live on and around the ocean’s dark floor. A primary directive for the mission is noninterference (hello, Star Trek), but when a member of the crew inadvertently makes contact with a group of the hard-shelled aliens (who resemble beluga whales in armor) and is killed, a chain of events is set off that could spark an interstellar war with another alien race that has been monitoring humankind’s missteps on the planet. I was enamored with Cambias’s straightforward narrative, richly descriptive writing style, and the overall tone of the novel, which was reminiscent of classic Silverberg. That sense of wonder associated with most of Silverberg’s science fictional works is shared by this memorable debut.
What are your favorite 2014 reads so far?