This Week’s New Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books: Surrealist Bombs, Acolyte Assassins, and Horrors from the Deeps

The Last Days of New Paris, by China Miéville
A new Miéville book is always cause for celebration, and The Last Days of New Paris promises—and delivers—sensationally imaginative world-building on par with his best work. Set in a Paris still dealing with Nazi invaders in 1950, some years after the detonation of a “surrealist bomb” that brought the imagery in surrealist paintings to horrific life, Miéville’s latest paints a picture of an alternate history both beautiful and disturbing. Some of the surrealist creatures—known as Manifs—are harmless, but many are decidedly not, and the Nazis have begun summoning demons from hell in an attempt to tame or conquer them. Thibault works on the side of the surrealists, fighting Nazis and demons, and encounters a woman named Sam who professes to be in New Paris to photograph the Manifs. But Thibault soon comes to realize Sam is not what she seems, and neither are her stated goals. A knowledge of surrealism is helpful, but not essential, to your reading of this challenging, inventive novella.

Lord of the Darkwood (Tale of Shikanoko, Book 3), by Lian Hearn
The third entry in Hearn’s fabulous all-books-in-one-year quartet finds her characters scattered and struggling with torments of their own making as the story takes a step back from the breakneck pace of the first two volumes. Shika, mourning the death of the Autumn Princess, is in hiding, still unable to remove the magical deer mask given to him by his mentor. Yoshi, the hidden true emperor, is traveling in secret, and fears the moment when he will be asked to claim his throne. As the political intrigue thickens, the magical beings and spells multiply, and Hearn does a phenomenal job of complicating her story even as her characters pause to catch their breath. All in all, it’s an ideal middle volume that promises an explosive climax in the final book, due in September.

Nevernight, by Jay Kristoff
On a world orbiting three suns that bathe the surface in almost continuous daylight, Mia Corvere lives in shame, the daughter of a man who mounted a failed rebellion and paid for it with his life. In the wake of the tragedy, Mia found her way to Mercurio, who trained her in the arts of assassination in preparation for her mission of revenge. Now, she’s joined the Red Church, the deadliest assassins on the planet, training with the other acolytes in the hopes of becoming one of four chosen Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder. But someone is killing her compatriots, and their goals seem to go far beyond simple murder. It’s the first in a new series from Kristoff, offering an unrelenting mixture of intense action and creative world-building, with writing that treads into dark territory, despite the teenage protagonist.

Killfile, by Christopher Farsnworth
The author of the President’s Vampire series edges into techno-thriller territory with the story of John Smith, a former CIA agent turned private sector hired gun with a stunning ability: he can read the thoughts of others as easily as looking at them. It’s given him a good living, but it’s as much a gift as it is a curse—particularly when it attracts the attention of someone like Everett Sloan, billionaire tech wizard, who wants Smith to hunt down a former employee to determine wether he left the job along with valuable intellectual property. But it seems Smith may have zeroed in on the wrong target; he soon finds his own secrets exposed to the world, as is forced to go on the run if he has any hope of living to read another mind.