4 science fiction novels to savour and ponder

Venomous Lumpsucker

By Ned Beauman

(Soho, 336 pages, $32.99)

It’s the little things that often set the best SF novels apart from the rest of the field. A big part of world-building, the term used for the creation of believable futuristic or alien worlds, is filling in the details. This is something Ned Beauman does a great job of in “Venomous Lumpsucker,” a near-future novel that takes its title from an endangered, and possibly extinct, species of fish.

The plot has an awkward pair investigating the suspected demise of the lumpsucker. Karin is a concerned environmental avenger and Mark a sellout to a big mining corporation that’s dredging the lumpsucker’s native habitat. Together they embark on a darkly comic adventure that brilliantly sketches an all-too plausible extinction economy, one that has some unexpected winners and losers.

Beauman is a lively writer with a knack for sharp descriptive language: nervous bowels beginning to simmer or someone with a voice that’s like a hug going on too long. But it’s passing observations that futurists will really enjoy, like drugs to kill one’s pleasure in food, or facial recognition software for tracking the spread of a cattle plague. There’s a good story with a couple of likeable if damaged main characters, but it’s these little things that make “Venomous Lumpsucker” a special pleasure.

The Ugly Truth

By Ira Nayman

(Elsewhen Press, 322 pages, $25.99)

“The Ugly Truth” marks the finale of Toronto author Ira Nayman’s “Multiverse Refugees” trilogy, set within his Transdimensional Authority universe. Some knowledge of what’s already happened may be helpful, but given the chaotic insanity of Nayman’s work (think lots of bold interobangs) it’s probably not essential.

The mouth of madness is opened after the evacuation to Earth of a bunch of blue-skinned vaudevillians dressed in exquisite three-piece suits whose universe is about to implode. These immigrants, who are constantly performing standup and slapstick for their god the Audi Enz, have various adventures that are related in a medley of forms, including news stories, pop songs and diary entries. Rodney Pendleton and Daveen Rasmalai are back, while among the new characters are a superhero named Mistah Charisma (spawned by the Heronator machine) and a refugee running for Parliament.

Nayman again delivers manic farce with more groaning puns and bad jokes than you can stuff in a multi-dimensional suitcase, and winds the trilogy up nicely with a wholesome message for all of us … and a wink.

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words

By Eddie Robson

(Tor, 275 pages, $35.99)

The title needs some explaining. When the alien Logi arrive on Earth they require human translators to express their thought-language into words, a process that makes translators feel and act drunk.

Lydia Southwell is one such specially trained translator, assigned to the Logi ambassador Fitz. But when Fitz ends up murdered Lydia finds herself in the middle of an intergalactic murder mystery in which she’ll need some assistance from the dead ambassador, whose voice is still kicking around in her head.

There’s a lot going on in “Drunk on All Your Strange New Words” and most of it is really good. The locked-room mystery is well handled while social media in the form of up-to-the-minute tweets and news feeds (ranked for their “truthiness”) are deftly interwoven with a classic conspiracy-thriller plot. The result offers something fresh and engaging for fans of many genres.

The Men

By Sandra Newman

(Grove Press, 263 pages, $36.95)

In her acknowledgments at the end of “The Men,” Sandra Newman gives thanks to feminist SF writers who had previously imagined all-female societies, mentioning Joanna Russ, Alice Sheldon and Sherri Tepper. The list could have been extended quite a bit, though, to the “Herland” of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Begum Rokeya’s “Ladyland,” or even to medieval or classical models. It is an enduring fantasy.

The story here has it that all the males in the world (defined as bearers of a Y chromosome) instantly disappear one day. This leaves Jane Pearson to scramble about a manless California, reflecting on various social justice matters and whether this gender-biased version of the Rapture is a good thing.

Though there are many feminist forebears, the real presiding spirit is Stephen King, who has created many such apocalyptic landscapes. The fate of the men is also King-like, as they appear to have been uploaded to a kind of digital purgatory where they are tormented by demons. What it all adds up to though is left a bit fuzzy.

A timely parable and that not always in a good way, “The Men” has already generated its share of controversy. One suspects readers are likely to either find it too political or not enough.

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