The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan, translated by Yuri Machkasov (Amazon Crossing, April 25) “Bound to wheelchairs and dependent on prosthetic limbs, the physically disabled students living in the House are overlooked by the Outsides. Not that it matters to anyone living in the House, a hulking old structure that its residents know is alive.
The Lady of the Lake (Witcher Series #5) by Andrzej Sapkowski, translated by David French (Orbit, March 14) “After walking through the portal in the Tower of Swallows while narrowly escaping death, Ciri finds herself in a completely different world… an Elven world. She is trapped with no way out. Time does not seem to
The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio De Maria, translated by Ramon Glazov (Liveright, February 7) “Written during the height of the 1970s Italian domestic terror, a cult novel, with distinct echoes of Lovecraft and Borges, makes its English-language debut.In the spare wing of a church-run sanatorium, some zealous youths create “the Library,” a space
The Mountains of Parnassus by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Stanley Bill (Yale University Press, January 10) “Written in the 1970s and published posthumously in Polish in 2012, Milosz’s deliberately unfinished novel is set in a dystopian future where hierarchy, patriarchy, and religion no longer exist. Echoing the structure of The Captive Mind and written in
Pathological by Wang Jinkang, translated by Jeremy Tiang (AmazonCrossing, December 27) “On the surface, the life of young scientist Mei Yin seems perfect. She runs her own research institute in China, she’s getting married, and she founded an orphanage that helps hundreds of girls. But Mei Yin has a dark secret—three vials of “Satan’s gift,”
Isra Isle by Nava Semel, translated by Jessica Cohen (Mandel Vilar Press, November 1) “This novel is inspired by a true historical event. Before Theodore Herzl there was Mordecai Manuel Noah, an American journalist, diplomat, playwright, and visionary. In September 1825 he bought Grand Island, downriver from Niagara Falls, from the local Native Americans as
The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike, translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm (Thomas Dunne Books, October 11) “One of the most popular writers working in Japan today, Mariko Koike is a recognized master of detective fiction and horror writing. Known in particular for her hybrid works that blend these styles with elements of romance, The Graveyard
Ken Liu is an author and translator of speculative fiction, as well as a lawyer and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among other places. Ken’s debut novel, The Grace of
The Doomed City by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, translated by Andrew Bromfield (Chicago Review Press, July 1) “The Doomed City is set in an experimental city whose sun gets switched on in the morning and switched off at night, bordered by an abyss on one side and an impossibly high wall on the other. Its
Super Extra Grande by Yoss, translated by David Frye (Restless Books, 160 pages, June 7) “With the playfulness and ingenuity of Douglas Adams, the Cuban science-fiction master Yoss delivers a space opera of intergalactic proportions with Super Extra Grande, the winner of the twentieth annual UPC Science Fiction Award in 2011. In a distant future
