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WHAT would you do if you could push a little red button to erase everyone you don鈥檛 agree with politically? Empty Hearts by Juli Zeh is set several years in the future in a Germany where the political shocks of Trump and Brexit, exacerbated by a second financial crisis and the growth of an ultrapopulist movement, have undermined the will towards democracy. Given a choice between owning a washing machine or the right to vote, most people would choose the appliance.

Disillusioned but sheltered from the fallout of these crises, the novel鈥檚 anti-hero, Britta, has found a way to profit from nihilism by cornering the market in domestic terrorism. She runs The Bridge, a legal organisation that identifies the suicidally inclined, and, should they prove untreatable, pairs them with terrorist organisations such as Islamic State, for which they carry out suicide attacks. But now a rival organisation, Empty Hearts, led by a rejected client, threatens Britta鈥檚 market domination.

This year has seen a string of novels exploring the destabilised Western political psyche, but Empty Hearts strikes me as one of the strongest so far. It asks, what if the current political climate led not to catastrophe, but to stagnation? Its answer is a riveting thriller and a nuanced piece of social science fiction.

The novel鈥檚 only weakness is that its tight focus on social developments assumes stability in areas such as tech advances and, most strikingly, climate change, which is relegated to one more ideological battleground. On the whole, though, it is nuanced and brilliantly executed 鈥� a standout.

鈥淕iven a choice between owning a washing machine or the right to vote, most would choose the appliance鈥�

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers seems spawned from similar concerns: overexposure to a frantic news cycle, loss of political efficacy, a feeling of rootlessness. But this novella 鈥� set in her bestselling Wayfarers world 鈥� has a very different take. It is the turn of the 22nd century and Ariadne O鈥橬eill is part of a crew on an interstellar mission to survey habitable exoplanets. Their journey takes them 15 light years from home, a distance that only allows them to maintain intermittent contact through news packages and updated mission briefings.

Caught up in the joys and trials of their expedition, they begin to disconnect from the increasingly volatile political situation at home 鈥� until they lose contact altogether. With fuel enough for a return to the planet that launched them or a further foray into the unknown, the crew must decide what they owe to those left behind.

Whereas Zeh risks turning news-weary readers into trolls unmoored from their compassionate instincts, Chambers seems to suggest going offline, tuning out the noise and refocusing on what you value most. In this love letter to science, she weaves together descriptions of technology with entertaining characters and a fast-moving, emotional plot. Her future is fraught with difficulties, but a focus on warmth, camaraderie and teamwork is welcome.

At times, her book wears its heart too much on its sleeve. Chambers names the exoplanets Mirabilis, Opera and Votum (Latin for miraculous, work and prayer), which risks giving the novella the flavour of a spacefaring Eat, Pray, Love. But this may be unfair. The effect is magnified, I suspect, by the lack of similarly optimistic novels published right now. As bleakness becomes a stand-in for realism, To Be Taught, If Fortunate is still a breath of fresh air.