EVEN in the future, history never stays in the past tense. The most anticipated books of 2024 explore the deep roots of the moral and philosophical quandaries shaping our times.
Many depths are visible in (Tor), Seth Dickinson鈥檚 clever take on a first-contact-with-aliens, military sci-fi, moral philosophy tome. If all that hasn鈥檛 got you running away screaming, this book is for you.
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Alien contact with the military industrial complex also dominates (Simon & Schuster) by Hao Jingfang, translated by Ken Liu. Here, the aliens may prevent a world war in a barely recognisable future.
Robin Sloan鈥檚 (MCD) is similarly far out, in all senses, with its timelines: one a near future where our problems have been solved; the other 11,000 years ahead, with our species mostly a cautionary tale.
Parallel universes feature prominently in Joma West鈥檚 (Tordotcom), as some children flip uncontrollably between parallel realities, sometimes disappearing for long stretches. In the end, they can only settle in one. West observes the emotional devastation this creates. It is an elegant metaphor for what we all face as our choices collapse into our settled identity.
What happens to those identities if we are stripped of our memories? The eponymous protagonists in P. Dj猫l铆 Clark鈥檚 (Tordotcom) are raised from the dead to take on contracts, unable to recall their former lives 鈥� until one does.
One of our oldest questions is whether to stay holed up inside the wall or to go over
Unreliable memory warps cultures too, as we find in (Tordotcom), in which Moses Ose Utomi expands The Lies of the Ajungo, his acclaimed novella. History as a one-sided tale told by its winners echoes through both.
What happens when history鈥檚 winners are replaced by their own creations? (Pan Macmillan) by Adrian Tchaikovsky follows a robot in search of a new paradigm. You can count on Tchaikovsky to make the most of the complex ethics involved; even at 400 pages, it is over too soon.
In Oliver K. Langmead鈥檚 colony-ship space opera (Titan), an engineer wakes from cryostasis to find a centuries-long war still raging between technologists and botanists over the kind of utopia their society will build on their new home.
And when (or if) a utopia is achieved, how do you keep it going? This is the heart of Tlotlo Tsamaase鈥檚 Afrofuturist folk/horror/sci-fi novel (Erewhon), in which technology traps a woman in her own body.
Technology has other perils, judging by Ray Nayler鈥檚 (Tordotcom), a Jurassic Park updated for the 21st century. What does de-extinction really do, if it can鈥檛 restore the past?
We have all longed for a mulligan 鈥� that second chance. Peng Shepherd scratches that itch in (William Morrow), as a game show uses quantum tech to undo contestants鈥� deepest regrets.
Even top writers have those. In 1980, Haruki Murakami published a story, The City and Its Uncertain Walls. Forty years on, restrictions of the covid-19 pandemic gave him the chance to return to it. The result is (an English translation is possible in 2024). As Murakami said at the book launch in Japan in 2023: 鈥淚n an age when society is going through rattling changes, whether to stay holed up inside the wall or to go to the other side of the wall has become a greater proposition than ever.鈥� It is one of our oldest questions.
Sally Adee is a writer based in London
