Roundup: 4 science fiction novels to take you back to the future — and forward again

The Ferryman

By Justin Cronin

(Ballantine, 560 pages, $38)

The Ferryman of the title here is one Proctor Bennett, whose job it is to transport elderly residents of the idyllic island of Prospera to another island named the Nursery where they can be rebooted into teenage bodies. Prospera is a wonderful place, but this resurrection business, Proctor’s bad dreams, and the presence of an underclass of bitter proles who commute in from a third island dubbed the Annex and who do all the grunt work on Prospera, will suggest to most readers that all is not as it seems.

In fact, nothing is as it seems on Prospera. Revealing what is actually going on takes some unwinding though, and Justin Cronin, author of the bestselling “Passage Trilogy,” is in no rush to get to the final reveal. That’s OK though, as getting there is the whole point, not to mention all the fun, of these techno-thrillers, and Cronin spins things along in a professional manner that has them picking up pace through all the hairpin plot twists in the final act.

Eventide, Water City

By Chris McKinney

(Soho, 384 pages, $36.95)

The first volume of Hawaiian author Chris McKinney’s neo-noir “Water City” trilogy was an impressive feat of world-building, blending speculative but coherent takes on environmental issues and the future of tech, politics and the economy. At the end of it though, things seemed pretty squared away and it wasn’t clear where he was going to go next.

This second instalment kicks things off with an old enemy coming back to life, and spreads out with new complications in the plot, fresh characters and a more extensive exploration of his upside-down waterworld. And this time our hero isn’t just saving the planet but his family, too.

While “Eventide” is a little less tight than the first book, there’s no denying McKinney has a fantastic imagination that’s running in high gear here, making this series well worth checking out.

Not Alone

By Sarah K. Jackson

(Doubleday, 288 pages, $37)

End-of-the-world hellscapes have become such a staple of futuristic fiction that they have their own sub-genres now, ranging from climate-change Armageddon (or CliFi) to the more fanciful zombie apocalypse. A professional ecologist, Sarah K. Jackson’s vision of the collapse of civilization has a slightly different spin, with the blame falling on a plague of microplastics that poison the world in an endless fall of toxic dust.

Katie is living in London with her young son Harry, five years After the plastic apocalypse (Before and After are often capitalized in these novels). In Katie’s struggle to provide for Harry, and their subsequent journey north to find a place of greater safety, there are obvious echoes of such books as Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and Josh Malerman’s “Bird Box,” a trend that suggests some mainstream acknowledgment of generational responsibility for the looming crises we currently face.

It’s fairly familiar territory then, but it’s made fresh by Jackson’s boots-on-the-ground evocation of a radically altered urban and natural environment, and her invention of a new and credible kind of catastrophe. When it comes to the end of the world, it seems there’s always something else not to look forward to.

Fractal Noise

By Christopher Paolini

(Tor, 286 pages, $38.99)

Fans of Christopher Paolini’s epic 2020 novel “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars” will no doubt be looking forward to this second entry in his “Fractalverse” series. While they may be surprised at where he goes with it they shouldn’t be disappointed.

“Fractal Noise” is technically a prequel, set some 20 years before the events of the first book and dealing with an important event that’s part of its backstory: the discovery of a 50-km-wide circular hole on the surface of the planet Talos VII. Was it created by aliens? And if so, where are they? And why is the hole emitting regular bursts of high-frequency radio waves?

A team of explorers are sent to the surface of Talos VII to investigate, which leads to a struggle through an inhospitable desert-like landscape of hurricane-force winds and tech-destroying dust storms to get to the edge of the “anomaly.” Along the way, they debate “huge philosophical issues” relating to humanity’s place in the universe, while the main character works his way through a grieving process.

In other words this is very human-centred and character-driven SF, and — unlike the space opera Paolini’s fans were no doubt primed for — is laser focused on a simple humans-vs.-the-environment story that hearkens back to accounts of early Arctic and Antarctic explorers. Which makes it feel like both something old and something new.

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