Extremophile by Ian Green (Head of Zeus, £20) The bestselling fantasy author makes his SF debut with a compelling biopunk thriller set in a grimly believable near-future London ravaged by climate change. Charlie, half of the punk band Horse Theory, is a biohacker who provides genetic tweaks for paying customers and friends from the music scene. She tries to live a moral life, despite breaking many laws, so she’s not enthusiastic when some serious ecoterrorists want to hire her for a violent heist.
Her partner, though, is convinced it could help save the world. An electric charge of anger animates this gripping novel: rage against the selfish individuals and amoral corporations bent on extracting maximum profit with no thought for the lives, and the world, their greed destroys. Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan (Orbit, £20) Rae is dying in a hospital bed when she’s given the chance to enter the world of her favourite fantasy series, promised that if she manages to steal “the Flower of Life and Death” she will wake up cured.
But in the dangerous realm of Eyam, Rae finds herself not the heroine, but a villain who dies in the first volume: the evil Lady Rahela, now locked up awaiting execution. Drawing on her memories of the later books, and an appreciation of genre tropes, she works out a plan to change the plot and save herself. Other characters will have to die, but they’re not real people – are they? Written by the author of award-winning YA fantasies, hersel.