This review was first published by Booklist on May 15, 2022.

A science mission to explore Jupiter discovers something unexpected on the moon Europa and disappears. A chauffeur in Arizona who believes his wife was abducted by aliens gets wrapped up in a covert rescue mission. This sounds like a setup for a standard alien-encounter story; instead, Johnson (Pym, 2011) uses the premise to examine many of the immediate problems facing our society today: intolerance, unearned privilege, religious fundamentalism, corrupt politics, and mass obliviousness. There’s nothing subtle about this work, and some might find it too on the nose, but there is power in addressing these issues so unflinchingly. His writing style is fairly cerebral, which mutes some of the emotional impact, and that’s the point: Johnson has an argument to make, and the story humanizes it enough for it to really hit home. His characters are vivid and compelling, and even the villains retain their full measure of humanity, with motivations that make sense. The ending veers unexpectedly into the fantastical while offering a welcome measure of hope.

This review was first published by Booklist on April 15, 2022.

Greene’s latest is set in an alternate time line where the U.S. and Soviet Union made it to space in the 1950s and fended off an alien attack in the 1960s. Brooklyn Lamontagne, a petty crook who just wants to take care of his mother, joins the Earth Orbital Forces to avoid a prison sentence. Soon he’s swept up in a series of events that uncover a deep secret which could save humankind. Mercury Rising is a rollicking, funny, picaresque adventure novel. It doesn’t follow any predictable path and requires a willingness to go along and see where it takes you. The hero isn’t a typical good guy, but he’s likable and compelling. The secondary characters are all people you want to spend more time with. Most of all, this is a stellar example of effective world building. Greene provides enough detail to make the alternate reality believable and immersive, but he’s not concerned with showing it off. Recommended for fans of old sf-adventure serials and Ernest Cline’s Armada (2015).

This review was first published by Booklist on March 25, 2022.

Rex hoped he was safe. But of course, the Sisters have other plans, and Del’s consciousness is still inside his mind, seeking a way out. Elsewhere, a Burn seeks atonement for past crimes, a cyborg woman and her engineer boyfriend are caught up in a conflict they don’t understand, Hmech’s Alliance continues its conquest of Earth, the Convolver Sect machinates for the salvation of mankind, and we haven’t seen the last of Ursurper Gale. There are a lot of moving pieces in Jordan’s sequel to Glow (2021). The story zips along at a frenetic pace, keeping the reader just a little off balance along with the characters, bouncing between different plot threads before he brings it all together for an explosive climax. Jordan expands this world in more dimensions, revealing intricacies of the political landscape and some surprises about certain characters and diving deeper into the workings of the Glow network. At times, the world building threatens to spin out of control, but overall Jordan manages to wrangle his many story threads into a satisfying whole.

This review was first published by Booklist on March 15, 2022.

**STARRED REVIEW** From the invention of the Epstein drive, to Amos’ backstory, to the fate of Naomi’s son, these eight stories and novellas fill in details of the world of the Expanse (beginning with Leviathan Wakes, 2011), telling tales that didn’t fit into the main novels but which deepen readers’ relationship to this world and its characters. Much like the longer books, each story has its own tone, atmosphere, and pace, and Corey uses the freedom of the short form to experiment with different narrative styles. The stories are creative and inventive, packing the same character-driven emotional power of the novels. It’s remarkable how well Corey adapts their writing style to craft short-form tales that are the equal of the lauded long-form works. Each story is accompanied by an author’s note explaining how it came to be, along with nuggets of trivia about the writing and publishing process. These pieces were written over the course of the series and originally published in a variety of sources, so they weren’t always easy for fans to track down. This collection is a welcome capstone to mark the conclusion of arguably the best space-opera series written in the past few decades.