The Crossed Keys Chronicle

Given the current state of our world and most of humanity’s seeming disinterest in combating climate change, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that a lot of recent sci-fi is set in a near future wracked by its effects. Our Infinite and Inevitable Ends by A.D. Sui offers a new take on the topic while also being a great queer romance and a study in addiction.

When the book opens, we meet Dr. Cassandra “Cas” Barlowe, who is living on a giant island of trash in the Pacific Ocean studying plastic-eating fungi to help clean up the world. She receives a call from her estranged ex, Dr. Yana Gulsvig, with just a single-sentence message before the connection ends. Cas soon realizes something terrible has happened: a giant explosion has taken place at the research institute that Yana created and works at, and very shortly after that, Cas herself is arrested by Interpol officers for suspected involvement in the explosion as an act of terrorism. From this propulsive first chapter, we are thrust into a compelling but very dystopic vision of the future.

The story takes place a few decades in the future, and the effects of climate change have started taking their toll on the whole world. Most of the action takes place in a futuristic Toronto that is beset by near-constant acid rain that residents have just learned to deal with as a part of everyday life. Most efforts to stop the worsening conditions of the planet have been put on hold due to the discovery of the central plot point of the book, a drug called deleria. In this world, we learn that thanks to Yana’s research, parallel universes are real, and it’s possible to tune into those universes by taking this psychedelic drug. The world at large has decided that the best course of action going forward is to devote money and resources to just finding the version of the universe where humanity has “solved” the climate crisis, and just copy their work. After close to a decade of trying, however, it doesn’t seem like that plan is really working out. The drug’s main practical use is being prescribed to people who have recently lost loved ones, so that they can still see the versions of them that are still alive. It’s that use of the drug that is the main thrust of our narrative here.

We follow Cas as she works through her grief over the loss of Yana, while still seeing the echoes of her as she takes deleria over and over again to try and piece together what caused the explosion at the Institute. All this is made more complicated by the fact that the authorities are trying to place the blame on her while also trying to leverage Cas into helping take down the largest black-market dealer of deleria in the city, who just happens to be a woman who may have been a lover of Yana.

Despite some qualms I have over the way the magic drug is supposed to work, I really enjoyed this book a lot. The world building was great, including a lot of cool tech like contact-lens computing devices and even the drug itself. The state of the world in the book also holds up a mirror to our present day, particularly with the rise of the Effective Altruist sect that has taken over the mindshare of a lot of AI thought leaders these days. They also take stark utilitarianism to its extremes, while neglecting more common-sense actions. It’s also very ironic in the book that the goal of using deleria to find the “perfect” solution to climate change and to world problems in general is that if that is the default state for humanity, the majority of the parallel universes that people would encounter would also just be stuck waiting for a salvation that would never come.

I highly recommend Our Infinite and Inevitable Ends if you’re looking for some good near-future dystopia with a queer romance angle. And if you want an even more far-future, and even weirder, book, The Iron Garden Sutra, also by A.D. Sui, is excellent and also well worth your time.

As I've mentioned in past reviews, I'm really not into actual horror or very disturbing types of novels, but especially around this time of year I do like a little bit of spooky or atmospheric creepiness in my books. I had heard a lot of advance praise for Solace House by Will Maclean going into this spooky season, so I had some high hopes, and I'll spoil the suspense here: I really loved it.

Our story begins in 1993 England, where Alex Lane has just finished his term at university and while his wealthy friends are spending their summer going on exotic trips, he has left his summer plans utterly and completely open. He doesn't have enough money to actually move off campus, but the school isn't keen on students living there during the summer. After meeting with someone with the school, he learns of an exciting summer opportunity to help clear out a potential future university housing building, where not only will he get a place to stay for the summer, he'll make a good amount of money in the process.

Alex quickly arrives at the Marshlands property and meets up with a ragtag bunch of other students who have been working on clearing the building for a short while already. After a week or so, the plan for the summer changes as the group's mission changes targets to the extremely spooky Victorian mansion adjacent to the property, known as Solace House. The mansion is going up for sale and the university has an interest in it after the death of its reclusive owner, Edwin Flayne. The mansion is stuffed full of decades upon decades of newspapers, books and ephemera stacked from floor to ceiling. As the students work through cleaning the house, they uncover more and more about the creepy life that Edwin lived and why even after his death, the house and its surroundings have secrets to be discovered.

As I started with, I really loved this book. Maclean gives the story a lot of room to breathe, and we get a great sense of the main characters and their motivations. Just the setting alone gives the story a general background level of unsettledness that the reader always feels in the back of their mind. I could often picture in my mind how creepy some of the settings in the book would be in real life, or even your typical A24 horror movie.

The main mystery in the story centers on Edwin Flayne and his lifelong obsession with performing a ritual he believed would allow him complete mastery over time, and in turn enperpetuate himself and the mansion, which as an aside is an amazing neologism. He detailed his manifesto and explanations for how to accomplish this in a giant set of journals that the students find in the mansion. One thing I really loved, which is only a minor spoiler, was the incorporation of acrostic poems into the story. In fact, towards the end of the book we even get nested acrostic poems! Which I have to say is a really fun idea and now I want all my spooky found poetry stories to feature it.

Even though the novel is just three pages shy of five hundred, it's the rare long book that I really wanted even more of. The pacing was perfect for a good slow burn spooky story, but it never felt plodding. I personally would have liked the last section of the book to flesh out its ideas even more, but alas, as they say, always leave them wanting more. Despite the fact that the calendar says the official end of spooky season is upon us, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a great atmospheric read and I look forward to whatever Maclean comes out with next.

There is a certain trope of sci-fi novels that never ceases to hook me into a book, and that's the one with lots of very odd and exotic proper nouns. The novel All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu had so many of them in the first few pages—cephaloscripts, neuromesh, egolets, just to name a few—that I had a pretty good idea that I was going to enjoy this novel.

In this book we follow Julia Z, who is a very experienced hacker in near-future Boston. She is approached by Piers Neri, who is looking for help finding his missing wife, Elli, who he, at least initially, believes has been kidnapped. His wife is a moderately famous oneirofex, another amazing proper noun by the way, which in the book universe is a person who facilitates group dream sessions that are mediated and augmented by personal AIs. Julia declines to help Piers initially, but her own AI, named Talos, lets her know that she might be in danger due to the group of henchmen that tracked Piers to her place. Julia then engages in some great spycraft to leave her apt undetected and eventually meet up with Piers to help him in his search. From there we learn a lot more about the fascinating world of the vivid dreamers that Elli was a part of and try to figure out where she might be.

Beyond just really enjoying the near-future world building that Liu accomplishes, I really enjoyed the story as well. From the first page of the book, the reader is aware that Elli hasn't been kidnapped and instead went on the run for her own purposes, so it's interesting to see how the characters eventually come to terms with that reality and how it impacts them. I think Liu also made a few bold choices. While I wouldn't call it a twist, around sixty percent of the way through the book there is a big plot turn that I wasn't expecting from this kind of book.

We also learn a lot about the backstory of Julia Z, and she herself is a very interesting character. Daughter of an immigrant whose mother became a very vocal and outspoken activist, which caused Julia to have a tumultuous childhood. She eventually ended up living on her own in a number of bad situations before getting involved with a radical hacking group, which is where she learned so much of her tradecraft. Beyond just being interesting background on her character for the book, I don't think it's too much of a spoiler due to the way Amazon even catalogs the book, but it seems like there will be future books with this protagonist as the lead.

If you are looking for a light techno-thriller set in a world that isn't too different from our own, I would highly recommend All That We See or Seem. Don't let all the neologisms scare you off from a well crafted and well told story. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, which is currently scheduled for release in the Spring of 2027.