Blue Remembered Earth, by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, £18.99)
The opening volume of the Poseidon's Children trilogy starts with a flourishing Africa 150 years from now and follows the progress of the Akinya family empire over the course of the next 11,000 years. Geoffrey and Sunday, grandchildren of the empire's founding matriarch Eunice Akinya, lead their own lives, one studying elephants in the Amboseli park, the other creating artworks on the moon. They are drawn reluctantly back into the fold when Geoffrey is asked by scheming cousins to investigate a safe-deposit box left on Luna by his grandmother. Eunice may be dead, but it appears that she is still pulling the strings of the empire, and what Geoffrey discovers will determine the course, not only of the Akinya enterprise, but of humanity's destiny for millennia. Reynolds's near-future is so brilliantly extrapolated, with original ideas fizzing off every page, that the reader is left awestruck at what further wonders await in the following volumes. Excellent.
In The Mouth of the Whale, by Paul McAuley (Gollancz, £18.99)
Along with Reynolds, McAuley is one of Britain's finest exponents of hard SF, and this series is fast becoming essential reading for the enthusiast. The third volume in the Quiet War sequence is set more than 1,000 years after the events of the first two novels and follows humanity's diaspora to the star of Fomalhaut. It's a strange environment whose inhabitants are even stranger, radically altered humans who divide themselves into the Quick and the True – and the Ghosts, an enigmatic race of post-humans whose conflict with the Quick and the True plays itself out over the course of the novel. McAuley expertly handles a complex storyline, burying twists in a narrative that is politically aware and scientifically literate, and balances technological detail with thrilling set-pieces.
City of Light and Shadow, by Ian Whates (Angry Robot, £7.99)
SF and fantasy lend themselves to the creation of memorable cities, and over the course of the City of a Hundred Rows trilogy Whates has developed an intriguing metropolis every bit as fascinating as his varied cast of characters. Thaiburley is an ancient, stratified city built on 100 levels, each one infested with political and personal intrigue. Book three has the dreaded Rust Warriors return to wreak havoc, and only feisty street-urchin Tom can save the day, while Tom's erstwhile companion Kat leads the Tattooed Men into the polluted wasteland of the Stain to hunt down her sister's murderer. A deft mix of intrigue, assassination and romance culminates in a desperate fight for Thaiburley's existence, and along the way Whates finally reveals the true nature of the city itself. Compulsively readable.
Pilgrims, by Will Elliott (Jo Fletcher Books, £18.99)
The opening volume of the Pendulum trilogy starts on familiar territory – a door to another world through which our heroes will travel on fabulous adventures. Eric Albright is a workshy journalist and his sidekick Stuart Casey a homeless alcoholic; they discover a small door amid graffiti under a railway bridge. When they pass through, they find themselves in a phantasmagoric fantasy world peopled by giants, ghosts, spirits and dragons. The pair embark as pilgrims on a quest, of course, and are soon fighting for their survival. In précis, there is nothing about Pilgrims to lift it above thousands of other fantasy novels, but the book's charm lies in the interplay between its mundane Aussie protagonists and the surreal, vividly imagined alternate reality.
• Eric Brown's The Kings of Eternity is published by Solaris.
