This World Is Not Yours

This claustrophobic queer sci-fi horror hybrid from Ashing-Giwa (The Splinter in the Sky) focuses on the toxic love triangle between three characters—Amara, Vinh, and Jesse—as they come to terms with a terrible entity that haunts the planet they’ve been tasked with colonizing. After a rival colony destroys their resources, the company sponsoring their expedition takes a more active role, forcing them to restructure their relationship to at least appear traditional and heterosexual. Meanwhile, a mysterious substance called the Gray advances upon their colony. To survive, the strained triad must figure out how to stop this threat while making peace with the space each of them holds in the others’ lives. Ashing-Giwa does an excellent job of bringing to life the labyrinthine intricacies of human relationships that can drive people to horrific extremes, and the worldbuilding provides a rich, fascinating background against which these dynamics play out. The ambitious plot doesn’t have quite enough room to breathe, but the novel’s haunting ending is likely to stick with readers for a long time. Tense and immersive, this is a nail-biter. (Sept.)