The Wick

Baggott (Harriet Wolf’s Seventh Book of Wonders) brings a poetic ethos to this mesmerizing sci-fi novella. Roon wakes aboard a crowded space elevator with no memory of who she is or how she got there. She learns that she is a cacheme, a copy of a person grown as insurance should the original die, and she’s being taken from her ravaged world to be “repurposed” on a space station. In other words, she’s disposable. When the space elevator is attacked and systems fail, Roon is left to die—and she’s not alone. Also left behind is a hull, or mech-animal hybrid, that Roon names Bukef. Bukef was created to contain, protect, and bond with the son of a rich family, and eventually to become a living weapon fueled by its owner’s mental energy. With Roon hiding inside of and fueling Bukef, they escape the wreck of the elevator. And as Bukef pieces together the shards of Roon’s altered memories, they work together to evade capture and return to the home that gave Roon up. Baggott’s lyrical, shared-mind narration nimbly handles the worldbuilding, inviting readers into an enticingly complex world without ever feeling clunky or expositional. The story resists easy answers and pat resolutions—and will leave readers eager to return to its vast and vivid universe. (Jan.)