Volume 268
Issue 14
04/05/2021
New works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror untangle the often-fragile links between recollection and identity.
Constance
Thriller writer Fitzsimmons, whose Gibson Vaughn series stars a hacker ex-Marine, steps into the near future with this standalone. After Constance D’Arcy dies, she wakes up in the body of her clone, lacking her most recent memories. The forgotten past holds the key not just to her future, but to the identity of her killer.
The Kingdoms
Joe Tournier remembers nothing before he stepped off a train in 1898 Londres, a city in an alternate England conquered by France during the Napoleonic Wars. A postcard from 1805 leads him on what PW’s starred review called “a time-bending journey that spans more than a century,” in which Pulley “masterfully combines history, speculative fiction, queer romance, and more into an unputdownable whole.”
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Reclaimed
Senna signs up for a cutting-edge treatment that erases traumatic memories, but her other memories begin disappearing, too. This leaves her unsure of her identity and certain something’s gone wrong with the experiment. Roux’s previous novels include 2019’s Salvaged, which PW’s starred review called an “entertaining, deeply disturbing, and clever story,” and the YA horror series Asylum.
The Reincarnationist Papers
Presented as a true account discovered in three notebooks in Rome around the turn of the millennium, this debut fantasy, which PW called “spellbinding,” delves into the Cognomina, a group whose members have total recall of their past lives. The novel has been adapted for the big screen as Infinite, slated for release in September.
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Reset
In what PW called an “immersive debut,” Aris, a scientist, lives in a postapocalyptic society that mandates memory wipes every four years in order to erase prejudices and maintain peace. She falls in with an underground group who believe people’s dreams contain memories from past cycles; when she meets their leader, Metis, the two try to resurrect what they feel certain is a previous connection between them.
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The Whispering Dead
In this horror series launch, which PW called an “atmospheric, open-ended thriller,” Keira wakes covered in blood, with no memory of what happened or how she got there. She takes shelter in the graveyard of a nearby town, where ghosts only she can see reveal that her lost memories are tied into the town’s long-buried secrets.
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