THE CLOVEN by B. Catling (Coronet £20)

THE CLOVEN

by B. Catling (Coronet £20)

In the strange world of Brian Catling, weirdness is the new normal. Characters’ very bodies form and reform, and storylines seem to slip under the weight of being read, like mud squidging between toes.

We’re back in Essenwald, the strange colonial city on the edge the Vorrh — primordial African forest. Amid a welter of oddness, including a broken, batlike seraph, the hideous Limboa with their hunger for dead babies, and a man who has split in half, World War II is thrown into the mix, with a colonial power determined to drive a road through the Vorrh. It can’t go well. Though The Cloven brings the trilogy to an extraordinary conclusion, it will live on the annals of fantasy as something unique.

THE TOWER OF LIVING AND DYING by Anna Smith Spark (Harper Voyager £14.99)

THE TOWER OF LIVING AND DYING

by Anna Smith Spark (Harper Voyager £14.99)

‘Never go up against a drink- and drug-addled death-obsessed invulnerable demon with a pet dragon.’

Wise words, spoken by a seasoned sell-sword Tobias, as he witnesses his raw mercenary novice turn into a blood-crazed, warrior king. The gripping action gathers and falls in epic waves as we move between the grim forests of the north, where would-be emperor Marith is hacking his way to infamy, to the dusty menace of the decadent south, where the once-great city of Sorlost is awash with intrigue and plague.

With dagger-sharp dialogue and character-driven narrative, this is a dazzling, blood-spattered sequel that howls like early Moorcock, then converses like the best of Le Guin.

THE BIGGERERS

THE BIGGERERS by Amy Lilwall (Point Blank £14.99)

by Amy Lilwall (Point Blank £14.99)

Imagine a pet’s-eye view of the world, but then replace dog or cat with a sort of updated Borrower: a genetically tweaked mini-me, designed for the comfort and entertainment of its full-sized owner, but capable of so much more . . .

Two couples sit at the heart of the story: Susan and Hamish, a pair of dysfunctional human Biggerers, and Jinx and Bonbon, their devoted Littlers.

But it’s not simply the dynamic between owner and owned that drives this unnerving and funny dystopian debut.

As Jinx and Bonbon develop — the pains of dawning consciousness are brilliantly evoked — everything changes.

Domestic bliss is shattered by their growing understanding of memory, language and the darker needs of Biggerers.

Exiled from Eden to a very human hell-on-earth, they must find themselves, and the world must find a place for them.