Anne Charnock won the 2018 Arthur C Clarke award for Dreams Before the Start of Time, exploring the future of reproductive technology; her fourth novel is the dystopian Bridge 108 (47North, £8.99). At the close of the 21st century, bushfires and drought have ravaged Europe and refugees in their thousands are flocking to Britain. Among them are 12-year-old Caleb and his mother, following in the footsteps of Caleb’s father, making the gruelling journey from Spain in hope of a better life. After his mother’s disappearance, Caleb finds himself among other illegal immigrants working in a clothing factory. The narrative charts his perilous journey across a bleak future England, meeting others as desperate as himself as he searches for his parents. By switching viewpoint from chapter to chapter, it builds a comprehensive picture of a country beset by the effects of climate change,where citizens are forced into indentured servitude. Charnock tells her story through the lives of ordinary people caught up in situations beyond their control, and Bridge 108 is all the more powerful for that.

Marc-Uwe Kling’s QualityLand (Orion, £14.99), translated from the German by Jamie Lee Searle, is set in the eponymous future state, where life is dictated by algorithms. The government has unfettered access to citizens’ personal data, and autonomy and self-determination are things of the past – the state caters for your every need, delivering goods to your door via a fleet of automated drones. When scrap-metal worker Peter Jobless – his surname dictated by his father’s work status – receives a sex toy that he didn’t order and doesn’t want, he embarks on a quest to find out why he was sent it and to return it to the vast retailer known as TheShop. In counterpoint to Peter’s story, a shambolic presidential campaign is taking place between an imbecilic rightwing celebrity chef and an android programmed to speak only the truth. Nineteen Eighty-Four meets Vonnegutian slapstick in a free-wheeling satire spliced with black humour and some gloriously wicked social commentary.

The latest entry in the growing subgenre of fantasies featuring libraries and librarians is The Library of the Unwritten by AJ Hackwith (Titan, £8.99). It’s a captivating premise: Hell has a library, and a section of that library is the wing of Unwritten Books, holding volumes that were never completed. Claire Hadley and her assistant Brevity are in charge. One of their jobs is to ensure that the characters generated by the unfinished books cannot escape from Hell; when a hero flees to Earth, Claire is tasked with effecting his return, and this is where the fun begins. Claire and Brevity, accompanied by a fledgling demon, fall into the company of the fallen angel Ramiel, who is searching for the Devil’s bible. In the wrong hands, this could bring about a war between Heaven and Hell and destroy Earth in the process. An enjoyable madcap caper, The Library of the Unwritten is the first book in the Hell’s Library series.

Andrew Hunter Murray’s debut novel The Last Day (Hutchinson, £12.99) opens in 2059. The world has stopped rotating due to the close approach of a white dwarf star, and the majority of the planet is divided into two uninhabitable zones, one frozen and the other sun-scorched. Fortunately for the United Kingdom, it exists in the temperate meridional strip, and now rules over stretches of western Europe with totalitarian ruthlessness. Ocean scientist Ellen Hopper, employed on a rig in the North Atlantic, is whisked to London by government operatives. Her former Oxford tutor has earth-shattering information to impart, but dies before he can do so. What follows is a taut, thrilling runaround as Ellen, aided by her ex-husband and brother, works to uncover her tutor’s secret while keeping one step ahead of those who will stop at nothing to discover it before her. Shaky science aside, The Last Day is an impressive dystopian techno-thriller. Murray paints a grim picture of a draconian isolationist Britain, with some vivid descriptions of a much-changed London, and the novel’s climax has a neat twist.

Menna van Praag’s seventh novel The Sisters Grimm (Bantam, £14.99) is the first of a planned trilogy; it follows the fortunes of four half-sisters – Goldie, Bea, Liyana and Scarlet, born at the same time to different mothers. As children, the girls met in their dreams in the eldritch realm of Everwhere, where they were imbued with elemental powers. Now, growing up in contemporary Cambridge and battling with the mundane realities of everyday life, the quartet are approaching their 18th birthdays, when they will face events which will not only unite them again in Everwhere, but force them to make a choice between good and evil as they confront their manipulative father. Despite the novel’s constant hopping from sister to sister and switching between past and present, Van Praag spins a compelling, intensely poetic narrative of empowerment and self-realisation.

• Eric Brown’s latest novel is Murder Served Cold (Severn House).