REISSUES
Pick of the paperbacks: Kim Stanley Robinson’s THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE ( , 14 October, Orbit). Dealing with climate change and set a few years in the future, it centres on the titular organisation, whose mission includes defending generations as yet unborn. We said: “A hugely ambitious book of ideas, yet one that never forgets that people are more important than grand visions.” If you know Michel Faber from Under The Skin, you may be surprised that he’s produced a whimsical YA adventure. In D (A TALE OF TWO WORLDS) ( , out now, Black Swan), a 12-year-old girl wakes up one morning to find the letter “D” has disappeared. Soon she’s stepping through a doorway into another world on a quest to find the missing letters. We said: “Faber mingles elements of CS Lewis, Charles Dickens and Monty Python with some lovely imaginative touches… Also tackles weighty issues of belonging, with a light touch.” Finally, the SF book that’ll shift the most units this month is Ernest Cline’s follow-up to Ready Player One. Our reviewer was one of many unimpressed by READY PLAYER TWO ( , 9 November, Arrow), though. Picking up protagonist Wade Watts’s story a few years later, it adds a new dimension to virtual universe Oasis, with users able to plug their brains in via a neural interface. We said: “Like a bad cover version of book one… While Ready Player One celebrated the joys of being a fan, Two makes it feel like a chore.”