REISSUES
Our paperback picks this month begin with Ann Leckie’s TRANSLATION STATE (★★★★, out now, Orbit). Set in the author’s Imperial Radch universe, this standalone story sees the lives of three characters intersecting: a translator from the alien Presger species; a diplomat tasked with hunting down a fugitive who’s been missing for over 200 years; and an adopted mechanic desperate to learn about his genetic roots. We said: “There’s a lot going on here, but a linking theme is the idea of identity… A wise, ambitious and darkly funny novel.” The latest of Karen Lord’s Cygnus Beta books,