The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman

In literature, nothing dates like tomorrow. The hypothetical readers of the late 21st century may look back on the Armageddon fixation of some of today’s dystopic fiction with an indulgent smile. But they may also be struck by how much of the political and physical landscape they recognise.

That the radically altered world on the horizon has already been envisaged by science presents a challenge to fiction writers conjuring humankind’s future: in an era of melting ice caps and military contingency plans, the issue is no longer what we can imagine; it is what we can’t.

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We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

“I wanted you to have an extraordinary life,” confesses Rosemary’s mother in Karen Joy Fowler’s wise, provocative and wildly endearing take on family love. Did no one warn Mrs Cooke to be careful what she wished for? Had she any inkling of the family cataclysm her innocent desire would engender, and the complex repercussions her daughter would suffer in its wake?

Rewind to the day back in 1970s Indiana, when narrator-heroine Rosemary is separated from her beloved “twin” sister, Fern, and sent, aged five, for a week’s visit to her grandparents. “I knew the winds of doom when they blew,” Rosemary recalls. She senses that she has committed a heinous crime, for which her punishment is expulsion from the bosom of the family. But no. On her return, it is the thrill-seeking Fern who has been dispatched – never to be seen again. There are no explanations.

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Kerrigan in Copenhagen by Thomas E Kennedy – review

Thanks to television drama, every British TV licence-payer now has a passive acquaintance with Danish, and Copenhagen is at its most globally recognised since Hans Christian Andersen’s day. It seems we can’t get enough of the place.

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