The King Must Die

Ashing-Giwa (A Splinter in the Sky) wows in this brilliantly immersive novel set 500 years after humanity left an overpopulated Earth to begin again on Newearth, an exodus enabled by the help of mysterious aliens known as the Makers. Despite the new lease on life offered by this opportunity, impatient settlers recklessly sped up the terraforming process, leading to dire environmental consequences felt in the present day. As ecological catastrophe looms, Newearth’s autocratic leaders, who have adopted the theory that criminal tendencies are genetic, stifle dissent. When heroine Fenyyang “Fen” Mekantai was just six, her fathers, both ambassadors, were arrested for encouraging citizens to air concerns about the future. Their arrest doomed Fen to a life of involuntary servitude to a nobleman, Onath, who trained her as a bodyguard. Years later, her fathers are assassinated in prison and Onath is ordered to kill Fen. Instead, he enables her escape, faking her death and giving her directions to reach the Broken Masks, a rebel force. What she finds when she does so is unexpected, and complicates her hopes for the future. Ashing-Giwa’s dystopian sci-fi worldbuilding is staggering, and her heroine proves easy to root for. Readers will be enthralled. (Nov.)