2026/020: Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars — Kate Greene

What if a mission to Mars didn’t have as its main goal a barrage of scientific studies, or the demonstration that humans can build ships to send us to faraway lands and keep us alive in the harshest environments? What if it’s not driven by the fear of our eventual extinction or by opportunities afforded it by current economic systems—mining for resources, etc. Or what if it is those things, but also, in its design, it contains questions about what it means to be a human being alive and alone and unable to achieve contact with others in this universe? [p. 131]

In 2013, Kate Greene spent four months as second-in-command of the Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) mission, which was designed to simulate life on Mars. The six crew members lived in cramped quarters, with artificial communication delays, pre-packaged food, constant surveys for one another's experiments, and compulsory spacesuits for excursions beyond the habitat. The essays that comprise Once Upon a Time I Lived On Mars -- subtitled 'Space, Exploration and Life on Earth' -- are all rooted in Greene's HI-SEAS experience: but that's a launchpad to discuss climate change, the breakup of her marriage, the history of space flight, and the thorny questions of whether humans should go to Mars, and who gets to decide.

In some ways this book, published in 2020, feels very dated. There's such a sense of hope for the various planned Mars missions (some of which were cancelled or postponed due to Covid) and for the possibilities offered by spaceflight. Reading in 2026, after Trump's cuts to the NASA budget and the damage to Russia's only launch facility at Baikonur, it feels like a lost future. And though Greene has major reservations about Elon Musk's role as cheerleader for the space programme, the book was clearly written before his more egregious exploits.

Yet there is a great deal of interest here. Greene is a science journalist, and her background shows in areas such as the assessment of whether all-male crews are the best option. (They're not: small women use half as many resources as large men, according to former NASA researcher Alan Drysdale.) I also learnt that Neil Armstrong's spacesuit was designed by Playtex, that Jeff Bezos 'dumps roughly $1 billion of his Amazon stocks into Blue Origin to keep the company in cash' [p. 175] and that, four billion years ago, the Moon was only 20,000 miles from Earth.

Often lyrical, often hopeful, but more about life on Earth than life on Mars.

I wonder about the arguments against going to Mars that claim we need to first focus on fixing problems here at home. Might going to Mars be a way to help us see our planet and ourselves anew? Couldn’t a human expedition to Mars be good for those on Earth too? Though, as with many things, it could very well depend on who does the going. [p. 162]

2026/019: Helm — Sarah Hall

There they are, the exuberant, flamboyantly dressed couple, petting beneath a gargantuan inflammable. Helm is buoyed by the aerial company, and oddly nauseated. Something about the creepy, crêpey surface of the inflatable, and the oo of the balloon, and the balloon itself, its potential to burst and issue forth a loud, deflationary, unfunny raspberry. Cue, globophobia. [loc. 1090

A luminous wild tale whose protagonist is Helm, Britain's only named wind, an accident of geology and meteorology who's as vivid a character as the humans with which Helm interacts. (Helm's pronouns are Helm/Helm's.) After an intensely lyrical opening that depicts Helm's existence before the coming of humans, the novel skitters backwards and forwards in time ('Time happens all at once for Helm, more or less') focusing on a handful of individuals. These include a Neolithic seer, a medieval warrior-priest, a nineteenth-century meteorologist and his wife, a neurodiverse child growing up in the 1960s, a glider pilot, and a researcher studying microplastics in the environment. Helm likes to collect what Helm calls 'trinkets', souvenirs of encounters with humans -- 'so fun and terribly worrying'. These include an ejector seat from a Tornado jet, an iron skullcap, a tobacco pipe, an iPhone... And Helm is not always invisible to humans: some think of Helm as a demon, others as a friend, or a deity, or a fragile natural phenomenon, or a wild destroyer.

All of these are valid.

Hall's prose is marvellous, literally and metaphorically. Each of her characters has a unique voice (I liked Helm best) and each character's arc -- not always told sequentially -- could have been a novel in itself. I loved the Cumbrian dialect (cowp, spelks, glisky) and the sense of place. The chapter from the perspective of glider pilot Jude is an excellent evocation of the joy and terror of unpowered flight, too. And Janice, who draws Helm for the doctors at the asylum, has a unique and profound connection with Helm, which Helm clearly reciprocates.

Perhaps the division of narrative was slightly uneven, but researcher Selima Sutar, whose narrative is most detailed and subjective, serves as our modern viewpoint, coming to understand that Helm is under threat by humans. Helm, I think, knows that: when Michael, a priest sent to exorcise the fiend of the fell, asks in a dream how long Helm will live, the answer is 'Eight more centuries. Until you kill me.' [loc. 2319]

I was delighted to see this novel on the British Science Fiction Association Awards Longlist: it is about climate, and arguably about non-human intelligence and making contact.

2026/018: Tools for Life: 10 Essential Therapy Skills Everyone Should Know — Dr Kirren Schnack

Our environment can influence the way our genes are expressed through a process known as epigenetics, with both positive and negative experiences influencing how our genes work... nature and nurture are constantly working together, reminding us that who we are is not set in stone. [Chapter 1]

Read by the author, who has a warm and restful voice, this is an overview of some common psychological issues and how to address them. There are ten chapters, ranging from 'How You've Become Who You Are' (which examines the role of genetics, culture and trauma in shaping personality, and discusses attachment theory) to 'Healing from the Pain Caused by Others' (which focuses on relationships ending, forgiveness and closure, and how to move on). 

Along the way, there are many useful techniques, examples and case studies: while not all of these were relevant to me, I really appreciated the sensible and straightforward way in which Dr Schnack presented them, and her encouragement to those who felt stuck with their own issues. 'You are not broken and you can change.' There are also good guidelines on how to identify and live by your own values, and how to deal with intrusive thoughts.

This was a pleasant and interesting listening experience, though I think I'd have found a paper copy more useful: it feels like the kind of book one wants to mark up, to scribble notes and exclamation marks and check marks. On the other hand, the meditation guides at the end of the book work very well in audio format.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date was 01 JAN 2026.

2026/017: The Scholars of Night — John M Ford

'...through the grace of God and friendly governments we are allowed a certain number of immoral acts, but we are obliged to avoid merely stupid ones.'[loc. 1878]

Long unavailable, Ford's Cold War spy thriller with added Christopher Marlowe is a delight. There are two major plots, very much entwined: the discovery of an unknown Marlowe play, 'The Assassin’s Tragedy', and the theft of some cutting-edge military hardware. Marlowe's play deals with spycraft, a mysterious fellow who might have royal blood, and the narrow line between patriotism and treason. The modern narrative also explores these issues, via role-playing games, divided loyalties, and scholarly imagination.

The Scholars of Night begins with the assassination of college professor and Soviet agent Allan Berenson, and the theft of the Marlowe manuscript from his office. (I would love to read the excellent forgery left in its place, which apparently features a Big Mac.) Berenson's lover, a spy known as WAGNER, and his protege Nicholas Hansard -- who reads the Marlowe manuscript 'reading not for content but for inference, looking for the mind behind the lines' and mentally recreates scenes from its author's life -- both have good reason to regret, and avenge, Berenson's death.

There are riddling codenames, wargames in several formats, feints and counterfeints, and a number of excellent secondary characters, each of whom has a fascinating backstory and a web of connnections. Ford revels in the revealing detail, in vividly-described locations (I especially enjoyed the scenes in London and Cambridge) and in the fine nuances of character. This is a complex novel, which rewards close attention and probably a reread -- soon.

Written and set in the mid-1980s, which feels like a very different world. (Charles Stross's introduction describes some of the differences: "the weirdest, most alienating difference a time traveler from the world of 2021 to that of 1986 would notice is not the bipolar macho politics of nuclear superpower confrontation, but that nobody saw the victory of capitalism as inevitable. History had not yet turned a very important corner. In 1986 there existed a globe-straddling colossus, a revolutionary superpower that—with its satellite states and fellow travelers like China—represented a third of the planetary population and held two-thirds of its weapons. The Soviet Union...") Thus, characters marvel at 'a notebook-sized portable computer': nearly all telephones are fixed landlines: CCTV is not present. On the other hand, plus ça change: AI, not yet a reality when the novel was written, is a Bad Thing.

2026/016: Nowhere Burning — Catriona Ward

"We're here because we want to understand them, right?"
"Right."
"Not because we are them. Not because it wants us here... You know what they say. Nowhere draws lost kids to it. Are we lost kids too?" [loc. 2044]

Riley and her little brother Oliver live with Cousin. Their mother committed suicide a couple of years before the novel opens: Riley never knew her father, while Oliver's father is dead. Now Riley is biding her time until she can graduate from high school and escape Cousin's brutal regime. 

One night a girl in green appears at her second-floor window, and gives Riley directions to Nowhere, an abandoned and ruined mansion that used to belong to famous film star Leaf Winham. Now, years after Winham's death and the fire that destroyed the house, Nowhere has become a sanctuary for runaway children, the lost and unwanted and abused.

Oliver is only seven, and he's starting to believe the things that Cousin says: that there's a demon inside both of them, that they need to starve it out. Riley knows she's run out of time: so she takes Oliver and flees into the Rocky Mountain National Park. Turns out Nowhere is indeed a sanctuary, with a broken ferris wheel in the grounds of the house, with teenagers hunting and fishing and planting while the younger children play. It's an idyllic life and Riley finally starts to relax.

It's not only Riley's story. She is one of three protagonists, and probably (at least to start with) the most compelling. There are also chapters focussing on Adam, an architect employed by and drawn to Leaf Winham, and Marc, a documentary maker who's fascinated by the stories of Nowhere. How, and why, all those stories tie together is only clear in the final few chapters, though there are plenty of subtle hints at connections.

Beside the obvious elements of Peter Pan -- lost boys and girls, a crocodile named Tinkerbell, the fear of growing up -- there are aspects of the story that bring to mind Michael Jackson, and The Lord of the Flies, and the darker aspects of fairytales. Ward's writing continues to impress me immensely, as does her ability to describe emotional states and responses without ever approaching them directly. There are some dark -- though never gratuituous, never too explicit -- scenes in this novel, but I feel that it's ultimately hopeful: that even the broken and damaged can help one another, that forgiveness can be granted as well as earnt, that kindness matters.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 19 FEB 2026.

2026/015: Katabasis — R F Kuang

The first rule every graduate student learned was that at the base of every paradox there existed the truth. That you should never fully believe your own lie, for then you lost power over the pentagram. That magick was an act of tricking the world but not yourself. You had to hold two opposing beliefs in your head at once. [p. 229]

The novel opens with Alice Law, a postgrad in Cambridge's Department of Analytic Magick, drawing a pentagram that will take her to Hell. Her stated mission is to rescue the soul of her advisor, Professor Jacob Grimes, from Hell. Alice blames herself for his death: she didn't check that pentagram correctly. And without Grimes' mentorship and letters of recommendation, she won't be able to fulfil her ambitions.

But just before she closes the pentagram, an unwanted companion shows up. Peter Murdoch had been her closest friend and colleague, until he ghosted her. And it turns out he's also been researching Tartarology (the study of Hell), for much the same reason. Alice is not happy about his presence: but she concedes that he might be useful.

In Katabasis, the basis of magick is the paradox: Alice herself is a paradox, telling herself that everything is fine when actually she's falling apart at the seams, trying to balance the horrors of academia (long hours, poor pay, misogyny, sexism) against her self-image as a genius and a successful academic. (Peter, it turns out, is handling a similar, though less severe, crisis.) Hell, it turns out, is devoid of fire and brimstone but does resemble a university campus. The two sojourners encounter various threats and temptations, and Alice and Peter cooperate to conquer, outwit or flee Hell's manifold perils.

I enjoyed the Hell-building, particularly T S Eliot's 'The Waste Land' as a core text of Tartarology (Lewis Carroll also features) and the paradoxes. I also appreciated the way that Alice's Chinese background informed not only her magic, but her mode of encountering Hell's ruler. But I didn't much like Alice herself, even when it turned out that she hadn't been wholly honest about her motives: and I felt, as with Babel, that the horrors she'd experienced were hammered home too insistently. There's no nuance: we're just told, over and over. The final chapters felt rushed, too, with a deus ex machina flavour and a certain predictability. There is a happy ending but it doesn't feel wholly earned.

This reminded me in some ways of The Atlas Six (perhaps because of the friction between the leads), and in other ways of Ninth House (in which a character goes to Hell to retrieve another's soul). Perhaps those resonances coloured my expectations: I wanted to like it more than I actually did. The vividly-described death of an animal did not help.

I amused myself by trying to work out when this novel was set. Cambridge South station exists, but the NatWest tower is still being built; the music Peter likes is very much late 1980s/early 1990s, a range confirmed by Alice's TV viewing; Grimes' heyday was the 1960s, after brilliant work during WW2. On the other hand the Colossi of Memnon still sing at dawn, and in Britain people drive on the right. This is not our world.

“This is Lord Yama’s design. There’s a million things to keep a soul from writing, all in the service of making you better at it. Remember that, Alice Law. Hell is a writers’ market.” [p. 415

2026/014: Lazarus, Home from the War — E H Lupton

“I can either be your doctor or your boyfriend,” Eli said. “And if I have to choose, I don’t want to be your doctor.” [p. 165]

Lazurus Lenkov first appears in Troth as an angry, unstable war veteran with PTSD, jealous of his older brother Ulysses' relationship with ex-demigod Sam Sterling and plagued by occasional flashes of foresight. Laz, unsurprisingly, is the focus of Lazarus, Home from the War, a novel which not only explores his character in more depth but also gives a different perspective on Ulysses.

Laz experiences a PTSD-related flashback at the local store, and is tended by Eli Sobel, a British neurologist. Things escalate quickly (Laz breaks into Eli's car and fixes the timing belt; Eli tells Laz that there's more to life than being useful, and perhaps Ulysses is being less than reasonable asking Laz to risk himself) but peril, magical and otherwise, threatens their fragile relationship. Though there's a resolution, there are plenty of unanswered questions to be picked up in future novels in the series.

I really warmed to Laz, and indeed to Sam (who tells Eli 'you're family'): Laz never intended to go to war, and the details of his military experiences are minimal, but he met a Buddhist monk in Thailand who seems to have been a powerful influence. (Hopefully we'll find out more about him, too.) Eli was a good foil for Lazarus, but perhaps not as richly characterised. He's clearly got some ideas about how to reach out to the community of magic-users, who typically avoid non-magical healthcare options. And he's good at dealing with Laz's lack of self-confidence, and fascinated by the neurological underpinnings of his foresight.

Looking forward to the next in the series, due later this year!