Sci-fi a fantasy

Naomi Novik has once again been influenced by classic folktales, following Uprooted - her standalone novel. Taking Rumpelstiltskin as her starting point, Spinning Silver is rich, original and a joy to read.

Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and shortlisted for the Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, Kitschie and Audie awards, this is the stunning first instalment in a fantasy trilogy set in a world of volcanoes and earthquakes, where the power to control the earth is the most dangerous of all. The New York Times calls The Fifth Season 'intricate and extraordinary'

It is 1962, and Elisa Esposito-mute her whole life, orphaned as a child-is struggling with her humdrum existence as a janitor working the graveyard shift at Baltimore's Occam Aerospace Research Center. Were it not for Zelda, a protective coworker, and Giles, her loving neighbor, she doesn't know how she'd make it through the day.

Then, one fateful night, she sees something she was never meant to see, the Center's most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man, captured in the Amazon, to be studied for Cold War advancements. The creature is terrifying but also magnificent, capable of language and of understanding emotions... and Elisa can't keep away. Using