Three Eight One by Aliya Whiteley (Solaris, £18.99)
In this intriguing metafiction, a fantasy novel from 2024 is annotated by a reader in 2314. Rowena Savalas is fascinated by the 21st century, known as the Age of Riches for the “intense and consuming explosion of digital information” it produced. Her own era is the Age of Curation, and her personal project is to try to make sense of a digital text, “The Dance of the Horned Road”. The narrative traces the fortunes of a young woman called Fairly in search of her place in the world. But is this an autobiography, a fable, or some mixture of both? Rowena’s footnotes (“did such devices have a real-life counterpart?”) develop into longer personal musings, until she is inspired to set out on her own quest. Fairly’s experiences range from the ordinary (working in a bar, making new friends) to the frightening and surreal. She has various encounters with “cha”: are they real or imaginary, intelligent beings or farm animals? A quirky, unsettling work from one of the most original writers of speculative fiction in Britain today.
