The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Hodder & Staughton)

Time travel exists. It’s here, don’t worry about it, the government’s handling it. In Kaliane Bradley’s excellent debut sci-fi novel (she’s also a terrific writer of short stories), the powers that be launch a project not too dissimilar to the plot of Doctor Who serial “The War Games” and bring a handful of people from various periods of English history to 21^st century London. To help “the expats” assimilate, they’re each paired with a local known as a “bridge” who’s there to interpret the finer points of hygiene, air travel and YouTube, and to explain why 18^th century sexual mores and racial slurs aren’t currently the vibe. Our narrator is a bridge paired with 1847, aka real-life Arctic Explorer Graham Gore, who was lost along with his crewmen in the Franklin expedition of that year. Gore is buttoned-up and scathing about many aspects of modern life, but his enjoyably quick tongue and sense of irony endear him. As does the fact that he’s a total snack.

This is a deathly clever story not only filled with great writing and wry observations on modern life, Englishness and otherness, but also with a proper mystery plot and a pretty hot love story. It’s the complete package, in other words, something the BBC recognised when it ordered a six-part TV adaptation before it was even published. – Louisa Mellor

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue (William Morrow)

The premise of Natalie Sue’s sardonic debut nails the surreality of office work, where the stakes can swing from mundane to life-altering. Burnt-out Supershops employee Jolene Smith gets put on probation after it’s discovered that she appends scathing postscripts (in white text) to her emails. This questionable behavior lands her in sensitivity training with new HR analyst Cliff Redmond but also, through an IT glitch, grants her access to all of her co-workers’ emails, DMs, and other sensitive interoffice correspondences. Suddenly Jolene can eavesdrop on everyone she not-so-secretly hates, only to discover that they loathe her equally.

While Jolene is tempted to go full Office Space and burn it all down, Sue instead plumbs the pathos of this awkward situation, forcing Jolene to confront the consequences of her quiet quitting while also linking back to a traumatic adolescent loss. It’s one of the best recent meditations I’ve read on how elder Millennials have been shaped to have a toxic relationship with work, while hitting upon what’s kept us in these jobs: the people, from flirty romances to the co-workers we’d initially written off who it turns out are in the trenches alongside us. – Natalie Zutter

The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart (Orbit)

There are few fantasy authors creating worlds and magic systems as fascinating or complex as Stewart (author of the critically acclaimed Drowning Empire trilogy). Now, in the first of a new trilogy, she creates a post-apocalyptic setting where mortals burned magical forests to create their civilization until it fell apart. A god has promised the world will be remade, one realm at a time, for the cost of half the lives of the populace; those who remain are transformed. Hakara is determined that she and her sister, impoverished though they are, won’t face either price—but when the pair try to flee into another realm as refugees, only Hakara gets through, leaving young Rasha to fend for herself. Ten years later, Hakara accidentally swallows a god stone and realizes that she can use magic she thought only available to the gods. Determined to be reunited with her sister, she joins rebels in a fight against their supposed savior deity, unaware that her transformed sister has joined that deity’s church and taken on the mantle of a godkiller. Stewart delights in twists, and the complicated politics, with sisters on opposite sides of a rebellion, makes it unclear who to root for—when truly, readers will want to root for them all. This is a strong series opener from one of the must-watch fantasy voices currently writing. – Alana Joli Abbott

Red Dead’s History by Tore C. Olsson (St. Martin’s Press)

Who says video games can’t be educational? Certainly not history professor Tore C. Olsson, who uses Rockstar Games’ epic Western Red Dead Redemption II to teach a university course about the post-Civil War South. In this well-researched and easily digestible book, history buffs and game fans can follow Arthur Morgan’s misadventures through the lens of real American history. Red Dead is both praised for its depiction of this unique era of industrialist tycoons, mercenary Pinkertons, and the birth of Jim Crow, and forgiven for its mythmaking around the Wild West. Fans will come away appreciating the depth of Rockstar’s creative storytelling while learning that America’s true history was often even more violent. The audiobook is particularly perfect for Red Dead fans as it’s narrated by Roger Clark, the voice and performance actor for Arthur Morgan, who wears his vocal cowboy hat one more time. – TD