My 2023 reading year has started with a bang! My first two books were both by authors who I picked to include in our previous best books of the year round-ups. Dave Hutchinson returns to the world of his Fractured Europe series, which I reviewed back in 2016, and N.K. Jemisin has treated us to the sequel of The City we Became, which was my favorite book of 2021. Two fantastic follow-ups to kick off the new year.
Whilst The World We Make is a direct sequel and shouldn’t be read without reading The City We Became, Hutchinson’s Cold Water does stand on its own and can be read without reading the earlier books in the series. That said, you would probably miss some of the world’s subtleties. Hutchinson’s world-building is intricate and layered and I would recommend starting at the beginning so you can fully bathe in the glory of his construct (Europe in Autumn).
What I love about both these novels is that they have the finger on the pulse of contemporary attitudes and politics. Like all the best science fiction they are absolutely holding up a mirror to society. More fascinating, whilst both novels are cut from the same cloth – featuring political corruption and demonstrating how a sense of place is so important to cultural identity, it would be hard to find two novels so different in tone. The World We Make is brash, abrasive, and in your face, (much like New York, where it’s set, I guess?), Cold Water is much gentler. A slow-burning spy novel that keeps you gripped with almost zero pyrotechnics.
Why Read Cold Water?
I’d forgotten how much I loved Hutchinson’s writing, especially when in this universe. The gentle spy thriller, dead drops, and polite yet menacing nods, blended with slight science fiction elements are always a delight.
In this book, semi-retired agent Carey is pulled back in for one more mission. This sounds more cliched than it is. Carey’s former partner/lover Maksim has been killed in a car accident, and she has been asked if she can investigate to shed any light on the situation. It looks like an accident, but there are suggestions of a more sinister alternative. And, of course, we the reader know that in all likelihood Maksim is not dead at all.
We follow Carey as she tries to piece together what Maksim was up to before he died. Interspersed throughout are snippets from Carey’s backstory. The death of her parents, adoption, and then a deadly flu pandemic. The alternate earth in which these books are set has always had a world pandemic underpinning it. The first books in the series were written back in the mid-2010s, and as well as a pandemic, feature a Europe that is fragmenting, as different regions and polities seek independence from their parent countries. Post Brexit and COVID-19, it’s hard to believe that Dave Hutchinson doesn’t have access to a Palantir or some other way of seeing into the future.
In the earlier novels, the flu pandemic is a piece of history; we never really see what happened; only its aftermath. Here, Hutchinson uses Carey’s flashbacks to explain how his fictional pandemic unfolded. It’s clearly influenced by events and attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting narrative is all the more terrifying for it. Pre-COVID-19, I don’t think anybody would have predicted quite how large the backlash against science and medical professionals would be. The effects of this attitude, in the face of a more deadly virus, as described in Cold Water, without fanfare or sensation, makes for discomfiting reading.
With the final Europe book, I had thought that Hutchinson was finished with this setting. Cold Water shows that there are still lots more stories to be told there. Indeed, one exciting revelation in the book opens up a whole new wealth of avenues for future novels. Cold Water stands as a novel in its own right. It doesn’t require a sequel, but I do hope very much it is not the final book we see set in Dave Hutchinson’s Fractured Europe.
If you’d like to pick up a copy of Cold Water, you can do so here, in the US, or here, in the UK.
Why Read The World We Make?
The World We Make WILL be the last novel we see in N.K. Jemisin’s Great Cities trilogy. And it’s only book 2. In the reverse of Douglas Adams’s inaccurately named Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, Great Cities will have too few books. Even the inside dust jacket refers to a trilogy, but in the book’s afterword, the author states that the events that fired The World We Make are exhausting to immerse oneself in and write about. And so, the series is concluded early.
Whilst, I respect this decision and understand it, it’s hard not to be disappointed. The World We Make, like The City We Became, is a coruscating work of inventive fiction and I loved everything about it. Due to the sheer volume of books I have piled up, I rarely buy hardbacks. Often, by the time they’ve worked their way to the top of my to-be-read pile, the paperback has been out for at least 6 months. I absolutely knew I had to make an exception for this novel and I was not disappointed.
In The World We Make we are treated to a deeper exploration of the global pantheon of living cities; how their hierarchies and power structures work. We see the rise of a right-wing demagogue to challenge the nascent avatars of New York City. We see how the existing power structures are constructed to strengthen those in power and squash those who are not. We see the systemic, endemic discrimination that is built into 21st-century America (and, by extension, much of the World).
Despite its hard-hitting themes, this is not a dour or depressing novel. It’s just as quirky and inventive as the first book. The depictions of the living cities are a joy to read. Paris and London as entities are remarkably well observed. Similarly, the characters of the New York boroughs are as brilliantly well portrayed as they were in the first book.
Perhaps because of the decision to drop a book from the series, the ending of the novel does feel a little forced. You can see vestiges of where the novel might have gone, and they’re chopped off, for a final cataclysmic set piece. Nevertheless, even as a duology, the Cities novels are an excellent pair of urban fantasy novels, setting a very high bar for the rest of the genre.
It was an absolute privilege to read Cold Water and The World We Make back to back. My first two books of 2023, are going to make what comes after have to do some serious heavy lifting if they want to compete. (That said, I have also read Percival Everett’s The Trees this year and that was phenomenal too.) Two of my favorite authors, at the top of their game; what a way to begin my reading year!
If you’d like to pick up a copy of The World We Make, you can do so here, in the US, and, here in the UK. Remember to read, City We Became first though.
