The Strange

by Nathan Ballingrud

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.

Buy on Amazon Buy on Waterstones.com

*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

Pub Date 21 Mar 2023 | Archive Date 21 Mar 2023

Horror | Sci Fi & Fantasy

Talking about this book? Use #TheStrange #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!

Description

Anabelle Crisp is fourteen when the Silence arrives, severing all communication between Earth and her new home on Mars. One evening, while she and her father are closing their diner in the colony of New Galveston, they are robbed at gunpoint.

Among the stolen items is a recording of her absent mother’s voice. Driven by righteous fury and desperation to lift her father’s broken spirits, Anabelle sets out to confront the thieves and bring back the sole vestige of her mother. Accompanied by her loyal robot, an outcast pilot and a hardened outlaw, Anabelle must travel through derelict mining towns where a mineral called the Strange has transformed its residents in bizarre ways, across the Martian desert and to the shadowy Peabody Crater where she will discover than New Galveston, once a safe haven, is nothing more than a guttering candle in a dark world.

Advance Praise

"The Strange breathes vivid life into a Mars that's both fascinating and frightening. The journey of Annabelle Crisp across those red sands - she's a wonderful character, full of energy and determination - was a battle for answers, for autonomy, for humanity itself. I rooted for her every step of the way."—Aliya Whiteley, Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlisted author of Skyward Inn

"As thrilling as it is heartfelt. Told through the memorable, feisty voice of a precocious young woman, The Strange explores greed and grief against an unforgiving landscape that bucks against the human obsession to conquer and own. The action and fascinating alternate history snare attention, and the characters—each haunted by ghosts of their own—glimmer off the page."—Nathan Tavares, author of A Fractured Infinity

"A page-turning science-fantasy that sparks with originality, despite treading well-worn ground. Part western, part horror, part old-school SF, The Strange finds something new and compelling in the haunted deserts of Mars."—T.R. Napper, author of 36 Streets

"Star Wars meets True Grit in this cinematic tale of a human girl fighting to keep hope alive on a Martian world. Nathan Ballingrud compellingly blends frontier western with rootin-tootin space opera, and the result is epic in scope, thematically rich, and gleefully spooky in places. This is an atmospheric, immersive delight, and so evocative that I kept expecting red sand to trickle out from between the pages."—Josh Winning, author of The Shadow Glass

"The Strange is utterly wonderful. Having harnessed the inventive worldbuilding of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, it embarks on an odyssey that becomes ever more unsettling and hallucinogenic. It’s a wild tale set on a Wild West Mars, and I very much hope there’ll be more."—Tim Major, British Fantasy Award shortlisted author of Snakeskins

"So I settled down yesterday evening to make a start on this, and when it got going I found I couldn't stop. Very readable, compelling storytelling, a wonderfully engaging central character, full of atmosphere and beauty and strangeness. Thoroughly excellent space-western. Written in the spirit of Bradbury's Mars and capturing something of Bradbury's brilliance."—Adam Roberts, Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, BSFA award winner of Jack Glass and The This

"The Strange breathes vivid life into a Mars that's both fascinating and frightening. The journey of Annabelle Crisp across those red sands - she's a wonderful character, full of energy and...