Apocalypse Nyx by Kameron Hurley (Tachyon Publications) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review originally appeared in Interzone #276 (July–August 2018).

Nyxnissa so Dasheem, Nyx for short, is a mean-spirited mercenary who might have a heart of gold – if you catch her on the right day, and it won’t interfere with the job she’s on, and she hasn’t already sold the heart. She isn’t quite as irredeemable as Lavie Tidhar’s Gorel or Karl Edward Wagner’s immortal Kane, but she’s no saint: she murders law enforcement officials if they get in her way and at one point she remembers ordering sappers, back in the war, to blow up a Chenjan city, “kids, cats, and all”. She carries a pistol and a scattergun, wears a whip, and has razor blades in her sandals and poisoned needles in her hair, and she is much more ready to use them than most science fiction heroes. Think Conan at his selfish worst: like him she drinks and screws away the money she earns, leaving her in dire need of each new adventure.

Infidel by Kameron Hurley / review by Tim Atkinson

There’s nothing this reviewer better enjoys than returning to an author and finding that they’ve upped their game. Compared to God’s War, Kameron Hurley’s still striking debut, its sequel Infidel is better in every respect.

While the former foundered a little under the weight of its baroque world-building, Infidel returns to the same setting to tell a story. And by revisiting much the same cast, building on what has gone before, Hurley shows that she can invest these characters with depth and moral complexity.