LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEW FOR HANNU RAJANIEMI’S SUMMERLAND
A great Library Journal review for SUMMERLAND by Hannu Rajaniemi, published by Gollancz in the UK and Tor in the US in June:
In 1938 Britain, the Queen is dead but still ruling the living from afar in Summerland, the city of the afterlife. Stakes of “life or death” no longer have meaning, and the most important commodity on both planes of existence is power. What matters in life if it does not stop at death? Rachel White is a secret intelligence officer with a penchant for interrogating Soviet spies and avoiding her suffocating marriage. She uncovers a mole in Summerland, but her fears are dismissed by her superiors. Humiliated and demoted, Rachel embarks on a rogue mission to bring down the mole and clean house in both the living and dead British Empire. Finnish-born Rajaniemi (“Jean le Flambeur” series) takes a familiar premise (Soviet vs. British spies in the 1930s) and turns it into something new, a complex philosophical espionage story interwoven with mathematical theory and ghosts, taking great care to make Summerland an intricate and vivid world of technological and spiritual wonder.
VERDICT: Recommended for the author’s fans and readers who enjoy Ben Aaronovitch and Adam Roberts.