THE MARS HOUSE

A refugee forms an unusual alliance with a Martian senator who favors anti-immigration policies. Bonus: extra-large mammoths!

Known for her twisty steampunk historical fantasy, Pulley turns to science fiction set a few generations from now to explore topics of political interest today: climate change, immigration, gender, political corruption. January Stirling is the principal dancer at the Royal Ballet when rising waters turn the corps du ballet, along with the rest of London, into climate refugees. Exhausted and starving, he accepts a spot on a ship to Tharsis, the Chinese colony on Mars. Gravity on the smaller planet is only a third as powerful as on Earth, so new arrivals—Earthstrongers—have bigger muscles and sturdier bones than the tall-but-frail Mars-born Natural people. Earthstrongers are required to wear metal “cages” to weaken them and keep them from accidentally (or otherwise) injuring Natural people. On Mars, perceptible gender differences are considered primitive and uncouth, and Natural people use they/them pronouns. New arrivals are segregated into Earthstrong housing and restricted to manual labor, for which they’re paid a pittance and pressured to undergo “naturalisation” to weaken them, a dangerous medical process that leaves many in wheelchairs. An encounter with Senator Aubrey Gale, a politician who’s pushing an anti-Earthstrong agenda, catapults January into one of Pulley’s signature complex plots involving twins, a love triangle, linguistics, a mysterious disappearance—or is it a murder?—and various de-extincted Arctic animals (polar bears, mammoths). The worldbuilding is whimsical rather than rigorous, more effective at (and perhaps intended for) contemplating extremes of the present than at predicting the future.

Full of charming details and gender-bending gallantry, this imaginative thriller is a pleasure to read.