14 must-read SFF releases that will make your September magical

Piranesi – Susanna Clarke

The highly anticipated second novel from the author of the bestselling Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is more magical realism than straight fantasy, but it’s got a similarly weird feel, a complex, fascinating plot with a twisty mystery at its center. The story follows the titular Piranesi, though that is not actually his name, it’s simply what he is called by the Other, the only other living person that Piranesi has encountered in the vast House he lives in.

The House, you see, is in its own dimension, inhabited by statues that may or may not be allegories, along with skeletons and other oddities and bits of weirdness. How these all connect, why Piranesi is there, and who the Other is who may or may not be gaslighting him about their shared past, is a saga that is best experienced rather than explained.

The official synopsis describes the story in a bit more detail.

"Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known."

Piranesi is available on September 15.