We’re re-doing our wooden deck and found this when we removed the planks. What kind of animal could it be from? We’re in southern Sweden.

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

In June, we will be reading If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop, translated by Anton Hur

>Meet the alien species that put the humanity into human beings
Discover the fate of Slefonia III once warp travel became obsolete
Visit the Mind Library to commune with the dead

>From alternative futures to distant alien planets, in the company of scientists, space explorers and ordinary citizens in extraordinary situations, Kim Choyeop revels in making the impossible seem not only possible but somehow inevitable.

>Each story focuses on an specific issue of discrimination against women or other marginalised groups, adding a mind-bending twist to hold a mirror to modern society and its everyday iniquities.

Schedule

• Midway Discussion: Monday June 15th
• Final Discussion: Monday June 29th

Welcome to the book club New Voices! In this book club we want to highlight books by debut authors and open the stage for under-represented and under-appreciated writers from all walks of life. New voices refers to the authors as well as the protagonists, and the goal is to include viewpoints away from the standard and most common. For more information and a short description of how we plan to run this club and how you can participate, please have a look at the announcement post.

For May, we will be reading one of the following books, which are all debut speculative fiction releases from 2026.

The Forest on the Edge of Time by Jasmin Kirkbride

>Recruited by the mysterious Project Kairos to change history and save the future from ecological disaster, Echo and Hazel are transported through time to opposite worlds. Echo works as a healer’s assistant in Ancient Athens, embroiled in dangerous politics and wild philosophy. Hazel is the last human alive, in a laboratory on a polluted island with nothing but tiny robots and an untrustworthy AI for company.

>Both women suffer from amnesia but when they fall asleep, their consciousnesses transcend time and they meet in their dreams. Together, they start to uncover their past – but soon discover the past threatens humanity’s survival.

>If Echo and Hazel have a chance of changing the future, they must remember to forget…

Homebound by Portia Elan

>Five interlocking lives. One beloved story. A dazzling adventure across centuries and continents in search of the things that hold us together.

>It’s 1983 and Becks can’t wait to get the hell out of Cincinnati. She’s nineteen, blasting her Walkman, and hiding from the fact that her beloved uncle, the only person who understood her, is dead. But she has work to do: he left her a half-finished game to complete—one last collaboration to find her way out of loneliness.

>Little does she know, what Becks is making will echo far into the future and shape the lives of a scientist, a sentient automaton, and a flinty sea captain in ways she cannot imagine. All are bound together by their search for connection—and by a futuristic traveler on a mysterious mission through space.

>A novel about our deep interconnectedness, Homebound is a clear-eyed, hopeful adventure into humanity’s future and capacity for love.

The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu

>The Subtle Art of Folding Space , is the exhilarating debut science fiction novel from Nebula and Hugo-winning author John Chu channels unhinged physics, generational trauma, and the comfort of really good dim sum. This isn't your usual jaunt through quantum physics.

>Ellie’s universe, and this one, is falling apart. Her ailing mother is in a coma; her sister, Chris, accuses her of being insufficiently Chinese between assassination attempts; and a shadowy cabal of engineers is trying to hijack the skunkworks, the machinery that keeps the physics of each universe working the way it’s supposed to.

>Daniel, Ellie's cousin, has found an illicit device in the skunkworks—one that keeps Ellie's comatose mother alive while also creating destabilizing bugs in the physics of this universe. It's not a good day.

>If she can confront her mother’s legacy and overcome her family’s generational trauma, she just might find a way to preserve the skunkworks and reconcile with her sister…but digging into her family’s past is thornier than it seems, and the secrets she uncovers will force Ellie to choose between her family and the universe itself.

If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop, translated by Anton Hur

>Meet the alien species that put the humanity into human beings
Discover the fate of Slefonia III once warp travel became obsolete
Visit the Mind Library to commune with the dead

>Kim Choyeop became an instant literary sensation in Korea with her debut short story collection. Each of these bitesize speculative masterpieces represents a journey into the unknown, guided by a writer blessed with a boundless imagination.

>From alternative futures to distant alien planets, in the company of scientists, space explorers and ordinary citizens in extraordinary situations, Kim Choyeop revels in making the impossible seem not only possible but somehow inevitable.

>Each story focuses on an specific issue of discrimination against women or other marginalised groups, adding a mind-bending twist to hold a mirror to modern society and its everyday iniquities.

>Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur

Underlake by Erin L. McCoy

>A richly glittering debut about the interlocked fates of two women, raised worlds apart, who must join forces on an extraordinary journey, diving leagues beneath the water's surface—and straight into the fathomless heart of fear, forgiveness, and love.

>Thirteen years ago, Otta escaped the small town of Steels, intent upon becoming a marine biologist. Now she's returned, having failed to achieve her dream, and carrying the guilt of a friend's death during a deep-sea dive. She thinks she may never dive again, but then a stranger appears at her door.
This stranger, May, says that her daughter has run away, and insists that she's under a nearby lake—alive.
Because it turns out the small-town legend of "the underlake" is three decades ago, an entire valley and the town in it was flooded to make way for a dam, but the people in that town refused to leave.
Now, they're still living beneath the lake, self-proclaimed “refugees of a world obsessed with change,” connected—and held apart—by an intricate, airtight system of tubes and sealed buildings. To find May's missing daughter, Otta and May must travel deeper and deeper under the water. Along the way, they'll discover communities that have lived in isolation for decades, fomenting extremes of delusion and nostalgia. As the two women bond in the thrall of their search, they are each forced to confront the layers of fear, control, and uncertainty that drive their quest. Together and alone, they must challenge the laws of love and society—and push their bodies to the mortal limit.
Hypnotic and arresting, Underlake How do we claim our place on the great timeline of history, and who do we erase in the process? It brings a poet's attention to language, gesturing at the evocative and ethereal work of Preeta Samarasan and Marilynne Robinson, while also shrewdly exploring the American obsession with inheritance, property, and race. Finally, Underlake is a powerful meditation on what is possible when women reach through time, space, and memory to relate to one another.

Vote here

The voting will close and the chosen book will be announced on Tuesday 12th of May.