5 utterly addictive new science fiction and fantasy novels

February’s best science fiction and fantasy books differ significantly from one another. But they all have something to say about abuses of power, communities under siege and how clever underdogs manage to endure. These books are drenched with grief and loss, but they offer the possibility of healing.

‘Ours,’ by Phillip B. Williams

This book took my breath away. In the 1830s, a mysterious woman named Saint uses magic to free enslaved people and help them build a magically hidden town near St. Louis named Ours. An award-winning poet, Williams sets out to tell the story of a whole community: The narration spans decades and veers from omniscient to deeply immersed. The prose alternates between achingly poetic and crisply formal.

“Ours” is deeply, beautifully weird — not just because of dreamy mysticism but because its characters follow the logic of deep trauma. Many formerly enslaved characters have chosen new names for themselves, like Honor or King, but one of the most moving moments in the book comes when a formerly enslaved man, now dying, learns his true, African name. Williams writes about “the tricky nature of names and their power to circle back through time even when memory or the mouth fails.” And he finds new ways to ask age-old questions: How do we have both safety and freedom? What makes a ragtag group into a community? And most important, how do we find the missing parts of ourselves in other people?

‘The Butcher of the Forest,’ by Premee Mohamed

Fairies have starred in some terrific books of late, but in Mohamed’s novella they pack a lot more menace. In “The Butcher of the Forest,” the children of a despot known only as the Tyrant wander into an enchanted forest from which nobody has ever emerged, except a woman named Veris. Naturally, the Tyrant forces Veris to go rescue his kids, using her nimbleness to evade the snares and dangers in the woods, while grappling with the ethics of saving the children of a monster.

Mohamed excels at telling the stories of ordinary people trapped by dark forces, and she infuses these characters with astounding tenderness and compassion. “The Butcher of the Forest” shows exactly why Mohamed is one of fantasy’s rising stars.

‘The Fox Wife,’ by Yangsze Choo

The acclaimed author of “The Night Tiger” turns her attention to fox spirits, tricksters who loom large in Chinese folklore. At first, “The Fox Wife” appears to be a story of revenge and punishment: A beautiful fox named Snow hunts for the man who harmed her family, while a mystically gifted detective named Bao searches for her. But like the foxes themselves, Choo’s narrative is full of tricks, slowly unveiling a more wistful story about lost love and second chances.

Choo’s foxes prey on the weakness of humans, who become unhealthily obsessed with these seductive creatures — desiring them but also fearing them. But these spirits are vulnerable, and their numbers dwindle, even as they seem unable to avoid getting drawn into human intrigues. Like all the best supernatural stories, “The Fox Wife” reveals something profound about humanity: the ease with which we get drawn into chasing what we think we want, rather than what will actually nourish us. And the cruelty with which the powerful treat those under their power. As Choo writes, “Truly, humans are fearsome creatures.”

‘The Tainted Cup,’ by Robert Jackson Bennett

Great fantasy detective stories are too rare, but Bennett — another rising star of fantasy — more than delivers in “The Tainted Cup.” In a world where giant sea walls protect an empire from sea monsters, an engineer is gruesomely murdered when a tree sprouts out of his body. Enter detective Ana Dolabra — who seldom leaves her office and wears a blindfold when speaking to people — along with her long-suffering assistant Din, who has an eidetic memory.

Ana and Din have a dynamic that’s very much inspired by Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. As with Rex Stout’s classics, a lot of the fun of “The Tainted Cup” comes from watching Ana outwit people who think they’re untouchable. But what captivated me most was this book’s thoughtful focus on infrastructure: the engineers, builders and ordinary workers who not only keep the monsters at bay but also keep civilization going.

‘The Blueprint,’ by Rae Giana Rashad

In an alternate timeline, the civil rights era of the 1950s led to a second civil war, and in the 21st century, Black women are implanted with tracking devices and controlled via algorithm. Solenne is luckier than most: She’s the concubine to a White government official named Bastien, who treats her well. But Solenne dreams of a freedom that Bastien will never allow her.

Rashad pulls off a near-impossible feat: making a dehumanizing dystopia feel normal, even familiar. Solenne, too, is allowed to be complicated and ambivalent, and a series of flashbacks show how she fell in love with Bastien as a naive 15-year-old. These conflicted feelings only add to the horror of Solenne’s situation and her struggle to remain a person. Every sentence cuts as Rashad explores the intricacies of power and subjection.