Book review: Shadow Matter is powerful, speculative fiction

Elements of myth and classical history are blended with a fierce feminist perspective reminiscent of the iconic Ursula LeGuin

Published Apr 26, 2024

Call it what you will — science fiction, speculative fiction, or fantasy fiction. Fiction about the future or an imagined past, or parallel worlds can provide a useful and often beautiful lens that allows us to view the present day with enhanced esthetic pleasure and even, in the best cases, moral clarity.

Canada is richly supplied with authors who employ this lens. Perhaps the best known is Margaret Atwood, whose grim 1985 dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale, a vision of a near future when North America is dominated by the  misogynist religious zealots of Gilead, now reads as if ripped from contemporary headlines.

Add to this Canadian honour roll the multi-talented Vancouver Island author S. W. Mayse, whose most recent publication, Shadow Matter, draws on classic tropes from the golden age of science fiction and space opera and elements of myth and classical history blended with a fierce feminist perspective reminiscent of the iconic Ursula LeGuin to produce a compelling, beautifully written account of life in the 28th century.

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