After a life-altering diagnosis, this Canadian science-fiction legend publishes a wonderful anthology

Shadowpaw, 672 pages, $39.95

You could see this massive collection of Robert J. Sawyer’s critical writings as a response to his doctor’s advice to begin setting his affairs in order after the Canadian sci-fi legend was diagnosed in 2020 with an incurable form of cancer. But it’s more than that, and much more than the sort of book he describes, not in a mean-spirited way, as “shop-floor sweepings.”

No, what we have here is a wonderful anthology of columns, addresses, introductions, interviews, profiles, reviews and autobiographical sketches that mainly address the subject of science fiction — its past, present and future — but that also have something to say about writing and the art of fiction, as well as science, politics and even how being Canadian may have impacted Sawyer’s thinking about these things.

Sawyer has all the qualities you could want in a guide, being well read, perceptive and a keen and generous critical writer. You can dip into this book at any point and come away with some insight that will stick. For Sawyer the goal of science fiction is “to shake up complacency” and not make predictions, but provide visions of potential futures. It’s the same for writing about science fiction, and Sawyer does so with experience, brio and an optimistic faith in the shape of things to come.

Lavender Spike

Rachel Tremblay

ECW, 384 pages, $24.95

In most science-fiction dystopias, art plays a marginal role. Technology is in the driver’s seat, and the future is such a straitened, repressive place that creativity and imagination are seen as frivolous luxuries.

Montreal writer Rachel Tremblay goes in a very different direction in “Lavender Spike,” imagining a world where art has supplanted religion in an authoritarian state that has risen from a dump of postapocalyptic rubble. Isobel, or Izzy, is an artist of the old school, a purist, which makes her a rebel against the New Art Government. The new is typified by something called Trigger Art, a mesmerizing and addictive form of visual representation that fries people’s brains.

It’s hard not to read part of this as an allegory for our current digital age, with Trigger Art akin to memes going viral and burning out the social fabric. It all makes for a fresh, action-flavoured take on dystopia, though, one whose call for revolution hits close to home.

Green City Wars

Adrian Tchaikovsky

Tor, 350 pages, $40.99

When it comes to fictional world-building, Adrian Tchaikovsky has shown himself to be a master, and in “Green City Wars” he does it again, with terrific, page-turning results.

It’s a world that takes some introducing. There are four pages of dramatis personae and a glossary at the start of the book that readers will likely be making heavy use of, at least in the early going.

In a future of environmentally sustainable cities, much of the grunt work is done by “little helpers” or Gehirner: specially augmented, talking animals with human consciousness. Skotch, the main character, is a raccoon private investigator who is given the job of finding a rogue mouse scientist (named Dr. Meece, if you please).

Before long, Skotch teams up with a garrulous pigeon named Lulu, as the case takes him through the dangerous world of the Gehirner underground, with its warring factions of squirrels, rats, weasels, turtles, cats and other critters.

None of this plays as Disney-cute. SF-noir is a rich genre already, but Tchaikovsky puts a great spin on it that connects to the vibe of “Blade Runner” in interesting ways. The Gehirner, like the replicants in that story, are short-lived creations of human corporate masters, addicted to a consciousness drug. This sentences them to a fate that they rebel against, as every animal, like every human, has the instinct to be free.

Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep

Paul Tremblay

William Morrow, 336 pages, $39

Paul Tremblay’s latest takes us another step forward on the journey from human to machine, featuring a near-future buddy plot with a twist.

Julia Flang, a 20-something underachiever who thinks and speaks in pop culture memes, is picked for the job of piloting a brain-dead man from California to the East Coast. Julia’s mom is an executive with the tech company that has developed the necessary nanobots and AI to allow this, while Julia’s background as a professional videogamer is all the experience she needs to control “Bernie” (echoing “Weekend at Bernie’s,” naturally) on his trip across the country.

That’s all the plot there is, and at times it feels stretched. Tremblay mixes things up, though, by alternating chapters from Bernie’s point of view — surreal, uncomfortable and occasionally hard to follow — with chapters told in Julia’s more familiar narrative voice.

Readers probably won’t be too surprised at where things are going, but it’s still an effective cautionary tale that brings home the dangers of getting too far inside someone else’s head.