The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup

<p>There Is no Antimemetics Division by qntm; The Merge by Grace Walker; Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel<em>; </em>Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin; The Strength of the Few by James Islington</p><p><strong><a href="https://guardianbookshop.com/there-is-no-antimemetics-division-9781529953176/?utm_source=editoriallink&amp;utm_medium=merch&amp;utm_campaign=article">There Is no Antimemetics Division</a> by qntm</strong><em><strong> (</strong></em><strong>Del Rey, £18.99)</strong><br>
There have been stories before about mysterious alien entities existing, hidden, within our world, and secret government departments tasked with protecting humanity. This debut novel by software engineer Sam Hughes writing under the pen name qntm pushes the idea to the most terrifying extreme: the antimeme. Memes are ideas that easily spread; antimemes are literally unthinkable, “self-keeping secrets”, impossible to record or to remember. Some feed on memories and pose an existential threat. But how is it possible to win a war when there’s no identifiable enemy, and every attack is immediately forgotten? Against these odds, the Antimemetics Division somehow exists, part of a secret organisation with bases deep underground in the English countryside, as related in this unforgettable, mind-bendingly brilliant novel.</p><p><strong><a href="https://guardianbookshop.com/the-merge-9781836430490/?utm_source=editoriallink&amp;utm_medium=merch&amp;utm_campaign=article">The Merge by Grace Walker</a></strong><em><strong> (</strong></em><strong>Magpie, £12.99)</strong><strong><br></strong>In a near-future, dystopian Britain, population pressures on scarce resources have resulted in a new technology that promises to cut the problem in half. Any two people who agree to “merge” by havin