“THERE is no Planet B,” they say. But in Yen Ooi’s debut novel Sun: Queens of Earth (Spectacle Publishing, £7.85) an uninhabited and previously undetectable Earth-like planet has been found in our own solar system. 

In a near future where humanity is struggling to recover from yet another “Great War,” the chance to start afresh is irresistible — but can we do so without repeating the same mistakes? 

Thought-provoking and strange, this short novel is overflowing with invention. The writing style is rather unadorned, reminiscent of a fable, against which the ideas and the human conflicts stand out in contrast. 

The Mammoth Book Of Best New SF 27, edited by Gardner Dozois (Robinson, £13.99) is a huge annual — 734 pages this year — which is often and justifiably described as indispensable. 

Along with veteran editor Dozois’s pick of the 2014’s best short stories, it also provides a comprehensive review of the genre’s year. 

I was particularly taken by Nancy Kress’s touching story Pathways, about a teenager from a poor US mountain community who’s recently been made much poorer by an anti-welfare Libertarian Party government. 

Her family suffers from a deadly inherited disease and the one way she can get money is by offering herself to the experimental clinic that’s studying it. 

But she’s a bright girl, undefeated in her spirit despite everything, and she starts to wonder — could she become more than a guinea pig? 

Sergeant Ferris has served the British army to the point of exhaustion. Nearing 40, and retirement, in Tigerman by Nick Harkaway (Windmill Books, £7.99), he’s been given a cushy final posting in which to see out his time. The much-ravaged, but still oddly charming, island of Mancreu, in the Arabian Sea, is also in its final days. 

Its colonial exploitation over the centuries has led to a unique form of pollution, which threatens the safety of the world. 

The UN has therefore decided that the simplest thing would be to evacuate the island and blow it up. 

But, of course, these things take time and meanwhile the empires of the world find Mancreu’s lawless status very useful. 

A multinational “black fleet” sits offshore, freed from annoying regulations, and thus able to carry out all manner of extraordinary renditions, illegal interrogations and banned medical procedures.

As the population gradually shrinks, Ferris serves as Mancreu’s sole remaining British diplomatic presence and as a kind of de facto policeman. 

His closest friendship is with a brainy young local lad, who’s obsessed with comic books and the internet. As a man entirely without family, the sergeant begins to dream — supposing he could adopt the boy and save him from life in a refugee camp? 

It’s a crazy idea and he knows it but, as a previously unfelt longing for fatherhood grows inside him, Ferris will do almost anything to make it come true. Even, as Mancreu crumbles into terrible violence, transform himself into a superhero. 

Original, exciting and full of humanity and comedy, Tigerman is a beautiful piece of work.