In an enormous theatre on many stages there are theatre performances all happening at the same time. The actors don’t have their own identity outside of their stage lives, and no other objective than just to get the chance for a better part and try to not get on the playrights’ blacklists. Who are these playwrights, who is the audience, and do they really exist? No one knows (although a few of them – the inquisitive young Lapsa, for example – tries to find out). One of the book’s central roles – an Actor who doesn’t have his own name – desperately tries to take part in the scenarios presented to him, but each time he tries to play his role honestly, it becomes more and more bizarre, tearing down the border between performance and truth. Similarly, the Mime – one of the androids equipped with artificial intelligence who maintains order in the theatre world – tries to play the role of guardian for the actors. However, as the Mime gradually awakens to a consciousness that becomes his own, he can no longer react to what is happening in the theatre without emotion. Perhaps they could continue to play their parts if the planned performances weren’t shaken by a resistance movement trying to realise the Actor’s identity behind the scenes and possibly even do away with the theatre’s power altogether. Yet their road isn’t easy – the idealistic Malda, who’s expecting a child, can no longer separate true love from performed love, and the tricky Gurds, sensing imminent danger to the movement, tries to make a scapegoat out of the egotistical Vladi, who in turn has landed himself a good part, no longer wanting to resist the existing order…

Contacts: Bārbala Simsone, barbala.simsone@zvaigzne.lv 

Houses Without Doors is Ieva Melgalve’s sequel to her fantasy novel The Dead Don’t Forgive, but it can be read without having read the first. It is enough to know that the story is set in the same world, where emotions are magic, and this magic can either save you or kill you. In the Bruoni city of Graa, many young commonfolk women and even a young magician have been mysteriously killed. Who is to blame? Rem, the wizard from the capital city, or the stranger Vega who has arrived in Graa in an attempt to keep to herself? The head wizards do not care for justice – it is enough if their suspect survives. Thus, Vega and Rem will have to fight a silent and cruel mental battle while secluded in prison, at every moment risking the worst fate the mages can be forced to confront – loneliness. Will Vega be able to maintain common sense as the events of her recent past – a friendship that ended in murder, a spell that ended in humiliation, and a love that ended in separation – come rushing back to her?

Contact: Bārbala Simsone, barbala.simsone@zvaigzne.lv 

The Dead Don’t Forgive is set in a fantasy world where emotions are magic and magicians are both powerful and vulnerable. On the one hand, they can exert near total control over commoners, who do not possess comparable abilities; on the other hand, they can be emotionally unstable and, thus, easily manipulated by other magicians. The story is told from the perspective of Vega, a gifted young woman who began training as a magician but quit before completing the full course, defying her master. Haunted by memories of that experience and carrying a deep resentment for all magicians, she hides her special skills and lives as a commoner even though this is a crime that carries a severe punishment. 

Contacts: Bārbala Simsone, barbala.simsone@zvaigzne.lv 

In the novel The Cool Mind (2018), the body of Helen – a transhumanist, computer scientist and military drone programmer – is found with her head severed. The investigation is quickly entangled in the issues of cutting-edge technology and the opportunities it can give to both ending and saving lives. Soon enough, the investigator faces a question the legal system is not equipped to satisfactorily answer: namely, is Helen really dead, and how does one determine that? Is immortality something to be sought, or avoided? The issues
of transhumanist technologies and bioethics and the ongoing investigation flows parallel to the story of Satu, Helen’s genderqueer lover, who struggles to cope with the death of Helen, as well as their own identity in a society where language itself allows little room for anything but a strictly binary gender expression.

Contact: Bārbala Simsone, barbala.simsone@zvaigzne.lv