If Found, Return to Hell

Liu’s bumpy, Kafkaesque debut contemporary fantasy kicks off when Wen Mingyan, a despairing, burned-out intern at One Wizard, a mystical insurance company, gets a mysterious call from client Shine Meng Junlei, who claims he blacked out and woke up to discover a mysterious talisman on the wall of his room. Leaping at a chance to get off phone duty, Mingyan agrees to investigate. They discover that Shine has been possessed by Wang Ran, a demon prince who refuses to leave his fun new body and face his terrifying father, King Death. Though this is above Mingyan’s pay grade, they unwisely promise to help and are sucked into a power struggle full of demons, grim reapers, and contractual obligations. Unfortunately, the growing intimacy between Mingyan and Shine/Wang Ran feels both elided over and forced by the needs of the plot, rather than arising naturally out of character. Those who enjoy non-European SFF settings and second person POV will want to check this out, but others will find that it skips a few too many steps to get to the now well-explored point that capitalist bureaucracy is the real hell. Agent: Penelope Burns, Gelfman Schneider. (June)