by Tessa Yang
Berkley, 2026 (384pp.)
I'm always curious about novels that elevate cryptofiction - the use of an unknown or unclassified creature - above the "monster" genre into something more ambitious. No one can accuse Tessa Yang of lacking ambition, nor talent. For a first novel, this is amazing.
The Jellyfish Problem is cryptofiction in the sense of having an unknown species as the propelling core of the story. And it's a fascinating species, even though the novel drifts early on away from plausible science and at the end we don't know how the creature does the psychic or possibly magical things it does. Marine biologist (and jellyfish specialist) Jo Ness answers a call from a long-ago ex to investigate a giant jellyfish plaguing a Maine island. From there the novel is a bit hard to describe. The creature is fascinating and the reader will learn interesting jellyfish facts. Past that, the novel includes Japanese folklore, ghosts, psychic creature-human connection, the complexities of human-to-human connection, and the good and bad of how communities work under stress.
I was not sure at times what this novel aspired to be - a love story? A tale of community? A pean to the connectedness of all things? It is all that. I'm impressed the author was able to get it published given the industry's current focus on easily described novels that fit into a marketing niche. Her writing, surely, is what carried the day. She is superb. This is not a story easy to classify, but it's certainly one worth reading.
Matt Bille is a writer and historian living in Colorado Springs. His most recent novel, Death by Legend, is a gripping tale of horrors loose in modern-day Los Angeles. The next, the scientific thriller Apex Predator, will be out from Blackstone this time next year.
See www.mattbilleauthor.com
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