Chosen because: arrived in the village library
I'm not sure if this counts as a science fiction novel, but I enjoyed it so much that I'm reviewing it anyway. Because you have to love a novel in which a group of heroic librarians, dubious booksellers and assorted hangers-on, including hunters, princes and Jews, use their wits and research capacity to overcome disaster.
The kingdom of Carinthia exists in the Alps, about 800 years after the Roman empire was brought down by the rampaging Goths and their overwhelming magicians. Because this is a Medieval world in which, at the beginning, magic is all-powerful. With the aid of the mages of the White Tower, the Carinthians live without the aid of science or engineering, in houses lit by magic, with ploughs steered by spells, and wagons guided by runes. Until one day, the lights go out and the magic disappears...
Meanwhile, in the Jewish quarter of the town, magic is held as non-kosher, and the Jews have worked out their own technologies. It's down to the Jews, or at least, to one particular Jew, Sophia Morgenstern, daughter of a dodgy bookseller, to help the young Prince Felix and his subjects adjust to their new world. Unfortunately, the rival city states of Bavaria and Wien, not to mention the Dwarves, have their own plans for the tiny kingdom.
Simon Morden is apparently a rocket scientist in real life, which is no doubt what makes him so gleeful as his characters work out fundamental scientific principles - with a particular nod to the importance of gravity - all the time battling to keep Carinthia running. If this makes the novel sound overly worthy, it shouldn't. It's a tribute to the joys of libraries, of research, of finding things out for yourself, just as much as it is a discussion of the competing demands of rulership, and plain fantasy about the end of magic in a Medieval world.
Heartily recommended, particularly for fans of Lois Bujold McMaster and Diana Wynne-Jones.
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