100 books like Philip's Rules

I have been writing since I was in kindergarten. Granted, it started out with poetry, but words are still words. When it comes to omegaverse, I made sure to devour some of the great writers before I even stuck my toe in. The great thing about omegaverse is that you can put it in almost any setting, and it fits. I just happen to like dystopian, and now historical regency England, as my backdrop. I’ve been writing professionally since 2020, and I have never looked back once. This is my passion. This is my calling. This is what I’m meant to do.

I have been writing since I was in kindergarten. Granted, it started out with poetry, but words are still words. When it comes to omegaverse, I made sure to devour some of the great writers before I even stuck my toe in. The great thing about omegaverse is that you can put it in almost any setting, and it fits. I just happen to like dystopian, and now historical regency England, as my backdrop. I’ve been writing professionally since 2020, and I have never looked back once. This is my passion. This is my calling. This is what I’m meant to do.

I have been writing since I was in kindergarten. Granted, it started out with poetry, but words are still words. When it comes to omegaverse, I made sure to devour some of the great writers before I even stuck my toe in. The great thing about omegaverse is that you can put it in almost any setting, and it fits. I just happen to like dystopian, and now historical regency England, as my backdrop. I’ve been writing professionally since 2020, and I have never looked back once. This is my passion. This is my calling. This is what I’m meant to do.

I have been writing since I was in kindergarten. Granted, it started out with poetry, but words are still words. When it comes to omegaverse, I made sure to devour some of the great writers before I even stuck my toe in. The great thing about omegaverse is that you can put it in almost any setting, and it fits. I just happen to like dystopian, and now historical regency England, as my backdrop. I’ve been writing professionally since 2020, and I have never looked back once. This is my passion. This is my calling. This is what I’m meant to do.

I have loved dystopian books ever since my mom handed me The Giver when I was in the fourth grade. My high school English teacher ignited this passion further when she suggested I read Fahrenheit 451 during Banned Books Week. I would later pursue this interest in university when I wrote my thesis on the political use of language in dystopian literature. Now, my love for the genre motivates me to write dystopian books of my own. This list includes the most engaging and evocative dystopian books I urge every twenty-something to read–if only so I can talk about them with more people!

I began writing speculative fiction because I was fascinated by its potential as a laboratory to imagine the world that could be. It’s a narrative form that allows us to play with revolutionary changes in society without any real people getting hurt. And it compels the author to do the hard work of imagining how others experience life in the real world as well as the imaginary one. The best SF novels balance their speculations with a grounding in the observed world, entertaining us with propulsive wonder while filling our minds with new ideas and fresh perspectives that linger long after we put the book down.

I am an author and avid reader of romance, especially those full of conflict in a world heavy with magic, shifters, vampires, and others. My dad was a great storyteller and sparked my interest in the paranormal. When I was a kid, he’d tell me stories about growing up in the mountains of Puerto Rico. The evil that lived there. My imagination took it from there. I wish I would’ve written down those stories. I can’t get him to talk about them anymore. It might be the reason why The Nine: Zane had started out as a contemporary romance story until Zane took over with all his paranormal drama. 

In June of 2020, I published a cult escape/pandemic mashup novel, Agnes at the End of the World. Of course, pandemic novels aren’t for everyone right now, but there are some readers, like myself, who seek out what frightens us in fiction to survive our present moment. I read a bajillion pandemic novels before embarking on my own, and I hope that it helps someone, as novels have always helped me. Ultimately, every pandemic novel is about social ills, large and small, and about grief. They remind us that we’re all in this complex world together, telling stories around a campfire to shine some light in the dark.

I’ve loved zombie movies since I was a kid and first saw Return of the Living Dead during a slumber party. Since then I’ve watched as many as I could, along with shows like The Walking Dead and Z Nation. The changes in the publishing industry over the past few years have given me something even better – hundreds of amazing books about romance and survival in the zombie apocalypse to read. The five books on my list are the very best of those that eventually inspired me to write my own books. I hope you like them!

I’ve been hooked on science fiction since I saw Westworld in its first run in 1973, at age 7 (it’s the first movie I saw in a theatre). I started drawing my own sci-fi comics at age 11, when the first Star Wars came out, and kept it up through adolescence. Eventually, my love of sci-fi led me to a passion for philosophy, which I majored in in college. And the philosophy I learned has since informed my later choices in sci-fi reading, and even more my sci-fi writing and illustration. The books I talk about below are very dear to my heart—I’m sure you won’t regret checking them out.