I spent most of my childhood hiding under the table reading science fiction and fantasy books to avoid having to communicate with the weird people claiming to be my family up in the world above. After a while, the local library turned me away saying they had no more books left on those shelves, so I started writing my own. I like a mix of urban themes like in Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give and dystopias like George Orwell’s 1984. That said, I love most futurist novels that have a love story at their centre, because despite everything I’m a romantic.
This book is family. And like family, the main character, Marti is both maddening (choose any from heartless, obnoxious, selfish, cruel, deluded, vain…) and yet somehow also loveable.
Marti makes no effort to have you the reader like her, in fact she goads you to hate her, to reject her, to join the rest of society in putting her out with the trash. Despite herself, she emerges from the trauma of her awful journey with a completely unexpected heroic status. That’s the central paradox of this book and the genius of Melvin Burgess: Forget the dystopian ultra-right wing takeover plot.
You will scratch your head at the end of the story and think, how did I end up loving Marti?
The Bloods are in control and they're desperate to turn Britain into the world they want to see: right, white, Christian supremist. Anyone who they call abnormal is a target. Amidst the chaos of civil war the country is on the move as small militia groups fight each other and a sea of refugees escapes the cities and the pursuing Bloods.
When her home is destroyed in a bombing raid, Marti must strike out on a mission of her own - to save her father and get his vital software into the right hands. But Marti is mixed race and…
Nobody does bleak futures laced with racial politics in the way that Octavia Butler does them. This book is not something you read and forget; it burns a special place in your brain and lives there forever.
Through first published in 1993, it holds an astonishing relevance for today’s burning realities since one of its central themes is the calamity that climate change will bring. Match that with the funky, fascinating protagonist Lauren Olamina and the new religion, EarthSeed, and you have a novel that you can get lost in and never want to emerge from. I’ve read it three times so far - my guilty pleasure.
The extraordinary, prescient NEW YORK TIMES-bestselling novel.
'If there is one thing scarier than a dystopian novel about the future, it's one written in the past that has already begun to come true. This is what makes Parable of the Sower even more impressive than it was when first published' GLORIA STEINEM
'Unnervingly prescient and wise' YAA GYASI
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We are coming apart. We're a rope, breaking, a single strand at a time.
America is a place of chaos, where violence rules and only the rich and powerful are safe. Lauren Olamina, a young woman with the extraordinary power to…
This is a straight whisky of a dystopian novel. The prose is stark, all bones, no flesh, and the story fizzes along with a simple ‘journey’ plot. What you get along the way is skeletal poetry, honed so finely, so sparsely, so skillfully.
The prose is stripped of ornamentation, floridity, anything that detracts from the deep magnetism of this father and son’s quest through a dystopian wilderness. You end the novel breathless, praying this scenario never comes to pass, and in awe of McCarthy’s storytelling skills.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle).
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if…
An under-recognised gem of a novel, The Testament… showcases Jane Roger’s character-building talents and has at its core a troubled moral position about how to deal with the calamity humanity is faced with, owing to some bio-engineered terror that has been unleashed.
There is no middle ground for this book. You will either love it or hate it. Same goes for the main character, Jessie. She will strike you as the epitome of heroic self-sacrifice, else the height of stupid, navel-gazing, teenage self-indulgence.
“The novel does not set up an elaborate apocalypse, but astringently strips away the smears hiding the apocalypses we really face. Like Jessie’s, it is a small, calm voice of reason in a nonsensical world.” ―The Independent
Set in a world altered by an act of biological terrorism, comes The Testament of Jessie Lamb, a chilling dystopian novel that follows a 16-year-old girl who is driven to the ultimate act of heroism.
The Testament of Jessie Lamb, is the breakout novel from award-winning author Jane Rogers. Its cunningly drawn characters and riveting vision of…
This is a bit of a cheat selection because it’s a set of short stories and not all of them are speculative or future-focused. Still, sometimes cheating is worth it.
Okoije has a wonderfully warped imagination and a wide-ranging set of edgy interests that seed her stories with such invention and energy that she expands your idea of what a good story can do.
Fancy some fluorescent, scaly fish wriggling out of mouths? Try ‘Outtakes’. Want to hear from a girl with a long, furry grey tail? Have a read of ‘Animal Parts’. Keen on psychopaths with a penchant for sending unsuspecting women poetry? Then ‘Fractures’ will float your boat.
Why Okoije is not a major literary star I have no idea. But I love her writing the way I love cream cakes.
"Precise and illuminating." - Bernardine Evaristo OBE.
Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, the Saboteur Awards, the Shirley Jackson Award and the Jhalak Prize.
Lovelorn aliens abduct innocent coffee shop waitresses. Ghosts of errant Londoners haunt the Underground, caught between here and the hereafter. Brave young women seek erotic empowerment... at their own peril.
These are the worlds of Speak Gigantular, the startling debut short story collection from acclaimed author Irenosen Okojie MBE. Understated in her humour and razor-sharp in her observations of humankind, Okojie's eclectic anthology offers an unflinching gaze into the darkest corners of the human…
In a country wracked by strife and convulsed in internecine warfare, best friends, 16-year-olds Axel and Dune, cadets of the Resistance Youth Army, flee the mayhem only to find themselves captured by hostile militia, the Bloods. They are placed in a prison camp where the Bloods try to reprogram citizens’ minds by erasing their history and reshaping them as compliant subjects of the new political order. Axel and Dune plan to escape by any means necessary. But when the cost of escape becomes betrayal their quest for freedom becomes the greatest test of their love.
Christopher Jope was supposed to be the next great celebrity heartthrob. But then he was demoted to third wheel in the supernatural throuple romance he starred in years ago. Now, he’s a B-list celebrity at best, struggling to find success in his work or love in his personal life.
Things are looking up, though, when Christopher is tapped to be next season's star of the best trashy reality show on television. In Star x Lovers, ten bachelors and ten bachelorettes compete to try and win Christopher's heart and mind. The show is run by the charming yet jaded host Ted…
Love Love TV is a 1st person bisexual romance novel that quickly morphs into a 'whodunnit' murder mystery. Fans of Agatha Christie meets Black Mirror will love this modern story about love, loss, reality TV, and being so famous it hurts.
Star x Lovers is the best trash reality show on TV. Twenty bachelors and bachelorettes on a gorgeous island try to win the heart of Christopher Jope, the B-list celebrity from an old, popular supernatural teenage series. Love Love TV, the secretive television network behind Star x Lovers, does a masterful job at getting as much drama out of…
