Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a sci-fi/fantasy fan ever since my dad introduced me to the original Star Trek (in reruns) and The Lord of the Rings in my youth. I’ve always loved thinking about possibilities—large and small—so my work tends to think big when I write. I also write poetry, which allows me to talk about more than just the everyday or at least to find the excitement within the mundane in life. These works talk about those same “possibilities”—for better or worse, and in reading, I walk in awareness of what could be.


I wrote

Passe-Partout

By Stephen M. Sanders,

Book cover of Passe-Partout

What is my book about?

My book is a story of two lives centuries apart, both tasked with unraveling the mystery of hidden magic and…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of A Canticle for Leibowitz

Stephen M. Sanders Why did I love this book?

I loved this book for its tragic characters and its ultra-meticulous plotting. Walter M. Miller only published one book in his lifetime, and I’m so happy he did. I read it every time I want to see “how it’s done,” and walk away amazed.

By Walter M. Miller, Jr.,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked A Canticle for Leibowitz as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the depths of the Utah desert, long after the Flame Deluge has scoured the earth clean, a monk of the Order of Saint Leibowitz has made a miraculous discovery: holy relics from the life of the great saint himself, including the blessed blueprint, the sacred shopping list, and the hallowed shrine of the Fallout Shelter.

In a terrifying age of darkness and decay, these artifacts could be the keys to mankind's salvation. But as the mystery at the core of this groundbreaking novel unfolds, it is the search itself—for meaning, for truth, for love—that offers hope for humanity's rebirth…


Book cover of The Road

Stephen M. Sanders Why did I love this book?

Cormac McCarthy does the impossible in this book—he writes an emotionally satisfying, literary-minded travelogue of horrors. It shatters the reader but then lifts them up with its beautifully wrought prose.

Be patient: the novel gets brutally dark before the light.

By Cormac McCarthy,

Why should I read it?

34 authors picked The Road as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

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…


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Book cover of Exchange Student

Exchange Student By Michael R. Lane,

Daniel “Dan” Bluford is the Director of Polar City Single Organism Research Lab Facilities. A business he helped to create. The world’s leading architect of sustainable, ecologically conscious products for energy, manufacturing, water treatment, waste management, and environmental clean-up equipment. A company whose mission statement read in part, “Better environment…

Book cover of Exiled from Earth

Stephen M. Sanders Why did I love this book?

I have adored my next pick for its long narrative threads ever since I read it in my youth. It is the first book of a trilogy, but its ideas about human dignity and honor transcended the first book and pulled me into reading the second and third.

By Ben Bova,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Exiled from Earth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

E. P. Dutton, 1973. Trade paperback. This 1971 novel is the first book in "The Exiles" series, which also includes "Flight of Exiles" (1972) and "End of Exile" (1975). The three novels were later collected as "The Exiles Trilogy."


Book cover of House of Leaves

Stephen M. Sanders Why did I love this book?

I love this book's weirdness! Danielewski’s paranormal (and unconventional) story permitted me to write what I wanted and forget other people’s expectations about what a novel “should” be. It freed my work to be as strange as it needed to be.

By Mark Z. Danielewski,

Why should I read it?

25 authors picked House of Leaves as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations,…


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Book cover of Edge of the Known World

Edge of the Known World By Sheri T. Joseph,

Edge of the Known World is a near-future love and adventure story about a brilliant young refugee caught in era when genetic screening tests like 23AndMe make it impossible to hide a secret identity. The novel is distributed by Simon & Schuster. It is a USA Today Bestseller and 2024…

Book cover of The Passage

Stephen M. Sanders Why did I love this book?

This book scratches my genre itch and is also “literary” at the same time. Cronin’s superb world-building is so subtle that you don’t realize that the book’s world and ours are separate until you are half-way through the book and see that there were clues all along the way.

By Justin Cronin,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The Passage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Amy Harper Bellafonte is six years old and her mother thinks she's the most important person in the whole world. She is. Anthony Carter doesn't think he could ever be in a worse place than Death Row. He's wrong. FBI agent Brad Wolgast thinks something beyond imagination is coming. It is. THE PASSAGE. Deep in the jungles of eastern Colombia, Professor Jonas Lear has finally found what he's been searching for - and wishes to God he hadn't. In Memphis, Tennessee, a six-year-old girl called Amy is left at the convent of the Sisters of Mercy and wonders why her…


Explore my book 😀

Passe-Partout

By Stephen M. Sanders,

Book cover of Passe-Partout

What is my book about?

My book is a story of two lives centuries apart, both tasked with unraveling the mystery of hidden magic and the corruption its practice brings to the living. Paul Fischer is driven to decipher the corruption of a strange, abandoned address in the heart of a metropolis and the cause of his father’s death. Cyprus, a second man separated by untold generations in the past, arrives at the cabin of his mentor, only to find two graves: the mentor’s and one of an unknown woman.

Seeking to understand their fate, Cyprus discovers and uses the magic to unlock doors between realities. Soon, both Paul and Cyprus discover the horrors binding their fates with creatures from a multitude of Hells conjured to silence them.

Book cover of A Canticle for Leibowitz
Book cover of The Road
Book cover of Exiled from Earth

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