I’m one of those odd people who always needs to know why. Why do computers work, why do societies break down? Why do humans kill? Why are cat videos so irresistible? All of those questions explore what it means to be human, but science fiction takes those questions to the extreme, pitting people against the most extreme environments and situations in order to see how they’ll react. To me, that never grows old, and the books I love the most are the ones that do it the best. In my humble opinion, of course.
Miira Tahn, last lady of Durai is dying, but if she’s brave enough, she can live out her life in Innerscape, as a younger, healthy version of herself. There is a catch though. Once she’s inducted into Innerscape, she can never leave because what’s left of her real body is hooked up to an AI and cannot survive without it.
Miira chooses to enter Innerscape and discovers that people take their true selves with them, wherever they go.
I fell in love with Dune because of the worms. Never before had I read a science fiction/fantasy novel in which the world was as deeply thought out and as much a part of the story as the humans themselves. I wanted to know how Arrakis and its worms came about as much as I wanted to know what would happen to the characters.
That package of people and place fired my imagination, and each time I re-read the story [8 times and counting], I discover something more. To me, that is the hallmark of a truly great book.
Before The Matrix, before Star Wars, before Ender's Game and Neuromancer, there was Dune: winner of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, and widely considered one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.
Melange, or 'spice', is the most valuable - and rarest - element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person's lifespan to making interstellar travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world of Arrakis.
Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe.
The world of Otherland is Earth, and the people are human, but woven into that familiar landscape is a virtual world that hasn’t quite happened yet. Imagine a virtual, digital world in which your avatar can ‘feel’. Why would you ever want to leave?
I first read Otherland soon after I started playing MMORPGs [Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games]. MMORPGs provide a ‘persistent’ world in which your character can fight, craft, build, or just socialize with other players. As such, it can become very immersive, and that’s just through the power of the imagination and some pixels on a screen. Now, imagine how immersive a virtual world would be. And how dangerous.
Otherland started me thinking about technology and how humans relate to new innovations. It also inspired some of my own writing.
Otherland is a universe ruled by Earth's wealthiest and most ruthless power-brokers, The Grail Brotherhood. Surrounded by secrecy, incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it and two generations have laboured to build it. Now it is claiming Earth's most valuable resource - its children.
Ursula K. Le Guin taught me how powerful science fiction could be. Published in 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness, tells the story of a human observer who arrives on an alien planet and discovers that the humanoid inhabitants change their gender in response to external stimuli. One of the aliens helps the human observer escape from a perilous situation, and the relationship between the two explores gender stereotypes and sexual orientation.
I’ve often wondered whether the Left Hand of Darkness influenced The Crying Game, a movie that came out in 1992, over twenty years later. Then and now, The Left Hand of Darkness challenges readers to think outside the box and question their preconceived ideas.
50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION-WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY DAVID MITCHELL AND A NEW AFTERWORD BY CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
Ursula K. Le Guin's groundbreaking work of science fiction-winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants' gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters...
Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an…
Cyteen won a Hugo Award in 1989 and pushed the envelope on both world building and character development. For me though, it was the author’s exploration of what it means to be human that made this book one of my all-time favourites.
In Cyteen, there are born humans and made people. Some of the made people are clones of a particularly powerful individual, but most are created to perform a function. These lower-ranked people are taught everything they need to know by ‘tape’, while they sleep.
The book asks some deep philosophical questions about what makes a person human, and whether any of us have the right to create ‘sub-humans’ for our own benefit. These are powerful questions that still beg for answers.
The saga of two young friends trapped in an endless nightmare of suspicion and surveillance, of cyber-programmed servants and a ruling class with century-long lives - and the enigmatic woman who dominates them all. Narrators Jonathan Davis and Gabra Zackman skillfully split up this sweeping sci-fi epic that is "at once a psychological novel, a murder mystery, and an examination of power on a grand scale." (Locus)
The best way to describe the Repulse Chronicles is to say that they are a historical record of a war that hasn’t happened yet, using AI and military technology that hasn’t been invented, yet.
Written by Indie author Chris James, the Repulse Chronicles are innovative in the extreme, in both style and content, yet as with all the stories I love the most, it’s the interface between people and technology that fascinates me the most. Some people rise to the occasion, others sink, yet in all cases, we recognize ourselves in the characters. That is what makes the story so powerful.
On 7 February 2062, the New Persian Caliphate launched a devastating and unprovoked surprise attack against NATO. This was the initial salvo in a two-year war that would bring Europe to the brink of annihilation and cost millions of lives.
Onslaught is the first in a series of novels that tell the story of the 2062-2064 war as seen through the eyes of the people obliged to fight it.
My book recommendations reflect an abiding passion for Japanese literature, which has unquestionably influenced my own writing. My latest literary interest involves Japanese poetry—I’ve recently started a project that combines haiku and prose narration to describe my experiences as a part-time resident in a 1300-year-old Japanese hot spring town that Bashō helped make famous in The Narrow Road to the Deep North. But as a writer, my main focus remains novels. In late 2023 the second in a planned series of novels set in Ishikawa prefecture will be published. I currently live in Kanazawa, but have also been lucky to call Sapporo, Akita, Tokyo, and Fukui home at different times.
Emmitt’s plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of purchasing their dream home. Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover her subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo.
In his search for a meaningful life in Japan, and after quitting his job, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English. He becomes drawn into the mysterious death of a friend of Mirai’s parents, leading him and his father-in-law to climb the mountain where the man died. There, he learns the somber truth and discovers what the future holds for him and his wife.
Packed with subtle literary allusion and closely observed nuance, Kanazawa reflects the mood of Japanese fiction in a fresh, modern incarnation.
In Kanazawa, the first literary novel in English to be set in this storied Japanese city, Emmitt's future plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of negotiations to purchase their dream home. Disappointed, he's surprised to discover Mirai's subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo, a city he dislikes.
Harmony is further disrupted when Emmitt's search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa's most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English.
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