Why am I passionate about this?

All my life, I have been drawn to the dark, twisty, unconventional, rebellious stories; I was always a little disappointed with the Disney-fied fairytales, always enthralled by the dark imaginings of the originals. As I grew older, I recognised that these dark fables were not just confined to stories of fantasy, but present as seeds of discontent and destruction in our own reality—in the injustices of the present, and disasters of our potential future. As an author, I use these modern parables and prophecies—in dystopian, weird, and gothic science fiction—as a way to explore and critically reflect on our humanity and its future.  


I wrote

Tasmanian Gothic

By Mikhaeyla Kopievsky,

Book cover of Tasmanian Gothic

What is my book about?

A dark biopunk thriller of gothic proportionsSolari wasn’t alive when the radiation rained down, but she’s living with…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Frankenstein

Mikhaeyla Kopievsky Why did I love this book?

The original gothic science fiction novel and a classic in its own right, Shelley’s Frankenstein is brimming with human need, trauma, disgust, and the tragic folly of seeking perfection. The quintessential blend of grotesque and sublime, the story turns the mirror on the worst parts of humanity and forces us to both confront the misery and appreciate the tainted beauty. And Shelley, with her incomparable prose, leads us to this with her opening page, as our frame narrator, Robert Walton, remarks: “I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves, and fills me with delight.” The ultimate expression of gothic science fiction. 

By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,

Why should I read it?

47 authors picked Frankenstein as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'

'That rare story to pass from literature into myth' The New York Times

Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley on Lake Geneva. The story of Victor Frankenstein who, obsessed with creating life itself, plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, but whose botched creature sets out to destroy his maker, would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity. Based on the third…


Book cover of Perdido Street Station

Mikhaeyla Kopievsky Why did I love this book?

I fell in love with this book the moment I read its opening pages, and the love affair continued up to the final pages and still to this day. China Miéville does weird like no one else. And in this, his multi-award-winning sophomore novel and the first book in the Bas-Lag series, Miéville intelligently fuses a stunning array of genres and modes, from steampunk science fantasy to dystopian and gothic science fiction. So much of this book has lived in my subconscious for decades, inspiring a love for bug-punk, gangland-dystopian worlds with complex and flawed characters. The best book to read when looking to enter the world of weird fiction and gothic sci-fi. 

By China Miéville,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Perdido Street Station as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the August Derleth award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Perdido Street Station is an imaginative urban fantasy thriller, and the first of China Mieville's novels set in the world of Bas-Lag.

The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the centre of its own bewildering world. Humans and mutants and arcane races throng the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the rivers are sluggish with unnatural effluent, and factories and foundries pound into the night. For more than a thousand years, the parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast array of workers and artists, spies, magicians,…


Book cover of Annihilation

Mikhaeyla Kopievsky Why did I love this book?

You can’t talk about weird, gothic science fiction, without mentioning Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation. The first in the Southern Reach trilogy, VanderMeer’s novel is a complex, surreal, and terrifying tale of four scientists who brave the uninhabited, quarantined, and inexplicable ‘Area X’ in search of answers. Annihilation expertly blends science fiction with the terror and mystery of the gothic: fusing scientific inquiry (“Remember that we are to put our faith in your measurements…The measurements do not lie”), with hallucinations, temporal ambiguity, and mind manipulation. The lush, sentient, and menacing ecosystem is the quintessential gothic setting, and the story, revealed through the journal of the protagonist, is a perfect throwback to the original gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. A standout example of modern, intelligent, gothic sci-fi.

By Jeff VanderMeer,

Why should I read it?

12 authors picked Annihilation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A contemporary masterpiece' Guardian

THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE EXTRAORDINARY SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND (EX MACHINA) AND STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN AND OSCAR ISAAC

For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border - an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness.

The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic.

Now four women embark on the…


Book cover of The Island of Doctor Moreau

Mikhaeyla Kopievsky Why did I love this book?

Animal/human hybridisation is ripe for gothic sci-fi stories. Whether the sentient flora of Annihilation, the insectoid-human khepri of Perdido Street Station, or the brutal stitching together of human and animal in The Island of Doctor Moreau—each offers its own shade of terror, grotesque beauty, and ethical complications. Don’t let the clusterf*ck of its movie adaptation dissuade you; H.G. Wells’ classic is a beautiful exploration of the grotesque and terrifying—a darker, twistier version of Orwell’s allegory, Animal Farm, where humanised animals tell the story of mankind’s descent from humanity. 

By H.G. Wells,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The Island of Doctor Moreau as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 11, 12, 13, and 14.

What is this book about?

The Island of Doctor Moreau has inspired countless homages in literature, film and television.


Book cover of Dawn

Mikhaeyla Kopievsky Why did I love this book?

Having started this list with the titan of gothic science fiction, Mary Shelley, it is appropriate to close out the list with another titan, Octavia Butler. Dawn is the first book of the Xenogenesis series, which—though long-recognised as a science fiction classic—has deep connections to the gothic genre with its “A live! Still alive. Alive…again” (surely a contender for the best opening to a novel), and its captors, strange Awakenings, creatures covered in writhing tentacles, and hybridisation of the human and alien. Underneath all of this, is the complex interrogation of what it means to be human—an exploration suited exceptionally well to both gothic fiction and science fiction.

By Octavia E. Butler,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Dawn as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century' JUNOT DIAZ

'Octavia Butler was playing out our very real possibilities as humans. I think she can help each of us to do the same' GLORIA STEINEM

One woman is called upon to reconstruct humanity in this hopeful, thought-provoking novel by the bestselling, award-winning author. For readers of Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison and Ursula K. Le Guin.

When Lilith lyapo wakes in a small white room with no doors or windows, she remembers a devastating war, and a husband and child long lost to her.

She finds herself living…


Explore my book 😀

Tasmanian Gothic

By Mikhaeyla Kopievsky,

Book cover of Tasmanian Gothic

What is my book about?

A dark biopunk thriller of gothic proportionsSolari wasn’t alive when the radiation rained down, but she’s living with the consequences—the mutations, the gangland war, and the wall that divides Tasmania’s affluent North from its contaminated South. Alone in the southern reaches, Solari survives by cooking wildly addictive snowrock for the local crime lord and avoiding the city’s mutants. 

But, when a bad deal turns worse, Solari is forced to run—escaping retribution with a stolen van and a pair of giant wings cleaved from a mutant moth. Grafting the wings to her body will disguise Solari as one of Tasmania’s most reviled, and set her on a dangerous journey through gangland strongholds to get to the Border Wall, and safety, in the north.

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An Heir of Realms

By Heather Ashle,

Book cover of An Heir of Realms

Heather Ashle Author Of An Heir of Realms

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

My favorite fantasy novels tend to be rather complex. Winding plotlines, mysteriously interconnected characters, whimsical settings, and intricate, thoughtful worldbuilding combine to create immersive stories that stick in the mind like overworn folklore. Time travel or interworld travel lend additional layers of intrigue and mystery, forcing the inescapable contemplation of a more thrilling, alternate reality. And if it’s all packaged in artful, breathtaking prose that breeds full-color images, audible noises, indelible flavors, nose-crumpling odors, and tangible textures, I will happily lose myself in the pages, truly forgetting about the strictures of everyday life… at least until I get hungry and remember I need to consume more than books to survive.

Heather's book list on adult fantasy that won’t make you grow up too much

What is my book about?

An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction. 

Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to Ride, but her destiny will pit her against her uncle and king, who have scorned her since before her birth. 

In the Exchange, the waystation between realms, Emmelyn fights the G’Ambit, a gambling ring with members more intent on lining their pockets than protecting the realms—or their own lives.

Both…

An Heir of Realms

By Heather Ashle,

What is this book about?

Realm-devouring parasites threaten all existence. The Exchange is desperate to destroy them. But could their radical plans endanger the realms, too?

Soul-sucking parasites are overwhelming the realms.

Rhoswen of Stanburh is of age to train as a Realm Rider—a defender of the realms. Riders and their dragons work together to burn away infiltrating Narxon as they swarm in through tears in a realm’s fabric. But it’s not an easy battle: the mere touch of the smoky, dragon-like adversaries can reduce the lively winged beasts—and their Riders—to ash.

Becoming a Realm Rider is Rhoswen’s dream, but she carries far more responsibility…


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