I’ve worked in journalism, politics, and public policy for 30-plus years and watched as the extreme voices gained the most traction on either side of a debate. On social media, these minority views often dominate the discussion. 48 States is a stand-alone novel highlighting the problems of extremist viewpoints in a civil society. I also have another book series that features a political consultant who discovers she's a witch and joins a secret society that uses magic to manipulate elections to protect humanity. Bottom line: if I can’t fix political discourse for a living, I can write science fiction novels that contemplate how to do it.
I remember reading this book so intently that I almost bumped into someone while I was walking down the street. One day, a sickness wafts across humanity rendering people blind wherever they are.It’s frightening to read about the characters as blindness overtakes them without warning; humans are reduced to grasping for help in the sudden darkness. And then of course there is the fact that blindness is a metaphor.A brilliant piece of literature.
No food, no water, no government, no obligation, no order.
Discover a chillingly powerful and prescient dystopian vision from one of Europe's greatest writers.
A driver waiting at the traffic lights goes blind. An ophthalmologist tries to diagnose his distinctive white blindness, but is affected before he can read the textbooks. It becomes a contagion, spreading throughout the city. Trying to stem the epidemic, the authorities herd the afflicted into a mental asylum where the wards are terrorised by blind thugs. And when fire destroys the asylum, the inmates burst forth and the last links with a supposedly civilised society…
When COVID first arrived on the scene and the press was focused on the origins of the virus, I remembered The Passage. It opens with scientists conducting government research involving a virus derived from bats on humans, ostensibly to find a cure for cancer. Instead, they create a lethal virus that turns most of humanity into supercharged vampires who kill almost everyone on the planet reigning down terror for 100 years. I have to confess I did not read the entire trilogy, but the first book was captivating.
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…
Pete is content living a simple life in the remote Montana town of Sleeping Grass, driving the local garbage truck with his pot-bellied pig Pearl and wondering about what could've been. Elderly widow Wilma is busy meddling in Pete's life to try and make up for past wrongs that he…
I came across this little gem of a novel through Libby, the app I use to borrow ebooks from the San Francisco Public Library. What I liked about the story's premise was the idea of bacteria evolving beyond what modern antibiotics can manage and how that could turn a simple paper cut into a deadly injury.
A thrilling debut in the style of Crichton or A.G. Riddle, Resistant imagines a chilling-and entirely plausible-future where antibiotics don't work, and weaves adventure, romance, and science into a thrilling chase for a cure.
In the final battle with drug-resistant bacteria, one woman's blood holds a secret weapon.
Rory and her father have survived the antibiotic crisis that has killed millions, including Rory's mother-but ingenuity and perseverance aren't their only advantages. When a stoic and scarred young military veteran enters their quiet life, Rory is drawn to him against her better judgment . . . until he exposes the secrets…
How often have we wished as humans to be free of pain, to be free of anger, or despair? But that is really not living, as the young protagonist of this novel comes to learn. A frequent favorite of those who like to ban books, The Giver deals with uncomfortable subjects connected to age, frailty, and death. The way the story unravels its layers to reveal a society that on its surface looks serene but is actually dystopian is brilliant.
THE GIVER is soon to be a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges, Katie Holmes and Taylor Swift.
Now available for the first time in the UK, THE GIVER QUARTET is the complete four-novel collection.
THE GIVER: It is the future. There is no war, no hunger, no pain. No one in the community wants for anything. Everything needed is provided. And at twelve years old, each member of the community has their profession carefully chosen for them by the Committee of Elders.
Jonas has never thought there was anything wrong with his world. But from the moment he is…
After escaping from a government holding facility where she, along with other scientists, was being forced to build a deadly weapon. She headed for the most remote place she could think of, the wild Xantifal Mountains.
Even before the pandemic, this novel was poetic and timely and elegantly portrayed humanity's desire to survive. Something about the traveling performers captivated me from the first moment, thinking about how art links us to generations past. Centuries of people sitting for the same Shakespeare play; and wouldn't the playwright love reading about his work being performed by a troupe of deadly actors—a drama being performed within another. It’s not surprising it was made into a television series; the scenes jump off the pages.
'Best novel. The big one . . . stands above all the others' - George R.R. Martin, author of Game of Thrones
Now an HBO Max original TV series
The New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award Longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction National Book Awards Finalist PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist
What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty.
One snowy night in Toronto famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage whilst performing the role of a lifetime. That same evening a deadly virus touches down in…
Widow, single mother, and Army veteran Jennifer “River” Petersen works as a truck driver in Energy Territory No. 1, formerly known as North Dakota. Forced to enlist after her father’s death, the lines of River’s life have been redrawn. Living in a motel room with nothing but her books and a Glock handgun, River is weeks away from returning home when an injured man standing in the middle of the highway upends her plans. From the moment he encounters River, Finn Cunningham knows he must conceal his identity or be left for dead. His deception draws them into a megalomaniac's deadly conspiracy to ignite a civil war and overthrow the government. 48 States is a one-of-a-kind dystopian thriller about the dangers of extremism and the power of love and forgiveness.
Meet Tony Valenti. His high-flying corporate law career just cratered. His society marriage blew up in a bitter divorce. He's returned to the Chicago suburbs to lick his wounds and regroup in the haven of the Valenti family home. But time to heal isn't in the cards.
Hunted by those who want to study his gravity powers, Jes makes his way to the best place for a mixed-species fugitive to blend in: the pleasure moon where everyone just wants to be lost in the party. It doesn’t take long for him to catch the attention of the…
