There are days when it seems like all I do is imagine what the future holds. I love reading “wonder tales,” as I’ve heard Margaret Atwood call them – novels that imagine how our world might change or fantasize about completely different realms. At the same time, they reflect on conditions in our world today. That’s what I do with my own creative writing. I was trained to think about the future as a journalist, talking with media executives about how their content and technology are evolving. My stories have appeared in Asimov's; they’ve been selected by the Writers Lab for Women; and my novel The Juice was published in February.
This novel represents a sharp turn for me. Until I snapped up Zero History in an airport bookstore many years ago, the science fiction I’d read seemed like dry, intellectual exercises. The characters didn’t have depth. They never made me laugh (or cry). But Zero History unleashed a passion in me for speculative fiction, and eventually, it turned my own writing in that direction as well. To this day, it’s one of my all-time favorite novels. While it’s the third book in a William Gibson trilogy, it is entirely complete on its own. There’s a pop culture, cool vibe about it as the story taps into the lives of three people with unusual gifts – which a global marketing magnate dearly wants to use in various ways.
THE THIRD NOVEL IN THE BLUE ANT TRILIOGY - READ PATTERN RECOGNITION AND SPOOK COUNTRY FOR MORE
Hubertus Bigend, the Machiavellian head of global ad-agency Blue Ant, wants to uncover the maker of an obscurely fashionable denim that is taking subculture by storm. Ex-musician Henry Hollis knows nothing about fashion, but Bigend decides she is the woman for the job anyway.
Soon, though, it becomes clear that Bigend's interest in underground labels might have sinister applications. Powerful parties, who'll do anything to get what they want, are showing their hand. And Hollis is…
My home port, New York City, never stops entertaining me, with endless pockets of culture to explore. Kim Stanley Robinson’s book centers on parts of Manhattan that I know very well, like Madison Square Park, and reimagines them in a Venice-like environment, with most of the city’s streets submerged in water.
While climate change is clearly at play, this book isn’t all doom-and-gloom. There’s a somewhat quirky cast of characters that all inhabit the same building and include a media star known for her airship escapades and a couple of coders whose disappearance has monumental consequences for the financial industry. If Robert Altman were still with us, I could see him directing a movie adaptation of New York 2140. It has a sensibility that’s similar to his own.
As the sea level rose, every street became a canal, every skyscraper an island. For the residents of one apartment building in Madison Square, however, New York in the year 2140 is far from a drowned city.
New York Times bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson delivers a bold and brilliant vision of New York in the next century.
'New York may be underwater but it's better than ever' - New Yorker
If my first two choices were desserts, they’d be variations of a tart lemon meringue pie, with an airy buttery crust. Parable of the Sower is a denser substance, like a flourless chocolate cake, with next to no sugar. In other words, it activated different “taste buds” in me.
Sower imagines America at a time when barricaded communities protect people from a general state of violence and poverty. The heroine, Lauren, has supernatural powers of empathy. And she creates a completely new religion, which is pretty darned fascinating to consider. After her family and community are destroyed, Lauren journeys north from the Los Angeles area to find safety, collecting a band of friends and religious followers along the way. Octavia E. Butler followed up this masterpiece with a second novel, Parable of the Sower, which is equally delicious.
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…
Imagine the teeming, dense city of Bangkok thrown into a future time. It’s inhabited by a corporate spy in search of food substances thought to have gone extinct. Another character, the windup girl in the title, is a bio-engineered human created to answer the decadent needs of Kyoto men. Emiko, as she’s known, is abandoned on the streets of the Thai city and longs to reside in one of the villages where people like herself can live independently.
Windup Girl has lots of characters. Their agendas interlock in various ways. According to some of the reviews I’ve read, that is a bit too much for some readers. But hey, I’m a fan of Leo Tolstoy. To my mind, the rich, complex nature of the book is in keeping with the city where it takes place.
WINNER OF THE HUGO, NEBULA, LOCUS, JOHN W. CAMPBELL AND COMPTON CROOK AWARDS
The Windup Girl is the ground-breaking and visionary modern classic that swept the board for every major science fiction award it its year of publication.
Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's calorie representative in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, he combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs long thought to be extinct. There he meets the windup girl - the beautiful and enigmatic Emiko - now abandoned to the slums. She is one of the New People, bred to suit the whims of…
There’s a sensibility to Never Let Me Go that reminds me of a quiet piece of music that grabs you unawares by slowly introducing dark layers filled with devastating emotion. Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel features a young woman named Kathy who is a clone. Her purpose on planet Earth is to donate her organs to “real” humans on an as-needed basis.
Kathy’s state of being, and its consequences, are revealed as she recounts her memories of two other clones whom she met at a special private school. On one level the push-pull between the trio is similar to what school mates the world over encounter. But their special purpose adds a much deeper level, which is explored through a variety of emotions, experiences and longings. It all points toward their inevitable fate: when they donate so many organs that they can no longer live.
One of the most acclaimed novels of the 21st Century, from the Nobel Prize-winning author
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense…
This cyberpunk, dystopian novel is at turns an espionage rollercoaster ride and a spellbinding romance. It features Jarat Ellington, an exile from Elite society, who was trying to lead a simple life when a genius friend dropped an explosive mystery in his lap. The pal, Thom, created a priceless chemical substance called the Juice that turns mildly charming people into supremely charismatic beings, known as Charismites. Because of their magnetism, they can get anyone to do almost anything. But the Juice is stolen, and Thom killed.
Jarat goes on an obsessive quest to uncover the deadly adversary who now controls the Juice. Along the way, he must deal with a powerful media executive with a mysterious agenda and a dirt-poor fearless girl, who transforms into a celebrity with extraordinary powers of persuasion. The Juice explores the future of America and how media companies could increasingly shape the opinions and behaviors of the public.
Jeff Walker is a champion surfer haunted by the mystery of his father’s murder and his mother’s broken heart. After finding a job as a lifeguard, a rescue mission at sea plunges him into a far-reaching criminal conspiracy.
Walker and his closest friends aid the police in their investigation, through which it is revealed that the leader of the crooks is his father’s killer! The tension builds from that point on until he finally faces his nemesis in a confrontation that will leave only one man standing.
This first episode of The Park and Walker Action Thriller Series will whisk…
Meet Jeff Walker, a champion surfer haunted by the unsolved mystery of his father’s murder and his mother’s broken heart. When he relocates to sunny San Diego and secures a job as a beach lifeguard, a rescue mission at sea plunges him into the dark underworld of international crime.
Along with his closest friends, Walker supports the police in their investigation, and in doing so discovers that the leader of the smugglers is his father’s killer, the man he’s been looking for since he was a teenager! From that moment on, the tension builds, until Walker finally faces his nemesis…
