Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a science fiction and fantasy author with an obsession with outer space and dragons. I grew up on those genres and managed to convince my college professors to let me write about dystopian science fiction for my senior thesis. I’ve always loved sci-fi and fantasy because of their unique ability to take imagined worlds that seem so distant and show how, actually, those worlds can be within reach. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that’s for better or for worse.


I wrote...

Chasing Shadows

By K.N. Salustro,

Book cover of Chasing Shadows

What is my book about?

My book kicks off a fast-paced, interstellar adventure following a bounty hunter and a military officer thrown into an unstable…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Dispossessed

K.N. Salustro Why did I love this book?

It took me two reads to actually like this book, which is probably not the best way to start this, but in Ursula K. Le Guin, we trust. This book is fascinating not just in content but also set up, as its chapters always follow the main character, Shevek, but alternate between two timelines spent on either the lush planet Urras or its desolate moon Anarres.

I loved the juxtaposition of the two and how the book challenged me to see all the similarities hiding beneath the glaring differences between these worlds and their people. Le Guin is unafraid to explore so many different kinds of societies here, and I always recommend this book to friends looking for a “thinker” sci-fi novel.

By Ursula K. Le Guin,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

One of the very best must-read novels of all time - with a new introduction by Roddy Doyle

'A well told tale signifying a good deal; one to be read again and again' THE TIMES

'The book I wish I had written ... It's so far away from my own imagination, I'd love to sit at my desk one day and discover that I could think and write like Ursula Le Guin' Roddy Doyle

'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER

The Principle of Simultaneity is a scientific breakthrough which will revolutionize interstellar civilization by making possible instantaneous…


Book cover of The Doors of Eden

K.N. Salustro Why did I love this book?

I toyed with recommending a different book by Adrian Tchaikovsky for this but ultimately went with this one because it is one of the most wildly imaginative books I’ve ever read. Tchaikovsky could have settled for speculating on one or two different evolutionary alternate histories of Earth, but nah. He went for ten.

I was so drawn into the way he developed societies around which species had become the surviving dominant in each timeline, from the trilobites to the rodents and everything in between. This book takes the question “What if?” and chucks it out the window with the strength of an Olympic shot put athlete without sacrificing raw character, emotion, and connections. I loved every page.

By Adrian Tchaikovsky,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Doors of Eden as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

They thought we were safe. They were wrong.

Lee and Mal went looking for monsters on Bodmin Moor four years ago, and only Lee came back. She thought she'd lost Mal forever, now miraculously returned. But what happened that day on the moors? And where has Mal been all this time? Mal's reappearance hasn't gone unnoticed by MI5 either, and their officers have questions.

Julian Sabreur is investigating an attack on top physicist Kay Amal Khan. This leads Julian to clash with agents of an unknown power - and they may or may not be human. His only clue is…


Book cover of The Sunlit Man: A Cosmere Novel

K.N. Salustro Why did I love this book?

Brandon Sanderson hardly needs an introduction as one of the modern-day heavy hitters of sci-fi and fantasy. This book, though, has a wonderfully creative setting, with a world plagued by sunlight so intense it’s only livable in the thin band of twilight that preludes the dawn.

One of my favorite things about science fiction is when an author creates a fantastical world that has deeply impacted the shaping of its society, from the rulers to the rebels and everyone in between. Sanderson delivers on this front, and I love how integral its setting is to its plot and the development of its characters.

By Brandon Sanderson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Sunlit Man as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson―creator of The Stormlight Archive, the Mistborn Saga, and countless bestselling works of science fiction and fantasy―comes this standalone novel showing a rare glimpse of a future Cosmere universe.

Running. Putting distance between himself and the relentless Night Brigade has been Nomad’s strategy for years. Staying one or two steps ahead of his pursuers by skipping through the Cosmere from one world to the next.

But now, his powers too depleted to escape, Nomad finds himself trapped on Canticle, a planet that will kill anyone who doesn’t keep moving. Fleeing the fires…


Book cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

K.N. Salustro Why did I love this book?

This is easily one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, but this novel (and the series as a whole, although I have mixed feelings about the later books) contains some of the most imaginative places, species, inventions, and characters I’ve ever seen.

Even some of the one-off side characters that are little more than a passing joke are obnoxiously original and could star in their own stories as easily as Arthur Dent does in this one. I’m hard-pressed to think of a more creative, absurd, and wide-reaching book than Hitchhiker’s Guide.

By Douglas Adams,

Why should I read it?

37 authors picked The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This box set contains all five parts of the' trilogy of five' so you can listen to the complete tales of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Bebblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android! Travel through space, time and parallel universes with the only guide you'll ever need, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Read by Stephen Fry, actor, director, author and popular audiobook reader, and Martin Freeman, who played Arthur Dent in film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He is well known as Tim in The Office.

The set also includes a bonus DVD Life, the Universe and…


Book cover of Oryx and Crake

K.N. Salustro Why did I love this book?

Imagine a world sliding into a climate apocalypse… and society just shrugs. This is an anxiety-inducing book, and another one that I had to read twice before I fully appreciated it, but it’s also one of the smartest books that speculates on climate change and just how much that could impact society around us.

I find this book thought-provoking and frustrating because I see these brilliant characters making selfish decisions that feed a self-destructive world, and this novel has only grown more relevant as the years have passed. Margaret Atwood doesn’t like to think of this as science fiction, but I can’t think of a better book to hold up a mirror to the world as we know it and then invite us to look beyond.

By Margaret Atwood,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

By the author of THE HANDMAID'S TALE and ALIAS GRACE

*

Pigs might not fly but they are strangely altered. So, for that matter, are wolves and racoons. A man, once named Jimmy, lives in a tree, wrapped in old bedsheets, now calls himself Snowman. The voice of Oryx, the woman he loved, teasingly haunts him. And the green-eyed Children of Crake are, for some reason, his responsibility.

*

Praise for Oryx and Crake:

'In Jimmy, Atwood has created a great character: a tragic-comic artist of the future, part buffoon, part Orpheus. An adman who's a sad man; a jealous…


Explore my book 😀

Chasing Shadows

By K.N. Salustro,

Book cover of Chasing Shadows

What is my book about?

My book kicks off a fast-paced, interstellar adventure following a bounty hunter and a military officer thrown into an unstable alliance. Can they survive a shadow organization (and each other) long enough to save the galaxy from the looming threat of war?

This series is for you if you like morally gray characters on high-stakes adventures with tons of strange planets and alien species.

Book cover of The Dispossessed
Book cover of The Doors of Eden
Book cover of The Sunlit Man: A Cosmere Novel

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Lori Alden Holuta Author Of The Flight to Brassbright

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Why am I passionate about this?

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Lori's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

Constance is a wild, stubborn young girl growing up poor in a small industrial town in the late 1800's. Beneath her thread-worn exterior beats the heart of a dreamer and a wordsmith. But at age twelve, she’s orphaned. Running away to join the circus—like kids do in adventure books—seems like such a brilliant idea…or is it?

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The Flight to Brassbright

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What is this book about?

Constance is a wild, stubborn young girl growing up poor in a small industrial town in the late 1800's. Beneath her thread-worn exterior beats the heart of a dreamer and a wordsmith. But at age twelve, she’s orphaned. Running away to join the circus—like kids do in adventure books—seems like such a brilliant idea… or is it?


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