The best science fiction novels about underdogs and rebel groups

Sandra Jeppesen Author Of Transformative Media: Intersectional Technopolitics from Indymedia to #Blacklivesmatter
By Sandra Jeppesen

Who am I?

I’ve loved science fiction since I was a nerdy high school student acing all the math and science courses my high school offered and power-reading through the library’s sci-fi section. I saw Bladerunner on a mediocre date with a hot guy a grade ahead of me, slouched down in our seats, hoping to hold hands but it never happened. The film, however, blew my mind. Fast forward through my engineering degree where I saw every cyberpunk film and punk band I could, through a punk-fueled creative writing MA and anarchist English PhD, to today where I study grassroots media and sometimes teach Comics or Science Fiction. 

I wrote...

Transformative Media: Intersectional Technopolitics from Indymedia to #Blacklivesmatter

By Sandra Jeppesen

Book cover of Transformative Media: Intersectional Technopolitics from Indymedia to #Blacklivesmatter

What is my book about?

In 1999, Seattle activists adopted cutting-edge live stream technology to cover the World Trade Organization protests and forever changed the global justice movement’s relationship to media. Transformative Media traces subsequent developments in technopolitics, revealing the innovative digital efforts of activist groups such as #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo today. Drawing on participatory research, Sandra Jeppesen examines how a broad array of anti-capitalist, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ people rely on alternative media and emerging technologies in their battle against overlapping systems of oppression.

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

The Books I Picked & Why

The Dispossessed

By Ursula K. Le Guin

Book cover of The Dispossessed

Why this book?

I love The Dispossessed because it imagines a world in which a non-hierarchical society is developed intentionally as a whole, organizing work, families, living spaces, education, food production, and so on around how best to fulfill the society’s needs while also supporting the development of individual talents. It juxtaposes this intentionality and equality against a capitalist society which is very toxic and individualistic, where people are selfish, society is hierarchical, some elites are extremely wealthy, with mass poverty and despair in the populace. This alternative to capitalist society does not romanticize, but shows how hard it would be to achieve, along with the importance of people working together.

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

Perdido Street Station

By China Miéville

Book cover of Perdido Street Station

Why this book?

China Miéville is a brilliant writer, and Perdido Street Station is one of his earlier novels, but I would recommend anything he has written. What I like specifically about this novel, though, is that the main character runs a renegade printing press which is key to spreading information about their growing underdog movement, and in addition, his partner is from another species which is vilified and misunderstood. The evil beings in this world that they are fighting are massive moths that are so beautiful if you stare at them they suck your brains out. Ew, right? The group is a small rag-tag combination of individuals with a variety of different motivations to be involved, but somehow they pull it together in unexpected ways, and, well things get interesting. 

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

Woman on the Edge of Time

By Marge Piercy

Book cover of Woman on the Edge of Time

Why this book?

I have to admit, I almost didn’t read this book. The first fifty pages are so dreary and difficult, with domestic abuse, racism, and excruciating poverty, with no science fiction to be seen. But then, suddenly, the main character is teleporting to another world or also has guests from that world visit her in ours, and things get very interesting. The alternative world has non-binary gender, it is not capitalist but communal, and they have eradicated most of society’s ills, from killer automobiles to cigarettes, domestic abuse, poverty, racism, and so on, and have replaced these with loving relationships, complex child-rearing arrangements and a more loving-relationship-oriented approach to life. It is a fascinating juxtaposition and definitely worth the opening slog.

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

Neuromancer

By William Gibson

Book cover of Neuromancer

Why this book?

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” The best opening line. Gibson’s style is so minimalist, it cuts to the bone. The implant technologies he envisions are as fascinating as his world-weary characters, but it is the post-apocalyptic Sprawl that gives life to both. Gibson doesn’t condescend to describe this world, he sets his characters in motion within it. Case, the underdog, is up against a powerful cartel—you don’t want to be him, but you do want him to get what he’s after. What that is, or whether he does, I won’t say, because you should read this book. It broke cyberpunk in 1984, the same year as Terminator, and two years after Bladerunner. Neither techno-optimist nor techno-pessimist, Gibson shows us exactly how media technologies can tune people in to a live or a dead channel and we need to make the right choices or pay the price.

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

Walkaway

By Cory Doctorow

Book cover of Walkaway

Why this book?

Doctorow and I had a mutual friend in common—the incredible Possum who organized Toronto’s Anarchist Free University for many years until his early demise, Rest in Power—full disclosure, and that’s how I started reading his fiction. Walkaway is one of my favorites. This is a world where 3D printers have changed everything. People who are poor, exploited, unhappy, or maybe just feeling adventurous can—and do—walk away from the capitalist world within the city walls and live quite literally on the fringes, using 3D printers and their imaginations of a world without exploitation to construct whole new societies. Can they successfully build a utopia despite the many conflicts that arise? Who knows? But I do know I’m hoping for a sequel.

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

Closely Related Book Lists

The best books set in the Trojan War

Judith Starkston Author Of Hand of Fire: A Novel of Briseis and the Trojan War Judith Starkston

The best books on the amazing world of trees

Artur Cisar-Erlach Author Of The Flavor of Wood: In Search of the Wild Taste of Trees from Smoke and SAP to Root and Bark Artur Cisar-Erlach

The best books on the best places you have never been to

Michael Buckley Author Of Shangri-La: A Travel Guide to the Himalayan Dream Michael Buckley

The best YA books featuring teens who overcome seemingly impossible odds

Nicole McInnes Author Of 100 Days Nicole McInnes

Distantly Related Book Lists

The best books that remind us that we are all idiots

Strobe Witherspoon Author Of OOF: An Online Outrage Fiesta for the ages Strobe Witherspoon

The best books for all ages that retell well-known stories and feature complex female characters

Molly Greeley Author Of The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh Molly Greeley

The best books where science fiction is simply a mundane way of explaining away the angelic creation

Carlyle Labuschagne Author Of The Broken Destiny (The Broken Trilogy Book 1) Carlyle Labuschagne

The best books in a post-apocalyptic world

Scott W. Kimak Author Of I call him HIM Scott W. Kimak