59 books like Fortune's Pawn

I was pleasantly surprised by just how weird this book is.

It is, as it was often marketed to me, “gay necromancers in space,” but it’s so much more than that. Disorientation, cerebral puzzles, and intricate worldbuilding permeate this whole book from chapter one. Tamsyn Muir is unapologetic about writing exactly what she wants, even if it’s outside a lot of readers’ comfort zones.

I found the strangeness of the societies, the challenges, and the mysteries woven into this book intriguing. It’s a murder mystery! In a high-stakes competition! With queer female main characters who have a lot of friction but are nonetheless deeply devoted to each other!

I loved how new and fresh it felt and that I couldn’t predict what would happen next.

I’m a big fan of genre-bending and trope manipulation, and I was completely blown away by this rare creation of a book. It’s a carefully crafted plot of time manipulation, blending science fiction, fantasy, espionage, and romance, told through letters between two rival agents in a style more akin to a war drama.

Those contrasting styles notably elevated the story for me, accenting the cybernetic future by experiencing the naturalistic one and enhancing the love story through the suspense of corporate espionage.

At no point did I feel as if either empire was the “good” or “bad” one, only that I wanted both of the protagonists to succeed, and that made my first read of this book nothing short of a page-turner.

Another alien novel, but one of the strangest and most profound I’ve read. Isserly drives around in her van in the wilds of Scotland, picking up hitchhikers. But she is no ordinary woman; in fact, she isn’t human at all, but a modified alien tasked with finding humans to be turned into fast food for an alien world.

It is a darkly ironic, strange, and disturbing novel that asks questions about how we treat animals, cleverly reversing its language to refer to humans as aliens and aliens as humans. It felt to me that this book was able to touch on many of the evils of capitalism, not just mass farming but also the treatment of women and women’s bodies. But it doesn’t do this in an obvious way.

It’s an alien novel that’s low on overt science fiction; it’s gritty and real, emotional and lonely. I wasn’t the same… show more.

Someone once told me if you want to read science fiction, you should start at the very beginning and gave me a copy of this book. Written in 1666, I’m not going to pretend this is an easy read but I would recommend it if only because it inspired so many of my favorite contemporary science fiction authors (including China Mieville and Alan Moore).

A woman stranded in a strange and hostile world becomes a military empress, the OG sci-fi action woman.

I admit this book originally felt like doing my homework, but by the time I finished, I immediately went on a literary criticism deep dive, finding every article and essay I could about this text and its (remarkable) author. I came out feeling like an evangelist, and now I bore people at parties talking about it.

This fun story from the 1990s revived my youthful joy in reading at a time when the busy-ness of adulthood had stolen it away. Siri has forgotten who she is and is swept into multiple space adventures as she tries to reconstruct her lost memories and regain the power and place she once held with her people. In the process, she finds friendships (the Drapsk!) and romance (Morgan!), and comes to understand herself better.

In reading this book, I realized that the science fiction stories I like best are ones that deal with relationships, mystery, and discovery and not just complicated technologies and their implications for society. I realized that I could have fun reading again if I had some fun science fiction with adventure, romance, and exploration!

High school student Kip Morgan wins an internship at an oceanographic institute in Hawaii where he, with help of new friend Julie Scott, overcomes multiple personal and engineering challenges to solve an archaeological mystery and raise a sunken ship from the sea floor. This story from the 1970s was key in guiding me toward a life of science, and the portrayal of a realistic, mentored research experience gave me a vision for what I might do in my own journey through college and into science.

I loved the exotic location, scuba diving, and seafloor exploration, mystery, adventure, and romance!

While this book is more literary than plot- or character-driven, it deals with the loss of memory and self, and the struggles to reclaim those parts of oneself. It reads like a dream, or a series of dreams – as the reader you’re not entirely sure what is important and what isn’t, but the beautiful prose and interesting situations keep things going.

Imagine, if you will, a classic pulp sci-fi hero, standing bold on the cover of a dimestore paperback, raygun in one hand, a beautiful woman in the other, and dangerous aliens all around him. Now imagine it's many years later, and that hero is now a deadbeat relic of a bygone era, and the heroism of his glory days has become little more than inspiration for cheap entertainment. The hero of Will Save the Galaxy for Food is confronted with the reality of the world leaving him behind, and has to figure out what he can do about it. Or even if he should do anything.

Where can I even begin with the magic and immersion of Naomi Novik’s Uprooted?

Saying an unlikely heroine with an affinity for the forest meets an aloof, powerful wizard thus starting her quest to uncover the potential of her own magic barely scratches the surface of the enchanting world Novik creates. The allure and power of the dark forest that runs tangled roots beneath the story’s unspooling narrative is an unmissable experience.

And Novik’s uniquely beautiful language is perfectly matched by the magic of the fairy tale world itself and the weaving of the spells therein! 

This is a book I would recommend because it's filled with love and hope. I'm a real fan of books that make you feel good by describing great relationships of all kinds. I especially enjoyed the relationship between the two sisters. The story truly teaches about great romance. When a person is having a bad day, this book will suck you in and leave you with a feeling of happiness.