I have loved reading since I was very young, and would bring home an armful of books from the library. I first discovered the dystopian genre while in junior high, and it quickly became my favorite genre. My favorite aspect of dystopias is the new world created within each book. When I began writing my own stories, I spent several hours building the world within my book. Even today, nearly 20 years after I first began writing, I spend hours drawing and designing everything within each book, whether or not it’s dystopian. My hope is that my readers find my worlds as fascinating as I found the worlds of the stories on my list!
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a bold, futuristic epic that immediately sucked me in and wouldn’t let me go. Starting on the far-off world of Adrasteia, the story follows Kira across the galaxy after she mistakenly walks into an interstellar war. Paolini perfectly paints this fantastical story, leaving you desperate for more. Having read Eragonat a young age, I wasn’t expecting Paolini to write this genre, but I am so impressed by his work. While I’d recommend any of his books, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is my new favorite. His world-building is amazing and wildly entertaining!
Winner of Best Science Fiction in the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards!
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is a brand new epic novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eragon, Christopher Paolini.
Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds.
Now she's awakened a nightmare.
During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.
As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a…
Like with my own writing (at least I hope), I always drift toward surprises, originality, and unbounded imagination. I want the books others only whisper about, books too unique and odd for the mainstream. I want outliers and rule breakers. Authors who challenge their readers and make us question the world and our roles in it. And in what better realm to do this than in fantasy? These are books to seek out, each one worth going the extra mile to track down. Happy hunting.
In this science fantasy novel, humans, like horses, are used as riding mounts by a race of weak-legged aliens who have taken over Earth centuries earlier. Charley is a mount and, like most other humans, content with his role, prideful even. However, when he meets his father, an escaped mount leading assaults on the human stables, he is forced to confront the slave/master relationship he has always relied upon. Unique and utterly fascinating, The Mount is guaranteed to keep readers entranced.
* Philip K. Dick Award Winner * Best of the Year: Locus, Village Voice, San Francisco Chronicle, Book Magazine * Nominated for the Impac Award Charley is an athlete. He wants to grow up to be the fastest runner in the world, like his father. He wants to be painted crossing the finishing line, in his racing silks, with a medal around his neck. Charley lives in a stable. He isn't a runner, he's a mount. He belongs to a Hoot: The Hoots are alien invaders. Charley hasn't seen his mother for years, and his father is hiding out in…
I’ve been fascinated by UFOs since I was a kid, but it wasn’t until I met a Martian in 2016 that I started writing about them. To be more specific, I stumbled across a bizarre 1926 article about a man in telepathic communication with a Martian named Oomaruru. I then delved deeper into the beliefs about intelligent Martians at that time. It led to my writing The Big Book of Mars, which touched on the UFO phenomena in the 1940s and ‘50s. But knowing there was so much more to explore, I began writing We Are Not Alone, which is now my 8th book.
This was the first 1950s “contactee” book I read while researching my book. And it’s a fun one.
Contactees were a group of people in the fifties and sixties claiming to have been in contact with aliens—usually Venusians. Fry gives his account of stumbling upon a flying saucer in New Mexico in 1950 and flying to New York and back in 30 minutes. He flew alone, guided remotely from an alien far above.
In his conversations with the extraterrestrial being, he learned that they were visiting our planet to warn us about the dangers of the atomic age and the possible destruction of earth. It’s entertaining, and regardless of your beliefs, the alien makes a fair point.
Dr. Daniel Fry, an engineer at White Sands Proving Ground near Las Cruces, New Mexico, is whisked away on a 8,000 mile UFO ride from White Sands to New York City and back. Thus begins his instruction by the extraterrestrial A-lan who wants everyone in this world to understand the truth about our existence and how we can spiritually profit from the beneficence of extraterrestrial contact.
As an author of young adult fantasy and science fiction, I’ve read many books that fall within that rubric. This list captures the most exciting young adult novels I’ve read over the past few years. All have aspects of storytelling and themes I strive to capture in my writing. One thing I love about the young adult genre is the characters go on an adventure full of excitement and danger. The adventure is a metaphor for growing up. So if reads chock-full of death-defying odds, mystery, wonder, and a sprinkling of romance are your jam, the books in this list are for you.
I was blown away by how good Victories Greater Than Death is. It reminds me of the original Star Trek with its optimism and inclusiveness. Charlie Jane Anders puts inclusiveness front and center with the sheer diversity of her characters in ethnic origin, neurodiversity, and LGBTQA+ identification. This is done brilliantly in a manner that is in your face, lighthearted, touching, and nuanced. All this is accomplished without sacrificing the yarn's sci-fi suave.
The protagonist is Tina, a teenage girl destined to transform into an alien superhero. Her story thrums with fantastical adventure while exploring questions of identity and purpose with gravitas.I explore similar themes in my writing and hope I handle them with the aplomb Charlie Jane Anders does.
“Just please, remember what I told you. Run. Don’t stop running for anything.”
Tina never worries about being 'ordinary'--she doesn't have to, since she's known practically forever that she's not just Tina Mains, average teenager and beloved daughter. She's also the keeper of an interplanetary rescue beacon, and one day soon, it's going to activate, and then her dreams of saving all the worlds and adventuring among the stars will finally be possible. Tina's legacy, after all, is intergalactic--she is the hidden clone of a famed alien hero, left on Earth disguised as a…
I’ve read romance since I was teenager, and I’ve written all my professional life, first in journalism, then public relations, finally as an author. Being a sci-fi romance author is my dream job! There is nothing on this planet I’d rather do. I love the freedom and creativity of science fiction romance. There are new worlds to explore and fascinating characters to meet. The best books of any genre are those with “legs.” Years after reading them, you stillremember the story. My goal is to send my readers on an unforgettable emotional journey to an exciting new world filled with characters they can’t help but fall in love with.
I loved Ghost Planet for its fascinating premise delivered with a zinger.
Colonists of a newly discovered planet are being stalked by doppelgängers of dead people they once knew. Psychologist Elizabeth Cole goes to the planet for a job and immediately bonds with her supervisor, the creator of the Ghost Protocol, which forbids acknowledging or interacting with the ghosts (in an attempt to get rid of them).
And then Elizabeth discovers she, too, is a ghost, having died on arrival to the planet when her ship crashed. It’s been seven years since I read this book, and the plot has stayed with me.
Psychologist Elizabeth Cole prepared for the worst when she accepted a job on a newly discovered world--a world where every colonist is tethered to an alien who manifests in the form of a dead loved one. But she never expected she'd struggle with the requirement to shun these "ghosts." She never expected to be so attracted to the charming Irishman assigned as her supervisor. And she certainly never expected to discover she died in a transport crash en route to the planet. Reincarnated as a ghost, Elizabeth is symbiotically linked to her supervisor, Murphy--creator of the Ghost Protocol, which forbids…
As a writer of dystopian novels, I have always been interested in narratives that challenge the reader. Why? Because I firmly believe that if literature is, as they say, "a window on the world," then mind-bending texts create their own windows, and hence allow the readers to free themselves from all sorts of conventions. What's more, many of my novels deal with a drug, "Synth," that allows the users to change their surroundings at will. So I do write some “mind-bending” stuff myself, with precisely the purpose I mentioned above. To challenge yourself through fiction is to challenge a reality you have not chosen to live in. It is not only an act of defiance, but also, very often, an act of courage.
In Claiming T-Mo, Australian-African writer Eugen Bacon re-invents and shatters all the familiar codes of the magical sci-fi genre. A novel about women, magic, fate, and freedom, Claiming T-Mo is also a deep reflection on motherhood, love, masculinity, and identities. As the different female narrators share their views and feelings about T-Mo, the elusive central character, more questions about filiation and heritage unroll, making the reader a part of the quest. I love Eugen Bacon because she is an incredibly versatile talent, who turns everything she writes about into pure gold.
In this lush interplanetary tale, Novic is an immortal Sayneth priest who flouts the conventions of a matriarchal society by choosing a name for his child. This act initiates chaos that splits the boy in two, unleashing a Jekyll-and-Hyde child upon the universe. Named T-Mo by his mother and Odysseus by his father, the story spans the boy’s lifetime — from his early years with his mother Silhouette on planet Grovea to his travels to Earth where he meets and marries Salem, and together they bear a hybrid named Myra. The story unfolds through the eyes of these three distinctive…
I’ve always had a longstanding interest in space, and particularly in aliens. In researching my breakthrough novel Not Alone, I extensively read as much nonfiction content on the topic as I could find, including governmental-backed scenario analyses of how things might actually play out in a contact or invasion scenario. Naturally, I have also read widely in the sci-fi genre for my own pleasure, with most of my interest in this specific topic.
This was the first major alien arrival novel I read. I recall being awestruck by Arthur C. Clarke’s masterful mixing of incisive storytelling and a deep sense of grandeur.
The Overlords are hugely memorable, but it was the exploration of human identity that had the biggest effect on me. The story endures as a classic for a very good reason.
Arthur C. Clarke's classic in which he ponders humanity's future and possible evolution
When the silent spacecraft arrived and took the light from the world, no one knew what to expect. But, although the Overlords kept themselves hidden from man, they had come to unite a warring world and to offer an end to poverty and crime. When they finally showed themselves it was a shock, but one that humankind could now cope with, and an era of peace, prosperity and endless leisure began.
But the children of this utopia dream strange dreams of distant suns and alien planets, and…
When I was bored or stressed out at school as a kid, I used to pretend that I was an alien posing as a person and that I’d come to earth to learn about humans. It was fun and helped me to relax. (Look, we all have our own ways of relaxing, I don’t know why “pretending to be an alien” isn’t on more self-care lists these days). Given my tendency to drift toward other worlds, it’s amazing that it took me so long to write a book featuring aliens! The trouble-making Sneaks provide the action in my most recent MG book, which also deals with very real middle-school struggles with friendships and family.
On Take Your Kid To Work Day, Jillian is thrilled that she gets to go to space with her parents. The routine trip goes terribly wrong, their shuttle crashes, and Jillian has to figure out how to survive – and save her injured parents – with only her own ingenuity and the help of a sarcastic, TV-loving AI nanobot swarm called SABRINA.
The bantering Jillian-Sabrina relationship is the highlight of the book, and Jillian is a pitch-perfect MG protagonist. It was a delight to read about a super anxious kid solving problems in the absolute worst of situations.
The Aliens: Primarily, a very creepy parasite – but the descriptions and fictional-science behind all the various life forms on the planet are fantastic.
Can an anxious eleven-year-old find her chill and save her family from creepy aliens? Only if she’s the most awesome, super-brave astronaut since Spaceman Spiff! So take a deep breath, grab your sidekick, and blast off with Jillian to Parasite Planet.
Eleven-year-old Jillian hates surprises. Even fun ones make her feel all panicky inside. But, she’s always dreamed of joining her space-explorer parents on a mission. It’s Take Your Kid to Work Day, and Jillian finally has her chance to visit an alien world!
The journey to Planet 80 UMa c is supposed to be just a fun camping trip.…
In my day job I’m a professor in a hard science and, unsurprisingly, a lesbian. I love sapphic fiction, especially speculative sapphic fiction, but it can be hard to find as the books are seldom labeled as such. Because I write in this genre I’ve been able to ferret out a lot of them, and have made it a mini mission to read as many as possible. I’m particularly drawn to those that get science right (bad science to a science professor is like nails on a chalk board), and those that have at least a little bit of kissing.
Good space opera is built on time-honored tropes, and Pratt hits them all on the head. Space princess? Check. Ragtag crew? Check. Strange, otherworldly aliens and a dash of romance? Double check. The Wrong Stars is space opera at its finest, with a classic adventure between humans and aliens, good versus evil, and technological innovation that makes you stop and consider current trends.
The romance line is sapphic, age gap, flirtatious and commanding. Callie is our commanding captain, cool and in charge. Elena has been in cryosleep on a generational ship that was attacked by violent aliens and has some trauma to work out. Who better to help than Callie? And of course the whole crew needs to go investigate these new aliens. The fate of the galaxy is at stake!
The shady crew of the White Raven run freight and salvage at the fringes of our solar system. They discover the wreck of a centuries-old exploration vessel floating light years away from its intended destination and revive its sole occupant, who wakes with news of First Alien Contact. When the crew break it to her that humanity has alien allies already, she reveals that these are very different extra-terrestrials... and the gifts they bestowed on her could kill all humanity, or take it out to the most distant stars.
