I grew up curious about the world and perplexed that people saw the same problems I did but didn’t feel the same urgency. With a science teacher for a father, I became a lover of the natural world. Science fiction gave me hope and the ability to picture solutions. It puts readers in a mindset to consider “what could be.” I continue to study and read science while writing and publishing sci-fi novels through my publishing house, Epitome Press. It’s my way of exploring possible futures and inviting the world to see them with me. I hope this list of unexpectedly thought-provoking sci-fi gets you thinking, dreaming, and taking action.
This book infused me with that sense of wonder and broadened horizons that come with being transported into the unknown. I especially loved that the creatures featured and portrayed in this work of sci-fi were strange enough to challenge my preconceptions about sentience.
CS Lewis artfully balanced adventure with a comfortable pacing that allowed me to sink into the new world and alien cultures he created. In this book, values like honor, integrity, and community transcend the barriers of other worlds and alien beings. I also love that the plot of this one stands alone while still building a larger through-line that continues in the next book.
The first novel in C.S. Lewis's classic sci-fi trilogy which tells the adventure of Dr Ransom who is kidnapped and transported to Mars
In the first novel of C.S. Lewis's classic science fiction trilogy, Dr Ransom, a Cambridge academic, is abducted and taken on a spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra, which he knows as Mars. His captors are plotting to plunder the planet's treasures and plan to offer Ransom as a sacrifice to the creatures who live there. Ransom discovers he has come from the 'silent planet' - Earth - whose tragic story is known throughout the universe...
Monsters and magic have always had a hook on me, ever since I was just a kid going through a stack of Stephen King paperbacks that I was definitely too young for my brother to have given me – not that many would call his work “fantasy” exactly, despite the amount of vampires ghosts and magic that say otherwise. Urban fantasy, blending those elements with the familiar world we know, is a particular favourite of mine. So much so, that I wrote my own! Granted, the urban area in question is 19th-century Paris, but I say that still counts.
This is high-caliber space fantasy in the realm of Star Wars or Dune. It brings together a grizzled holy warrior having doubts about his faith with a naïve and sheltered princess in a brutal world ruled by absolutely vile overlords. The perspective switches between the two of them. The warrior – Drin – grapples with whether the church’s mission to fight evil brings it to use methods too similar to the evil it fights. Meanwhile the princess – Anais – has to come to terms very quickly with the reality of life outside the palace when slavers invade her home and abduct her off-world.
After years of fighting for justice with his deadly nanotech, Templar Drin abandons his post, crash landing on a desert world controlled by a tyrannical alien empire. Its inhabitants are forced into slavery, broken where a once-proud race cultivated its lands.
For the first time in Drin's life, he has no backup, no support, none of his brothers.
He stands alone against evil.
Drin must face overwhelming odds to liberate millions of slaves from their captors and bring faith to a downtrodden world. But in his way stands the most dangerous…
Liam was orphaned at the age of two by a group of giant carnivorous insects called the chitin. Taken in by High Councilor Marcus and his wife, Lidia, Liam was raised with their older son, Randolf in New Olympia, the last remaining city on the planet Etrusci.
Paranormal Women’s Fiction is a celebration of books with older heroines. These stories focus on older women with real-life issues (and magical ones, cause paranormal is just cool). Older women kick ass. They know things. They've been there. They are worthy of their own literature category. They also have their own set of issues that they face—empty nests, widows, divorce, menopause, etc.—and these issues deserve to be addressed and embraced in literature. Growing older is a real part of life. Women's friendships matter. Women matter. Our thoughts and feelings matter.
I met Robyn at an author retreat in New Orleans. She's just as fun in real life as she is in her writing. Her paranormal women’s fiction books are hilarious, heartbreaking, magical, and so addictive with an engaging storyline that will captivate readers from page one! Warning, like all of these books on this list, you'll be up all night reading.
I’ve been a Star Trek fan and storyteller all my life. The first stories I wrote at school, the first Star Trek episodes I watched as The Next Generation debuted on German TV. Many years have gone by since then. I watched hundreds of Star Trek episodes and professionally penned dozens of fantasy and science fiction novels for children and adults, like Drachengasse 13 (“Dragon’s Alley 13”, not translated) or Der Drachenjaeger (“Black Leviathan,” Tor Books). The culmination of both being a fan and a writer came in 2016 when, with Star Trek: Prometheus, I was allowed to add my own small part to the ever-growing Star Trek literary universe.
Honestly, I couldn’t put this book down. I read Rogue Elements during a summer vacation on a lovely North Sea island and I had to force myself to have a break and go out for some bicycling and beach fun.
John Jackson Miller just had me hooked with his tale of dashing (but also sad and often drunken) ex-Starfleet officer Cristóbal Rios – introduced in Star Trek: Picard – living through a hilarious adventure while at the same time trying to find a new purpose in life after being cashiered out of his career because of some fishy diplomatic affair.
Grumpy gangsters, a dangerous woman, strange new crew members, and the hunt for a secret treasure keep Rios on the run throughout the whole novel.
A thrilling untold adventure based on the acclaimed Star Trek: Picard TV series!
Starfleet was everything for Cristobal Rios-until one horrible, inexplicable day when it all went wrong. Aimless and adrift, he grasps at a chance for a future as an independent freighter captain in an area betrayed by the Federation, the border region with the former Romulan Empire. His greatest desire: to be left alone.
But solitude isn't in the cards for the captain of La Sirena, who falls into debt to a roving gang of hoodlums from a planet whose society is based on Prohibition-era Earth. Teamed against…
I’m a YA fantasy writer, and I’ve been addicted to stories of adventure for as long as I can remember. My love of story filled me with a heart for other worlds and realms and a fondness of reading things that challenged my heart and mind here in the real world. Stories are what make us human, and we storytellers are tasked with challenging readers’ assumptions about how the world, life, love, and humanity works. My obsession with story-telling led me to write my YA fantasy series The Annals of Lusiartha.
As a big sci-fi fan, I often loved exploring the idea of what would happen if the human race ever met aliens. In Galax-Arena, three children are kidnapped and forced to perform death-defying circus stunts in order to entertain their captors. Not only does the story contain some riveting descriptions of acrobatic feats and tricks, the story explores fascinating concepts of slavery, trust, and what it means to be a child in comparison to an adult.
Before The Hunger Games—even before Battle Royale—there was the Galax-Arena, where children are pitted against each other for the benefit of a shadowy audience that feeds on their fear. A Children's Book Council of Australia Honour Book for Older Readers, Galax-Arena is a dark, uncompromising thriller and a cult classic.Joella, her brother Peter and her sister Liane, are kidnapped and transported to become entertainers for an alien species. Many of the performing children are desaparecidos—the disappeared—kidnapped from third world slums and chosen for their extraordinary gymnastic ability. For the children, there is only one escape from the Galax-Arena: out of…
This is a wonderful book in multiple respects, but perhaps most impressive is the brilliant world-building, complete with several fascinating species, and complex yet comprehensible galactic politics.
The far-future galactic civilization is strikingly original, and humanity’s place in it is compelling. A close second to the world-building: the fabulous, three-dimensional characters.
As much as I enjoyed the second trilogy in this series, I would have loved to see this book’s characters return.
The aftermath of human first contact, written from the extraterrestrial's perspective.
Kelvoo is overcome with wonder at the arrival of the humans. With flawless memories and innate curiosity, Kelvoo’s community embraces the benevolent humans and their knowledge of the boundless universe beyond the cloud-covered sky. After the departure of the…
Mary Karr once wrote, "A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it." I totally agree with that. In forty years, I’ve yet to encounter a magical family where everybody gets along, nobody screams things they don’t mean, and there’s never a need to drown your feelings in food or drugs or booze. I grew up in a more-than-averagely dysfunctional household, where poor health and crippling anxiety frequently raised their ugly heads. Since losing my younger sister to mental illness six years ago, I’ve worked hard to make sense of our past, both through my own writing and through the work of authors who write so well about family dynamics.
Terms of Endearment has every single thing that I search for in a perfect reading experience: engaging dialogue, humour, realistic life situations, and—in Aurora Greenway—one of the most memorable literary characters ever put to paper. In less capable hands, Terms of Endearment might simply have joined the ranks of hackneyed stories about a domineering parent and their submissive child. But through his mastery, McMurtry shows us that strength comes in many different guises. It’s not always the loudest person in the room who commands authority; quiet fortitude can be just as powerful as a brazen authority. I’ve learned this more than once in my own life, and I was delighted to see it illustrated here.
In this acclaimed novel that inspired the Academy Award–winning motion picture, Larry McMurtry created two unforgettable characters who won the hearts of readers and moviegoers everywhere: Aurora Greenway and her daughter Emma.
Aurora is the kind of woman who makes the whole world orbit around her, including a string of devoted suitors. Widowed and overprotective of her daughter, Aurora adapts at her own pace until life sends two enormous challenges her way: Emma’s hasty marriage and subsequent battle with cancer. Terms of Endearment is the Oscar-winning story of a memorable mother and her feisty daughter and their struggle to find…
The Blackcollar is a military science-fiction story set in a universe where the human race was defeated by an alien race. The older, human special forces (the Blackcollars) put together a hail Mary attempt at overthrowing their alien rulers. It's fun and futuristic while still feeling entirely relatable. I liked how original the technology is in this book, but what what I loved the most was that this story has a really clear concept and plenty of intrigue. It really shows how hard it would be to be a resistance under the rule of an advanced society. The levels of double-crossing and spying are pretty wild as are some of the battle scenes. Oh, and the aliens are weird and super tough. What's not to love?
Allen Caine was too young to remember when the Earth had not been a conquered planet, one of many such in the huge and sprawling Rygril empire. But he knew of the legendary black collars, guerrilla warriors trained to the limit of human speed and skill, then turned into nearly superhuman combatants by use of the now-lost backlash drug. Eanh and its former colony worlds had been overwhelmed, but sparks of rebellion still smouldered, and the rebel underground on Eanh had sent Caine on an undercover mission to the former Eanh colony of Plinry, where there was a faint hope…
This book is
just as gorgeously and intelligently written as the first installment in the
Teixcalaanli space empire.
It picks up the series’ examination
of colonialism, otherness, and language’s complicity in conquest while
bringing in new, alien elements that force the protagonists to grapple with the
concept of personhood.
We follow disillusioned Mahit Dzmare as she struggles to
adjust to life after the events of the first book, her will-they-won’t-they
relationship with her former imperial liaison, and an all-new threat to
Teixcalaan that challenges loyalties and the social and personal mechanisms on
which empire grinds.
Readers who know the sting of being othered, who enjoy
smart drama and political machinations, or who like messy first-contact stories
that demand the most from their characters will love this sequel too.
A Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space opera sequel to A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, winner of the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
An alien terror could spell our end.
An alien threat lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is supposed to win a war against it.
In a desperate attempt to find a diplomatic solution, the fleet captain has sent for an envoy to contact the mysterious invaders. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass - both still reeling…
The Festival of Sin is a three-story light sci-fi arc about a young boy rescued in 6000 BCE and taken to the home planet of the Hudra. Parts two and three are exploratory excursions. It's a fish-out-of-water series. More than fish-out-of-water. Fish-on-another-planet.
I met Carolyn Ives Gilman at Norwescon in Seattle. She was reading New Rock New Role, and enjoying it. We bonded over all things writerly. By the time I bumped into her again at Worldcon in Glasgow I had read Dark Orbit. It starts off seemingly as a classic deep space mission, but soon morphs into something quite magical. I found it a very successful blend of SF and F -- a feat that is by no means easy to pull off. Without giving spoilers, what the explorers encounter is really quite charming.
