Fantasy

Circe, Madeline Miller

Threatened, Zeus banishes her [Circe] to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. Goodreads […]

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The Merry Spinster, Mallory Ortberg

Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night. Goodreads Review Back to GoodReads

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The Genius Plague, David Walton

Sure, some say fungi will save the world, but how about a story where they hijack our brains instead? In this highly original eco-thriller, an escaped Amazonian fungus starts doing exactly that. –Earther.com What if the pandemic you thought would kill you made you more intelligent instead? In the Amazon […]

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Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor

Her stories, which are often set in West Africa, use the framework of fantasy to explore weighty social issues: racial and gender inequality, political violence, the destruction of the environment, genocide and corruption…Her novel, “Who Fears Death,” which is set in a postapocalyptic Africa, has been optioned as a series […]

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Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr, John Crowley

Oakley tells his tale to a human narrator whose own world is facing “now unstoppable” ruin from environmental disaster, with “new diseases” having claimed his wife and threatening his own survival. –Chicago Tribune From award-winning author John Crowley comes an exquisite fantasy novel about a man who tells the story […]

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Autonomous, Annalee Newitz

The first novel by Annalee Newitz, founder of the popular science fiction and technology website io9, tackles two issues that are much in the news: the life-and-death power of big pharmaceutical companies and the possibilities of artificial intelligence. –Chicago Tribune Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads

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The Galaxy Series, Aithal

Part I. Beyond the Milky Way Three astronauts go to space in search of a planet that probably has water—one of the basic elements for humanity to survive. Do they find it? What else do they find? They encounter something—something strange—beyond their wildest imaginations, and their mission-to-explore becomes a mission-to-survive. […]

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Leaf & Echo Peak, Jo Marshall

When we began the site, we included Jo Marshall’s children’s books as separated posts rather than one series. Please search for “Twig Stories” in the search bar to find the first three volumes of this wonderful and brilliantly illustrated children’s series. In the previous three adventure novels Twigs are thrust […]

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The Sandcastle Empire, Kayla Olson

You know you need to get your hands on a book when it’s already been optioned for a movie, set to be produced by Leonardo DiCaprio. That’s the case with The Sandcastle Empire, a near-future story set in a post-sea-rise America that’s embroiled in a world war. Needless to say, […]

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Finding Jade, Mary Jennifer Payne

The year is 2030, and climate change is making life on Earth more challenging. In the midst of it all, fourteen-year-old Jasmine Guzman is struggling to come to terms with the abduction of her twin sister, Jade, and with her mother’s illness. Things go from bad to worse when a […]

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Sannah and the Pilgrim, Sue Parritt

When Sannah the Storyteller, a descendant of environmental refugees from drowned Pacific islands, finds a White stranger on her domestep, she presumes he’s a political prisoner on the run seeking safe passage to egalitarian Aotearoa. However, Kaire’s unusual appearance, bizarre behaviour, and insistence he’s a pilgrim suggest otherwise. Appalled by […]

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The Broken Earth Trilogy, N.K. Jemisin

N.K. Jemisin’s books are some of the most original and eye-opening fantasies being published today, and these books have a particularly vibrant take on survival. Jemisin’s world goes through cycles of catastrophes that upend humanity each time. The stress of the continual shifts leads to an oppressed people known as […]

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Ursocrypha: The Book of Bear, Katie Welch

Thanks to author Katie Welch for writing in to tell us about her novel The Bears (republished as Ursocrypha: The Book of Bear in January 2017). When an oil pipeline in Northern British Columbia ruptures, the ensuing environmental disaster precipitates a crisis for activist Gilbert Crow, arctic researcher Anne McCraig, […]

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Kinship of Clover, Ellen Meeropol

He was nine when the vines first wrapped themselves around him and burrowed into his skin. Now a college botany major, Jeremy is desperately looking for a way to listen to the plants and stave off their extinction. But when the grip of the vines becomes too intense and Health […]

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Rokit, Loranne Vella

On one hand it’s [Rokit] about travelling back to one’s roots. Petrel’s grandmother was Maltese, so he leaves Croatia, where he’s been living for the past seven years, to learn more about her country. It is also about the fragmentation of Europe – Petrel is travelling at a time when […]

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