This is the story of a lie that became the most powerful kind of truth. A timeless novel as urgently compelling as War Day or Alas, Babylon, David Brin’s The Postman is the dramatically moving saga of a man who rekindled the spirit of America through the power of a dream, […]
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The Life of Elves, Muriel Barbery
There’s more to The Life of Elves than mere Hollywood fodder, for which abysmal writing too often mars bestsellers aimed at teens. This novel glows with finely crafted prose. Its luminous landscapes — environmental and psychological — lift it to the realm of literary fiction and the genre of magical […]
Read MoreMaya Greenwood Series, Starhawk
The Fifth Sacred Thing (part 1) An epic tale of freedom and slavery, love and war, and the potential futures of humankind tells of a twenty-first century California clan caught between two clashing worlds, one based on tolerance, the other on repression. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads Walking to Mercury […]
Read More2050: A Future History – Series, J. Zornado
Thanks to author J. Zornado, professor of English at Rhode Island College, for news of his trilogy 2050: A Future History. He writes: The overarching narrative is a meditation on knowing. It is also a projection about where things are headed from here, given our obsessions with AI, cloning, and […]
Read MoreOctavia’s Brood, Walidah Imarisha
Conventional exclamatory phrases don’t come close to capturing the essence of what we have here in Octavia’s Brood. One part sacred text, one part social movement manual, one part diary of our future selves telling us, ‘It’s going to be okay, keep working, keep loving.’ Our radical imaginations are under […]
Read MoreThe Girl at the Center of the World, Austin Aslan
As sixteen-year-old Leilani and her family learn to live without electronics, farming the land as her ancestors did, she finds strength in her relatives, her friendships, and her strange connection to the Emerald Orchid–the force whose presence caused global devastation–but suffers regret over what she must do to survive. An […]
Read MoreAll the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders
A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse. -Goodreads Tech culture’s strange relationship with nature takes centre stage in All the Birds in the Sky, a vivid, genre-blending novel from a writer who is clearly one to watch. Jumping skillfully from science fiction to fantasy and […]
Read MoreReady Player One, Ernest Cline
In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. -Goodreads The novel … takes place in 2044, in a world devoid of resources due to climatic catastrophes. Wade Watts, […]
Read MoreSherwood Nation, Benjamin Parzybok
Water rations are down to one gallon per person per day… the mayor is proposing digging a trench to the Pacific Ocean… dried out West Coast cities are crumbling and being abandoned by the east… and in Portland, Oregon, water is declared a communal right but hoarding and riots persist. […]
Read MoreThe Scorpion Rules, Erin Bow
Sci-fi novel with a touch of northern climate change is one of year’s best. –Newsminer The world is at peace, said the Utterances. And really, if the odd princess has a hard day, is that too much to ask? Greta is a duchess and crown princess—and a hostage to peace. […]
Read MoreKingsley, Carolyn O’Neal
In Kingsley, Carolyn O’Neal explores the frightening result of decades of toxins in the environment through the life of a fourteen year old boy named Kingsley Smith. Kingsley is a sweet boy, but he’s too fat to wear swim trunks and too poor to play golf. After colony collapse disorder […]
Read MoreEcotones, Various
ECOTONES is a pro-am anthology of speculative fiction featuring fourteen tales from best-sellers, award-winners and nominees, established talents and up-coming authors, the fourth annual anthology from SFFWorld.com. Ecotones exist wherever different ecosystems make contact. Where forest meets field… where the land meets the sea… where swamp gives way to jungle… […]
Read MoreEco-fiction, John Stadler
A hidden gem my wife picked up at our local library book sale. Contains some amazing works of short speculative fiction with environmental themes from a dazzling variety of legendary writers: Bradbury, Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Herbert, Ballard, Asimov, and more. Even a story by Edgar Allen Poe. Diverse and thought-provoking! -Goodreads […]
Read MoreThe Percipience Series, Ken Kroes
Book 1: 2022 Using an uncanny ability to harvest information to predict the future, philanthropist Richard foresees a dark future for the human race. This future is exacerbated by the return of cold-war-like tensions, sophisticated terrorist organizations, and new controls on information flow. In addition to espionage and murder, the […]
Read MoreThe Boy Who Fell from the Sky, Jule Owen
A 1984 for a new generation, The Boy Who Fell from the Sky delves into a future where climate change and technology have transformed the world. It is the first book in The House Next Door trilogy, a young adult dystopian science fiction action adventure. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads
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