Book picks similar to
Life II by Scott Spotson


science-fiction
sci-fi
time-travel
fiction

Free Falling


Susan Kiernan-Lewis - 2001
    What happens within hours of settling in to their rural, rustic little cottage in a far-flung spot on the coast of Ireland is an international incident that leaves the family stranded and dependent on themselves for their survival. Facing starvation, as well as looters and opportunists, they learn the hard way the important things in life. Can a family skilled only in modern day suburbia and corporate workplaces learn to survive when the world is flung back a hundred years? When there is no internet, no telephones, no electricity and no cars? And when every person near them is desperate to survive at any cost?

Beautiful Exiles


Meg Waite Clayton - 2018
    Headstrong, accomplished journalist Martha Gellhorn is confident with words but less so with men when she meets disheveled literary titan Ernest Hemingway in a dive bar. Their friendship—forged over writing, talk, and family dinners—flourishes into something undeniable in Madrid while they’re covering the Spanish Civil War.Martha reveres him. The very married Hemingway is taken with Martha—her beauty, her ambition, and her fearless spirit. And as Hemingway tells her, the most powerful love stories are always set against the fury of war. The risks are so much greater. They’re made for each other.With their romance unfolding as they travel the globe, Martha establishes herself as one of the world’s foremost war correspondents, and Hemingway begins the novel that will win him the Nobel Prize for Literature. Beautiful Exiles is a stirring story of lovers and rivals, of the breathless attraction to power and fame, and of one woman—ahead of her time—claiming her own identity from the wreckage of love.

Galdoni


Cheree Alsop - 2011
    Kale, rescued by three high school students and nursed back from the brink of death, is given the chance to experience life as a human. When he is captured, he has to use what he learned in the world outside the Academy in order to free the other Galdoni and return to the human girl he loves. Dark and exciting, Galdoni pushes the boundaries of love in a world of violence.

The Wall


Jen Minkman - 2013
    The endless surface of the water extends to the horizon, whichever way I look.Our world is small. We’re on our own, and we only have ourselves to depend on. We rely on the Force deep within us as taught to us by our forefathers.If I were to walk westward from here, I’d come across a barrier - the Wall. Behind it, there are Fools. At least, that's what everyone says. I’ve never seen one.'Leia lives on an island where children leave their parents to take care of themselves when they’re just ten years old. Across the island runs a Wall that no one has ever crossed. The Fools living behind it should be shunned because they believe in salvation from across the sea. That's what The Book says, the only thing left to the Eastern Islanders by their ancestors.But when a strange man washes ashore and Leia meets a Fool face to face, her life will never be the same again. Walt, the boy from the other side of the Wall, isn’t as foolish as she was always led to believe. And as Leia and Walt set out to bring the truth about both their societies to light, all the things they once took for granted fall by the wayside.Their island world is about to change... for better or for worse.

UnHappenings


Edward Aubry - 2015
    His first girlfriend disappears the day after their first kiss with no indication she ever existed. This retroactive change is the first of many only he seems to notice.Several years later, when Nigel is visited by two people from his future, he hopes they can explain why the past keeps rewriting itself around him. But the enigmatic young guide shares very little, and the haggard, incoherent, elderly version of himself is even less reliable. His search for answers takes him fifty-two years forward in time, where he finds himself stranded and alone.And then he meets Helen.Brilliant, hilarious and beautiful, she captivates him. But Nigel’s relationships always unhappen, and if they get close it could be fatal for her. Worse, according to the young guide, just by entering Helen’s life, Nigel has already set into motion events that will have catastrophic consequences. In his efforts to reverse this, and to find a way to remain with Helen, he discovers the disturbing truth about the unhappenings, and the role he and his future self have played all along.

Evensong


Krista Walsh - 2014
    He is within his own novel—summoned into the fictional world of Feldall’s Keep by a spell he didn't write. One the House enchantress hasn't figured out how to reverse.When the villain he's been struggling to write reveals himself, unleashing waves of terror and chaos, Jeff must use more than his imagination to save the characters he created—and the woman he loves.Trapped within a world of his own creation, he must step outside the bounds of his narrative to help his characters defeat an evil no one anticipated, even if he must sacrifice his greatest gift. In the end, he has to ask: are novels really fiction, or windows into other worlds?The Meratis Trilogy centres around author Jeff Powell, who wakes up in his sword-and-sorcery fantasy world. Initially an arrogant and close-minded character, Jeff has his eyes opened to a world of dragons, magic, and assassins. Faced with an evil he could never have imagined, Jeff is pushed to his limits and forced to rise to the most unusual challenges.

Nevertheless, She Persisted: Flash Fiction Project


Diana M. PhoCatherynne M. Valente - 2020
    She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.Three short lines, fired over social media in response to questions of why Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced on the floor of the United States Senate, for daring to read aloud the words of Coretta Scott King. As this message was transmitted across the globe, it has become a galvanizing cry for people of all genders in recognition of the struggles that women have faced throughout history.Three short lines, which read as if they are the opening passage to an epic and ageless tale.We have assembled this flash fiction collection featuring several of the best writers in SF/F today, including Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Maria Dahvana Headley, Jo Walton, Amal El-Mohtar, Catherynne M. Valente, Brooke Bolander, Alyssa Wong, Kameron Hurley, Nisi Shawl and Carrie Vaughn. Together these authors share unique visions of women inventing, playing, loving, surviving, and – of course – dreaming of themselves beyond their circumstances.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Last Year


Robert Charles Wilson - 2016
    First, he lost a pair of Oakley sunglasses. Second, he saved the life of President Ulysses S. Grant.It's the near future, and the technology exists to open doorways into the past--but not our past, not exactly. Each "past" is effectively an alternate world, identical to ours but only up to the date on which we access it. And a given "past" can only be reached once. After a passageway is open, it's the only road to that particular past; once closed, it can't be reopened.A passageway has been opened to a version of late 19th-century Ohio. It's been in operation for most of a decade, but it's no secret, on either side of time. A small city has grown up around it to entertain visitors from our time, and many locals earn a good living catering to them. But like all such operations, it has a shelf life; as the "natives" become more sophisticated, their version of the "past" grows less attractive as a destination.Jesse Cullum is a native. And he knows the passageway will be closing soon. He's fallen in love with a woman from our time, and he means to follow her back--no matter whose secrets he has to expose in order to do it.

Bacchanal


Veronica Henry - 2021
    But the carnival’s newest act, a peculiar young woman with latent magical powers, may hold the key to defeating it. Her time has come.Abandoned by her family, alone on the wrong side of the color line with little to call her own, Eliza Meeks is coming to terms with what she does have. It’s a gift for communicating with animals. To some, she’s a magical tender. To others, a she-devil. To a talent prospector, she’s a crowd-drawing oddity. And the Bacchanal Carnival is Eliza’s ticket out of the swamp trap of Baton Rouge.Among fortune-tellers, carnies, barkers, and folks even stranger than herself, Eliza finds a new home. But the Bacchanal is no ordinary carnival. An ancient demon has a home there too. She hides behind an iridescent disguise. She feeds on innocent souls. And she’s met her match in Eliza, who’s only beginning to understand the purpose of her own burgeoning powers.Only then can Eliza save her friends, find her family, and fight the sway of a primordial demon preying upon the human world. Rolling across a consuming dust bowl landscape, Eliza may have found her destiny.

Half-Made Girls


Sam Witt - 2014
    But Joe is married to one of the most powerful witches in Pitchfork, and spends almost as much time keeping an eye on her as he does dealing with occult crimes and shadowy horrors in the rest of the county. Even his children, a little girl who plays host to a rogue's gallery of strange spirits and a young man with a demonic secret, keep him on his toes. All Joe really wants is a simple life, a bottle of good whiskey, and a break from the horrors of his job. But nothing in Pitchfork County is ever simple, and the horrors just keep on coming. Someone's hung a mutilated girl on a cross in Pitchfork's most infamous church, dragging Joe into the most challenging case of his career. Joe's investigation into the ritual murder leads him through the dark underbelly of the Ozarks to the doorstep of a twisted cult of meth addicts. As Joe digs deeper into the mystery, he soon finds himself the target of the murderers and must stop them before they can summon their dark god and destroy everything he holds dear.

Tesla


Mark Lingane - 2013
    The planet has slowly been getting hotter and water is becoming a rare resource. Out of the ruins of a civilization that has collapsed in on itself, have arisen a new breed of people - those with the power to control magnetism.Seb, a young orphan boy from a quiet rural town, is being hunted by strange part-machine, part-human people. His only hope is Melanie, an angry, dying teenage girl who is dragged into the adventure and sets out to deliver him to the Steam Academy, even if it’s just to stop him talking. Seb must confront an unknown past and fight against everything he believed in. And occasionally wash his hair.Aimed at a teen audience.*** From the Author ***When writing this, I wanted to produce something that would compete against the "console" generation, where plot is delivered by cut scenes. The question was how do you write for an Assassin's Creed fan? Something that a teenage boy could enjoy.My list became: Short, sharp, constantly evolving, ridiculous amounts of action where no one important ever seems to get hurt, and make fun of current pop culture, social media, adults and technology.And, of course, an easy way to explain quantum mechanics, and turn science into magic - or the other way around.This is an exploration of that challenge.

All Our Wrong Todays


Elan Mastai - 2017
    In Tom Barren's 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed . . . because it wasn't necessary. Except Tom just can't seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that's before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland. But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and—maybe, just maybe—his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom’s search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future—our future—is supposed to be.

Song of Edmon


Adam Burch - 2017
    The product of diametrically opposed races, Edmon hopes to live a quiet life pursuing the music of his mother’s people, but his Nightsider father cruelly forces him to continue in his bloody footsteps to ensure his legacy.Edmon’s defiance will cost him everything… and spark a revolution that will shake the foundations of Tao. His choice—to embrace the light or surrender to the darkness—will shape his own fate and that of his divided world.

The Dig


Michael Siemsen - 2010
    Mystified experts, confounded by the impossible timeline they receive from traditional dating methods, call upon a stubborn twenty-something with a unique talent. Matthew Turner's gift is also his curse: whenever he touches an object, his consciousness is flooded with the thoughts and feelings of those who touched it before him, be it last week or centuries ago. It's a talent that many covet, some fear, and almost no one understands. Despite being exploited as a child and tormented by the unpleasant experiences imprinted on him from the various items he's "read," Matt agrees to travel from New York to the forests of Kenya. There, threatened by unknown enemies, and helped by a beautiful but prickly ally who begins to understand his strange ability, his mind journeys back in geological time to make a discovery so shocking that it forces us to rewrite all human history.

The Great Iron War: Books 1 - 3


Dean F. Wilson - 2015
     1. HOPEBREAKER In the world of Altadas, there are no more human births. The Regime is replacing the unborn with demons, while the Resistance is trying to destroy a drug called Hope that the demons need to survive. Between these two warring factions lies Jacob, a man who profits from smuggling contraceptive amulets into the city of Blackout. He cares little about the Great Iron War, but a chance capture, and an even more accidental rescue, embroils him in a plot to starve the Regime from power. When Hope is an enemy, Jacob finds it harder than he thought to remain indifferent. When the Resistance opts to field its experimental landship, the Hopebreaker, the world may find that one victory does not win a war. 2. LIFEMAKER The Regime is on the hunt, forcing the Resistance to take refuge aboard the Lifemaker, an advanced submarine that houses a special cargo: a handful of women who can still give birth to human children. To evade the Regime's own submersibles, all parties must work together, but tensions are high, and not everyone on board is looking out for the greater good. As they descend into the deeps, they quickly learn that not all monsters work for the Regime. 3. SKYSHAKER The Resistance takes to the clouds aboard the Skyshaker, the newly-completed airship aimed at dominating the heavens, when the land far below has become a hellish place ruled by demons. General Rommond fixes his attention on the city of Blackout, the old capital of the world, controlled by the Treasury, who are themselves controlled by the ruthless Regime. The skies above that city will no longer hide in smog; fire and fury will light up the sky. That centre of the old civilised world will either shift allegiance to the Resistance, or it will burn to the ground. Yet there are always others who will resist the attempted change of power. From sky pirates and mob bankers to the feared mechanical men of the Iron Guard, Jacob and his new family of freedom fighters will face greater challenges than they have ever faced before. As bombs drop from the sky like the iron tears of gods, there are other revelations that will shake the foundations of everyone struggling to save humanity.