Book picks similar to
The Rainbow Annals by Grania Davis


somewhere-out-there
speculative-fiction
1st
fantasy-sci-fi

1Q84


Haruki Murakami - 2009
    She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s — 1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.

Redwood and Wildfire


Andrea Hairston - 2011
    Hunkering together in dark theatres, diverse audiences marvel at flickering images. Redwood, an African American woman, and Aidan, a Seminole Irish man, journey from Georgia to Chicago, from haunted swampland to a "city of the future." They are gifted performers and hoodoo conjurors, struggling to call up the wondrous world they imagine, not just on stage and screen, but on city streets, in front parlors, in wounded hearts. The power of hoodoo is the power of the community that believes in its capacities to heal.Living in a system stacked against them, Redwood and Aidan's power and talent are torment and joy. Their search for a place to be who they want to be is an exhilarating, painful, magical adventure.

A Hole in Time (Time Loop Book 2)


Clark Graham - 2016
    After his crash, he vowed he would never fly again. Now he would be flying into the past in a new plane was designed travel to travel through time. The mission was going to fail. He knew that. It was more than a premonition. His assignment: Kill Hitler. Stop the Holocaust before it starts. No one knew what the consequences of changing the time-line. Would he destroy everything and everyone in the process?

Star Wars: Classic Trilogy


Ryder Windham
    Become entranced with the basic struggle of good vs. evil as you travel to a galaxy far, far away.

Farthest Shores of Ursula K Le Guin


George Edgar Slusser - 1976
    An examination of Le Guin's career, from her obscure beginnings in the science fiction magazines to her rapid rise to the top in the 1970's.

On Fragile Waves


E. Lily Yu - 2021
    When their parents, their Atay and Abay, decide to leave, they spin fairy tales of their destination, the mythical land and opportunities of Australia. As the family journeys from Pakistan to Indonesia to Nauru, heading toward a hope of home, they must rely on fragile and temporary shelters, strangers both mercenary and kind, and friends who vanish as quickly as they’re found. When they arrive in Australia, what seemed like a stable shore gives way to treacherous currents. Neighbors, classmates, and the government seek their own ends, indifferent to the family’s fate. For Firuzeh, her fantasy worlds provide some relief, but as her family and home splinter, she must surface from these imaginings and find a new way.

Rhythm Roger: The Secrets Of Electon


Himanshu Rai - 2020
    "World is not only what we see." Rhythm has entered Electon, now it's your turn to take your path to know about the secrets of the Electon World.

Iona Portal


Robert David MacNeil - 2011
    Evil is winning.Since ancient times, our planet has been visited by super-intelligent aliens who shift between parallel worlds as easily as we move from sunlight to shadow. Described in our myths as angels, gods, and demons, these trans-dimensional beings often walk among us unnoticed, but they’re locked in a battle older than time, with our future hanging in the balance.The Archons' goal is to destroy the human race and seize our world for their own. Standing against them are the Irin, a benevolent race of winged aliens with great power but limited numbers. As our planet sinks rapidly toward apocalyptic doom, our only hope lies in the Synaxis, a group of ordinary men and women conscripted by the Irin and given supernormal powers.But it’s a race against time. And as the Synaxis members trek across the Scottish highlands to open the ancient dimensional portal on Iona, they must overcome heavily-armed psychopaths, flying bat-winged demons, and the awakening of a long-dormant volcano. Most of all, they must learn how to use their fantastic new powers to drive back the Archons and rescue the world from destruction.

The Mere Wife


Maria Dahvana Headley - 2018
    From the perspective of those who live in Herot Hall, the suburb is a paradise. Picket fences divide buildings—high and gabled—and the community is entirely self-sustaining. Each house has its own fireplace, each fireplace is fitted with a container of lighter fluid, and outside—in lawns and on playgrounds—wildflowers seed themselves in neat rows. But for those who live surreptitiously along Herot Hall’s periphery, the subdivision is a fortress guarded by an intense network of gates, surveillance cameras, and motion-activated lights. For Willa, the wife of Roger Herot (heir of Herot Hall), life moves at a charmingly slow pace. She flits between mommy groups, playdates, cocktail hour, and dinner parties, always with her son, Dylan, in tow. Meanwhile, in a cave in the mountains just beyond the limits of Herot Hall lives Gren, short for Grendel, as well as his mother, Dana, a former soldier who gave birth as if by chance. Dana didn’t want Gren, didn’t plan Gren, and doesn’t know how she got Gren, but when she returned from war, there he was. When Gren, unaware of the borders erected to keep him at bay, ventures into Herot Hall and runs off with Dylan, Dana’s and Willa’s worlds collide.

Sir Edge


Trevor H. Cooley - 2018
    He has spent centuries without a body, but now he is ready for his return. There is only one obstacle standing in his way. In the sixteen years since their marriage, Justan and Jhonate have gone through many adventures together. During this time, Justan has grown into the name given to him by the Bowl of Souls. He is SIR EDGE. He has the fame and glory that he had dreamt of as a child, but those things mean nothing to him anymore. He is now embroiled in a new conflict and driven by a deep pain within him, a pain fifteen years in the making . . . Join Edge and his bonded on an epic journey that will take them to places both holy and wrought with evil. Ogres and dragons, warriors and wizards are destined to clash, their fates guided by The Bowl of Souls. The Bowl of Souls series. THE MOONRAT SAGA 1. Eye of the Moonrat 2. Messenger of the Dark Prophet 3. Hunt of the Bandham 1.5. Hilt's Pride 4. War of Stardeon 5. Mother of the Moonrat THE JHARRO GROVE SAGA 1. Tarah Woodblade 2. Protector of the Grove 3. Ogre Apprentice 4. The Troll King 5. Priestess of War 6. Behemoth THE DARK PROPHET SAGA 1. Sir Edge 2. Half Breeds (2019)

Arabella of Mars


David D. Levine - 2016
    When William III of England commissioned Capt. William Kidd to command the first expedition to Mars in the late 1600s, they proved that space travel was both possible and profitable. Now, one century later, a plantation in the flourishing British colony on Mars is home to Arabella Ashby. A tomboy who shares her father's deft hand with complex automatons. Being raised on the Martian frontier by her Martian nanny, Arabella is more a wild child than a proper young lady. Something her mother plans to remedy with a move to an exotic world Arabella has never seen: London, England. Arabella soon finds herself trying to navigate an alien world until a dramatic change in her family's circumstances forces her to defy all conventions in order to return to Mars in order to save both her brother and the plantation. To do this, Arabella must pass as a boy on the Diana, a ship serving the Mars Trading Company with a mysterious Indian captain who is intrigued by her knack with automatons. Arabella must weather the naval war between Britain and France, learning how to sail, and a mutinous crew if she hopes to save her brother from certain death.

The Country of Ice Cream Star


Sandra Newman - 2014
    Theirs is a world of children; before reaching the age of twenty, they all die of a strange disease they call Posies--a plague that has killed for generations. There is no medicine, no treatment; only the mysterious rumor of a cure.When her brother begins showing signs of the disease, Ice Cream Star sets off on a bold journey to find this cure. Led by a stranger, a captured prisoner named Pasha who becomes her devoted protector and friend, Ice Cream Star plunges into the unknown, risking her freedom and ultimately her life. Traveling hundreds of miles across treacherous, unfamiliar territory, she will experience love, heartbreak, cruelty, terror, and betrayal, fighting to protect the only world she has ever known.A postapocalyptic literary epic as imaginative as The Passage and as linguistically ambitious as Cloud Atlas, The Country of Ice Cream Star is a breathtaking work from a writer of rare and unconventional talent.

Dust


Elizabeth Bear - 2007
    But when a serving girl frees a captive noblewoman, the old order is about to change.... Ariane, Princess of the House of Rule, was known to be fiercely cold-blooded. But severing an angel’s wings on the battlefield—even after she had surrendered—proved her completely without honor. Captive, the angel Perceval waits for Ariane not only to finish her off—but to devour her very memories and mind. Surely her gruesome death will cause war between the houses—exactly as Ariane desires. But Ariane’s plan may yet be opposed, for Perceval at once recognizes the young servant charged with her care. Rien is the lost child: her sister. Soon they will escape, hoping to stop the impending war and save both their houses. But it is a perilous journey through the crumbling hulk of a dying ship, and they do not pass unnoticed. Because at the hub of their turning world waits Jacob Dust, all that remains of God, following the vapor wisp of the angel. And he knows they will meet very soon.

The Worlds of H. Beam Piper


H. Beam Piper - 1983
    Beam Piper) • (1983) • essay by John F. Carr9 • Time and Time Again • (1947) • shortstory by H. Beam Piper29 • The Mercenaries • (1950) • novelette by H. Beam Piper57 • Dearest • (1951) • shortstory by H. Beam Piper77 • Hunter Patrol • (1959) • novelette by H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire111 • Flight from Tomorrow • (1950) • novelette by H. Beam Piper135 • Operation R.S.V.P. • (1951) • shortstory by H. Beam Piper147 • Genesis • [Paratime Police] • (1951) • novelette by H. Beam Piper171 • The Answer • (1959) • shortstory by H. Beam Piper185 • Crossroads of Destiny • (1959) • shortstory by H. Beam Piper199 • Day of the Moron • (1951) • novelette by H. Beam Piper

Vesik: Box Set 2


Eric R. Asher - 2018
    A vile betrayal. Necromancer Damian Vesik faces his darkest hour, but he's not dead yet.THIS BROKEN WORLD (Book 4)An ocean of darkness lives in the journal of Philip Pinkerton. Ancient things with no place in our world are rising from the Abyss. Ezekiel, the arrogant, mad god has called us into battle. Does he think we can't touch him, or does he know we can't? I wish I knew. The world’s only hope lies in a forgotten weapon, the strength of our allies, and one necromancer of questionable ancestry. Yeah, this is going to end well.DESTROYER RISING (Book 5)It's been three years since we failed Vicky, the child once known as Elizabeth Gray. Three years she's lived as something not quite alive, but far from dead. Her path grows darker, even as she spreads light and hope through a tortured world. The Destroyer has come to claim her, and I can’t fail her again. I won't. Elizabeth's fate lies in the Burning Lands, and we will storm the gates.RATTLE THE BONES (Book 6)Much has been lost in the conflict with the Fae king and his allies, a conflict we hadn’t known we were in until one of our own fell at his hand. And while a great Seal between realms may have been rebuilt, dark things slipped through in the chaos, creatures who would overrun this world. Our allies are many. Our enemies are terrible. And someone ate my last chimichanga despite the fact I had clearly marked it with a note that said it was mine.This collection includes books 4, 5, and 6 of the Vesik urban fantasy series. Jump into the madness today!