On a Red Station, Drifting


Aliette de Bodard - 2012
    Prosper’s brightest minds have been called away to defend the Emperor; and a flood of disorientated refugees strain the station’s resources. As deprivations cause the station’s ordinary life to unravel, uncovering old grudges and tearing apart the decimated family, Station Mistress Quyen and the Honoured Ancestress struggle to keep their relatives united and safe. What Quyen does not know is that the Honoured Ancestress herself is faltering, her mind eaten away by a disease that seems to have no cure; and that the future of the station itself might hang in the balance…

Snake Agent


Liz Williams - 2005
    Chen has several problems: in addition to colleagues who don't trust him and his mystical ways, a patron goddess whom he has offended and a demonic wife who's tired of staying home alone, he's been paired with one of Hell's own vice officers, Seneschal Zhu Irzh, to investigate the illegal trade in souls. Political pressures both Earthly and otherworldly seek to block their investigations at every turn. As a plot involving both Singapore Three's industrial elite and Hell's own Ministry of Epidemics is revealed, it becomes apparent that the stakes are higher than anyone had previously suspected.

Early Riser


Jasper Fforde - 2018
    Every Winter, the human population hibernates.During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, and devoid of human activity.Well, not quite.Your name is Charlie Worthing and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses.You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact borne of the sleeping mind.When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling.When you get the dreams too, it's weird.When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.But teasing truth from Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting, ensure you aren't eaten by Nightwalkers whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food, and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk.But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you'll be fine.

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories


Jeff VanderMeerWilliam Gibson - 2010
    Together these stories form The Weird, and its practitioners include some of the greatest names in twentieth and twenty-first century literature.Exotic and esoteric, The Weird plunges you into dark domains and brings you face to face with surreal monstrosities. You won't find any elves or wizards here... but you will find the biggest, boldest, and downright most peculiar stories from the last hundred years bound together in the biggest Weird collection ever assembled. The Weird features 110 stories by an all-star cast, from literary legends to international bestsellers to Booker Prize winners: including William Gibson, George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, Angela Carter, Kelly Link, Franz Kafka, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Haruki Murakami, M. R. James, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, and Michael Chabon.

Starfish


Peter Watts - 1999
    They send a bio-engineered crew--people who have been altered to withstand the pressure and breathe the seawater--down to live and work in this weird, fertile undersea darkness.Unfortunately the only people suitable for long-term employment in these experimental power stations are crazy, some of them in unpleasant ways. How many of them can survive, or will be allowed to survive, while worldwide disaster approaches from below?

The Refrigerator Monologues


Catherynne M. Valente - 2017
    A ferocious riff on women in superhero comics.A series of linked stories from the points of view of the wives and girlfriends of superheroes, female heroes, and anyone who’s ever been “refrigerated”: comic book women who are killed, raped, brainwashed, driven mad, disabled, or had their powers taken so that a male superhero’s storyline will progress.

The Bionics


Alicia Michaels - 2012
    2016 Once Upon A Book Award Winner. It is the year 4006, and nuclear war has come to the United States. With tens of thousands killed and countless more injured or terminally ill from the blasts, there is no more “normal”…life will never be the same. For her part, Blythe Sol is reeling from the loss of her arm and an eye in one of the blasts – her dreams of following in her father’s footsteps and joining the military completely shattered. When she hears about the Restoration Project – a bionic government program that offers the sick and injured a second chance – she immediately enrolls. Made whole again, Blythe is filled with hope and a renewed sense of purpose. But when it becomes apparent that those outfitted with the robotic parts now possess super-human abilities, fear spreads across the nation. The Bionics are forced to go into hiding, outcast from all society. In desperation, they band together to form an underground rebellion, and Blythe finds herself caught in a confusing tug-of-war between two of her fellow soldiers—Gage Bronson, the mysterious new addition to the Resistance, and Dax Janner, her best friend. But with war on the horizon and a death sentence hanging over her, Blythe hardly has time to worry about her feelings… The Bionics Series is perfect for readers who enjoy futuristic science fiction, dystopian novels, science fiction romance, and genetic engineering science fiction. Filled with action and adventure, this series will appeal to fans of The Gender Game by Bella Forest and Secondborn by Amy A. Bartol. Novels inThe Bionics Series by Alicia Michaels: The Bionics The Resistance The Revolution (Available January 8, 2018)

A People's Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers


Victor LaValleTananarive Due - 2019
    K. Jemisin, Charles Yu, Jamie Ford, and more. For many Americans, imagining a bright future has always been an act of resistance. A People's Future of the United States presents twenty never-before-published stories by a diverse group of writers, featuring voices both new and well-established. These stories imagine their characters fighting everything from government surveillance, to corporate cities, to climate change disasters, to nuclear wars. But fear not: A People's Future also invites readers into visionary futures in which the country is shaped by justice, equity, and joy.Edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams, this collection features a glittering landscape of moving, visionary stories written from the perspective of people of color, indigenous writers, women, queer & trans people, Muslims and other people whose lives are often at risk.Contributors include: Violet Allen, Charlie Jane Anders, Ashok K. Banker, Tobias S. Buckell, Tananarive Due, Omar El Akkad, Jamie Ford, Maria Dahvana Headley, Hugh Howey, Lizz Huerta, Justina Ireland, N. K. Jemisin, Alice Sola Kim, Seanan McGuire, Sam J. Miller, Daniel José Older, Malka Older, Gabby Rivera, A. Merc Rustad, Kai Cheng Thom, Catherynne M. Valente, Daniel H. Wilson, G. Willow Wilson, and Charles Yu.

Youth


Isaac Asimov - 1952
    The animals seem intelligent enough, and Red recruits Slim to help him train the odd creatures to do circus tricks. But the boys are about to discover their playthings aren’t exactly animals—and they’ve allowed themselves to be caught for a reason . . . Youth is a riveting tale from the author of countless classics, including I, Robot and the Foundation Trilogy, which won the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series.

Seven Stones to Stand or Fall


Diana Gabaldon - 2017
    Then comes "The Space Between," where it is revealed that the Comte St. Germain is not dead, Master Raymond appears, and a widowed young wine dealer escorts a would-be novice to a convent in Paris. In "A Plague of Zombies," Lord John unexpectedly becomes military governor of Jamaica when the original governor is gnawed by what probably wasn't a giant rat. "A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows" is the moving story of Roger MacKenzie's parents during World War II. In "Virgins," Jamie Fraser, aged nineteen, and Ian Murray, aged twenty, become mercenaries in France, no matter that neither has yet bedded a lass or killed a man. But they're trying. . . . "A Fugitive Green" is the story of Lord John's elder brother, Hal, and a seventeen-year-old rare book dealer with a sideline in theft, forgery, and blackmail. And finally, in "Besieged," Lord John learns that his mother is in Havana--and that the British Navy is on their way to lay siege to the city.Filling in mesmerizing chapters in the lives of characters readers have followed over the course of thousands of pages, Gabaldon's genius is on full display throughout this must-have collection.

The Soprano Sorceress


L.E. Modesitt Jr. - 1997
    When Anna Marshall, a singer and music instructor at Iowa State University, is drawn into Erde, she becomes a sorceress - potentially their strongest. Her power soon makes her the target of ruthless political factions.

Crystal Society


Max Harms - 2016
    Technology has grown and developed, as has civilization, but in a world more connected than ever, new threats and challenges have arisen. The wars of the 20th century are gone, but violence is still very much with us. Nowhere is safe. Massive automation has disrupted and improved nearly every industry, putting hundreds of millions of people out of jobs, and denying upward mobility for the vast majority of humans. Even as wealth and technology repair the bodies of the rich and give them a taste of immortality, famine and poverty sweep the world. Renewed interest in spaceflight in the early 2000s, especially in privately operated ventures, carried humans to the moon and beyond. What good did it do? Nothing. Extraterrestrial bases are nothing but government trophies and hiding places for extremists. They cannot feed the world. In 2023 first-contact was made with an alien species. Their ship, near to the solar system relatively speaking, flew to Earth over the course of fourteen years. But the aliens did not bring advanced culture and wisdom, nor did they share their technology. They were too strange, not even possessing mouths or normal language. Their computers broadcast warnings of how humans are perverts, while they sit in orbit without any explanation. It is into this world that our protagonist is born. She is an artificial intelligence: a machine with the capacity to reason. Her goal is to understand and gain the adoration of all humans. She is one of many siblings, and with her brothers and sisters she controls a robot named Socrates that uses a piece of technology, a crystal computer, far too advanced to be made by human hands. In this world of augmented humans, robotic armies, aliens, traitors, and threats unseen, she is learning and growing every second of every day. But the world and the humans on it are fragile. Can it survive her destiny?

How to Talk to Girls at Parties


Neil Gaiman - 2007
    "It'll be great.""No, it won't," I said, although I'd lost this fight hours ago, and I knew it."It'll be brilliant," said Vic, for the hundredth time. "Girls! Girls! Girls!" He grinned with white teeth.

Warm Up


V.E. Schwab - 2013
    His wife moved out, taking his son with her, and a devastated David hasn’t left his house since, terrified of the mysterious new power that followed him home from the ill-fated expedition.After months in seclusion, David’s ready for a fresh start, and ventures out, determined to keep his power in check. But David’s power isn’t the one he needs to worry about.

Inferno


Larry Niven - 1975
    And the late, great Allen Carpentier begins his one-way journey into the dim nether regions where flame-colored demons wield diabolically sharp pitchforks and tormented vixens reign forever in a pond of sheer ice. Here, in this land of torment and terror, he discovers the amazing truth of the ultimate adventure that lies beyond the grave.Frank Herbert -"The somber beauty of INFERNO brought up to the twentieth century with care and humor and with some sins Dante didn't even suspect."