Speculative Fiction Guide: Books

Alice falls asleep in a meadow and dreams that she plunges down a rabbit hole. She finds herself first too large and then too small. She sets off on wondrous adventures with such strange characters as Chesire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the King and Queen of Hearts.

Aldous Huxley's futuristic novel in which Bernard Marx becomes a citizen in a utopian World-State where babies are born in laboratories, there is no violence, and contentment overrides the free will of the populace, who all take drugs to eliminate depression.

Novel of the despair faced by a simple man of the future, at the hollowness of his life and the increasing public disinterest in the workings of the government, which has taken complete control.

Frodo the hobbit and a band of warriors from the different kingdoms set out to destroy the Ring of Power before the evil Sauron grasps control.

Four women from different planets and time periods meet and realize that their personal experiences with love, feminism, and society are greatly similar.

A young African-American woman is mysteriously transfered back in time leading to an irresistable curiosity about her family's past.

In 1984, London is a grim city where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

The War of the Worlds was a new departure in literature. Deeply committed to social improvement in turn of the century Britain, Wells' used extra-terrestrial invasion to predict the results of a not entirely impossible violent upheaval in contemporary society. His book is social prophecy of the first order and only coincidentally one of the great works of science fiction.

A boy grows to manhood while attempting to subdue the evil he unleashed on the world as an apprentice to the Master Wizard.

Paul Atreides, the son of a betrayed duke, is given up for dead on a desert planet and adopted by the nomadic people who live there.

A variation on the Cinderella story in which a girl named Ash grows up believing in the fairy realm that the king and his philosophers have sought to suppress, until one day she must choose between a handsome fairy cursed to love her and the King's Huntress, whom she loves.

Creeper, a scrappy young teen, is done living on the streets of New Orleans. Her sights are set on securing passage aboard Captain Ann-Marie's smuggler airship Midnight Robber, earning the captain's trust using a secret about a kidnapped Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls the Black God's Drums. But Creeper keeps another secret close to her heart--Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, who speaks inside her head and grants her divine powers. And Oya has her own priorities....

Sold to the Grand Monastery as infants, Mokoya and Akeha are the twin children of the Protector, one with the ability to see the future, one with the ability to see all the possibilities of the present. When a rebellion of Machinists grows, the Tensors fight to put them down and save their power. Not wanting to be pawns in their mother's schemes, Akeha leaves the Tensorate to join the rebels, but that will mean fighting Mokoya.

Yadriel, a trans boy, summons the angry spirit of his high school's bad boy, and agrees to help him learn how he died, thereby proving himself a brujo, not a bruja, to his conservative family.

Seventeen-year-old Zélie, her older brother Tzain, and rogue princess Amari fight to restore magic to the land and activate a new generation of magi, but they are ruthlessly pursued by the crown prince, who believes the return of magic will mean the end of the monarchy.

When a scheming lord tears Jess's family apart, she must rely on her unlikely friendship with Kal, a high-ranking Patron boy, and her skill at Fives, an intricate, multi-level athletic competition that offers a chance for glory, to protect her Commoner mother and mixed-race sisters and save her father's reputation.

Seventeen-year-old Evie O'Neill is thrilled when she is exiled from small-town Ohio to New York City in 1926, even when a rash of occult-based murders thrusts Evie and her uncle, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, into the thick of the investigation.

Imagine an America very similar to our own. It's got homework, best friends, and pistachio ice cream. There are some differences. This America been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not. Some of these forces are charmingly everyday, like the ability to make an orb of light appear or travel across the world through rings of fungi. But other forces are less charming and should never see the light of day. Elatsoe lives in this slightly stranger America. She can raise the ghosts of dead animals, a skill passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family. Her beloved cousin has just been murdered, in a town that wants no prying eyes. But she is going to do more than pry. The picture-perfect facade of Willowbee masks gruesome secrets, and she will rely on her wits, skills, and friends to tear off the mask and protect her family.

"Laia is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire's greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution"

In an alternate England of 1851, spirited fourteen-year-old Sophronia is enrolled in a finishing school where, she is surprised to learn, lessons include not only the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also diversion, deceit, and espionage.

For a century now, Earth has been a peaceful colony of an alien race, and Donovan Reyes is a loyal member of the security forces, while his father is the Prime Liaison--but when a routine search and seizure goes bad Donovan finds himself a captive of the human revolutionary group, Sapience, terrorists who seem to prefer war to alien rule, and killing Donovan just might be the incident they are looking for.

"Essun, masquerading as an ordinary schoolteacher in a quiet small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Mighty Sanze, the empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years, collapses as its greatest city is destroyed by a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heartland of the world's sole continent, a great red rift has been torn which spews ash enough to darken the sky for years. But this is the Stillness, a land long familiar with struggle, and where orogenes, those who wield the power of the earth as a weapon, are feared far more than the long cold night. Essun has remembered herself, and she will have her daughter back"

Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.

Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen accidentally becomes a contender in the annual Hunger Games, a grave competition hosted by the Capitol where young boys and girls are pitted against one another in a televised fight to the death.

"The planet Kerenza is attacked, and Kady and Ezra find themselves on a space fleet fleeing the enemy, while their ship's artificial intelligence system and a deadly plague may be the end of them all"

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall of China. It doesn't matter that the girls die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But when she gets her vengeance, it becomes clear that she is an Iron Widow, a rare kind of female pilot who can sacrifice males to power up Chrysalises instead. To tame her frightening yet valuable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest male pilot in Huaxia, yet feared and ostracized for killing his father and brothers. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will take over instead, then leverage their combined strength to force her society to stop failing its women and girls. Or die trying.

Todd, one month away from an important birthday, learns all the tough lessons of adulthood when he is forced to flee after discovering a secret near the town where he lives.

On the Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint, Tan-Tan finds herself thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree after her father commits an unforgivable crime.

"Set in a futuristic, hostile Orleans landscape, Fen de la Guerre must deliver her tribe leader's baby over the Wall into the Outer States before her blood becomes tainted with Delta Fever"

In a near-future society that claims to have gotten rid of all monstrous people, a creature emerges from a painting seventeen-year-old Jam's mother created, a hunter from another world seeking a real-life monster.

Raised in isolation, Tarisai yearns for the closeness she could have as one of the Crown Prince's Council of 11, but her mother, The Lady, has magically compelled Tarisai to kill the Crown Prince.

In a world divided by blood--those with common, Red blood serve the Silver-blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities--seventeen-year-old Mare, a Red, discovers she has an ability of her own. To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. But Mare risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard--a growing Red rebellion--even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction.

Follows Caledonia Styx, captain of her own ship, the Mors Navis, and its all-female crew as they strive to defeat the powerful fleet of Aric Athair, the vicious warlord who has taken their homes and families.

When the murals painted on the walls of her Brooklyn neighborhood start to change and fade in front of her, Sierra Santiago realizes that something strange is going on--then she discovers her Puerto Rican family are shadowshapers and finds herself in a battle with an evil anthropologist for the lives of her family and friends.

In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.

"Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction--if they don't kill each other first"

In a society determined to keep her under lock and key, Tavia must hide her siren powers. Meanwhile, Effie is fighting her own family struggles, pitted against literal demons from her past. Together, these best friends must navigate through the perils of high school's junior year. But everything changes in the aftermath of a siren murder trial that rocks the nation, when Tavia accidentally lets out her magical voice at the worst possible moment. Soon, nothing in Portland, Oregon, seems safe. To save themselves from drowning, it's only Tavia and Effie's unbreakable sisterhood that proves to be the strongest magic of all.

In a Brazil of the distant future, June Costa falls in love with Enki, a fellow artist and rebel against the strict limits of the legendary pyramid city of Palmares Três' matriarchal government, knowing that, like all Summer Kings before him, Enki is destined to die.

In 1926 Shanghai, eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, heir of the Scarlet Gang, and her first love-turned-rival Roma Montagov, leader of the White Flowers, must work together when mysterious deaths threaten their city.

Tally is faced with a difficult choice when her new friend Shay decides to risk life on the outside rather than submit to the forced operation that turns sixteen year old girls into gorgeous beauties, and realizes that there is a whole new side to the pretty world that she doesn't like.

Jason Zhou is trying to survive in Taipei, a city plagued by pollution and viruses, but when he discovers the elite are using their wealth to evade the deadly effects, he knows he must do whatever is necessary to fight the corruption and save his city.

Three extraterrestrial beings take Meg and her friends to another world.

"Adelina Amouteru survived the blood fever, a deadly illness that killed many, but left others with strange markings and supernatural powers. Cast out by her family, Adelina joins the secret society of the Young Elites and discovers her own dangerous abilities"

Giant seemingly unintelligent humanoids known as Titans have been killing humans for years, and for about a century the remaining people have hidden in a large city surrounded by three tall walls. When a gigantic Titan suddenly appears, everything changes.

Ciel Phantomhive, a young boy whose parents were taken from him by a fire, is forced to take over as head of his father's company, and his faithful butler, Sebastian, helps him with many problems in a way that makes one wonder if Sebastian is human at all.

In Taisho-era Japan, charcoal seller Tanjiro Kamada's life is shattered when demons kill his entire family and possess his younger sister. Tanjiro vows to seek revenge but doesn't know how to fight demons. Luckily, he meets a boy named Giyu who is able to provide answers, but Tanjiro must prevent him from killing his sister first.

A series of seemingly unrelated incidents lead Ironheart to an organization with ancient, dark powers--the Ten Rings--who are either want Riri dead or are looking to recruit her in the quest for world domination. Then, Miles Morales goes missing and Riri, who's never gotten along particularly well with Miles, is the only one who can find him.

"Young Jonathan Joestar's life is forever changed when he meets his new adopted brother, Dio. For some reason, Dio has a smoldering grudge against him and derives pleasure from seeing him suffer. But every man has his limits, as Dio finds out. This is the beginning of a long and hateful relationship!"

In a world where cursed spirits feed on unsuspecting humans, fragments of the legendary and feared demon Ryoma Sukuna have been lost and scattered about. Should any demon consume Sukuna's body parts, the power they gain could destroy the world as we know it. Fortunately, there exists a mysterious school of Jujutsu Sorcerers who exist to protect the precarious existence of the living from the supernatural! Although Yuji Itadori looks like your average teenager, his immense physical strength is something to behold! Every sports club wants him to join, but Itadori would rather hang out with the school outcasts in the Occult Research Club. One day, the club manages to get their hands on a sealed cursed object. Little do they know the terror they'll unleash when they break the seal.

Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900's Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steam punk, a teenage girl is struggling to survive the trauma of war, and shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both and make them the target of both human and otherworldly powers.

"Kamala Khan is an ordinary girl from Jersey City - until she's suddenly empowered with extraordinary gifts. But who truly is the new Ms. Marvel? Teenager? Muslim? Inhuman? Find out as she takes the Marvel Universe by storm! When Kamala discovers the dangers of her newfound powers, she unlocks a secret behind them, as well. Is Kamala ready to wield these immense new gifts? Or will the weight of the legacy before her be too much to bear? Kamala has no idea, either. But she's comin' for you, Jersey!"

What would the world be like if 80 percent of the population manifested superpowers called "Quirks" at age four? Heroes and villains would be battling it out everywhere! Being a hero would mean learning to use your power, but where would you go to study? The Hero Academy of course! But what would you do if you were one of the 20 percent who were born Quirkless? Middle school student Izuku Midoriya wants to be a hero more than anything, but he hasn't got an ounce of power in him. With no chance of ever getting into the prestigious U.A. High School for budding heroes, his life is looking more and more like a dead end. Then an encounter with All Might, the greatest hero of them all, gives him a chance to change his destiny.

Uzumaki Naruto's discovery that his body is host to the spirit of a demon fox that destroyed his village twelve years earlier makes him even more determined to become the greatest ninja ever, but he must first pass the test to enter the Ninja Academy, deal with his rival Konohamaru, and learn to get along with his new classmates, Sasuke and Sakura.

In 2015, Shinji Ikari, a fourteen-year-old child of the new Earth, is forced by his father Gendo, commander of the secret organization NERV, to pilot the monstrous biomechanical weapon called Evangelion to battle the entities known as the Angels.

Lord Ballister Blackheart seeks to bring down the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics with the aid of his new shapeshifting sidekick Nimona.

In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four twelve-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this ... series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood.

Join Princess Adrienne, one princess that's tired of waiting to be rescued along with her plucky sidekick Bedelia and her guardian dragon Sparky as they begin a one of a kind quest to rescue her sisters!

Emma, Norman and Ray are the brightest kids at the Grace Field House orphanage. And under the care of the woman they refer to as 'Mom,' all the kids have enjoyed a comfortable life. Good food, clean clothes and the perfect environment to learn--what more could an orphan ask for? One day, though, Emma and Norman uncover the dark truth of the outside world they are forbidden from seeing.

A collection of comics following the adventures of a group of six California teens who find themselves on the run after they learn their parents are members of a secret criminal society.

Two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war, Marko and Alana, fall in love and risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe.

When Usagi Tsukino learns she is the hero, Sailor Moon, she fights evil and enforces justice in the name of the Moon with the help of other girls destined to be Sailor Scouts.

Ghouls live among us, the same as normal people in every way--except their craving for human flesh. Shy Ken Kaneki is thrilled to go on a date with the beautiful Rize, but it turns out that she's only interested in his body--in eating it, that is. When a morally dubious rescue transforms him into the first half-human, half-ghoul hybrid, Ken must survive Ghoul turf wars, learn more about Ghoul society, and master his new powers.