Page TUrners

A Sci-Fi+ Book Club

some Books for club member consideration...

Everfair

By Nisi Shawl

From noted short story writer Nisi Shawl comes a brilliant alternate-history novel set in the Belgian Congo.


What if the African natives developed steam power ahead of their colonial oppressors? What might have come of Belgium's disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier?


Fabian Socialists from Great Britain join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo's "owner," King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated.


Shawl's speculative masterpiece manages to turn one of the worst human rights disasters on record into a marvelous and exciting exploration of the possibilities inherent in a turn of history. Everfair is told from a multiplicity of voices: Africans, Europeans, East Asians, and African Americans in complex relationships with one another, in a compelling range of voices that have historically been silenced. Everfair is not only a beautiful book but an educational and inspiring one that will give the reader new insight into an often ignored period of history.

The Deep

By Rivers solomon

Octavia E. Butler meets Marvel’s Black Panther in The Deep, a story rich with Afrofuturism, folklore, and the power of memory, inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep” from Daveed Diggs’s rap group Clipping. 


Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.


Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.


Yetu will learn more than she ever expected about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.

The Intuitionist

By Colson Whitehead


Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.


It is a time of calamity in a major metropolitan city's Department of Elevator Inspectors, and Lila Mae Watson, the first black female elevator inspector in the history of the department, is at the center of it.  There are two warring factions within the department:  the Empiricists, who work by the book and dutifully check for striations on the winch cable and such; and the Intuitionists, who are simply able to enter the elevator cab in question, meditate, and intuit any defects.  


Lila Mae is an Intuitionist and, it just so happens, has the highest accuracy rate in the entire department.  But when an elevator in a new city building goes into total freefall on Lila Mae's watch, chaos ensues.  It's an election year in the Elevator Guild, and the good-old-boy Empiricists would love nothing more than to assign the blame to an Intuitionist.  But Lila Mae is never wrong.


The sudden appearance of excerpts from the lost notebooks of Intuitionism's founder, James Fulton, has also caused quite a stir.  The notebooks describe Fulton's work on the "black box," a perfect elevator that could reinvent the city as radically as the first passenger elevator did when patented by Elisha Otis in the nineteenth century.  When Lila Mae goes underground to investigate the crash, she becomes involved in the search for the portions of the notebooks that are still missing and uncovers a secret that will change her life forever.

The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet

By Becky Chambers

The acclaimed modern science fiction masterpiece, Hugo Award winner for Best Series!

Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through space—and one adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the far reaches of the universe—in this light-hearted debut space opera from a rising sci-fi star.

Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.

Also included on Library Journal's Best SFF of 2016, the Barnes & Nobles Sci-Fi Fantasy Blog Best Books of 2015, the Tor.com Best Books of 2015, Reader’s Choice, as well as nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Kitschie, and the Bailey's Women's Prize.

The Saint of Bright doors

By Vajra Chandrasekera

A 2023 New York Times Notable Book


“The best book I've read all year. Protean, singular, original.” —Amal El-Mohtar for the New York Times

The Saint of Bright Doors sets the high drama of divine revolutionaries and transcendent cults against the mundane struggles of modern life, resulting in a novel that is revelatory and resonant.


Fetter, the protagonist, is one of several almost-chosen-ones who have shirked or sidestepped their spectacular destinies in favor of haunted and marginal lives in the city of Luriat. The city has many “bright doors” that seem to open onto nothing. Fetter’s fascination with them draws him into a web of Luriati intrigue involving his estranged and godlike father, the Perfect and Kind — whom Fetter has been trained since childhood to kill.

Protean, nimble, dazzlingly original, “The Saint of Bright Doors” offers a grammar for comprehending the knots of atrocity we’re living through, without resorting to the blunt simplicity of allegory.


Mrs. Caliban

By Rachel ingalls

It all starts with the radio. Dorothy’s husband, Fred, has left for work, and she is at the kitchen sink washing the dishes, listening to classical music. Suddenly, the music fades out and a soft, close, dreamy voice says, “Don’t worry, Dorothy.”

 

A couple weeks later, there is a special interruption in regular programming. The announcer warns all listeners of an escaped sea monster. Giant, spotted, and froglike, the beast—who was captured six months earlier by a team of scientists—is said to possess incredible strength and to be considered extremely dangerous.

 

That afternoon, the seven-foot-tall lizard man walks through Dorothy’s kitchen door. She is frightened at first, but there is something attractive about the monster. The two begin a tender, clandestine affair, and no one, not even Dorothy’s husband or her best friend, seems to notice.

 

Selected by the British Book Marketing Council as one of the greatest American novels since World War II, Mrs. Caliban, much like Guillermo del Toro’s film The Shape of Water, uses an inter-species romance to explores issues of passion and loneliness, love and loss—and in its own wryly subversive way, it blends surrealism, satire, and a strong female perspective. A literary cult classic, it “skillfully combines fairy tale, science fiction, and ho-hum reality” (People).


Some Desperate Glory

BY Emily Tesh

Instant National Bestseller and International Bestseller!


Hugo Award Winner for Best Novel!


Arthur C. Clarke Award Finalist!

Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction Finalist!


A thrillingly told queer space opera about the wreckage of war, the family you find, and who you must become when every choice is stripped from you, Some Desperate Glory is Astounding Award Winner Emily Tesh’s explosive debut novel.


"Some Desperate Glory surprised me at every turn. At once a space thriller, a tale of deprogramming, and a missive on identity and meaning, the result is a vitally refreshing addition to the SFF genre. This book has earned a permanent place on my favorites shelf."—V. E. Schwab


"Masterful, audacious storytelling. Relentless, unsentimental, a completely wild ride."—Tamsyn Muir


"This is the sort of debut novel every novelist hopes to write."—John Scalzi


"Deserves a space on shelves alongside Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia Butler."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)


National Bestseller | Sunday Times Bestseller | An Indie Next Pick | A LibraryReads Pick | a Goodreads Choice Finalist | With three starred reviews!


A Best Of Pick for The Guardian | GoodReads | Publishers Weekly | Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Audible | Gizmodo | Book Riot | LitHub | Financial Times | Discover Sci-Fi | Locus | NPR | Library Journal


While we live, the enemy shall fear us.


Since she was born, Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth. Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the majoda their victory over humanity.


They are what’s left. They are what must survive. Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet. When Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to Nursery to bear sons until she dies trying, she knows she must take humanity's revenge into her own hands.


Alongside her brother’s brilliant but seditious friend and a lonely, captive alien, Kyr escapes from everything she’s known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined.


At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

dark matter

Speculative fiction from the african diaspora

Edited by Sheree R. Thomas

This volume introduces black science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers to the generations of readers who have not had the chance to explore the scope and diversity among African-American writers.

Speculative fiction, fantasy, and science fiction are assumed to be the genres of alternative thought; however, too often these realms of imagination reflect only the Occidental vision and culture. Now an important new anthology, the first of its kind, explodes such preconceptions with more than a century of fantastic fiction by preeminent and emerging authors of the African diaspora, including recipients of literature’s most prestigious awards.

This richly vibrant collection of stories and essays displays the brilliance of writers ranging from the early pioneers, such as Charles W. Chesnutt, W. E. B. Du Bois, and George S. Schuyler, to Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler — whose classic sf became the springboards for their fame — to such renowned figures of the African American literary tradition as playwright-critic Amiri Baraka and satirist Ishmael Reed. Dark Matter also highlights a wide spectrum of talents who have garnered both genre and mainstream acclaim, including Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Jewelle Gomez, Nalo Hopkinson, Walter Mosley, and Kalamu ya Salaam.

Astonishing, compelling, erotic, and profound stories of worlds within and beyond abound in Dark Matter. This comprehensive, landmark collection is a vital contribution to an exciting universe of fresh metaphor and myth. 

The Dispossessed

By Ursula K. Le Guin


“One of the greats….Not just a science fiction writer; a literary icon.” – Stephen King

From the brilliant and award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin comes a classic tale of two planets torn apart by conflict and mistrust — and the man who risks everything to reunite them.

A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to reunite the two planets, which have been divided by centuries of distrust. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart.

To visit Urras—to learn, to teach, to share—will require great sacrifice and risks, which Shevek willingly accepts. But the ambitious scientist's gift is soon seen as a threat, and in the profound conflict that ensues, he must reexamine his beliefs even as he ignites the fires of change.

Goliath

By tochi onyebuchi


"A diverse cast of narrators provides glimpses of a near-future Earth devastated by climate change, nuclear disaster, and disease."—AudioFile Magazine

“Onyebuchi sets fire to the boundary between fiction and reality, and brings a crumbling city and an all too plausible future to vibrant life. Riveting, disturbing, and rendered in masterful detail.”—Leigh Bardugo

In his adult novel debut, Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and NAACP Image Award finalist and ALA Alex and New England Book Award winner Tochi Onyebuchi delivers a sweeping science-fiction epic in the vein of Samuel R. Delany and Station Eleven.

In the 2050s, Earth has begun to empty. Those with the means and the privilege have departed the great cities of the United States for the more comfortable confines of space colonies. Those left behind salvage what they can from the collapsing infrastructure. As they eke out an existence, their neighborhoods are being cannibalized. Brick by brick, their houses are sent to the colonies, what was once a home now a quaint reminder for the colonists of the world that they wrecked.

A primal biblical epic flung into the future, Goliath weaves together disparate narratives—a space-dweller looking at New Haven, Connecticut, as a chance to reconnect with his spiraling lover; a group of laborers attempting to renew the promises of Earth’s crumbling cities; a journalist attempting to capture the violence of the streets; a marshal trying to solve a kidnapping—into a richly urgent mosaic about race, class, gentrification, and who is allowed to be the hero of any history.

Tatterdemalion

By silvia V. Linsteadt
With paintings by Rima Staines


In a ruined world, what survives are the stories we tell

Poppy, who speaks the languages of wild things, travels east to the mountains with the wheeled and elephantine beast Lyoobov. He’s seeking answers to the mysteries of his birth, and the origins of the fallen world in which he lives.

Up in the glacial peaks, among a strange, mountainous people, a Juniper Tree takes Poppy deep into her roots and shows him the true stories of the people who made his world, people he thought were only myths. Their tales span centuries, from three hundred years in the future all the way back to our present day. It is through this feral but redemptive folklore that Poppy begins to understand the story of his own past and his place in the present.

Tatterdemalion is a stunning collaboration between writer Sylvia V. Linsteadt and artist Rima Staines, featuring the fourteen original paintings that inspired the narrative.

Readymade Bodhisattva

The Kaya Anthology of South Korean Science Fiction

Spanning more than a half-century of South Korean sci-fi, this massive anthology documents a unique convergence of culture and genre

Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of South Korean Science Fiction presents the first book-length English-language translation of science and speculative fiction from South Korea, bringing together 13 classic and contemporary stories from the 1960s through the 2010s. From the reimagining of an Asimovian robot inside the walls of a Buddhist temple and a postapocalyptic showdown between South and North Korean refugees on a faraway planet to a fictional recollection of a disabled woman's struggle to join an international space mission, these stories showcase the thematic and stylistic versatility of South Korean science-fiction writers in its wide array. At once conversant with the global science-fiction tradition and thick with local historical specificities, their works resonate with other popular cultural products of South Korea―from K-pop and K-drama to videogames, which owe part of their appeal to their pulsating technocultural edge and their ability to play off familiar tropes in unexpected ways.

Coming from a country renowned for its hi-tech industry and ultraspeed broadband yet mired in the unfinished Cold War, South Korean science fiction offers us fresh perspectives on global technoindustrial modernity and its human consequences. The book also features a critical introduction, an essay on SF fandom in South Korea, and contextualizing information and annotations for each story.

Grievers

By Adrienne Maree Brown

"It’s a strong precedent that will leave readers eager for more."

Publishers Weekly (starred review)


Grievers is the story of a city so plagued by grief that it can no longer function.

Dune’s mother is patient zero of a mysterious illness that stops people in their tracks—in mid-sentence, mid-action, mid-life—casting them into a nonresponsive state from which no one recovers. Dune must navigate poverty and the loss of her mother as Detroit’s hospitals, morgues, and graveyards begin to overflow. As the quarantined city slowly empties of life, she investigates what caused the plague, and what might end it, following in the footsteps of her late researcher father, who has a physical model of Detroit’s history and losses set up in their basement. She dusts it off and begins tracking the sick and dying, discovering patterns, finding comrades in curiosity, conspiracies for the fertile ground of the city, and the unexpected magic that emerges when the debt of grief is cleared.

The Dark Forest

By Cixin Liu

This near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple-award-winning phenomenon from Cixin Liu, China's most beloved science fiction author. 


In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion-in just four centuries' time. The aliens' human collaborators may have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth's defense plans are totally exposed to the enemy. Only the human mind remains a secret. This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a daring plan that grants four men enormous resources to design secret strategies, hidden through deceit and misdirection from Earth and Trisolaris alike. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is a total unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer and sociologist, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he's the one Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead.

Downbelow Station

By C.J. Cherryh

The Hugo Award-winning classic sci-fi novel about interstellar war.


The Beyond started with the Stations orbiting the stars nearest Earth. The Great Circle the interstellar freighters traveled was long, but not unmanageable, and the early Stations were emotionally and politically dependent on Mother Earth. The Earth Company which ran this immense operation reaped incalculable profits and influenced the affairs of nations.


Then came Pell, the first station centered around a newly discovered living planet. The discovery of Pell's World forever altered the power balance of the Beyond. Earth was no longer the anchor which kept this vast empire from coming adrift, the one living mote in a sterile universe.


But Pell was just the first living planet. Then came Cyteen, and later others, and a new and frighteningly different society grew in the farther reaches of space. The importance of Earth faded and the Company reaped ever smaller profits as the economic focus of space turned outward. But the powerful Earth Fleet was sitll a presence in the Beyond, and Pell Station was to become the last stronghold in a titanic struggle between the vast, dynamic forces of the rebel Union and those who defended Earth's last, desperate grasp for the stars.

The Ship Who Sang

By Anne McCaffrey

Helva had been born human, but only her brain had been saved—saved to be schooled, programmed, and implanted into the sleek titanium body of an intergalactic scout ship. But first she had to choose a human partner—male or female—to share her exhilirating excapades in space!


Her life was to be rich and rewarding . . . resplendent with daring adventures and endless excitement, beyond the wildest dreams of mere mortals.


Gifted with the voice of an angel and being virtually indestructable, Helva XH-834 antipitated a sublime immortality.


Then one day she fell in love!

Midnight Robber

By Nalo Hopkinson

A "[d]eeply satisfying" [The New York Times Book Review] story of a father who has committed an unbelievable crime and a daughter who must then fight to save her own life.


"Caribbean patois adorns this novel with graceful rhythms...Beneath it lie complex, clearly evoked characters, haunting descriptions of exotic planets, and a stirring story...[This book] ought to elevate Hopkinson to star status." --Seattle Times


It's Carnival time and the Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint is celebrating with music, dance, and pageantry. Masked "Midnight Robbers" waylay revelers with brandished weapons and spellbinding words. To young Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen is simply a favorite costume to wear at the festival--until her power-corrupted father commits an unforgiveable crime.


Suddenly, both father and daughter are thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree. Here monstrous creatures from folklore are real, and the humans are violent outcasts in the wilds. Tan-Tan must reach into the heart of myth and become the Robber Queen herself. For only the Robber Queen's legendary powers can save her life . . . and set her free.

Ancillary Justice

By Ann Leckie

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards: This record-breaking novel follows a warship trapped in a human body on a quest for revenge. A must read for fans of Ursula K. Le Guin and James S. A. Corey. 


On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.


Once, she was the Justice of Toren—a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.


Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.

Ninefox Gambit

By Yoon Ha Lee

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR - WINNER OF THE 2016 LOCUS AWARD - NOMINATED FOR THE HUGO, NEBULA AND ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARDS.


When Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for her unconventional tactics, Kel Command gives her a chance to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles from the heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake: if the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.


Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own.


As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao – because she might be his next victim.

Winter's Orbit

By Everina Maxwell

A Sunday Times Bestseller!

A 2022 Alex Award Winner!


“Sparks fly” (NPR) in Everina Maxwell’s gut-wrenching and romantic space opera debut.


Prince Kiem, a famously disappointing minor royal and the Emperor's least favorite grandchild, has been called upon to be useful for once. He's commanded to fulfill an obligation of marriage to the representative of the Empire's newest and most rebellious vassal planet. His future husband, Count Jainan, is a widower and murder suspect.


Neither wants to be wed, but with a conspiracy unfolding around them and the fate of the empire at stake they will have to navigate the thorns and barbs of court intrigue, the machinations of war, and the long shadows of Jainan's past, and they'll have to do it together.


So begins a legendary love story amid the stars.


Like Ancillary Justice meets Red, White and Royal Blue, Winter’s Orbit is perfect for fans of Lois McMaster Bujold. 


“High-pitched noises escaped me; I shouted, more than once, 'Now kiss!' ... in a world so relentlessly uncertain, there’s a powerfully simple pleasure in the experience of a promise kept.” ―The New York Times Book Review

resources for discovering more books

https://ignyteawards.fiyahlitmag.com

Hugo Award

Arthur C Clarke Award

Ursula K LeGuin Prize