Saturday, June 6, 2020

Quick Guide to (Mostly) Recent Science Fiction

It's been an age since I posted anything on this platform, but maybe the pandemic is the time to bring blogs back along with things like baking bread at home. 

I made this graphic for a recent genre discussion hosted by the Massachusetts Library Association's Readers' Advisory section. If you're new to the genre of Science Fiction but want to get started on some recent titles, this might provide a starting point. As I said in my talk, many of the books below could be placed in a variety of the subgenres I've arbitrarily listed, this is not a comprehensive list, it's purely subjective, etc. Link to the graphic here.


Titles and authors:

Space Opera
Behind the Throne, K.B. Wagers
Unconquerable Sun, Kate Elliott
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers
Chilling Effect, Valerie Valdes
A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine

Military
Vorkosigan series, Lois McMaster Bujold
Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee
Fortune's Pawn, Rachel Bach

Dystopia/Post-Apocalyptic
Moon of the Crusted Snow, Waubgeshig Rice
The Record Keeper, Agnes Gomillion
American War, Omar El Akkad

Broken Earth series, N.K. Jemisin
Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor
An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon

Artificial Intelligence
All Systems Red, Martha Wells
Robopocalypse, Daniel H. Wilson
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie

Aliens
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu
Rosewater, Tade Thompson
Lilith's Brood, Octavia Butler
Annihilation, Jeff Vandermeer

Time Travel/Alt-History
Here and Now and Then, Mike Chen
To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Romance
The Agent Gambit, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Ice Planet Barbarians,  Ruby Dixon
Rulebreaker, Cathy Pegau
Polaris Rising, Jessie Mihalik

Climate Fiction
New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson
Gold Fame Citrus, Claire Vaye Watkins

Humorous
Redshirts, John Scalzi
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Space Western
Serenity: Those Left Behind, Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad
Dark Tower series, Stephen King

Superhero
The Mighty Thor v. 5, Jason Aaron, Walt Simonson, Russell Dauterman, James Harren
Heroine Complex, Sarah Kuhn

Graphic/Manga
Saga series, Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples
Pluto series, Naoki Urasawa

Steampunk/Cyberpunk
Parasol Protectorate series, Gail Carriger
The Black God's Drums, P. Djèlí Clark

Young Adult Science Fiction with Adult Appeal
Illuminae series, Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Not Your Sidekick, C.B. Lee
The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline
Warcross, Marie Lu
Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi
Proxy, Alex London