Past Kindle Book Deals but Still Must Read Books!
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58 past books matching Speculative Fiction
When his human suddenly falls apart, S.T., a domesticated crow, ventures into a ruined Seattle where humanity is disappearing fast.
Hollow Kingdom
Dystopian · Speculative Fiction
Our take
When his human suddenly falls apart, S.T., a domesticated crow, ventures into a ruined Seattle where humanity is disappearing fast. With only his dog companion and half learned TV wisdom, he navigates zombies, chaos, and unexpected courage. A darkly funny, tender apocalypse novel by Kira Jane Buxton that blends survival, grief, and hope.
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About the book
A finalist for the 2020 Thurber Prize for American Humor!
"The Secret Life of Pets meets The Walking Dead" in this big-hearted, boundlessly beautiful romp through the Apocalypse, where a foul-mouthed crow is humanity's only chance to survive Seattle's zombie problem (Karen Joy Fowler, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author).
S.T., a domesticated crow, is a bird of simple pleasures: hanging out with his owner Big Jim, trading insults with Seattle's wild crows (i.e. "those idiots"), and enjoying the finest food humankind has to offer: Cheetos ®.
But when Big Jim's eyeball falls out of his head, S.T. starts to think something's not quite right. His tried-and-true remedies—from beak-delivered beer to the slobbering affection of Big Jim's loyal but dim-witted dog, Dennis—fail to cure Big Jim's debilitating malady. S.T. is left with no choice but to abandon his old life and venture out into a wild and frightening new world with his trusty steed Dennis, where he suddenly discovers that the neighbors are devouring one other. Local wildlife is abuzz with rumors of Seattle's dangerous new predators.
Humanity's extinction has seemingly arrived, and the only one determined to save it is a cowardly crow whose only knowledge of the world comes from TV.
What could possibly go wrong?
Includes a Reading Group Guide.
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In Mongrels, a boy grows up on the margins, traveling the back roads of the South with an aunt and uncle who live by secrets and survival.
Mongrels
Horror · Literary Fiction · Indigenous Fiction · Speculative Fiction
Our take
In Mongrels, a boy grows up on the margins, traveling the back roads of the South with an aunt and uncle who live by secrets and survival. As he waits to learn what he truly is, loyalty and belonging collide with violence and change. Stephen Graham Jones delivers an award finalist coming of age horror novel praised by Tor.com and Book Riot.
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About the book
FINALIST FOR THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD * FINALIST FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD * FINALIST FOR THE THIS IS HORROR AWARD * HONORABLE MENTION, LOCUS AWARDS * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2016 BY TOR.COM AND BOOK RIOT
A spellbinding and darkly humorous coming-of-age story about an unusual boy, whose family lives on the fringe of society and struggles to survive in a hostile world that shuns and fears them.
He was born an outsider, like the rest of his family. Poor yet resilient, he lives in the shadows with his aunt Libby and uncle Darren, folk who stubbornly make their way in a society that does not understand or want them. They are mongrels, mixed blood, neither this nor that. The boy at the center of Mongrels must decide if he belongs on the road with his aunt and uncle, or if he fits with the people on the other side of the tracks.
For ten years, he and his family have lived a life of late-night exits and narrow escapes--always on the move across the South to stay one step ahead of the law. But the time is drawing near when Darren and Libby will finally know if their nephew is like them or not. And the close calls they've been running from for so long are catching up fast now. Everything is about to change.
A compelling and fascinating journey, Mongrels alternates between past and present to create an unforgettable portrait of a boy trying to understand his family and his place in a complex and unforgiving world. A smart and innovative story-- funny, bloody, raw, and real--told in a rhythmic voice full of heart, Mongrels is a deeply moving, sometimes grisly, novel that illuminates the challenges and tender joys of a life beyond the ordinary in a bold and imaginative new way.
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Six years after the catastrophe at Jurassic Park, whispers emerge that dinosaurs may still roam a second, hidden island.
The Lost World
Speculative Fiction · Sci-Fi · Genetic Engineering
Our take
Six years after the catastrophe at Jurassic Park, whispers emerge that dinosaurs may still roam a second, hidden island. Drawn back into danger, scientists and explorers race to uncover the truth and survive the consequences of genetic engineering gone wrong. Michael Crichton’s The Lost World delivers relentless tension, breathtaking action, and the haunting question of what science has set loose.
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About the book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Timeline, Sphere, and Congo comes the sequel to the smash-hit Jurassic Park, a thriller that’s been millions of years in the making.
“Fast and gripping.”—The Washington Post Book World
It is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park, six years since the extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end—the dinosaurs destroyed, the park dismantled, and the island indefinitely closed to the public.
There are rumors that something has survived. . . .
“Harrowing thrills . . . fast-paced and engaging.”—People
“A very scary read.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Action-packed.”—New York Daily News
“An edge-of-the-seat tale.”—St. Petersburg Times
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Ideal for readers looking for funny, flamboyant sci-fi with aliens, spectacle, music, and absurdly high stakes.
Space Opera
Speculative Fiction · Sci-Fi · First Contact · Space Opera
Our take
A Hugo Award finalist for Best Novel, Space Opera sends Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes to represent Earth in a galactic song competition where failure means extermination, with a 4.0-star rating from more than 2,100 Amazon reviewers. Ideal for readers looking for funny, flamboyant sci-fi with aliens, spectacle, music, and absurdly high stakes.
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About the book
2019 HUGO AWARD FINALIST, BEST NOVEL
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets the joy and glamour of Eurovision in bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente's science fiction spectacle, where sentient races compete for glory in a galactic musical contest…and the stakes are as high as the fate of planet Earth.
A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented—something to cheer up everyone who was left and bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, and understanding.
Once every cycle, the great galactic civilizations gather for the Metagalactic Grand Prix—part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past. Species far and wide compete in feats of song, dance and/or whatever facsimile of these can be performed by various creatures who may or may not possess, in the traditional sense, feet, mouths, larynxes, or faces. And if a new species should wish to be counted among the high and the mighty, if a new planet has produced some savage group of animals, machines, or algae that claim to be, against all odds, sentient? Well, then they will have to compete. And if they fail? Sudden extermination for their entire species.
This year, though, humankind has discovered the enormous universe. And while they expected to discover a grand drama of diplomacy, gunships, wormholes, and stoic councils of aliens, they have instead found glitter, lipstick, and electric guitars. Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny—they must sing.
Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes have been chosen to represent their planet on the greatest stage in the galaxy. And the fate of Earth lies in their ability to rock.
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Kim Stanley Robinson reimagines world history after the Black Death wipes out nearly all of Europe, reshaping global power and belief for centuries.
The Years of Rice and Salt
Speculative Fiction · Sci-Fi · Hard Sci-Fi
Our take
Kim Stanley Robinson reimagines world history after the Black Death wipes out nearly all of Europe, reshaping global power and belief for centuries. Through the lives of soldiers, scholars, rulers, and exiles, a new world emerges—one led by Islamic and Buddhist traditions, marked by upheaval, innovation, and enduring human questions. A Locus Award winner from a master of speculative storytelling.
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About the book
WINNER OF THE LOCUS AWARD • The bestselling author of the Mars trilogy boldly reimagines the past seven hundred years in this “exceptional and engrossing” (New York Post) saga, constructing a world vastly different from the one we know. . .
“A thoughtful, magisterial alternate history from one of science fiction’s most important writers.”—The New York Times Book Review
It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur—the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe’s population was destroyed. But what if the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? The Years of Rice and Salt is a look at the history that could have been—one that stretches across centuries, sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, and spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation.
Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, inventors and exiles, renowned storyteller Kim Stanley Robinson navigates a world where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions, while Christianity is a mere historical footnote. Probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power—and even love—in this bold new world.
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In a near future where nanotherapy grants virtual immortality, literary scholar Yonghun vanishes and returns changed, raising unsettling questions about identity.
Toward Eternity
Dystopian · LGBTQIA+ · Literary Fiction · Sci-Fi · Speculative Fiction
Our take
In a near future where nanotherapy grants virtual immortality, literary scholar Yonghun vanishes and returns changed, raising unsettling questions about identity. His creation, an AI taught to understand poetry, is placed into an android body and given life, sparking a new evolution of sentient beings. Anton Hur delivers a haunting, lyrical exploration of personhood, progress, and love’s endurance.
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About the book
"A love story spanning multiple millenniums, life-forms and variations on immortality, the book posits Victorian poetry as a weapon of empire, insists on nature's resilience in the face of genocide, and manipulates prose into something like a new language....Toward Eternity recognizes both the building and burning of bridges." -New York Times
*A PARADE, LITHUB, and CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS Best New Book. *An AUDIOFILE EARPHONES AWARD WINNER.
Negotiating the terrain of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun and Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility, a brilliant, haunting speculative novel from a #1 New York Times bestselling translator that sets out to answer the question: What does it mean to be human in a world where technology is quickly catching up to biology?
In a near-future world, a new technological therapy is quickly eradicating cancer. The body’s cells are entirely replaced with nanites—robot or android cells which not only cure those afflicted but leaves them virtually immortal.
Literary researcher Yonghun teaches an AI how to understand poetry and creates a living, thinking machine he names Panit, meaning Beloved, in honor of his husband. When Yonghun—himself a recipient of nanotherapy—mysteriously vanishes into thin air and then just as suddenly reappears, the event raises disturbing questions. What happened to Yonghun, and though he’s returned, is he really himself anymore?
When Dr. Beeko, the scientist who holds the patent to the nanotherapy technology, learns of Panit, he transfers its consciousness from the machine into an android body, giving it freedom and life. As Yonghun, Panit, and other nano humans thrive—and begin to replicate—their development will lead them to a crossroads and a choice with existential consequences.
Exploring the nature of intelligence and the unexpected consequences of progress, the meaning of personhood and life, and what we really have to fear from technology and the future, Toward Eternity is a gorgeous, thought-provoking novel that challenges the notion of what makes us human—and how love survives even the end of that humanity.
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After losing her job and facing yet another rejection, Zelu writes a strange, far-future novel that unexpectedly propels her to literary fame—and threatens to consume both her life…
Death of the Author
Literary Fiction · Contemporary Fiction · Magical Realism · People of Color · Speculative Fiction
Our take
After losing her job and facing yet another rejection, Zelu writes a strange, far-future novel that unexpectedly propels her to literary fame—and threatens to consume both her life and the story she meant to tell. From Chicago to Lagos and beyond, she confronts identity, autonomy, and the cost of creation. An instant national bestseller praised for its ambition and emotional depth.
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About the book
THE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Recommended by New York Times Book Review• People • NPR • Rolling Stone• Los Angeles Times• Reader's Digest• and more!
“This one has it all.” — George R.R. Martin • “As delicious as it is disorienting.” — Zakiya Dalila Harris • “Suspenseful, timely, and heartfelt.” — People • “Mind-bending.” — New York Times Book Review
In this exhilarating tale by New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor, a disabled Nigerian American woman pens a wildly successful Sci-Fi novel, but as her fame rises, she loses control of the narrative—a surprisingly cutting, yet heartfelt drama about art and love, identity and connection, and, ultimately, what makes us human. This is a story unlike anything you’ve read before.
The future of storytelling is here.
Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister’s lavish Caribbean wedding, she’s unceremoniously fired from her university job and, to add insult to injury, her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It’s a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. She calls it Rusted Robots.
When Zelu finds the courage to share her strange novel, she does not realize she is about to embark on a life-altering journey—one that will catapult her into literary stardom, but also perhaps obliterate everything her book was meant to be. From Chicago to Lagos to the far reaches of space, Zelu’s novel will change the future not only for humanity, but for the robots who come next.
A book-within-a-book that blends the line between writing and being written, Death of the Author is a masterpiece of metafiction that manages to combine the razor-sharp commentary of Yellowface with the heartfelt humanity of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Surprisingly funny, deeply poignant, and endlessly discussable, this is at once the tale of a woman on the margins risking everything to be heard and a testament to the power of storytelling to shape the world as we know it.
“An ambitious, inventive tribute to the power of storytelling itself.” — Nikki Erlick, New York Times bestselling author of The Measure
“A deeply felt dazzle. A blaze. It is true deep to the bones.” — Luis Alberto Urrea, Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of The House of Broken Angels
"There’s more vivid imagination in a page of Nnedi Okorafor’s work than in whole volumes." — Ursula K. Le Guin
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Ideal for readers drawn to ambitious science fiction about technology, consciousness, mortality, and digital worlds.
Fall; or, Dodge in Hell
Sci-Fi · Hard Sci-Fi · Speculative Fiction · Techno-Thriller
Our take
A New York Times bestseller called “an audacious epic with more than enough heart” by Kirkus Reviews, this speculative novel follows Richard “Dodge” Forthrast after his brain is preserved and eventually revived in a digital afterlife called Bitworld, with a 4.1-star rating from more than 6,200 Amazon reviewers. Ideal for readers drawn to ambitious science fiction about technology, consciousness, mortality, and digital worlds.
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About the book
New York Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Seveneves, Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon returns with a wildly inventive and entertaining science fiction thriller—Paradise Lost by way of Philip K. Dick—that unfolds in the near future, in parallel worlds.
In his youth, Richard “Dodge” Forthrast founded Corporation 9592, a gaming company that made him a multibillionaire. Now in his middle years, Dodge appreciates his comfortable, unencumbered life, managing his myriad business interests, and spending time with his beloved niece Zula and her young daughter, Sophia.
One beautiful autumn day, while he undergoes a routine medical procedure, something goes irrevocably wrong. Dodge is pronounced brain dead and put on life support, leaving his stunned family and close friends with difficult decisions. Long ago, when a much younger Dodge drew up his will, he directed that his body be given to a cryonics company now owned by enigmatic tech entrepreneur Elmo Shepherd. Legally bound to follow the directive despite their misgivings, Dodge’s family has his brain scanned and its data structures uploaded and stored in the cloud, until it can eventually be revived.
In the coming years, technology allows Dodge’s brain to be turned back on. It is an achievement that is nothing less than the disruption of death itself. An eternal afterlife—the Bitworld—is created, in which humans continue to exist as digital souls.
But this brave new immortal world is not the Utopia it might first seem . . .
Fall, or Dodge in Hell is pure, unadulterated fun: a grand drama of analog and digital, man and machine, angels and demons, gods and followers, the finite and the eternal. In this exhilarating epic, Neal Stephenson raises profound existential questions and touches on the revolutionary breakthroughs that are transforming our future. Combining the technological, philosophical, and spiritual in one grand myth, he delivers a mind-blowing speculative literary saga for the modern age.
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When the richest man on Earth is offered a journey through space, his search for destiny becomes a cosmic satire of faith and fate.
The Sirens of Titan
Dystopian · Sci-Fi · Space Exploration · Speculative Fiction
Our take
When the richest man on Earth is offered a journey through space, his search for destiny becomes a cosmic satire of faith and fate. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut blends dark humor with philosophical depth in a story that questions free will and purpose. A celebrated classic from one of America’s most inventive writers.
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About the book
Across the galaxies, fate and absurdity collide in a story that questions the very purpose of existence.
In The Sirens of Titan, Malachi Constant, the richest man on Earth, is offered the chance to travel through space with a mysterious woman and uncover his destiny. His journey spirals from privilege to desolation as he confronts a universe where free will, faith, and cosmic design intertwine in darkly comic ways.
Through distant planets and surreal encounters, Vonnegut exposes both the grandeur and the futility of human ambition.
A finalist for The Great American Read and hailed as one of Vonnegut’s finest works, The Sirens of Titan remains a dazzling satire of power, purpose, and the search for meaning among the stars.
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When alien ships appear over Earth, the Overlords bring an end to war and suffering.
Childhood’s End
Sci-Fi · First Contact · Galactic Empire · Speculative Fiction
Our take
When alien ships appear over Earth, the Overlords bring an end to war and suffering. Humanity enters an age of peace, but perfection hides a purpose no one can imagine. Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End is a haunting, prophetic masterpiece about evolution, utopia, and the cost of surrendering control to those who promise salvation.
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About the book
They came in silence, their ships shining above every city on Earth. They promised peace. They delivered something else.
When the Overlords arrive, humanity’s wars end overnight. Poverty, cruelty, and hunger vanish, replaced by a new golden age. Yet beneath this perfect order lies a mystery no one can unravel. The Overlords rule with unseen power, their true purpose hidden behind their calm benevolence.
As decades pass, a chilling truth emerges: their plan for humanity’s future will change the species forever.
Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End is a visionary masterpiece of science fiction, exploring the price of utopia, the limits of progress, and the destiny of a civilization that dares to dream beyond itself.
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After death, Soren Johansson awakens in an infinite library where escape depends on finding the one book that tells his life story.
A Short Stay in Hell
Horror · Literary Fiction · Speculative Fiction
Our take
After death, Soren Johansson awakens in an infinite library where escape depends on finding the one book that tells his life story. A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck is a haunting philosophical tale of faith, futility, and the search for meaning in eternity—a brief stay that feels infinite and profoundly human.
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About the book
Death was not the revelation Soren Johansson expected.
A geologist and devoted Mormon, Soren believed eternity meant reunion and peace. Instead, he awakens in an endless library—an infinite maze of books written in every possible combination of words. Somewhere within its shelves lies a single volume: the story of his life. Only by finding it can he escape.
As years stretch into centuries, Soren confronts madness, memory, and meaning itself in a place where time has no mercy and belief offers no refuge.
In A Short Stay in Hell, author and philosopher Steven L. Peck crafts a haunting meditation on existence, faith, and the futility of human understanding—a brief eternity that feels both infinite and achingly human.
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In U.S.-occupied Baghdad, a junk dealer stitches together a body from war’s dead—only for it to vanish and return as a vengeful killer.
Frankenstein in Baghdad
Literary Fiction · Thriller · Speculative Fiction · Suspense
Our take
In U.S.-occupied Baghdad, a junk dealer stitches together a body from war’s dead—only for it to vanish and return as a vengeful killer. As horror spreads, justice and vengeance become indistinguishable. Winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Frankenstein in Baghdad is a gripping, blackly comic tale of creation and consequence.
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In war-torn Baghdad, Hadi, a junk dealer and storyteller, scours the wreckage for human remains—hoping to honor the dead by sewing their parts into a single body and demanding recognition for lives lost to chaos. But when his creation disappears, a string of brutal murders grips the city, each victim chosen according to a twisted sense of justice.
As rumors of an unkillable monster spread through occupied Baghdad, fear gives way to moral reckoning. Who deserves vengeance in a world where innocence and guilt blur beyond repair?
Winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and a finalist for the International Booker Prize, Frankenstein in Baghdad is a darkly funny, haunting allegory of war, guilt, and resurrection.
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