Literary Science Fiction

1984 is a novel by the British author George Orwell in 1949. The narrative unfolds in an imagined future when most of the world has fallen prey to omnipresent government surveillance, propaganda, and endless war. Great Britain has become a province of the super state Oceania, which is ruled by the Party, whose leader is called Big Brother. The Party employs the Thought Police to persecute individuality and independent thinking. Winston Smith, the protagonist, is an ordinary worker who secretly despises the Party and dreams of rebellion.

Set in a terrifyingly familiar near future, with massive floods leading to rampant homelessness and devastation, a government-sanctioned regime called The Boots seizes the opportunity to round up communities of color, the disabled, and the LGBTQ+ into labor camps. In the shadows, a new hero emerges. After he loses his livelihood as a drag queen and the love of his life, Kay joins the resistance alongside Bahadur, a transmasculine refugee, and Firuzeh, a headstrong social worker.

The ruling Asharites of Al-Rassan have come from the desert sands, but over centuries, seduced by the sensuous pleasures of their new land, their stern piety has eroded. The Asharite empire has splintered into decadent city-states led by warring petty kings. King Almalik of Cartada is on the ascendancy, aided always by his friend and advisor, the notorious Ammar ibn Khairan - poet, diplomat, soldier - until a summer afternoon of savage brutality changes their relationship forever.

All residents of the City have recently died, and they will remain in the City only as long as someone still living on Earth remembers them. On Earth, however, the population has been devastated by a terrible pandemic. Laura Byrd, isolated at an Antarctic research station, may be the only person to have survived the pandemic. But she's running out of time and supplies, and her memories are fading.

Lost in time, the town of Black Creek, Kentucky becomes home to temporal layers of people, creatures, and monsters from disparate eras. Journey beyond the time of humanity and witness the rewriting of mankind’s genesis. For Owen McCoy, a typical day on the job as head of security for Synergy, a research company conducting mysterious experiments, is boring at best. And that’s the way he likes it. Patrolling the Appalachian mountainside, where his now deceased father taught him how to hunt, is relaxing and connects him to the past.

Two and a half millennia ago, the artifact appeared in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a different universe. It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did nothing. Then it disappeared.

Gondolin, beautiful but undiscoverable, is central to the enmity of two of the greatest powers in the world. Morgoth of the uttermost evil seeks in vain to discover the marvellously hidden city of his Elven enemies, while the gods in Valinor refuse to support Ulmo Lord of Waters' designs to protect it. Into this world comes Tuor, cousin of Túrin, and guided unseen by Ulmo he sets out on the fearful journey to Gondolin to warn them of their coming doom.

Helene Wecker's dazzling debut novel tells the story of two supernatural creatures who appear mysteriously in 1899 New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a strange man who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York Harbor. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian Desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop.

All the stories in this collection from Stephen King are related to the Vietnam War. King fans will recognize echoes of The Dark Tower series in the collection's first story, "Low Men in Yellow Coats." As the characters develop over the next four stories, King's version of the Vietnam War becomes one of his most frightening tales ever.

Spanning six decades of the 1800s, this mesmerizing story is a fictional biography of Marie Laveau - one of the most haunting characters in New Orleans’ history. Part of a long line of voodoo priestesses and healers, Marie tells of the mystery, passion, and violence that pattern her life. Like her grandmother, Marie sees visions from an early age. She never knew her mother, who practiced a spiritualism so potent she was murdered by those who feared her.

Three men are found dead in the locked second floor office of a Honolulu building, with no sign of struggle except ultra-fine, razor-sharp cuts covering their bodies. The only clue left behind is a tiny bladed robot, nearly unrecognizable to the human eye.

Set in the wake of a galaxywide war and the destruction of a human empire, The Dangerous Type follows the awakening of one of the galaxy's most dangerous assassins and her quest for vengeance. Entombed for 20 years, Raena has been found and released. Thallian has been on the lam for the last 15 years. He's a wanted war criminal whose entire family has been hunted down and murdered for their role in the galaxywide genocide of the Templars.

Winter lasts most of the year at the edge of the Russian wilderness, and in the long nights, Vasilisa and her siblings love to gather by the fire to listen to their nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, Vasya loves the story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon. Wise Russians fear him, for he claims unwary souls, and they honor the spirits that protect their homes from evil. Then Vasya’s widowed father brings home a new wife from Moscow. Fiercely devout, Vasya’s stepmother forbids her family from honoring their household spirits, but Vasya fears what this may bring.

A strange plague called the "Gets" is decimating humanity on a global scale. It causes people to forget - small things at first, like where they left their keys... then the not-so-small things like how to drive, or the letters of the alphabet. Then their bodies forget how to function involuntarily - and there is no cure. But now, far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, deep in the Marianas Trench, an heretofore unknown substance hailed as "ambrosia" has been discovered - a universal healer, from initial reports.

The Twelve have been destroyed, and the 100-year reign of darkness that descended upon the world has ended. The survivors are stepping outside their walls, determined to build society anew - and daring to dream of a hopeful future.

Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around—and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in . . . for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system.

In an astonishing feat of empathy and narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected president. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.

Alex Verus is part of a world hidden in plain sight, running a magic shop in London. And while Alex's own powers aren't as showy as some mages, he does have the advantage of foreseeing the possible future-allowing him to pull off operations that have a million-to-one-chance of success. But when Alex is approached by multiple factions to crack open a relic from a long-ago mage war, he knows that whatever's inside must be beyond powerful.

Bellona is a city at the dead center of the United States. Something has happened there...the population has fled. Madmen and criminals wander the streets. Strange portents appear in the cloud-covered sky. And into this disaster zone comes a young man - a poet, a lover, and an adventurer - known only as the Kid.

Sur Ganymède, un sergent des Marines de Mars assiste au massacre de sa section d'élite par un supersoldat monstrueux. Sur Terre, une personnalité politique de haut rang s'évertue à éviter un conflit interplanétaire. Sur Vénus, la protomolécule extraterrestre a investi la planète entière, générant des bouleversements mystérieux qui menacent tout le système solaire.