Metaphysical Fiction

Mrs Death has had enough. She is exhausted from spending eternity doing her job, and now she seeks someone to unburden her conscience to. Wolf Willeford, a troubled young writer, is well acquainted with death but until now hadn't met Death in person - a Black, working-class woman who shape-shifts and does her work unseen. Enthralled by her stories, Wolf becomes Mrs Death's scribe and begins to write her memoirs. Using their desk as a conduit, Wolf travels across time and place with Mrs Death to witness deaths of past and present and discuss what the future holds for humanity.

The New Atlantis (1627) is a utopian novel by Sir Francis Bacon in which he describes a vision of the future of human discovery, expressing his aspirations and ideals for humanity. The novel portrays a utopian world where "generosity and enlightenment, dignity and splendour, piety and public spirit" are the dominant qualities of the inhabitants.

Siddhartha is a novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of an Indian man named Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha. The word Siddhartha derives from two words in the Sanskrit language, siddha (achieved) + artha (meaning or wealth). The two words together mean “he who has found meaning (of existence)” or “he who has attained his goals”.

In 1872, the American merchant vessel Mary Celeste was discovered adrift off the coast of Spain. Her cargo was intact, but the crew was gone. They were never found. While on a voyage to Africa, an unproven young writer named Arthur Conan Doyle hears of the Mary Celeste and decides to write an outlandish story about what took place. This story causes quite a sensation back in the United States, particularly between sought-after Philadelphia spiritualist medium Violet Petra and a journalist named Phoebe Grant, who is seeking to expose Petra as a fraud.

Each year, the storyteller, Hassan, gathers listeners to the city square to share their recollections of a young, foreign couple who mysteriously disappeared years earlier. As various witnesses describe their encounters with the couple, Hassan hopes to light upon the details that will explain what happened to them, and to absolve his own brother, who is in prison for their disappearance. but is this annual storytelling ritual a genuine attempt to uncover the truth, or is it intended instead to weave and ambiguous mythology around a crime?

Here is the exciting culmination of Ali Smith's celebrated Seasonal Quartet, a series of stand-alone novels, separate but interconnected (as the seasons are), wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories.

It is a perfect spring day in Istanbul. Kemal, a wealthy heir, is about to become engaged to the aristocratic Sibel when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shop girl. He falls in love and finds his established world of Westernized families, opulent parties, society gossip and dining room rituals is shattered.

On December 21st, 2012, the world was supposed to end. When the apocalyptic date came and went, the world concluded the Mayan prophecy was a myth. But it was not. The Earth was saved by extraordinary intervention from planet Akara — home to an awakened civilization far more evolved than our own.

Grace Berney is a mid-level bureaucrat in the Food and Drug Administration, a woman who once brimmed with purpose but somehow turned into a middle-aged single mom with a dull government job and a melancholy sense that life has passed her by. Until the night a strange photo comes across her desk, of a young woman in a hospital bed who has been subjected to a mysterious procedure.

They knew us before we began to walk upright. Shamans called them guardians, mythmakers called them tricksters, pagans called them gods, churchmen called them demons, folklorists called them shape-shifters. They've obligingly taken any role we've assigned them, and, while needing nothing from us, have accepted whatever we thought was their due?

Greta Wells embarks on a radical psychiatric treatment to alleviate her suffocating depression. But the treatment has unexpected effects, and Greta finds herself transported to the lives she might have had if she'd been born in different eras. During the course of her treatment, Greta cycles between her own time and alternate lives in 1918, where she is a bohemian adulteress, and 1941, which transforms her into a devoted mother and wife. As her final treatment looms, questions arise: What will happen once each Greta learns how to remain in one of the other worlds?

A god-haunted pool in the Yucatan waits for a girl from the future to come of age and accept her obligation to the PaperClan in this literary thriller hailed by critics as a bewitching, breathtaking, lyrical masterpiece. Part Maya myth, part hipster stream-of-modern-day-life, part love letter to this beleaguered planet, this memoir of a time traveler teems with unforgettable characters - some despicable, some lovable, including a charming burro named Pants-on-Fire and the story’s heroine, a doubt-riddled young woman who carries an ancient bloodline with a spark of Maya divinity.

This is a story about how two men from different walks of life learn that neither robes of honor nor the total renunciation of worldly life is required to enjoy the most fundamental human desire—happiness. Happiness is not a philosophical enigma, but an attainable state of the mind and everyone can cherish the greatest joys through the simplest and smallest acts of daily life.

Moving on from the trauma of combat in Afghanistan, former Green Beret Captain Sam Dale has just begun to settle down in his hometown of Castle Rock, Colorado. Now the owner of several small businesses, he is unaware that his world is about to be turned upside down. The call comes in at 2:30 a.m. The skies outside have opened up, unleashing a torrential rainstorm. Sam’s small towing company is being tasked with the retrieval of some kind of crashed aircraft.

What if your dreams were psychic instruction, sending you on an epic journey to prevent the collapse of your entire civilization? This is what happens to Mellinar, a reluctant teenager, who is sent back to Earth in order to fulfill an ancient, mysterious prophecy. She returns to her star federation accompanied by a wise, shape-shifting mentor and a young male Earthling whose fate is ultimately linked with hers. They must carefully avoid detection by ruthless members of the ruling class, while visiting diverse star ships as they attempt to tip the balance of power.

The story is set in the fantasy world of Aurduin where a shape-shifting raven, Orobai, who has lived for thousands of years, discovers a mysterious crystal egg that unexpectedly transforms into a young girl. Created by the mythical Illan to preserve the ancient wisdom of the Altfein-Aryat and protect Aurduin from a prophecy of apocalyptic destruction, Orobai must uncover the identity of the girl, Miraanni, protect her from mysterious pursuers from the west, and travel across Aurduin in search of a safe refuge.

Many millennia after the fall of Eden, Adam, the first man in creation, still walks the Earth - exhausted by the endless death and destruction, he is a shadow of his former hope and glory. And he is not the only one. The Garden was deconstructed, its pieces scattered across the world and its inhabitants condemned to live out immortal lives, hiding in plain sight from generations of mankind.

After discovering the secrets to the Gaalderkhani tiles - ancient computers that house not just memories but untold destructive force - Caitlin O'Hara's son gets accidentally thrust back in time. In order to save him, she must master the power of the tiles and figure out what the Gaalderkhani's modern relatives are searching and killing for. Can she put the pieces together and bring her son back home again?

"Je chanterai maintenant la beauté de ce monde qui est notre tout fragile, passager, fluctuant et qui est notre seul trésor pour nous autres, pauvres hommes, aveuglés par l'orgueil, condamnés à l'éphémère, emportés dans le temps et dans ce présent éternel qui finira bien, un jour ou l'autre, par s'écrouler à jamais dans le néant de Dieu et dans sa gloire cachée."

Brian Polk had been stateside for barely a year after leaving the Air Force when the unthinkable happened. It was an interstellar invasion. The Earupitans' technology and weaponry was so remarkable, humanity never really had a chance. The aliens now walk brazenly among humans - their reptilian eyes always watchful, always scrutinizing. Humanity now lives in fear - freedom is a thing of the past. And then there are those who have befriended the enemy. But not Captain Brian Polk. When he acquires some of the alien technology, he finally has hope of making some small difference.