Alternative Sci-Fi Fantasy Guide
Selected by the Bookshop
From the publisher:
A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR'Gnomon is an extraordinary novel, and one I can't stop thinking about some weeks after I read it. It is deeply troubling, magnificently strange, and an exhilarating read.' Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station…
From the publisher:
A special anniversary edition, with a striking new cover design, to celebrate 10 years of the Chaos Walking trilogy.Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in a constant, overwhelming Noise. There is…
From the publisher:
Winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, China Mieville's astonishing Embassytown is an intelligent and immersive exploration of language in an alien world.Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the…
Scifi; Fantasy; Gene Wolfe; Book of the New Sun; SF Classics
From the publisher:
Akira 1 introduces readers to a gritty Neo-Tokyo, built on the ashes of a Tokyo annihilated by a blast of unknown origin that triggered World War III. The lives of two streetwise teenage friends, Tetsuo and Kaneda, change forever when…
From the publisher:
A gorgeous and brutal story that revolts against the notion of violence as the only response to a life without hope. The Sea, secretly more complex than anyone imagined, rises one day. The horizon folds as the Sea absorbs the world and…
From the publisher:
The first sixteen tales in this collection were published by Canongate in 1983 with the title Unlikely Stories, Mostly. This collection also has fifty-seven tales from later books, plus sixteen new ones written for the hardback publication…
From the publisher:
'One of the most significant literary artists of the twentieth century' JUNOT DIAZ'Octavia Butler was playing out our very real possibilities as humans. I think she can help each of us to do the same' GLORIA STEINEMOne woman is called upon…
From the publisher:
'A contemporary masterpiece' Guardian THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE EXTRAORDINARY SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND (EX MACHINA) AND STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN AND OSCAR ISAAC For thirty years,…
From the publisher:
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLEREscape into a world of magic, adventure and danger, for fans of Tolkein, Pratchett, George R. R. Martin and Ursula Le Guin, as well as Octavia Butler and N. K. Jemisin 'Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the kind of novel…
From the publisher:
WINNER OFHugo Award for Best NovellaNebula Award for Best NovellaReddit Stabby Award for Best NovellaBritish Science Fiction Association Award for Best NovellaSHORTLISTED FOR2020 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial AwardThe Ray Bradbury…
From the publisher:
Translated by Megan McDowellHis father could find what was lost. His father knew when someone was going to die. His father had talked to him about the dead who rode in on the wind. The dead travel fast.Gaspar is six years old when the…
From the publisher:
From the bestselling, award-winning master of uncanny fiction comes a defining work, twenty years in the making – a deeply moving, decade- and continent-spanning epic of grief, global tumult, and grim conspiracy. Maur’s life has…
From the publisher:
Genly Ai is an ethnologist observing the people of the planet Gethen, a world perpetually in winter. The people there are androgynous, normally neuter, but they can become male ot female at the peak of their sexual cycle. They seem to Genly…
From the publisher:
A beautiful fairytale filled with unexpected plot twists.Gormenghast is the vast, crumbling castle to which the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, is lord and heir. Titus is expected to rule this gothic labyrinth of turrets and dungeons…
Recommended by Claire
‘Babel-17 is a sci-fi novel concerned with language, and specifically the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. It is serious and philosophical, but still a visually rich big space romp. Read everything you can by Sam Delaney!’
From the publisher:
The 30th Anniversary edition of Jeff Noon’s award winning cult classic, VurtTotally feathered up and living on the dub side…Take a trip in a stranger’s head. Travel rain-shot streets with a gang of hip malcontents,…
From the publisher:
In Viriconium, the young men whistle to one another all night long as they go about their deadly games. If you wake suddenly, you might hear footsteps running, or an urgent sigh. After a minute or two, the whistles move away in the…
From the publisher:
Translated by Barbara J. HavelandLonglisted for the International Booker Prize 2025The first volume of the poetic, page-turning masterpiece about one woman's fall through the cracks of time.'A total explosion.' Nicole…
From the publisher:
'A benchmark not just for imaginative writing but for the human imagination in itself...Read this book, and marvel.' Alan Moore'A work of genius.' Iain Sinclair'Brian Catling is simply a genius. His writing is so extraordinary it hurts.'…
From the publisher:
'The best single work of science fiction yet written' Ursula K. Le GuinThe dystopian masterwork that inspired George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, We depicts a futuristic totalitarian society, 'OneState', where humans have become numbers.…
From the publisher:
From the author of 'Crash' and 'Cocaine Nights' comes an unnerving tale of life in a modern tower block running out of control. Within the concealing walls of an elegant forty-storey tower block, the affluent tenants are hell-bent on an…
From the publisher:
“Pheby is a writer possessed of unusual – indeed, extraordinary – powers.” —The GuardianGOD IS DEAD, his corpse hidden in the catacombs beneath Mordew.In the slums of the sea-battered city a young boy called…
Recommended by Saff
’A lonely housewife falls in love with an amphibious sea monster, Larry – an escaped science experiment. For lovers of David Lynch, Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood, this eerie, witty and profound novel is an unputdownable feminist masterpiece.’
From the publisher:
*COMING SOON: the second novel from Booker-longlisted Sophie Mackintosh**Blue Ticket, a chilling new novel about freedom, fate and motherhood - out 7 May 2020* British Vogue 'Star of the Future' for 2020Independent Best Books of the…
From the publisher:
Translated by Sylvia ClaytonIntroduced by Jeff VanderMeer – ‘a classic: stunning, dangerous, darkly beautiful’ – welcome to the post-apocalyptic White Lotus: a luxury hotel at the end of the world in this lost…
From the publisher:
'I loved this novel's brain and heart'DAVID MITCHELL, AUTHOR OF CLOUD ATLAS'A first-rate speculative thriller, by turns fascinating, brutal, powerful, and redemptive'JEFF VANDERMEER, AUTHOR OF ANNIHILATIONThere are creatures in the water…
From the publisher:
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best NovelBook 1 in the record-breaking triple Hugo-Award-winning trilogy***One of Time Magazine's top 100 fantasy books of all time******Shortlisted for the World Fantasy, Nebula, Kitschies, Audie and Locus…
From the publisher:
'Few novelists match the intensity of her vision' J. G. BallardNo one knows why the ice has come, and no one can stop it. Every day it creeps further across the earth, covering the land in snow and freezing everything in its path.…
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