Category Archives: Science Fiction

Touch by Claire North

Touch by Claire North

Kepler had never meant to die this way — viciously beaten to death by a stinking vagrant in a dark back alley. But when reaching out to the murderer for salvation in those last dying moments, a sudden switch takes place.

Now Kepler is looking out through the eyes of the killer himself, staring down at a broken and ruined body lying in the dirt of the alley. Instead of dying, Kepler has gained the ability to roam from one body to another, to jump into another person’s skin and see through their eyes, live their life — be it for a few minutes, a few months or a lifetime.

Kepler means these host bodies no harm — and even comes to cherish them intimately like lovers. But when one host, Josephine Cebula, is brutally assassinated, Kepler embarks on a mission to seek the truth — and avenge Josephine’s death.

.Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape discussed
  • Torture

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

Some stories cannot be told in just one lifetime. Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. “I nearly missed you, Doctor August,” she says. “I need to send a message.” This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

.Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Rape
  • Suicide
  • Overdose
  • Medical experimentation
  • Cancer
  • AIDS
  • Infanticide
  • Torture, on-page
  • Incarceration

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.

Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That’s how war works. Right?

.Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Self-harm
  • Graphic blood & gore depiction
  • Dead bodies and body parts
  • Blood-drinking
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Gun violence
  • Poisoning
  • Torture
  • Imprisonment
  • Animal death
  • War themes

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Domestic violence
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Blood depiction
  • Death of a parent
  • Murder & attempted murder
  • Mass shooting
  • Torture
  • Physical assault
  • Car accident
  • Arson

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square-shaped hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.

Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved – the object’s origins, architects, and purpose unknown.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

.Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Graphic physical injury
  • Nonconsensual surgery
  • Medical experimentation
  • Explosion
  • Car accident

Arrival by Ted Chiang

Arrival by Ted Chiang

From a soaring Babylonian tower that connects a flat Earth with the heavens above, to a world where angelic visitations are a wondrous and terrifying part of everyday life; from a neural modification that eliminates the appeal of physical beauty, to an alien language that challenges our very perception of time and reality… Chiang’s rigorously imagined stories invite us to question our understanding of the universe and our place in it.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Terminal illness
  • Death of a child

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

What if men built a tower from Earth to Heaven-and broke through to Heaven’s other side? What if we discovered that the fundamentals of mathematics were arbitrary and inconsistent? What if there were a science of naming things that calls life into being from inanimate matter? What if exposure to an alien language forever changed our perception of time? What if all the beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity were literally true, and the sight of sinners being swallowed into fiery pits were a routine event on city streets? These are the kinds of outrageous questions posed by the stories of Ted Chiang. Stories of your life . . . and others..

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Terminal illness
  • Death of a child

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Kidnapping
  • Stalking

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green

The Carls disappeared the same way they appeared, in an instant. While they were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction without ever lifting a finger. Well, that’s not exactly true. Part of their maelstrom was the sudden viral fame and untimely death of April May: a young woman who stumbled into Carl’s path, giving them their name, becoming their advocate, and putting herself in the middle of an avalanche of conspiracy theories. Months later, the world is as confused as ever. Andy has picked up April’s mantle of fame, speaking at conferences and online about the world… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Internalised ableism
  • Blood and graphic physical injury depiction including body horror and body dysmorphia due to prosthetics
  • Hospitalisation
  • Kidnapping & captivity
  • Gun violence
  • Strangulation
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)
  • Terrorist attacks discussed

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship–like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armour–April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world–everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires–and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the centre… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Bimisia
  • Graphic physical injury
  • Hospitalisation
  • Attempted murder by gun violence and stabbing
  • Terrorist attack (explosion)
  • Building collapse from a fire, on-page
  • Loss of autonomy (mind control)