Continuing our Sci-Fi theme, inspired by Star Wars Day on Monday, today’s post is designed to introduce you to some great science-fiction reads that are a little less well-known with the hope of inspiring you to add one (or more) to your reading list…
1. The Wall by John Lancaster
Longlisted for The Booker Prize in 2019, this novel is set in the aftermath of a catastrophic climate disaster referred to as ‘the Change’ and follows the fate of a young protagonist who has to take his turn defending the nation.
The Booker Prize describes it as follows: 'The Wall is a thrilling and hypnotic work of fiction: a mystery story, a love story, a war story and a story about a voyage. Kavanagh begins his life patrolling the Wall. If he’s lucky, if nothing goes wrong, he has only two years of this: 729 more nights. The best thing that can happen is that he survives and gets off the Wall and never has to spend another day of his life anywhere near it. He longs for this to be over; longs to be somewhere else. The Wall is a novel about why the young are right to distrust the old. It’s about a broken world you will recognise as your own – and about what might be found when all is lost.'
2. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
This is a story of Charlie Gordon, a cleaner who has an IQ of 68, but who 'reely wantd to lern I wantid it more even then pepul who are smarter even then me … all my life I wantid to be smart and not dumb'. Charlie’s wish seems to be granted when he takes part in a University experiment, based on research conducted on the lab mouse Algernon, which turns Charlie into a genius. The novel is written in a series of diary entries by Charlie which see his spelling and understanding change as the experiment takes effect.
In his 1999 memoir, Keys wrote: 'I thought: my education is driving a wedge between me and the people I love. And then I wondered: What would happen if it were possible to increase a person's intelligence?' A beautiful and thought-provoking story that has stayed with me since I first read it many years ago.
3. 1Q84 by Haruki Murikami
Many of Murakami’s novels play with the idea of parallel dimensions which characters slip into – in 1Q84 it is an emergency staircase leading down from a city motorway where Aomame finds herself heading entering a version of 1984 she calls 1Q84.
Meanwhile, Tengo, an aspiring writer, takes on a strange ghostwriting project that leads him into a different but equally unsettling series of events. The novel is vast and complex – Murikami himself said that he wanted to make a simple story as complicated as possible in his writing of 1Q84 and he delivers. Fascinating and fantastical this is not for the fainthearted but is a compelling read if you have the time and inclination….
4. The Power by Naomi Alderman
Alderman’s novel imagines a world where women have developed ‘The Power’, an ability to release electric jolts from their fingertips. Suddenly physically dominant over men, this novel imagines how the world might evolve and adapt.
The novel follows four main protagonists: Allie, a mistreated young kid in the American foster system who reinvents herself as faith leader Mother Eve, and is seeking to build a community away from men; she joins forces with Roxy, the daughter of a London crime boss, who revels in her new abilities. Tunde is a Nigerian journalist reporting on seismic global change and discovering what it’s like to be an attractive young man in a woman’s world; while Margot is an American politician on the rise, whose relationship with The Power is complicated by her position and ambitions. As the title suggests, this novel explores power and what happens when people get it and loose it.
5. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
The novel that inspired the film Blade Runner, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? tells the story of Rick Deckard, bounty hunter, who is licensed to ‘retire’ replicas.
He takes on an assignment with a huge reward but things do not go according to plan… Philip K Dick is also the author of The Man in the High Castle - why not take some time away from a screen to read the texts that inspired the shows?
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