Today on Friday Fives, I’m taking you to some strange new worlds. Some of my favorite science fiction stories are favorites because of the world building, so it was easy to come up with five books, but hard to decide which five to pick! These are mostly recent reads, with the exception of Borne, which I read back in 2017. These books contain unforgettable worlds and locations, and the stories have lingered with me ever since I read them.
Descendant Machine by Gareth L. Powell. This fantastic space opera (seriously, read it!) has one of the coolest world building ideas I’ve ever come across. Basically, an alien race has saved our galaxy from destruction by creating thousands of “arks,” ships tailored to each country on Earth that float in space but never land. I explain it better in my review:-)
When We Were Real by Daryl Gregory. Imagine you are just living your life, and suddenly you find out that everything you believe to be real is only a computer simulation? That’s the set up for this funny, offbeat story.
The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei. This story is full of strange new worlds, but one of my favorite locations is a museum full of old artifacts.
Borne by Jeff Vandermeer. This is one of my all time favorite SF books, and the world is one of the strangest and most wonder-filled I’ve ever encountered. I could have easily chosen Vandermeer’s Annihilation for this prompt as well. Jeff Vandermeer is one of the most creative writers I know.
Infinity Gate by M.R. Carey. Carey’s epic space opera (and I do mean epic) is full of thousands of alternate worlds that can be accessed by Step technology, which allows instantaneous travel between worlds. Coincidentally, my current read, Outlaw Planet, is set in the same world, so it’s fun to revisit it!
The cover of The Stardust Grail still fascinates me. The tentacle!
I love the cover!
I have to read more M.R. Carey!
He’s amazing!
Descendant World and Infinity Gate are both STILL on my to-read list! Thanks for the reminder! I’m going to try to need to get to both of these in the coming year.
Good luck getting to them, I highly recommend both:-)
There are many of these I would like to read.
I recommend all of them:-)
I really fancy the Daryl Gregory book.
Lynn 😀
It was fun, not my favorite of his but worth reading.
I think I’d be terrified to find myself in the world of Annihilation etc!
Oh me too!
I have The Stardust Grail and Infinity Gate on my TBR, and what you wrote about them makes me even more curious!! They sound fascinating!!
They are both really good:-)
I’ve yet to read any of these but I love the topic and hope to try some of them. Right now I’m reading Blade by Linda Nagata, the 4th book in her Inverted Frontier series, a series that’s full of strange new worlds.
I have never read Linda Nagata, but some day:-)
I need to get hold of The Stardust Grail as I love her writing. I’m not particularly tempted by Outlaw Planet as I was a bit frustrated by Infinity Gate – I thought there was too much telling and info-dumping. As for strong sci fi worlds – I think The Orthagonal by Greg Egan has to be one of the most amazing – he changes physics and his aliens are unique and amazing. Talking of amazing aliens, the other one that sticks in my memory is Embassytown by China Mieville. As for a chilling planet – Dark Eden by Chris Beckett and the idea of redundancy and what it does to us – Engineman by Eric Brown and although he messed up the ending, it’s still a book I find myself thinking about a great deal. I could go on – but I won’t… Lovely topic:)).
I’m definitely going to check out all your recommendations:-)
MR Carey’s Pandominion network definitely deserves to be on this list. What an insane number of possibilities!