Sci-Fi and Dystopian Book Recommendations for Halloween

Hi pals,

I’m still on that Dystopian/Sci-Fi kick so I wanted to share my short recommendations list of books to read with you which I have enjoyed.

I have a few videos on similar recommendations if you’d like to check those out too, I’m trying to reach youtube partner and the watch hours are a really important aspect of that so watching any of my videos really helps me out as an online creator!

There are affiliate links included in this blog post to bookshop.org where you can pick up a copy of the books mentioned and 10% of all sales made through these links go to Artie, and help support them running this blog and their YouTube for free.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley’s seminal novel of the scientist whose creation becomes a monster. The hard-hitting and politically charged aspects of Shelley’s writing, her unflinching wit and strong female voice.

I haven’t read this in over a decade, but it had a lasting impact on me. This is probably the first ever Sci-Fi novel I have read and what better way to start than with the inventor of Sci-Fi herself, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley? I think a lot of the political elements stuck with me and I had a good teacher who encouraged the deeper reading of the text to see that, actually Dr Frankenstein is the monster, not what he created which seems to get lost on some people. I remember a lot of the prose was very gothic which I think could have been inspired or learned from her mother’s works before her early death. The history of this family is really interesting, and I love learning more about them through youtube video essayists.

GoodReads. Buy a copy here and support Artie.

Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan

Illustrator: Cliff Chiang. Colourist: Matt Wilson. Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher.

From BRIAN K. VAUGHAN, #1 New York Times bestselling writer of SAGA and THE PRIVATE EYE, and CLIFF CHIANG, legendary artist of Wonder Woman, comes the first volume of an all-new ongoing adventure. In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this smash-hit series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood.

If you are new here, I’m really fussy with art style of graphic novels, manga and comics I read, so I really liked this art style! This was recommended by my friend Matt in a guest post he did for me last year on his comic book recommendations, which is what lead me to reading it when I found it on Libby the library app. I think the plot of time travel is cool, but it did have more of an alien lean which isn’t really my vibe but was fine to read as part of this series. There is some queerness and disability/chronic illness as part of the central plot among the girls, and trying to piece together everything was really fun as it was all out of order a la time travel. Definitely one I recommend giving a read.

GoodReads. Buy a copy here and support Artie.

Maze Runner by James Dashner

If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human. When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone. Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade. Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive. Everything is going to change. Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying. Remember. Survive. Run.

I went into this knowing I would only read the first book so that’s what I’ve done. Mostly I like to compare book to film a lot and see how they translate. I liked the book but it is a lot more boring compared to the film. Considering this plot happens over the course of 3-6 ish days, it is incredibly slow and repetitive. I would have liked to see more of the other boys like Minho, Newt, Galley and Alby as they have big roles in the plot of both book and film, but they don’t seem to feature a lot. I know that the surviving few feature in the following books, but it seemed a bit of a wasted opportunity to not include them more. It’s interesting world building and plot creation.

GoodReads. Buy a copy here and support Artie.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself. During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

I read and enjoyed the first book, the second was okay, I tried to read the third but couldn’t finish it. It’s a shame coz I enjoyed the ideas, but some of the characters are unbearable and plot points are illogical. There are also a lot of spin off books or short stories which I have never read as I’d not been able to finish the series, I don’t know how easy it is to get into or follow the short stories. All this to say, I enjoyed the first book and think it is worth a read for beginners in Sci-Fi.

GoodReads. Buy a copy here and support Artie.

Wranglestone by Darren Charlton

Winter was the only season every Lake-Lander feared… In a post-apocalyptic America, a community survives in a national park, surrounded by water that keeps the Dead at bay. But when winter comes, there’s nothing to stop them from crossing the ice. Then homebody Peter puts the camp in danger by naively allowing a stranger to come ashore and he’s forced to leave the community of Wranglestone. Now he must help rancher Cooper, the boy he’s always watched from afar, herd the Dead from their shores before the lake freezes over. But as love blossoms, a dark discovery reveals the sanctuary’s secret past. One that forces the pair to question everything they’ve ever known. An action-packed and thought-provoking debut, for fans of Patrick Ness, Marcus Sedgwick, DREAD NATION and The Walking Dead.

I read this book back in 2019, I wrote a whole blog post on this back then you can check out for full and fresh thoughts. There is now a follow up book which I want to read, but won’t have the chance to for a while, but this one is for the zombie themed Sci-Fi/Dystopian novels.

GoodReads. Buy a copy here and support Artie.

Wolf Country by Tünde Farrand

London, 2050. The socio-economic crisis of recent decades is over and consumerism is thriving. Ownership of land outside the city is the preserve of a tiny elite, and the rest of the population must spend to earn a Right to Reside. Ageing has been abolished thanks to a radical new approach, replacing retirement with blissful euthanasia at a Dignitorium. When architect Philip goes missing, his wife, Alice, risks losing her home and her status, and begins to question the society in which she was raised. Her search for him uncovers some horrifying truths about the fate of her own family and the reality behind the new social order.

I made a video talking about this one in more detail, so check that out for my review and disability themed thoughts.

GoodReads. Buy a copy here and support Artie.

Dogs of DevTown by Taylor Hohulin

Welcome to DevTown.  In this city, holo ads lumber like neon giants seeking advertising targets. Men and women pop Oracle tabs in search of relief or enlightenment or both. Creatures of unknown origin stalk the darkest alleys. In the center of it all, NexDev Tower looms over the city, home to hundreds of floors of top-secret research. And in its shadow, Shan Hayes kills people for money. Rejecting the mechanical enhancements so popular in DevTown, Shan needs only two things: The resynth serum that can reshape her body’s entire cellular structure, and her hand-cannon containing a sentient parasite capable of converting her blood into weaponized wasps. As a hired gun for various crime syndicates, there’s little of the city’s underbelly Shan hasn’t encountered. But when a longtime business associate hires her to track down an underling who’s vanished into the neon night, Shan finds DevTown still holds secrets more deadly and terrifying than anything she could imagine.

This was my first adult Sci-Fi novel I read. I often find the language hard to keep up with in Sci-Fi, and I prefer character driven stories over too much world building and plot. I think this novel is a pretty good starter adult Sci-Fi, written by a man, but the main character is a woman and there is a lot about body modifications within the plot which I think are really interesting as a chronically ill reader. There is a follow up book I’d like to read as we were left on a bit of a cliffhanger, but I have so many Sci-Fi and Dystopian novels I haven’t read yet and need to get on with actually reading some of those.

GoodReads. Buy a copy here. You can also find the author on WordPress.

The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu

Hayden Lichfield’s life is ripped apart when he finds his father murdered in their lab, and the camera logs erased. The killer can only have been after one thing: the Sisyphus Formula the two of them developed together, which might one day reverse death itself. Hoping to lure the killer into the open, Hayden steals the research. In the process, he uncovers a recording his father made in the days before his death, and a dying wish: Avenge me… With the lab on lockdown, Hayden is trapped with four other people—his uncle Charles, lab technician Gabriel Rasmussen, research intern Felicia Xia and their head of security, Felicia’s father Paul—one of whom must be the killer. His only sure ally is the lab’s resident artificial intelligence, Horatio, who has been his dear friend and companion since its creation. With his world collapsing, Hayden must navigate the building’s secrets, uncover his father’s lies, and push the boundaries of sanity in the pursuit of revenge.

This novel was a hard one to get into initially, once again it is the writing style of adult Sci-Fi, but I am glad I pursued with it as it was a really interesting retelling/reimagining of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (I haven’t seen or read Hamlet, but I have a general idea of what it is about, I’m not sure if reading it first would improve the experience or not… a booktuber I like Books with Lala read this recently and also said she wasn’t sure if knowing the story of Hamlet helped or hindered her enjoyment but it overall wasn’t for her) I thought the AI aspect of this was really interesting, I love to see thoughts around AI and the kinds of roles it could have in the future (I love Detroit: Become Human for example) and seeing AI becoming sentient and what that could mean. It’s quite the bittersweet ending that’s open to the hope of a happily ever after for some of the characters, and is told in an interesting way through a mixture of media types, from lab reports, to write ups of CCTV footage, and even first-hand accounts from certain characters. I think it’s worth a read, and it is a more queered version of typical Sci-Fi.

GoodReads. Buy a copy here and support Artie.

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

Could you survive on your own in the wild, with every one out to make sure you don’t live to see the morning? In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weight survival against humanity and life against love.

I first read the Hunger Games (book 1) in 2020 when I was going through my ‘catch up’ phase with media. To be honest, I fell in love with these books. I now reread them at least once a year, I think they hold up well (minus a few dodgy phrasings that are very outdated, but she doesn’t use them in a negative way, more as a neutral description so I personally give her a pass) I think the books ingrained from the start with a clear political stance are books I enjoy the most in Dystopian/Sci-Fi, which is why Wolf Country (and some of the other books on this list) fell a bit flat at times for me. The Hunger Games is definitely missing queer and trans aspects to the story, though I personally see Katniss and Peeta as pretty queer, other themes that are included are: class war, disability and neurodivergence, race and ethnicity, as well as over-consumption, and many more. I enjoy the juxtaposition between Katniss being in survival mode and not really following the politics of it all until later on, and the people around her having a more political view and understanding of what’s going on around her like Peeta and Gale often talk about these topics but in very different ways. I love an underdog story, I love a revolution story, I love character driven stories, and I love to see a positive ending through all the destruction and sadness of loved characters who have been lost. It makes it all feel worth it. I think stories like this are important in the real world too because we are dealing with a lot of similar injustices all over the world, and to have books with a good ending where the fight was worth it? I think helps us all believe it is possible in real life too. I have many many thoughts about these books, and I’d like to do some deeper analysis videos on certain characters on my youtube channel in the future, leave a comment if you’d like to see it and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel to keep notified when I post!

(I have not read the prequel yet, but once I get feedback from a friend, I might give it a shot)

GoodReads. Buy a copy here and support Artie.

Check out this LONG TBR of similar books!

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~ Artie

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