Books About Space (In Some Way)
In the hopes of getting the campus populace to think about our upcoming Cosmic Resurgence from a literary perspective, here are several books you might read before Renn Fayre begins on May 2. I’d recommend checking the Multnomah County Library or your library from home to find the shortest wait list for ebooks or audiobooks. Some are young adult novels, others are adult; some are space operas, some are humorous, while others are serious books. These might not be very compelling summaries, but these books were all enjoyable to this Quest writer!
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (2019)
An ambassador from a small society lives in a big empire in space and has to contend with different cultures and unravel the mysterious death of her predecessor. Maybe it’s a space opera? My friend Blake said, “I've only known Three Seagrass for two days but if anything happened to her I'd kill everyone in this book and then myself.”
2. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (2013)
A person who exists as the bodily extension of a military spaceship controlled by a space empire must make choices in the face of unrest in the colony world where she lives. Maybe it’s a space opera? Fairly serious.
3. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (2014)
A spaceship of sapients takes a dangerous mission to make money and gets swept up in intergalactic politics. The ship’s inhabitants grow closer and learn more about one another. I thought this one was fairly funny.
4. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2015)
A technologically-advanced group of scientists seeded a planet with the materials to make intelligent life a long time ago. Now, new humans visit the planet intending to live there. Things aren’t as they seem… This book is more serious.
5. Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (2000)
Space travel has led to mysteries about an ancient civilization and people are visiting aliens to gain new knowledge. If you like realistic science rules, this one is pretty hard science fiction. Admittedly, this one is quite long, so this might be a long-term read rather than a quick book before Renn Fayre.
6. Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
To be honest, I haven’t read this one yet. I heard about some sand worms? And space empires? Timothee Chalamet? It’s fairly serious, too, I believe. I will read it once I finish writing my thesis. :D
7. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
A very silly book. What do you do when your house is being bulldozed to make room for a big highway? What if not only your house, but your home planet Earth is in danger? Try to stop them, but then get the heck out of the way! If you’ve made it this far into a list of books but you wanted a television series, the Reed Library provides streaming access to the TV series from 1981 based on the book material! It has six episodes of about 30 minutes each, and it’s very ‘80s.
8. Nyxia by Scott Reintgen (2017)
A corporation wants teenagers with adaptable minds to travel to another planet and mine a substance compatible with telekinesis from underground. Wait, there’s a whole society on the planet where the substance is?
9. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (2019)
It’s not my personal favorite pace of narration, but this book is about the bodyguard for a rich family going to the royal planet via space travel which they don’t know how to do anymore because they’re all religious and anti-science nobles. It has some very fun moments.
10. We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson (2016)
Aliens visit a teen and tell him they are going to end Earth unless he chooses to continue it. This book considers many of the troubles of human life, weighing the good and bad events in your life. Also queer. It’s not set in space as much, but the aliens are compelling enough to include this in the list.
11. Star Splitter by Matthew J. Kirby (2023)
A teen girl teleports to a new planet to join her parents doing scientific research there. Things go horribly awry with the ship and she must survive with an older, more experienced version of herself who reprinted her from the teleportation device. At least we don’t have teleportation bureaucracy in the real world?
12. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, trans. Ken Liu (2006)
Earth is struck with a surprise alien species which is technologically superior to them. What should they do in response? Some say to fight back, others say to accept their fate. It’s a more serious book. This book is available in its original simplified Chinese in the Reed Library, but sadly not in English translation.
13. Dawn by Octavia Butler (1987)
Humanity ruined the planet Earth, but one lady was saved from doom and awoke far away. She contends with the challenges of dealing with the other humans rescued by aliens and the conditions the aliens provide for repopulating Earth. This book is available in the Reed Library, but appears to be checked out until the end of the semester at the time of writing.
14. These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs (2023)
Two agents of a big space empire and one spy with a secret navigate different worlds. There are some twists and turns, with a major adventure or thriller plot. Fans of Six of Crows might like this one.
15. To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini (2020)
Hey, that dragon book author from your childhood also does science fiction now! A xenobiologist uncovers an artifact from an ancient alien society and deals with the consequences. It’s more serious and also fairly long, but worth it!