4 books like The Munchkins

This graphic novel which was first serialized on the platform Webtoons, takes place in the near future. People are able to alter their physical appearance using new technology. Most people do use it, except for some who have “Egan’s Syndrome” which means they are too sensitive to modify their bodies in this way.

Sunati finds herself attracted to Austen, a young woman who lives her life “unmodded”. It’s actually a very sensitive love story told with some really stunning artwork.

This graphic novel is stunningly illustrated with deeply relatable characters. Pan is a young woman on a remote world working in her father’s body shop and sneaks out at night to visit her friend, Tara, and sometimes they go dancing. Tara’s life was not her own. As a princess she was shut off from society and was going to be forced to marry the man who won the Cosmo knights Battle. Pan helps to smuggle Tara off-world and ruins her life on her backwater planet. When two strangers show up at her home needing help, her life is turned on its head. She leaves her planet behind and begins her real life in the stars. An incredible, original story about space, knights, princesses, and lost friends.

This is the first issue of an excellent YA comic book series. I really do enjoy scifi that features apes or any kind of simian life (yes, I love the Planet of the Apes series), so this book got my attention with the cover. The main characters are all space monkeys or simian astronauts that have landed their spacecraft on an alien world. One unfortunate monkey is the chosen explorer while the others watch his progress from the relative safety of the spaceship. The story is tense and surprising. The art is very skilled and I truly look forward to the next issue of the series which is expected to be released soon.

Binti combines some of my favorite flavors of science fiction into one bittersweet treat: brutal interspecies politics, cultural misunderstandings, and the struggle for coexistence in a galactic community.

The tragic encounter between students on their way to attend a prestigious university on another world and a violent alien species starts this story off with heart-pounding, heart-rending stakes. It goes on to interrogate war and peace between species and the act of true communication and tolerance.

Those who are interested in stories with a raw but hopeful outlook on what it would mean for multiple civilizations in the Milky Way to find harmony will enjoy this read.