100 Books Like Corporate Gunslinger

That title. That. Title. It's also a pretty killer idea, with some razor-sharp social commentary. Women that society views as difficult are quite literally shipped off to a prison planet. Only someone like Kelly Sue DeConnick could pull this off, and her tag team with the artist Valentine De Landro makes this a must-read. It's funny, emotional, and has the added benefit of making you think.

This book equally moved and unnerved me because its premise is all too possible. It’s a brilliantly written end-of-the-world story with an understated sense of menace and an unmistakable Australian flavour. 

The novel offers an intimate and fascinating first-person view of what happens to a ‘normal’ neighbourhood when life as we know it irrevocably changes – in this case through a nuclear winter. Often, apocalyptic/dystopian stories skim over the transition from order to chaos/social breakdown, and Claire handles it in a way that’s unsettling by its understatement.

I cared deeply about these characters. And while this novel is gritty, it’s also a story of hope and what it means to survive. 

As a writer who’s interested in what comes next—after climate change, after fascism—I love how Diane Cook uses broad brush strokes to show us the future, without going into too much history or detail.

Instead of hyper-focusing on what the future holds for us, Cook directs our attention to one small, outlier community that’s doing weird things. This is a great technique: she paints a picture of a future world by painting a picture of a fringe group that’s trying desperately to be different from the main one.

A mother-daughter drama drives the plot forward, and we learn about the rules and ruminations of the fringe group as the characters sort out their power struggles.

This book has a unique take on the apocalyptic genre and the interest the story and characters offered.

In old New York, living in the tunnels of the ancient subway system, the book documents what might happen to those left to fend for themselves in a city whose social and political construct collapsed due to a violent strain of some virus. (Sound familiar?)

The way the female lead, Deuce, discovers this new world where the sun is a threat and the wide-open spaces, claustrophobic, is a testament to the way the author captured the character’s innocence. Aguirre expertly relates Deuce’s apprehension when discovering anything could be different from the darkness she’d grown up in.

This book is creepy! When girls are sixteen they are sent away for a year, into the woods, to get rid of their ‘magic’. It is called their Grace Year, and it is very extreme, and nothing fun about it. This story has a creepy atmosphere, and creepy old men trying to choose their innocent teenage brides (if those brides make it back from the journey!). There are some sick and twisted death scenes, and romance, which of course I love a little romance in all the creepy stories I read.

Call me weird. I’m not a fan of series books. Unless, that is, they’re written by Nicholas Sansbury Smith. The problem with a book series for me is that I get bored of the same idea book after book after…zzzzzz. But when someone writing a book series is constantly bringing new ideas to the table, it keeps me reading. Couple that with characters we care about, and a heavy focus on moving the plot forward, and I’ll finish a book in no time and be eager to read the next one. This, my friends, is the first book in one of those series. 

I enjoyed this series because it was a well-written, fast-paced, interesting, clean story that I was happy to share with my children (especially my daughters). Each of the four books follows the perspective of one of the four main characters, and all of these girls are strong, loyal, and have a clear sense of right and wrong. They are not ashamed to be “good,” which is a refreshing find in dystopian futures!

This compelling graphic novel adaptation captures Butler’s Afrofuturist science fiction in its dark-toned palette and relentless movements in and across panels, with pages crammed with characters traveling within and outside of an urban enclave surrounded by gangs and criminals. The red of apocalypse and the California desert saturate pages, signaling current and immanent violence and danger and a landscape in environmental crisis. Through it all, Lauren reflects on how a new vision is required to liberate the oppressed without reproducing the conditions that brought it about. Amidst the bleak and violent scenes, we read excerpts from her Earthseed journaling of an unfolding religion where God is Change.

A futuristic world portrays the ongoing struggles of Black Americans for equity, racial justice, and economic and cultural futures. Its spirituals and Black culture form a new platform for Lauren’s exodus to a new land, a journey fraught with danger and difficult decisions,… show more.

Call me an end-of-days junkie; I won’t deny it. 

I have a twelve-story climbing rope in my storeroom in case the building catches fire. There’s a fire blanket in there and a go-bag, too. Talking about bomb shelters does something to my blood. Preparations excite me; maybe it’s a competitive streak. When I come face-to-face with disaster, I want the groundwork taken care of so I can focus on what’s important, like grabbing my children, our passports, and snacks for the road.

Reading this book was like living through the nightmare of my dreams. Communities came together, scrounging for food and water. Disaster after disaster was ingeniously avoided with other people’s refuse, raw brain power, and the occasional bullet. Man was pitted against man, and the only prize was survival. It was everything I needed to get a true appreciation of the bricks and mortar surrounding me and the covers… show more.

In Wilder Girls, a bizarre, unprecedented plague called the Tox has infested an island home to an all-girls boarding school. The Tox causes those it infects to mutate in gruesome ways—growing gills, claws, an extra spine, et cetera. The schoolgirls and remaining sparse crew of staff members have developed a system of survival, but when one girl goes missing and her friend determines to find her, everything is thrown into chaos.

This book will grip you hard from the first sentence, sink its teeth into you, shake you around, then have you gasping for air on the floor by the time you hit the last page. Seriously, this is an insane, intense ride, perfect for any fan of weird fiction and body horror. (That’s me.)