Here are 100 books that The Book of Elsewhere fans have personally recommended if you like
The Book of Elsewhere.
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As a writer of middle-grade books, I read a lot of middle-grade books. This one drew me in because the setting reminded me of the gray
and verdant Pacific Northwest of my childhood.
Also, I can’t resist a creepy
old library. As the central mystery unfolds, the haunting atmosphere deepens. Fiona
is a compelling character whose nuanced relationship with her sister grows as
the book unfolds.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves gothic
atmospheres and literary prose.
Winner of the Minnesota Book Award * A Texas Bluebonnet Book
“Perfect to be read late into the night.”—Stefan Bachmann, internationally bestselling author of The Peculiar
“A spooky sisterhood mystery that is sure to be a hit with readers.”—School Library Journal (starred review)
“Grab a flashlight and stay up late with this one.”—Kirkus Reviews
Once there were two sisters who did everything together. But only one of them disappeared.
New York Times–bestselling author Jacqueline West’s Long Lost is an atmospheric, eerie mystery brimming with suspense. Fans of Katherine Arden’s Small Spaces and Victoria Schwab’s City of Ghosts series will lose…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Having recently traveled there, I'm a sucker for stories involving the Arctic (especially if they also involve ships). This book is kind of a fictionalized telling of what happened to the ships trying to discover the northwest passage from England around Greenland and Canada in the early 1800s. It didn't go so well for them. Terrific story telling, pacing, excitement, drama - just a great book.
The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is…
I don’t read much science fiction these days, but this (if it really is SciFi) drew me in and hooked me almost immediately with its alternate universe and truly original storyline.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
From horror superstar K.R. Alexander . . . Something horrible happened to Josie -- something so horrible she won't talk about it. But when the horror returns for her little sister, Anna, she's back in the battle against a fearsome force that manifests in diabolically deadly dolls.
It's been five years since Josie squared off against the evil Beryl and her killer haunted dolls. She hasn't talked about it since, and likes to pretend it didn't happen. Too bad she didn't tell her younger sister, Anna. Because Anna is now the one being drawn in to the evil -- and…
I think there are two great mysteries in our lives: the mystery of the world and the mystery of how we live in it. The branches of literature that explore these conundrums magnificently are science fiction for the world and murder mysteries for how we live. So, it is no wonder that the subgenre that most excites me has to be the science fiction murder mystery, in which, as a reader, I get to explore a strange new world and find out how people live (and die!) in it. This is why I read and, it turns out, what I write.
In my view, a great murder mystery should have a lot of possibilities, and science fiction just adds deeper layers of intrigue, and this is what The City and The City has in spades – literal layers and intrigue.
Here, two cities exist in the same place, yet the citizens of each one must ignore the citizens of the other. It is a crime to notice the citizens of the other city. When a murder occurs and our detective investigates, he only has jurisdiction in one city.
But what really blew my mind about this book was that, though it is science fiction, there is no physical or scientific reason that the cities are separate and occupy the same place. The division is only in the minds of the inhabitants!
With shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, the multi-award winning The City & The City by China Mieville is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.
'You can't talk about Mieville without using the word "brilliant".' - Ursula Le Guin, author of the Earthsea series.
When the body of a murdered woman is found in the extraordinary, decaying city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks like a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he probes, the evidence begins to point to…
I love fantasies that dream up totally new worlds! Some people condemn the fantasy genre as formulaic, and sometimes they’re right—but it shouldn’t be so! Fantasies can explore worlds as wide and wild and wonderful as the human imagination itself! Anything’s possible! But I also love a fantasy world that’s as real, coherent, and consistent as our own real world. I think that’s the ultimate challenge for any author: to create it all from the grassroots up. And for any reader, the trip of a lifetime! My personal preference is for worlds a bit on the dark side—just so long as they blow my mind!
It was a toss-up here between this book and The Scar, set in a different part of the same world. One of Miéville’s acknowledged influences is the wonderful Mervyn Peake, and like Peake, he’s never in a hurry to get a story underway.
I’d have probably tossed Perdido Street Station aside after 100-200 pages except for a friend’s fervent recommendation—and I’d have missed out big time if I had! Because the story as it develops is truly grand, truly epic. Like Peake, Miéville has a gift for raising action to a mythical status. I love, love, love a novel that builds up to a long, rolling, thunderous climax!
Winner of the August Derleth award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Perdido Street Station is an imaginative urban fantasy thriller, and the first of China Mieville's novels set in the world of Bas-Lag.
The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the centre of its own bewildering world. Humans and mutants and arcane races throng the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the rivers are sluggish with unnatural effluent, and factories and foundries pound into the night. For more than a thousand years, the parliament and its brutal militia have ruled over a vast array of workers and artists, spies, magicians,…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
As an autistic person, I was a deeply unhappy and anxious child, so naturally I grew up to be a goth, with scary stories becoming a way for me to manage my constant fear. The Gothic became one of my special interests, and something I’ve always enjoyed studying. Additionally, I’ve always loved imaginative, fantastical tales that helped me feel like I was escaping from the real world I hated (and honestly, still hate) so much. As a result, there’s a special place in my heart for books that combine the weird Gothic trappings I hold so dear with the action and magic of a fantastical adventure novel.
This book is horrifying, weird as shit, and absolutely beautiful, from China Mieville’s stunning prose to the grotesque splendor of his imagery.
Mieville’s follow-up to Perdido Street Station is a Melvillian Gothic that takes its characters on a sprawling, twisted naval journey that incorporates such horrors as giant mosquito monsters, a symbiotic pair of dictators known as the Lovers, and a Frankensteinian punishment system where bio-thaumaturgists graft foreign limbs or organs onto their victims’ bodies.
The Scar blew my mind when I first read it in college, and made me rethink what a novel could be. Its creativity and depth feel endless, with layers of philosophical and thematic depth. It’s the kind of book that makes you feel like you could read it a hundred times, and still find fresh meaning.
The Scar’s final act also perfectly captures the feeling that you’re beholding something beyond your capacity to fathom—and…
A human cargo bound for servitude in exile... A pirate city hauled across the oceans... A hidden miracle about be revealed... This is the story of a prisoner's journey. The search for the island of a forgotten people, for the most astonishing beast in the seas, and ultimately for a fabled place - a massive wound in reality, a source of unthinkable power and danger.From the author of Perdido Street Station, another colossal fantasy of incredible diversity and spellbinding imagination, which was acclaimed in The Times Literary Supplement as: 'An astonishing novel, guaranteed to astound and enthral the most jaded…
One of the very best must-read novels of all time - with a new introduction by Roddy Doyle
'A well told tale signifying a good deal; one to be read again and again' THE TIMES
'The book I wish I had written ... It's so far away from my own imagination, I'd love to sit at my desk one day and discover that I could think and write like Ursula Le Guin' Roddy Doyle
'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER
The Principle of Simultaneity is a scientific breakthrough which will revolutionize interstellar civilization by making possible instantaneous…
Before The Matrix, before Star Wars, before Ender's Game and Neuromancer, there was Dune: winner of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, and widely considered one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.
Melange, or 'spice', is the most valuable - and rarest - element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person's lifespan to making interstellar travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world of Arrakis.
Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
While the sci-fi machinations can be a little bit handwavey, Martin more than makes up for it with the depth of her characters and political world building. Defining it as a space opera is accurate, but it doesn’t come with the complex overhead common in the genre; it’s a fast-paced read constantly pulling you in to find out what happens in just the next chapter.
This incredible opening to the duology recalls the best of John le Carre, Iain M. Banks's Culture novels and Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy.
In a war of lies she seeks the truth . . .
Ambassador Mahit Dzmare travels to the Teixcalaanli Empire's interstellar capital, eager to take up her new post. Yet when she arrives, she discovers her predecessor was murdered. But no one will admit his death wasn't accidental - and she might be next.
Now Mahit must navigate the capital's enticing yet deadly halls of power, to discover dangerous truths. And while she hunts for the…
