86 Books Like The Last Legends of Earth

As a former librarian I have long been fascinated with Borges’s view of books: their metaphysical shape and their tendency to open into the uncanny and the infinite. Illness early in life drove me to books, to their particular isolation. Since then, I’ve found that worlds can open almost anywhere in literature by way of a mood, a patina of language, a vision, a set of images completely beyond the control of the writer. Now, I read these books to remind me of what fiction can do, the places it can go, the worlds it will open.

Quoting Aristotle when writing about yourself probably comes off as pretentious, but looking back at how I became a writer, his idea of how good stories must be “surprising yet inevitable” rings true: from a childhood split in rural Bavaria, where dark German fairytales sparked my love for books to experiments with lucid dreaming that ended in a loss of reality, my ending up as a game writer and novelist focused on the mind and dreams does sound somewhat inevitable—even if it took me some detours and distractions to get there. Now, I couldn’t be happier. 😊

I’m a Canadian science fiction writer who writes very, very slowly. I’m interested in experimental fiction and books that are unique, both thematically and stylistically. I’d like to think my books fall into this category, or at least that’s what I aspire to. I used to read science fiction exclusively, and the five books I’ve listed here were all read during those formative years; they were fundamental stepping-stones for me, as a writer, and each of them left a profound mark on my idea of how good, or effective, novels can be.

Science fiction is rightly famous for experimenting with new and strange social worlds, but fantasy tends to fall back on the usual feudal tropes: the whims of kings, the valor of knights, the always-temporary powerlessness of farm boys, the technicalities of succession. Which is a shame, because fantasy provides just as much opportunity to reimagine what society could look like. That’s what I try to do in my books, and at my job, where I’m working to bring 21st-century data literacy and quantitative reasoning to a state government stuck resolutely in the ’90s. When I think of books that have done what I’m trying to do, these five are at the front of my mind.

As intense as the Cold War was, I have always found myself looking toward the future. Nuclear annihilation was a real possibility in my youth. Even so, I have always been curious about the next threat beyond our current crisis would be. Beyond nuclear, biological, and chemical threats, I see that we now face possible dangers from rogue AI and climate change. If that’s not enough, let’s remember that conventional weapons are getting more powerful with the passing of each decade. That’s why the storyteller in me loves this stuff so much.

The past is a powerful thing. It’s what we turn to when confronted with the question “how did we get here?” When I began my journey as an author in earnest, that was the question I was facing, and it was the one I wanted my characters to explore. But one book wasn’t enough to satisfy me, and I went searching for other titles that scratched that same itch of examining and confronting our pasts to work out our future. For me, these books were the ones that struck that cord the hardest.

One might read for many reasons, but one of the main reasons for me is to connect and relate to the character. Female voices are very underheard, and I feel incredibly passionate about changing that and creating and reading stories where the female protagonists have strong voices and are not afraid to be heard. I think it’s important that we continue to create female characters that are raw and real and that portray subjects and feelings that need to be heard more.

My name is John Priest and I've been writing children's books, mystery stories, and factual articles since the 1980's. I've been traditionally published and have publshed my own books too. I love writing funny books and rhyming stories. Seeing my 5 grandchildren reading a book and laughing is one of the best sights of all. I've worked in schools and really believe that having your imagination ignited by any book is the start of building your own personality and creating wonderment in your own mind. And who knows? Maybe one day your child will write the next batch of  beautiful books!

I was born and spent my childhood living under a tyrannical regime that indiscriminately used violence against innocent civilians. Such cruelty made a lasting impact on me. For the past thirty-two years, I have been teaching philosophy at Seton Hall University. Given my childhood experiences, I have chosen to write on issues related to social and political philosophy and applied ethics. After the catastrophic event of 9/11, I wondered about the motivations, explanations, justifications, or excuses for this kind of unprecedented act of war against civilians. I have spent a great deal of my research exploring the relationship between justified acts of war and terrorist acts.

Books have been with me all my life as my father was a librarian and fed me books from an early age; I cannot remember being taught to read, I just could. Adventure and detective were my favourites. Then I found my local library and the horizons expanded; when I worked in a library there was the joy of being able to ‘stop’ a book I wanted to read but couldn't find. I graduated as a Biochemist and then got into computer programming. I completed my first novel in 1980 but put it away for thirty years before rewriting and publishing it. I got the writing bug and four more books followed as a series.