As the new home of the Great Lakes Astrophotography Space Exploration Lab, space has been on the mind a lot recently here at WPPL. Stars, spaceships, aliens, and clones, science fiction uses all sorts of tropes to show us what our future may hold. With new advancements in artificial intelligence happening every day, sometimes it feels like we’re living in a science fiction world already! If you aren’t able to reserve time with our new astrophotography telescope, you can escape into the stars via book instead with any of these great reads!
Spaceships
If you’re more of a fantasy reader than a science fiction one, Of Monsters and Mainframes might be your perfect gateway into the genre! This space odyssey is from the perspective of a spaceship cursed by Dracula. In the vast frontier of space, this book explores what it really means to be a monster and the friendships & connections that make us human.
The Deep Sky begins with an explosion in deep space, on a ship carrying 80 of Earth’s elite graduates to a new life. Asuka, the last crew member chosen for the mission, has intense imposter syndrome, and as the other graduates begin questioning loyalties and the mission that sent them there, she must prove herself & the place she calls home, or risk being mutinied from the depths of space.
Aliens
What would you do if you stumbled upon a giant, alien sculpture that appeared out of thin air at 3 in the morning? Nowadays, the answer is simple: take out your phone and record it. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing tackles virality and fame in the age of social media, as well as the thin line between fear and adoration in the face of the unknown.
As the first of her people ever to be offered a place at the finest university of higher learning in the galaxy, Binti must give up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers. In a strange and dangerous world, Binti combines the strength of where we come from with the power of new knowledge & ideas.
Artificial Intelligence
UniView’s latest project, a controversial bot that creates individual, personalized advertising, is in desperate need of some human training, the perfect job for a career copywriter, Noah, in the midst of a midlife crisis. When corporate interests speed up the launch timeline, You Will Be Monitored warns about the dangerously relevant relationship between technological progress and the future of human (and artificially intelligent) autonomy.
Culpability opens with a crash: the Cassidy-Shaws’ autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car. Each family member harbors a secret related to the accident: the 17-year-old son in the driver’s seat, the tween sisters in the backseat addicted to their phones, and the mom, a world leader in artificial intelligence, consumed by her work. This family drama explores the moral responsibility and ethical consequences of the development of AI.
Robots
The Murderbot Diaries series is made up of 5 novellas & 3 full-length novels about a lovingly grumpy security android who hacks its module to gain sentience and autonomy. With its newfound freedom, all Murderbot wants is to watch its favorite soap opera, but instead it’s stuck saving the squishy, idiot humans from mortal danger at every turn. The series was also recently adapted into an AppleTV-exclusive series!
I like to pitch this book as Pixar’s Up from the perspective of a Roomba vacuum robot. When elderly Harold loses is widowed, the sentient appliances in his house work together against the Grid, a mass surveillance technology that controls their town, to keep Harold living in his home of 50 years. The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances highlights the importance that art, music, and community have on humanity during dark times.
Cloning
What would you do if your husband was having an affair with your clone? Kill him? That’s what Evelyn Caldwell does in The Echo Wife. Now that he’s dead, Evelyn and her clone- a woman who represents everything she is not- must clean up the mess her cheating husband left behind.
Sublimation imagines a world where immigrating leaves a copy of oneself behind, an “instance” that lives on in their home country, unable to leave. Some keep in touch with their instances, some never think of them again. Returning home for her grandfather’s funeral, Soyoung Rose Kang has no idea that the instance she left behind plans to steal her body- and her life.
Dystopia
In a future where the prison system has been totally corporatized, prisoners fight to the death for their freedom in gladiator-style battles, gaining fans, sponsors, and notoriety for every life they take. Chain Gang All-Stars follows the legendary Loretta Thurwar, her lovers and battles, during her final days on the circuit before she will finally be eligible to achieve her freedom.
Yours For the Taking imagines a future where the outside world is no longer safe, ravaged by climate change. Reclusive women’s rights activist and billionaire Jacqueline Millender funds The Inside Project, an exclusive program with openings by application only, and the only chance for survival. Once Inside, the characters must reckon with what it means to be saved, the price we pay for it, and who gets left behind in this Feminist dystopia.
