I miss making lists. When I was a bookseller, I would make lists all the time of novels with various themes, genres, age ranges, or the most random prompt given by a customer. Nowadays I only get to practice recommending stories by going to bookstores with my friends and pointing titles out to them. But, over break, I was able to sit down and read a slightly depressing science fiction novel, which led me to compiling other books with similar themes in the same genre. This list includes nine stories with various levels of sadness and haunting vibes.
The Weight of the Stars – K. Ancrum | Young Adult Romance
Ryann has always wanted to travel through space, though the options for that as a career aren’t available to her part of town, so she focuses on caring for what remains of her family. After Ryann’s attempts to befriend Alexandria go awry, she tries to reconcile their differences by helping Alexandria catch the radio signal her mom sent while on a one-way trip in the stars.
A “light” sci-fi story, mostly set on Earth with teenagers and their own connection to their parents and astronauts. I adore Ancrum’s writing, and reading this back in 2022 quickly influenced me to continue to read every book she publishes to the end of time. There are themes of academic expectations, abandonment issues, the complexities of family as well as space. I need to re-read this as soon as possible.
Do You Dream of Terra-Two? – Temi Oh | Space Opera
A team of ten astronauts set out for a long haul trip to a habitable planet similar to Earth. While four members of the team are familiar with the stakes, the rest are teenagers that sacrificed their childhood and the chance of a “normal” life on Earth for this mission. They’ll have to depend on each other if things go wrong, and it will.
According to my Goodreads account, this was the first book I ever read in the genre of “depressing sci-fi.” These astronauts are unprepared, they’re messy, they’re childish, and I loved it. If I ever had the option to read this again with the current knowledge of what I specifically like in this genre, I’d take it even though I’ve already put too many books on my to-be-read pile.
Not with a Bang – Temi Oh | Dystopian Drama
Something is passing the Earth’s atmosphere. While the theories around it range from aliens, to a meteor strike, to a shooting star, the majority of the Minton family don’t care about what looms over. They care about the upcoming wedding of the oldest Minton daughter, and how to tell her father Marcus that his doomsday prepping is getting out of hand.
I had received an advanced copy of this novel through NetGalley in exchange for a review. While I have to wait closer to the publication date to talk about this more in depth, I was heavily invested in this family’s adventure. This wouldn’t be considered heavy science-fiction, but there’s in-text conversations of aliens and meteor strikes. I just loved how the author went about every single family member’s own experience with the end of the world.
This World Is Not Yours – Kemi Ashing-Giwa | Horror Novella
The colony of New Belaforme is working on settling on this new planet with the most intriguing defense system: The Gray, a “self-cleaning” mechanism that clears out anything that threatens it. The humans aren’t concerned about it attacking them, until a rival colony creates a conflict New Belaforme can’t ignore, and neither does the Gray.
I wouldn’t say this novel is super depressing, but as the Gray moves throughout the story, the implications sure are sad. The main couple of this story deal with jealousy, eco-colonism, obsession, what makes or breaks a relationship, and how far would you go to fix things out of pride or spite? It’s always a little odd to say this about a horror story, but I had a fun time reading it. And I’d love to read more from this author before the end of the year.
The Luminous Dead – Caitlin Starling | Psychological Thriller
For Gyre Price, lying on a resume is nothing. She knows that becoming a caver, searching through the minerals of a foreign planet would be dangerous. She just didn’t think that Em, her handler through the Surface Team, would also be hiding something. What should be an even balance between Caver and the Surface Team becomes skewed the further Gyre goes into the system, and it doesn’t help that something may be behind her.
It has also been a while since I’ve read this but some of the topics have stuck with me over the years, simply because of how creepy the plot was. This book goes over bodily autonomy, trust issues, and what boundaries someone would cross just to start over. I had listened to the 14-hour long audiobook and the narration style was great in portraying Gyre’s descent into madness through the silence and low light in her suit.
Dead Silence – S.A. Barnes | Psychological Horror
A salvage crew desperate to keep their jobs jumps at the opportunity to investigate a strange distress signal. The source of the signal belongs to a luxurious space cruise ship that went missing on its first adventure over twenty years ago. In the crew’s attempts to find out why the ship has reappeared, they encounter odd shapes in the corner of their eye, warnings at every station, and memories they refuse to acknowledge.
While I have yet to read their other works, this author has been on a streak of publishing Sci-fi horror lately. It has been a while since I’ve read Dead Silence so my memory of this is super foggy. Told through alternating timelines of a crew member’s past and the whole crew’s present, it causes the crew to question their memories of events and the truth about the ghost ship.
The Space Between Worlds – Micaiah Johson | Dystopian
Cara is a Traveler. One of the few candidates perfect for multiverse travel due to the one rule set amongst the worlds: You can’t travel to a world your doppelgänger still lives in. This works for Cara since she’s dead in most of them, 372 to be exact, until another one of her doppelgängers dies in a sketchy way. Hher handler Dell finds this interesting as it interferes with collecting the data they need.
The usual blurb that accompanies this book mentions identity and belonging. Those two mixed with the reality of having access to other versions of you that lived life a little differently was handled so well in this novel. Johnson also targets privilege, capitalism, and rich fools who only care about themselves at the expense of others’ souls. It has been a long time since I’ve read this but I loved it.
The Vanished Birds – Simon Jimenez | Space Opera
Nia Imani is disconnected from time and space, traveling through the stars in and out of cryo-sleep, aging at a slower rate than anyone she has ever befriended or loved. This lonely life had worked for her until she met someone to care for, a little boy who fell out of the sky. Traveling and taking care of him with other members of her crew becomes difficult, as others in the galaxy are searching for him.
As opposed to the physical isolation that Do You Dream of Terra-Two? covers, this one tackles the psychological factor of space travel when there is no one spot to call home. When interconnected galaxies move at different paces and the people who are untethered to one world must travel to the next in pursuit of a family, a future, and safety.
Those Beyond The Wall – Micaiah Johnson | Dystopian
Scales, an enforcer for her home of Ashtown is tasked with finding the source of a series of gruesome and inexplicable deaths. Having witnessed her friend dying at the hands of an invisible killer, and with the news of more bodies beginning to appear, Scales has to receive the help of people she considered enemies to find the murderer. There are events throughout the plot that line up with the potential of world-altering destruction.
With this being a sequel to the Space Between Worlds, it’s set roughly ten years after the events of the first novel. Though I consider them to be entirely different atmospheres, there is the option of reading them in order, out of order, or one and not the other. If you picked the last option, pick this one please. I have listened to the audiobook nine times in the last two years. Johnson manages to reflect on so many different topics but wraps them all in a clear message, as stated in her author’s note, “Science fiction is an expression born from dissatisfaction with where the world is versus where the world could be.”
The conversations within the Sci-fi genre I enjoy the most happen to be about the flaws within humanity. Despite how “advanced” the culture within the story may be, they still have issues and if mixed with horror or drama, those can be amplified to express various opinions about current events. Similarly to my comment about aquatic horror, space travel requires isolation (physically and mentally) as well as dependency on others, whether from a control panel or automated machines working the technology.
Whether or not those conversations actually hold weight is up to the reader themselves. While influenced by my love of Star Trek and Doctor Who, these stories mostly have space travel or advanced technology as their common factors, but the core of it is communication between humans or humanoids. Of course, not every science fiction story lacks hope. I just keep picking up sad books and need somewhere to put them. Anyways, read a little science fiction story and feel things, as a treat.
Edited and Reviewed by Kien Powell