Staff Picks
Wandering Star: Jewish Speculative Fiction
- Sara M.
- Friday, December 21, 2018
Collection
Rich traditions of Jewish folklore, culture, and history inform these science fiction and fantasy books. They feature Jewish characters, themes, and stories.
This list is part of the #BroaderBookshelf2019 reading challenge. Find more lists here.
The Thrilling Adventure Hour. A Spirited Romance
Published in 2018
Meet Frank and Sadie Doyle, toast of the upper crust. Headliners on the society pages. And, oh yes, they see ghosts. Trading quips and tossing back cocktails, the Doyles take what they want and hoodwink their clientele for the rest. Ghosts, vampires, werewolves, mummies, even diabolical gingerbread men are nothing but obstacles in the way of the liquor cabinet for our fast-talking, hard-drinking sleuths.
The Book of Esther
A Novel
Published in 2016
"In a counterfactual world resembling the 1930s, the state of Khazaria, an isolated nation of warriors Jews, is under attack by the Germanii. Esther, the precocious daughter of Khazaria's chief policy advisor, sets out on a quest to ensure the survival of her homeland"-- Provided by publisher.
The Angel of Losses
Published in 2014
When she discovers her grandfather's notebook, which is filled with stories of a miracle worker named the White Rebbe in league with the mysterious Angel of Losses, Marjorie embarks on a journey into the past to unlock the secrets he kept.
The Entertainer and the Dybbuk
Published in 2008
A struggling American ventriloquist in post-World War II Europe is possessed by the mischievous spirit of a young Jewish boy killed in the Holocaust. Author's note details the murder of over one million children by the Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s.
The World of the End
Published in 2013
As an epilogist, Ben Mendelssohn appreciates an unexpected ending. But when that denouement is the untimely demise of his beloved wife, Ben is incapable of coping. Marian was more than his life partner; she was the fiber that held together all that he is. And Ben is willing to do anything, even enter the unknown beyond, if it means a chance to be with her again. One bullet to the brain later, Ben is in the Other World, where he discovers a vast and curiously secular existence utterly unlike anything he could have imagined: a realm of sprawling cities where the deceased of every age live an eternal second life, and where forests of family trees are tended by mysterious humans who never lived in the previous world. But Ben cannot find Marian. Desperate for a reunion, he enlists an unconventional afterlife investigator to track her down, little knowing that his search is entangled in events that continue to unfold in the world of the living. It is a search that confronts Ben with one heart-rending shock after another; with the best and worst of human nature; with the resilience and fragility of love; and with truths that will haunt him through eternity.
The Inquisitor's Tale, Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog
Published in 2016
Crossing paths at an inn, thirteenth-century travelers impart the tales of a monastery oblate, a Jewish refugee, and a psychic peasant girl with a loyal greyhound, the three of whom join forces on a chase through France to escape persecution.
Starglass
Published in 2013
For all of her sixteen years, Terra has lived on a city within a spaceship that left Earth five hundred years ago seeking refuge, but as they finally approach the chosen planet, she is drawn into a secret rebellion that could change the fate of her people.
Spinning Silver
Published in 2018
"A fresh and imaginative retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairytale from the bestselling author of Uprooted, called "a very enjoyable fantasy with the air of a modern classic" by The New York Times Book Review. Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father is not a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has left his family on the edge of poverty--until Miryem intercedes. Hardening her heart, she sets out to retrieve what is owed, and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. But when an ill-advised boast brings her to the attention of the cold creatures who haunt the wood, nothing will be the same again. For words have power, and the fate of a kingdom will be forever altered by the challenge she is issued. Channeling the heart of the classic fairy tale, Novik deftly interweaves six distinct narrative voices--each learning valuable lessons about sacrifice, power and love--into a rich, multilayered fantasy that readers will want to return to again and again"-- Provided by publisher.
Willow. Season 9, Wonderland
Published in 2013
In the aftermath of all magic being wiped from Earth, Wiccan Willow struggles to reclaim her identity and magic in a quest that leads her to strange new worlds where she'll confront bizarre beasts and reunite with familiar faces.
The Violent Century
Published in 2015
"They never meant to be heroes. For seventy years they guarded the British Empire. Oblivion and Fogg, inseparable friends, bound together by a shared fate. Until one night in Berlin, in the aftermath of the Second World War, and a secret that tore them apart. But there must always be an account ... and the past has a habit of catching up to the present. Now, recalled to the Retirement Bureau from which no one can retire, Fogg and Oblivion must face up to a past of terrible war and unacknowledged heroism, - a life of dusty corridors and secret rooms, of furtive meetings and blood-stained fields - to answer one last, impossible question: What makes a hero?"-- Provided by publisher.
Central Station
Published in 2016
A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper. When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris' ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik--a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return. Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful alien entities who, through the Conversation--a shifting, flowing stream of consciousness--are just the beginning of irrevocable change. At Central Station, humans and machines continue to adapt, thrive ... and even evolve.
A Man Lies Dreaming
A Novel
Published in 2016
"Wolf, a low-rent private detective, roams London's gloomy, grimy streets, haunted by dark visions of a future that could have been--and a dangerous present populated by British Fascists and Nazis escaping Germany. Shomer, a pulp fiction writer, lies in a concentration camp, imagining another world. And when Wolf and Shomer's stories converge, we find ourselves drawn into a novel both shocking and profoundly haunting."-- Amazon.com.
The Golem and the Jinni
A Novel
Published in 2013
Chava, a golem brought to life by a disgraced rabbi, and Ahmad, a jinni made of fire, form an unlikely friendship on the streets of New York until a fateful choice changes everything.
Judenstaat
Published in 2016
On April 4, 1948, the sovereign state of Judenstaat was created in the territory of Saxony bordering Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Forty years later, Jewish historian Judit Klemmer is making a documentary film outlining the direction that Judenstaat has taken as a country on the world stage, from the Nazi atrocities of World War II to their liberation by Soviet troops. She is haunted by memories of her dead husband, who was shot by a sniper as he conducted for the National Symphony. Still grieving, she is confronted by a mysterious flesh-and-blood ghost from her past who leaves her controversial footage on one of Judenstaat's founding fathers--and a note: "They lied about the murder." Judit's research into the footage, as well as what really happened to her husband, embroils her in controversy and conspiracy, collective memory and national amnesia, and answers far more horrific than she imagined.-- from book jacket.