This is far from an exhaustive list, but a great starting point for progressive activists and changemakers looking for some inspiration from speculative fiction. It includes some classics of the genre and more recent works.
(More or Less) Positive Visions of the Future
- Becky Chambers: A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk and Robot duology)
- Malka Older: Infomocracy (Centenal Cycle)
- Octavia Butler: Parable of the Sower (Parable series)
- Octavia’s Brood (anthology)
- Ursula LeGuin: The Dispossessed
- N. K. Jemisin: The City We Became
- Iain M Banks – Culture series
- Mary Robinette Kowal: The Calculating Stars
- Sue Burke: Semiosis
- Ray Nayler: Tusks of Extinction
- Annalee Newitz: The Terraformers
- Sarah Pinsker: Song for a New Day
- Nnedi Okorafor: Binti
Not-So-Positive (But Amazing!) Stories
- Emily Tesh: Some Desperate Glory
- Margaret Atwood: A Handmaid’s Tale
- Paolo Bacigalupi: The Water Knife, The Windup Girl
- Seth Dickinson: The Traitor Baru Cormorant
- Adrian Tchaikovsky: Children of Time
- N. K. Jemisin: The Fifth Season (Broken Earth trilogy)
- Megan E. O’Keefe: The Blighted Stars
- Rebecca Roanhorse: Black Sun (Between Heaven and Earth trilogy)
- Ted Chiang: Stories of Your Life and Others (short stories)
- Ray Nayler: The Mountain in the Sea
- Ann Leckie: Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch series)
Cozy Reads for Tough Times
- Martha Wells: All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries)
- Terry Pratchett: Discworld series
- Becky Chambers: Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
- Valerie Valdes: Where Peace Is Lost
- TJ Klune: House on the Cerulean Sea, Somewhere Beyond the Sea