Eight Speculative Fiction Books to Add to Your TBR Shelf
All books can help you escape reality for a little bit, but these titles will pull you into another world entirely! Add them to your TBR Shelf— or better yet, head out to your local independent bookstore, pick-up a copy, and spend your long weekend curled up with a book!
KING WARRIOR
Jay Bulckaert, Erika Nyyssonen, Jay Lucas
A story spanning the globe both imaginary and real, King Warrior celebrates the turbulent glory of childhood while encouraging the reader to reconnect with that rich inner palace of youthful imagination that ultimately holds the key to our freedom. In this graphic novel, a father and son try to stay connected through the power of imagination as their distanced lives pull them further apart.
Jay Bulckaert
, Erika Nyyssonen
Published: Sep 14, 2022 by Renegade Arts Entertainment
ISBN: 9781989754146
BOUNDARY PROBLEMS
Greg Bechtel
Boundary Problems vibrates on the edge of meaning, as carjackers, accidental gunrunners, small-town cabbies, and confused physics students struggle to wring meaning from the strange events that overtake them. Bechtel’s worlds of mystery, physics, and magic constantly challenge his characters’ pursuit of logical explanations. These compelling tales blur lines and push boundaries—into the surreal, into the playful, into the irresistibility of uncertainty.
Greg Bechtel 
Published: Mar 18, 2014 by Freehand Books
ISBN: 9781554811861
EZRA’S GHOSTS
Darcy Tamayose
Award-winning author Darcy Tamayose returns with Ezra’s Ghosts, a collection of fantastical stories linked by a complex mingling of language and culture, as well as a deep understanding of grief and what it makes of us. Shortlisted for the 2022 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, Ezra’s Ghosts is a delectable collection of short stories.
Darcy Tamayose 
Published: Apr 15, 2022 by NeWest Press
ISBN: 9781774390474
Available as an accessible eBook
AGNES, MURDERESS
Sarah Leavitt
Agnes, Murderess is a graphic novel inspired by the bloody legend of Agnes McVee, a roadhouse owner, madam and serial killer in the Cariboo region of British Columbia in the late nineteenth century. Fascinated by this legend—which originated in a 1970s guide to buried treasure in BC, and has never been verified—Sarah Leavitt has imagined an entirely new story for the mysterious Agnes: her immigration to Canada from an isolated Scottish Island; her complex entanglement with shiny things; and her terrifying grandmother, Gormul, who haunts Agnes’s dreams and waking life.
Sarah Leavitt 
Published: Sep 07, 2019 by Freehand Books
ISBN: 9781988298474
MIDNIGHT STORM, MOONLESS SKY
Alex Soop
Blackfoot storyteller Alexander Soop plunges us into a shocking well of imagination in his debut collection of short stories, Midnight Storm Moonless Sky. From hauntings on the Highway of Tears to fearful gatherings of ghosts and the sorrows of racism, Soop combines the social anxieties of Indigenous life with spellbinding flights and frights of speculative fiction.
Alex Soop 
Published: Oct 31, 2022 by Durvile Publications
ISBN: 9781990735127
REFUGIA
Patrick Horner
Relic species extinct everywhere else on the planet thrive on a remote archipelago. Evolution requires isolation, and these islands offer the perfect environment for genetic variation to take place, fostering new and unique forms of flora and fauna. Evolutionary biologists Emily and Roland have come on an extended field expedition to this secluded world, eager to expose its unique biosphere. Refugia is a hallucinatory journey through scientific exploration and discovery that challenges the ways we conceptualize the environment and ourselves.
Patrick Horner 
Published: Oct 15, 2022 by University of Calgary Press
ISBN: 9781773853727
SECRETS OF JARROW
Bill Slavin
The secrets of the past have been lost. Knowledge is forbidden, the climate has run wild, and civilization has devolved into post-technological anarchy. In the midst of this wasteland, Mordecai Crow, a drifter in search of his long-lost parents, becomes embroiled in a murderous conspiracy when he seeks refuge in a fortress committed to preserving ancient knowledge.
Bill Slavin 
Published: May 17, 2023 by Renegade Arts Entertainment
ISBN: 9781989754269
Available as an accessible eBook
IN VERITAS
C.J. Lavigne
In this fantastic and fantastical debut, Lavigne concocts a wondrous realm overlaying a city that brims with civic workers and pigeons. Led by her synesthesia, Verity Richards discovers a hidden world inside an old Ottawa theatre. Within the timeworn walls live people who should not exist—people whose very survival is threatened by science, technology, and natural law. Verity must submerge herself in this impossible reality to help save the last traces of their broken community.
C.J. Lavigne 
Published: May 01, 2020 by NeWest Press
ISBN: 9781988732831
Available as an accessible eBook
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~ Steve Budnarchuk, Audreys Books