How to: Speculative Fiction
#### [Anathem](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2845024-anathem) (2008) _by [Neal Stephenson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson)_ [4.2]
Description
> Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside “saecular” world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent’s walls. Three times during history’s darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside—the Extramuros—for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago.
  >
  > Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent’s gates—at the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious “extras” in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn’t seen since he was “collected.” But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change.
  >
  > Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros—a threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose—as, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world—as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet… and beyond.
#### [Never Let Me Go](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6334.Never_Let_Me_Go) (2005) _by [Kazuo Ishiguro](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4280.Kazuo_Ishiguro)_ [3.8] 🔥

A heartbreaking coming of age novel with a speculative, mysterious twist. Definitely a character-driven story. - [@sunrein](https://github.com/sunrein)
Description
> As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life, and for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special— and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.
#### [Stranger in a Strange Land](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/350.Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land) (1961) _by [Robert A. Heinlein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein)_ [3.9] 🌟 🔥
Description
> NAME: Valentine Michael Smith
  > ANCESTRY: Human
  > ORIGIN: Mars
  >
  > Here is Heinlein’s masterpiece—the brilliant spectacular and incredibly popular novel that grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller to a classic in a few short years. It is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, the man from Mars who taught humankind grokking and water-sharing. And love.
#### [The End of Eternity](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/509784.The_End_of_Eternity) (1955) _by [Isaac Asimov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov)_ [4.2]
Description
> Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a man whose job it is to range through past and present Centuries, monitoring and, where necessary, altering Time’s myriad cause-and-effect relationships. But when Harlan meets and falls for a non-Eternal woman, he seeks to use the awesome powers and techniques of the Eternals to twist time for his own purposes, so that he and his love can survive together.
#### [The Shrinking Man](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33549.The_Shrinking_Man) (1956) _by [Richard Matheson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Matheson)_ [3.8] 🔥

This was pretty good; it's pretty obvious what it is about, and it reads predictably, but the ending is strong enough to make the entire book worth reading. - [@RichardLitt](https://github.com/RichardLitt)
Description
> While on holiday, Scott Carey is exposed to a cloud of radioactive spray shortly after he accidentally ingests insecticide. The radioactivity acts as a catalyst for the bug spray, causing his body to shrink at a rate of approximately 1/7 of an inch per day. A few weeks lat