Q&Q spoke with booksellers across Canada to find out their top science-fiction picks for this year.
Click on the thumbnails below to learn more about each title.
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- Following <i>Oryx & Crake</i> and <i>The Year of the Flood</i>, Margaret Atwood finished off her critically acclaimed, best-selling speculative fiction trilogy with the August release of <i>MaddAddam</i>, which tells the story of a group of survivors in a dystopian future after â€the waterless flood.â€<br /> <br /> Atwood's latest was one of Montreal’s Paragraphe bookstore’s top five picks for the genre.
- Maddaddam, Margaret Atwood (McClelland & Stewart)
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- Following Oryx & Crake and The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood finished off her critically acclaimed, best-selling speculative fiction trilogy with the August release of MaddAddam, which tells the story of a group of survivors in a dystopian future after â€the waterless flood.†Atwood’s latest was one of Montreal’s Paragraphe bookstore’s top five picks for the genre.
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- One of the top sci-fi bestsellers at McNally Robinson Books in Saskatoon this year was the 22nd book by Robert J. Sawyer, who won the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association’s lifetime achievement award earlier this fall. <i>Red Planet Blues</i>, released in March, details the life of a private eye investigating a mystery that involves the duo who founded his home colony on Mars 40 years earlier.<br /> <br /> McNally Robinson inventory manager Caroline Walker says the store's launch for Sawyer’s new work was very well attended, and that he proved his popularity with readers at Saskatoon’s Word on the Street festival.
- Red Planet Blues, Robert J. Sawyer (Viking Canada)
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- One of the top sci-fi bestsellers at McNally Robinson Books in Saskatoon this year was the 22nd book by Robert J. Sawyer, who won the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association’s lifetime achievement award earlier this fall. Red Planet Blues, released in March, details the life of a private eye investigating a mystery that involves the duo who founded his home colony on Mars 40 years earlier. McNally Robinson inventory manager Caroline Walker says the store’s launch for Sawyer’s new work was very well attended, and that he proved his popularity with readers at Saskatoon’s Word on the Street festival.
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- Canadian-British author and journalist Cory Doctorow returned in February with <i>Homeland</i>, a follow-up to <i>Little Brother</i>, about a group of teens who hack homeland security using video-game consoles.<br /> <br /> Manager Chris Szego at Bakka Phoenix Books, Toronto's specialty science-fiction and fantasy bookstore, says the book has wide appeal, calling it â€good stuff.†<br /> <br /> â€It’s fast-paced, it’s technical, and it’s also about some of the deep issues about privacy and freedom of information and freedom of freedom,†she says.
- Homeland, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen/Tom Doherty Associates)
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- Canadian-British author and journalist Cory Doctorow returned in February with Homeland, a follow-up to Little Brother, about a group of teens who hack homeland security using video-game consoles. Manager Chris Szego at Bakka Phoenix Books, Toronto’s specialty science-fiction and fantasy bookstore, says the book has wide appeal, calling it â€good stuff.†â€It’s fast-paced, it’s technical, and it’s also about some of the deep issues about privacy and freedom of information and freedom of freedom,†she says.
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- 99073
- Though <i>A Memory of Light</i> is not a CanLit title, it was a sci-fi hard-hitter in Canadian bookstores this February. Author Brandon Sanderson ends the famed Wheel of Time series started by the late Robert Jordan, marking Sanderson's third (and final) addition to the fantasy series.<br /> <br /> Both Bakka Phoenix and Paragraphe listed the title as one of their top five.<br /> <br /> Chris Szego at Bakka Phoenix calls the book â€significant,†comparing the series’ popularity with that of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books.
- A Memory of Light, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor Fantasy/Tom Doherty Associates)
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- Though A Memory of Light is not a CanLit title, it was a sci-fi hard-hitter in Canadian bookstores this February. Author Brandon Sanderson ends the famed Wheel of Time series started by the late Robert Jordan, marking Sanderson’s third (and final) addition to the fantasy series. Both Bakka Phoenix and Paragraphe listed the title as one of their top five. Chris Szego at Bakka Phoenix calls the book â€significant,†comparing the series’ popularity with that of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books.
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- This November, U.S.-born Canadian sci-fi novelist Robert Charles Wilson released his first work since his 2006 Hugo winner, <i>Spin</i>. <i>Burning Paradise</i> is both alternate history and zombie fiction, taking place in 2015 United States, where humans are being farmed by some kind of alternative life form.<br /> <br /> Chris Szego at Bakka Phoenix calls it â€a great read,†saying, â€This shows you how much I loved it because I am so over zombies. But these aren’t zombie zombies, they are more the question of the philosophical zombie; of having a construct that mimics life, but has everything but consciousness.â€
- Burning Paradise, Charles Wilson (Tor Books/Tom Doherty Associates)
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- This November, U.S.-born Canadian sci-fi novelist Robert Charles Wilson released his first work since his 2006 Hugo winner, Spin. Burning Paradise is both alternate history and zombie fiction, taking place in 2015 United States, where humans are being farmed by some kind of alternative life form. Chris Szego at Bakka Phoenix calls it â€a great read,†saying, â€This shows you how much I loved it because I am so over zombies. But these aren’t zombie zombies, they are more the question of the philosophical zombie; of having a construct that mimics life, but has everything but consciousness.â€
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