Metaphysical Fiction

Vanja, an information assistant, is sent from her home city of Essre to the austere, wintry colony of Amatka with an assignment to collect intelligence for the government. Immediately she feels that something strange is going on: People act oddly in Amatka, and citizens are monitored for signs of subversion.

From the acclaimed PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-winning author of A Naked Singularity, a shockingly hilarious novel that tackles, with equal aplomb, both America’s most popular sport and its criminal justice system. From Paterson, New Jersey, to Rikers Island to the streets of New York, Sergio de la Pava’s Lost Empress introduces listeners to a cast of characters unlike any other in modern fiction: dreamers and exiles, immigrants and night-shift workers, a lonely pastor and others on the fringes of society - each with their own impact on the fragile universe they navigate.

Anthropologist Theodore Hansen discovers a magical plant in the Amazon rainforest that has the potential to both heal and destroy society. He steals a cutting from the indigenous guardians of the plant and clones enough of it to sell to the world, becoming one of the richest humans alive.

This autumn, life is catching up with Thomas Quinn. Five years ago, his sometime friend Andrew Black wrote a mystery novel that sold a million copies and then disappeared. Now could it be that Quinn is being stalked by the hero of Black’s book? His wife, Imogen, usually has the answers but she’s working on the other side of the world and talking to her on webcam just isn’t the same. Quinn finds himself in a world that might well be coming apart at the seams. If he can find Black, he might start finding answers.

When the enigmatic billionaire founder and CEO of Tetration, the world's most powerful tech company, is diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, he hires a failed novelist, Josh Cohen, to ghostwrite his memoirs. This tech mogul, known only as "Principal", takes Josh deep into his own mind, and outlines the history of Tetration, which started by revolutionizing the search engine and later ventured into smartphones, computer manufacturing, and the surveillance of American citizens.

An inspirational and heartwarming novel for lovers of Mitch Albom and Andy Andrews, blending elements of It's a Wonderful Life and Field of Dreams into a moving story all its own.

Before Joe Hart can stop the murder of John Lennon, he must die himself. When Joe Hart dies after leading a wasted life, he chooses to use his second chance to make the world better. Even when he thinks he knows what is coming, changing the past is difficult. What would you do, if you could do it all again?

Shortly after Clare arrives in Havana, Cuba, to attend the annual Festival of New Latin American Cinema, she finds her husband, Richard, standing outside a museum. He’s wearing a white linen suit she’s never seen before, and he’s supposed to be dead. Grief-stricken and baffled, Clare tails Richard, a horror film scholar, through the newly tourist-filled streets of Havana, clocking his every move. As the distinction between reality and fantasy blurs, Clare finds grounding in memories of her childhood in Florida and of her marriage to Richard.

In this story, a wealthy Indian Brahmin casts off a life of privilege to seek spiritual fulfillment. Hesse synthesizes disparate philosophies—Eastern religions, Jungian archetypes, Western individualism—into a unique vision of life as expressed through one man's search for meaning. Herman Hesse's classic novel has delighted, inspired, and influenced generations of listeners, writers, and thinkers.

Gerard sits, fully clothed, in his empty bathtub and pines for Benna. Neighbors in the same apartment building, they share a wall, and Gerard listens for the sound of her toilet flushing. Gerard loves Benna. And then Benna loves Gerard. She listens to him play piano, she teaches poetry, and sings at nightclubs. As their relationship ebbs and flows, through reality and imagination, Lorrie Moore paints a captivating, innovative portrait of men and women in love and not in love.

In The Second Rule of Ten, Norbu investigates the unexplained death of his former client, Hollywood mogul Marv Rudolph, and searches for the sister, lost during World War II, of wizened Los Angeles philanthropist Julius Rosen. With two cases and an unforeseen family crisis that sends him back to Tibet, Ten finds himself on the outs with his best buddy and former partner, Bill, who is heading the official police investigation into Marv's death.

Troubled by an inability to find any meaning in his life, the 25-year-old narrator of this deceptively simple novel quits university and eventually arrives at his brother's New York apartment. In a bid to discover what life is all about, he writes lists. He becomes obsessed by time and whether it actually matters. He faxes his meteorologist friend. He endlessly bounces a ball against the wall. He befriends a small boy who lives next door. He yearns to get to the bottom of life and how best to live it.

Almost anyone who has read or written science fiction or fantasy has been inspired by the work of Michael Moorcock. His literary flair and grand sense of adventure have been evident since his controversial first novel Behold the Man, from the stories and novels featuring his most famous character, Elric of Melniboné, to his fantasy masterpiece, Gloriana, winner of both the Campbell Memorial and World Fantasy awards for best novel.

Christopher Martin, the sole survivor of a torpedoed destroyer, is stranded upon a rock in the middle of the Atlantic. Pitted against him are the sea, the sun, the brutal cold and the aching terror of his isolation. To drink, there is a pool of rainwater; to eat, seaweed and anemones, preyed upon by feathered reptiles. As he descends into the abyss of his consciousness, weathering lightning strikes of memory, Martin must try to assemble the truth of his fate - piece by terrible piece.

Weather Menders is a cli-fi novel for the hopeful. What if time travelers from 300 years in the future told you that there was a chance that you could prevent catastrophic climate change, plagues, and wars by going back in time to key pivot points and ethically altering the outcome of rigged elections? What if failure would result in the end of all life on the planet? Would you go?

Ninety-Three is the story of the Marquis de Lantenac, an exiled French nobleman snuck back into France to raise a Royalist army which will make the English invasion possible, Gauvain, Lantenac's great-nephew leading the Republican army to thwart him, and Cimourdain, a former priest and Gauvain's teacher and mentor, tasked to keep Gauvain on the right path. And in the end, who will face the guillotine?

Beloved for the lens of the strange he places on small-town life, Steven Millhauser further reveals in Voices in the Night the darkest parts of our inner selves to brilliant and dazzling effect. Here are stories of wondrously imaginative hyperrealism, stories that pose unsettling what-ifs or that find barely perceivable evils within the safe boundaries of our towns, homes, and even our bodies.

A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then a tavern. Their powers of speech are magically taken from them and instead they have only tarot cards with which to tell their stories. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal, and chaotic history of all human consciousness.

At one point or another, we’ve all been asked to name five people, living or dead, with whom we’d like to have dinner. Why do we choose the people we do? And what if that dinner was to actually happen? These are the questions Rebecca Serle contends with in The Dinner List. When Sabrina arrives at her 30th birthday dinner she finds at the table not just her best friend, but also three significant people from her past, and well, Audrey Hepburn. As the dinner table conversation begins, it becomes clear that there’s a reason these six people have been gathered together.

Meanwhile, Gillan McArdle’s academic career is ending because of one stupid lapse of judgement. Offered a short-term contract, he lands on the Hebridean island of Harris to investigate obscure animal bones. Quickly dismissing the unicorn skull as a thinly disguised fake, he can’t deny there’s something unusual about these bones. Baited by rumors of a majestic tusked horse roaming the uplands, Gill begins to suspect someone is manipulating him. As he gradually unravels the mystery of the skull, he grasps a disturbing conclusion: If this creature does exist, the evidence suggests it’s a killer.