Spotlight 25-26

WEEK A

For the stairwell book display, Mr Gormley has chosen some out-of-this-world science fiction novels. And we mean that literally: most of these stories take place on worlds beyond Earth! A classic sci-fi epic is Isaac Asimov’s Foundation , set in a galactic empire on the verge of collapse - unless a group of brilliant scientists can change the course of history. Ursula Le Guin’s novella The Word for World is Forest , written during the final years of the Vietnam War, is a powerful allegory about colonial violence in which the alien inhabitants of the planet Athshe, subjugated by humans, organise to overthrow their masters. In Octavia Butler’s Dawn , the protagonist Lilith awakens on an alien spaceship, one of a handful of humans rescued 250 years previously from a devastated Earth. Katsuhiro Otomo’s iconic graphic novel Akira combines sci-fi mystery with thrilling action in a future Neo-Tokyo. Moving into the 21 century, we’ve got modern classics like Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake - a wildly imaginative tale of genetic engineering, mad scientists, and the end of the world as we know it - and Karen Lord’s first-contact tale The Blue, Beautiful World. Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries is a hilarious and fast-paced series with a security cyborg protagonist who, unbeknownst to his human employers, has become fully self-aware. Andy Weir’s Artemis is an action-packed sci-fi novel in which a smuggler gets caught up in a power struggle on the Moon’s only human colony. But science fiction doesn’t have to be high-octane: if you’re looking for a gentler vision of the future, look no further than Becky Chambers’ wonderful Monk and Robot. In this collection of two novellas, a tea monk leaves the city for the wilderness, where they meet one of the sentient robots who had abandoned society centuries earlier. Cue a delightful series of quirky adventures as monk and robot set off to explore their world! st WEEK BEGINNING 03/11/25 IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE!

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