In Iceland, on the night before Christmas, people give each other books to read as they snuggle under comforters and wait out the long, dark winter nights. That sounds like a great idea to us. The contributors at Fiction Unbound have picked their favorites to recommend books that will see you and your friends and families through the holiday season and beyond.
CS Peterson recommends Dirk Gently's Wholistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, by Douglas Adams
Elevator Pitch: The first Dirk Gently book came out in 1987 and has stood the test of time. Dirk Gently is a wholistic detective. He doesn't look for clues or chase down leads, he's just in the right place and things happen. That's why he's a wholistic detective. Of course the cases Dirk works are not run of the mill. He is always surrounded by bizarre and terrifying states of disaster.
(Note: Adams was working on a third Dirk Gently novel at the time of his death. For the truly committed, the story is available in a collection of Douglas's unfinished works published as The Salmon of Doubt.)
A great gift for: The person on your list who enjoys their speculative fiction with a heavy dose of the weird, the comic and rapid-fire hijinx.
Good paired with: A subscription to the cable television service in your area that carries BBC America. The second season of the BBC's brilliantly written series based on the Dirk Gently novels is well underway and completely binge worthy. Starring Elijah Wood, Samuel Barnett, Hannah Marks and Jade Eshete.
Price: Around $12 each.
Thickness rating: Open them when the sun goes down on the winter solstice and finish reading by the time the sun comes up.
Lisa Mahoney recommends the Broken Earth series, by N.K. Jeminsin
Elevator Pitch: Tens of thousands of years ago an experiment with geology and magic caused Father Earth’s only child, the Moon, to be flung away into a radically elliptical orbit. The Evil Earth curses the living: “Burn.” Mysterious stone people, shackled geomancers, and regular humans struggle with each other while all suffer the Evil Earth’s wrath, decades-long volcanic ash winters and violent quakes opening vast rifts in the ground. Surrounded by dead civ ruins, how can humanity hope to remember the missing Moon, much less retain the lore necessary catch it again when it returns, especially when the geomancers are slaughtered by fearful humans?
Essun is an orogene geomancer trained to quell tremors and fix subterranean hazards under the careful watch of the guardians, but no one can stop the massive eruption that brings on another “Fifth Season,” a volcanic winter. Essun accidentally harnesses a mysterious obelisk floating in the sky, built by a long-dead civ, and, in making an unexpected ally, finds herself at the center of millenias-old quest to placate the Evil Earth. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate both won Hugo awards, and the third in the series, The Stone Sky, will too.
Great Gift for: Fantasy and science fiction nerds who savor the slow unraveling of a dystopia’s complex magical rules and history by an author crafting her words in an elevated artistic and literary style.
Good paired with: A backpack containing dried fruit, jerky, a gas mask, and a good knife.
Price: A bargain at $31 for all three.
Thickness rating: Dense, stylish and engrossing as fresh lava flows.
Amanda Baldeneaux has The Heaven of Mercury, by Brad Watson at the top of her list
Elevator Pitch: Brad Watson’s National Book Award nominated southern gothic is a fever dream of the beauty and horror of 1950’s Missouri. From the lush forests where sweating suitors have visions of young goddesses they’ll love for a lifetime, where said suitors also leave steaming piles of … well, you can guess, to intricate portraits of men, women, and children walking the line between what’s expected of them and what they want. The novel is a book of juxtapositions, which is both a love letter to the author’s childhood home and a portrait of what a crap-pile the south can be when the truth about the treatment of African Americans and women is revealed. If you’re wondering how the novel is speculative aside from the historical aspect, you may have to look closely, but you’ll find a story full of ghosts: ghosts of lost coastal communities, ghosts of lost loves, and ghosts of a past that was so inwardly tortured in life that it refuses to be laid to rest in death.
Great Gift for: Anyone who doesn’t mind a little semi-necrophilia in their literary fiction (and not for anyone who wishes to avoid racial slurs and rape, which are both present in the book in depicting the ugly history of the south).
Good paired with: A hot toddy that’s more bourbon than lemon water.
Price: $15.00 for a paperback.
Thickness rating: At 350 pages and with prose as dense and lush as a fern-drenched southern forest, it’s not a long book, but you could find yourself lost in the beauty of some pages and rushing through the muddy, nasty swamp of others (the plot points, not the prose).
Mark Springer recommends Borne, by Jeff VanderMeer
Elevator Pitch: A nameless city in ruins, destroyed by human arrogance and greed and terrorized by a murderous flying bear the size of a skyscraper. A cautious, resourceful scavenger named Rachel, who survives in the city by making the most of cast-off biotech engineered by the Company, a rapacious corporation dying of end-stage capitalism. Into this weird (and weirdly beautiful) world comes Borne, a sentient, shape-shifting biotech creature that Rachel finds tangled in the fur of the giant bear.
As Rachel and Borne forge an unlikely bond that raises questions about the nature of intelligence, what it means to be a person, and whether we can overcome the worst of our nature, the city slips deeper into a violent conflict that will force our heroes to answer these difficult questions … or die trying.
Great Gift For: Open-minded readers who are looking for a page-turning post-apocalyptic plot that balances perfectly with its richly drawn characters and deep philosophical concerns.
Good Paired With: VanderMeer’s equally weird, equally philosophical Southern Reach trilogy, or his epic science fiction anthology, The Big Book of Science Fiction, edited with Ann VanderMeer (my recommendation for last year’s holiday gift guide, rave reviews here and here).
Price: $26.00 at your favorite local bookstore (or less as a loss-leader at a certain online retailer).
Thickness Rating: Medium … but once Borne has you under its spell, you will do everything you can to read it in a single sitting.
And for that one person on your list Danyelle C. Overbo has a great gift idea
Elevator Pitch: It’s not always easy to choose books or even gifts for other people. Some people can be quite difficult to shop for! This is why, for the book lover in your life, I recommend giving a subscription to the Book of the Month Club. It is a great way to encourage their love of reading without feeling nervous about whether or not they’ll like the book you choose.
How it works: Every month, a panel of judges picks 5 books to recommend (always an eclectic mix of genres and types). As a subscriber, you choose from those 5 books which one you’d like to read and they ship it out to you. If more than one book catches your eye, you can add up to two books to your box that month for $9.99 each - a huge bargain for a gorgeous hardcover! If you don’t like the books the judges picked that month, you can skip the month. Easy peasy! Not only is it fun to do, but you get to find out about all kinds of books that you might not have discovered on your own. They didn’t pay me to say this either - I personally subscribe and bought a subscription for my mother on Mother’s Day. I’ve gotten so many great books from this that I’m very behind on my reading. An excellent problem to have. Some past Book’s of the Month that I’ve chosen: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, Dark Matter, and The Sun is Also a Star.
Great Gift for: Anyone who loves to read and wants more books!
Good paired with: If you’re going all-out with this gift, you could get them a monthly coffee or wine subscription too!
Price: 3 months for $44.99, 6 months for $79.99, and 12 months for $149.99
Thickness rating: Infinite!
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We’ve had enough tricks already in 2020, so here’s a treat instead.