Books like 'The Mere Future'
Readers who enjoyed The Mere Future by Sarah Schulman also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary sc-fi lgbtq dystopia humor literary-fiction urban suspense
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The Secret Billionaire by Erin Swann
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHe whispered in my ear. Three simple words halted all rational thought...PatrickWomen naturally circle the flame of wealth and power, and mine is brighter than most. Does she love me, does she not? There’s no way to know. They’re all faking something.When I stopped to help her, Liz mistook me for a carpenter. Maybe this time I’ll know.She resisted me, but it was pointless... -
The Tetradome Run by Spencer Baum
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen the crime wave peaked in the early 70s, and Nixon signed the Redemption Act, no one bothered to imagine what public execution might look like fifty years in the future. No one imagined that The Tetradome Run would become the most popular show in America. This year's show puts convicted felons in a race with genetically engineered monstrous creations... -
The Kitchens of Canton by Isham Cook
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsJeff Malmquist is unaccountably catapulted to the year 2060. He finds himself in New Gary, Indiana, a labor camp of one million Chicagoans, their identities hacked and incriminated as pedophiles through the collusion of a corrupt US Government, the Russian cybermafia, and China...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction suspense action-adventure book contemporary fiction journey -
His Captor by M.M. Farmer
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIndulging in a Dark Fantasy can lead to deep consequences in reality… HaydenIt wasn’t my first time indulging in that particular fantasy. I was on a business trip and looking for something fun. I didn’t plan on going into heat while playing around, or to like the alpha I played with so much.I also didn’t expect to end up pregnant... -
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Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones by Torrey Peters
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn the future, everyone will be trans. So says Lexi. She's a charismatic trans woman furious with the way she sees her trans friends treated by society and resentful of the girl who spurned her love... -
We of the Forsaken World... by Kiran Bhat
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn a distant corner of the globe, a man journeys to the birthplace of his mother, a tourist town destroyed by an industrial spill. In a nameless remote tribe, the chief’s second son is born, creating a scramble for succession as their jungles are being destroyed by loggers... -
Torture the Artist by Joey Goebel
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsVincent Spinetti is an archetypal tortured artist ? a sensitive young writer who falls victim to alienation, parental neglect, poverty, depression, alcoholism, illness, nervous breakdowns, and unrequited love... -
Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThe baker's dozen stories gathered here (including a new, previously unpublished story) turn readers into travelers to the past, the future, and explorers of the weirder points of the present...Categorized as:
dystopia lgbtq literary-fiction adult anthologies apocalyptic audiobook contemporary -
Traumaland by Josh Silver
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSeventeen-year-old Eli has been in a near-fatal car crash. As the anniversary looms, his therapist and family struggle to help him deal with the fall out. The accident has left him emotionally numb, with no memory of the months following the crash. Desperate to feel something again, Eli winds up at an underground club called Traumaland. But this is no ordinary nightclub... -
Love in the Time of Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe latest installment in the delightful 44 Scotland Street series finds all our favorite residents up to their usual hilarious hijinks. In the microcosm of 44 Scotland Street, all of life's richness is found in the glorious goings-on of its residents... -
Tank's Redemption by Michelle Woods
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAnnie Calder just wants out. Convinced by her mother to do one last job, she's not happy when she ends up stranded in the middle of nowhere. Cursing her luck, she isn't prepared for the sexy tattooed biker who rescues her. Will her secrets cost her everything, or will she escape with the life she's always wanted?Jake "Tank" Hadley was looking for a little information... -
Mr. Melancholy Wants to Live a Peaceful Life 忧郁先生想过平静生活 by Cyan Wings, 青色羽翼
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYu Hua loses his job, and the weight of the household falls on the shoulders of his partner, You Zhengping. His husband is a temporary employee at the subdistrict office, with a monthly salary of only 2500; this troubles Yu Hua exceedingly.You Zhengping is secretly engaged in the work of protecting the world from Destroyers, with a rather liberal subsidy... -
The Marriage Act by John Marrs
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhat if marriage was the law? Dare you disobey?Britain. The near-future. A right-wing government believes it has the answer to society’s ills — the Sanctity of Marriage Act, which actively encourages marriage as the norm, punishing those who choose to remain single... -
The Yellow Arrow by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe main character, Andrei, is a passenger aboard the Yellow Arrow, who begins to despair over the trains ultimate destination and looks for a way out as the chapters count down. Indifferent to their fate, the other passengers carry on as usual — trading in nickel melted down fro the carriage doors, attending the Upper Bunk avant-garde theatre, and leafing through Pasternak’s Early Trains... -
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In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThe stories In Persuasion Nation are easily his best work yet. "The Red Bow,"about a town consumed by pet-killing hysteria, won a 2004 National Magazine Award and "Bohemians," the story of two supposed Eastern European widows trying to fit in in suburban USA, is included in The Best American Short Stories 2005... -
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories by Kevin Wilson
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsKevin Wilson's characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. "Grand Stand-In" is narrated by an employee of a Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider—a company that supplies "stand-ins" for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents...Categorized as:
humor lgbtq literary-fiction 21st-century anthologies audiobook contemporary fiction -
When the Power Is Gone by P.A. Glaspy
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsRuss and Anne Mathews live in a rural suburb in Tennessee. Regular people, with regular jobs, living a normal life - except for one thing. They are what many people call "preppers." They have stocked up on supplies to survive any kind of event they can think of that may occur to disrupt life as they know it. When that event comes, they start preparing for the new way of life they will face... -
The Four-Gated City by Doris Lessing
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDorris Lessing's classic series of autobiographical novels is the fictional counterpart to Under My Skin. In these five novels, first published in the 1950's and 60s, Doris Lessing transformed her fascinating life into fiction, creating her most complex and compelling character, Martha Quest... -
Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsMacArthur genius and Booker Prize winner George Saunders returns with a collection of short stories that make sense of our increasingly troubled world, his first since the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist Tenth of DecemberThe "best short story writer in English" (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the... -
The High House by Jessie Greengrass
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this powerful, highly anticipated novel from an award-winning author, four people attempt to make a home in the midst of environmental disaster.Perched on a sloping hill, set away from a small town by the sea, the High House has a tide pool and a mill, a vegetable garden, and, most importantly, a barn full of supplies... -
How to Buy a Planet by D.A. Holdsworth
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Earth has been sold to aliens. What could possibly go wrong?It’s the Year 2024. Drowning in debt following the pandemic and facing ruin, the world's leaders have taken the only logical decision.They’ve sold the planet... -
The Universe in Miniature in Miniature by Patrick Somerville
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn this genre-busting book from award-winning novelist Patrick Somerville characters, stories, and stray thoughts revolve around the "The Machine of Understanding Other People," the story of a Chicago man who is bequeathed a supernatural helmet that allows him to experience the inner worlds of those around him... -
Every Version of You by Grace Chan
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn late twenty-first century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside a hyper-immersive, hyper-consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise, and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction lgbtq sci-fi fiction mental-illness contemporary pollution-climate-change -
The Maerlande Chronicles by Élisabeth Vonarburg
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA future society, where women far outnumber men, has abandoned the models of patriarchy and matriarchy and established new gender roles. But Lisbei, a young thinker whose gift is exploring the past, confronts the new establishment in order to force changes of her own. The Maerlande Chronicles is a sequel to the critically-acclaimed novel The Silent City... -
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Good Night, Sleep Tight by Brian Evenson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratings“PERHAPS TOMORROW I WILL WAKE UP ANOTHER PERSON. PERHAPS TOMORROW I WILL WAKE UP NOT A PERSON AT ALL.”From the “master of literary horror” (GQ) comes a collection of new stories tracing the limits and consequences of artificial intelligence and “post-human” relationships... -
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD“Wondering if there’s a novel out there that gives Cormac McCarthy’s The Road a run for its money? Here you go. [A Guardian and a Thief is] an indelible piece of writing, in equal parts dazzling and devastating...Categorized as:
literary-fiction dystopia fiction sci-fi contemporary historical-fiction mystery book -
The Night Alphabet by Joelle Taylor
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratings'Joelle Taylor has a Midas touch with words' Diana Souhami The tattoo was a reclamation, a flag we mounted in the centre of our own landscape.A woman walks into a tattoo parlour. But this is no ordinary woman, and this is Hackney in 2233... -
One of the Boys by Jayne Cowie
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIf you could test your son for a gene that predicts violence, would you do it?Antonia and Bea are sisters, and doting mothers to their sons. But that is where their similarities end.Antonia had her son tested to make sure he didn’t possess the "violent" M gene.Bea refuses to let her son take the test. His life should not be determined by a positive or negative result... -
Mothers & Other Monsters: Stories by Maureen F. McHugh
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn her debut collection, Maureen F. McHugh examines the impacts of social and technological shifts on families. Using deceptively simple prose, she illuminates the relationship between parents and children and the expected and unexpected chasms that open between generations...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction adult anthologies contemporary family female-author fiction -
Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"The Guide" is a former South Korean dissident and tour guide who speaks a fluid fabricated language; "the Historian" interviews the Guide and annotates the commentaries. Cathy Park Hong's passionate and artful poem sequence weaves an ultimately revitalizing dialogue on shared experience in a globalized world, using language as subversion and disguise... -
Dog Logic by Tom Strelich
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIf "Dr. Strangelove" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" got together and had a litter of puppies you'd get "Dog Logic", a duck-and-cover fable and love story. Funny, inflammatory, and weirdly propheticHertell Daggett is the divorced and damaged caretaker of a failing pet cemetery on the outskirts of Bakersfield, and he's just discovered a lost civilization... -
Event Factory by Renee Gladman
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA “linguist-traveler” arrives by plane to Ravicka, a city of yellow air in which an undefined crisis is causing the inhabitants to flee. Although fluent in the native language, she quickly finds herself on the outside of every experience. Things happen to her, events transpire, but it is as if the city itself, the performance of life there, eludes her... -
A Better World by Sarah Langan
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe author of Good Neighbors , “one of the creepiest, most unnerving deconstructions of American suburbia” (NPR), returns with a provocative and disconcerting novel about a woman questioning her new home in an exclusive company town after a night out goes terribly wrong.Welcome to Plymouth Valley... -
Low Flying Aircraft And Other Stories by J.G. Ballard
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsContents:The Ultimate CityLow-Flying AircraftThe Dead AstronautMy Dream of Flying to Wake IslandThe Life and Death of GodThe Greatest Television Show on EarthA Place and a Time to DieThe Comsat AngelsThe Beach...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook contemporary fiction -
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Hokkaido Popsicle by Isaac Adamson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter an altercation with the director of Wildman for Geisha! -- a movie based on ace reporter Billy Chaka's life -- Chaka finds himself in Hokkaido on mandatory vacation. Trouble starts when the elderly porter of the Hotel Kitty stumbles into Billy's room and dies. That same night, the lead singer of Japan's most popular rock band turns up dead in a sleazy love hotel in Tokyo... -
Vapor by Amanda Filipacchi
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSoon to be a major motion picture directed by Neil LaBute and starring Renee Zellweger, this is a surreal love story from the author of Nude Men. Now in paperback, Amanda Filipacchi's quirky comic romance gives aspiring actress Anna Graham a makeover that no reader will ever forget... -
Palestine +100: Stories from a Century after the Nakba by Basma Ghalayini, Mazen Maarouf
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsPalestine + 100 poses a question to twelve Palestinian writers: what might your country look like in the year 2048 – a century after the tragedies and trauma of what has come to be called the Nakba? How might this event – which, in 1948, saw the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes – reach across a century of occupation, oppression, and political isolation, to shape the...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction adult anthologies contemporary fiction poc-author politics -
How Best to Avoid Dying by Owen Egerton
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings[i]Lazarus Dying[/i]: the man Jesus raised from the dead is alive and living in New York City. [i]The Fecalist[/i]: an author whose best selling work is his latest poop. [i]Christmas[/i]: she loves you, you love her, she has a gun in your mouth. Welcome to the award-winning short fiction of Owen Egerton... -
Mania by Lionel Shriver
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSet in a parallel yet all too familiar near past, a brilliant subversive novel from the New York Times bestselling author about a lifelong friendship threatened by the Culture Wars. In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence... -
The Rivals by Jane Pek
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA prescient literary mystery about corporate espionage, family dynamics, and the follow-up to Jane Pek’s “thoroughly modern twist on classic detective fiction,” The Verifiers (New York Times Book Review)“Exhilaratingly well-written. I loved it so much that I didn’t want it to end.” —Emily St... -
The Fertile Ones: A Dystopian Novel by Kate L. Mary
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAra Murphy never wanted to be a mother, but the law is clear. She’s fertile, which means her body belongs to the human race.It’s the year is 2067, and the world has been ravaged by pandemics. The population has dwindled, and fertile women are a rare and valuable commodity. In hopes of preserving our species, the United States has passed the Fertility Act, forcing all women to be screened... -
The Measure by Nikki Erlick
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 5 ratingsIt seems like any other day: You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live.From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box... -
Gliff by Ali Smith
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom a literary master, a moving and genre-bending story about our era-spanning search for meaning and knowing.An uncertain near-future. A story of new boundaries drawn between people daily. A not-very brave new world. Add two children. And a horse.From a Scottish word meaning a transient moment, a shock, a faint glimpse, Gliff explores how and why we endeavour to make a mark on the world... -
Beauty Salon by Mario Bellatin
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Like much of Mr. Bellatin’s work, Beauty Salon is pithy, allegorical and profoundly disturbing, with a plot that evokes The Plague by Camus or Blindness by José Saramago."--New York Times"Including a few details that may linger uncomfortably with the reader for a long time, this is contemporary naturalism as disturbing as it gets."--BooklistA strange plague appears in a large city... -
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Set My Heart To Five by Simon Stephenson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratings‘You shall read this with unadulterated pleasure’ Scotland on Sunday‘A beautiful, funny, heartfelt analysis of what it means to be human’ Simon Pegg Set in a 2054 where humans have locked themselves out of the internet and Elon Musk has incinerated the moon, Set My Heart To Five is the hilarious yet profoundly moving story of one android’s emotional awakening... -
Extinction Journals by Jeremy Robert Johnson
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsYou can survive a nuclear blast. All you need is some luck, and maybe a customized business suit coated in cockroaches. It could work. At least that's what Dean believed before the bombs actually dropped and his suit led him to murder a Very Important Man at the foot of a blackened obelisk. Now D.C. is looking awfully empty. Life on Earth is pretty much coming to an end...Categorized as:
dystopia humor literary-fiction action-adventure adult apocalyptic book contemporary -
Povídky o vlasti by Dmitry Glukhovsky
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsRuská satira má hluboké kořeny. Již sám název této knihy je ironickým odkazem na podobnou sovětskou tradici malých, povětšinou oslavných próz. Autor však píše o zcela jiné vlasti, než byla ta sovětská, a jeho povídky mají leckdy podobu politických thrillerů. Z různých úhlů rentgenuje ruskou „demokracii“ z počátku 90...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction adult alternate-history anthologies audiobook contemporary fiction -
Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDystopian debut about a tech company that deletes unwanted memories, the consequences for those forced to contend with what they tried to forget, and the dissenting doctor who seeks to protect her patients from further harm... -
Anyone by Charles Soule
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsCharles Soule brings his signature knowledge—and wariness--of technology to his sophomore novel set in a realistic future about a brilliant female scientist who creates a technology that allows for the transfer of human consciousness between bodies, and the transformations this process wreaks upon the world... -
A Living Soul by P.C. Jersild
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe protagonist of this mild satire - is a human brain floating in an aquarium - The bodiless Ypsilon, expected to be an unemotional intellect, feels lonely. Beause he is lovesick over a pretty lab assistant, Ypsilon chooses not to respond to elaborate educational regiments - With the aid of a chimpanzee and a detached human hand, he makes detailed plans for an impractical escape...
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