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For any speculative fiction (by the most inclusive definition - if you think it might count, it counts) that exhibits "literary" traits such as: strong themes, thought-provoking ideas, deep emotional meaning, artful use of language, or so on. If a book "feels" literary to you, go ahead and add it.
This is highly subjective, of course, but I think it could make for an interesting open list. Let's see what we end up with :)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle)
4 stars
**50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION—WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY DAVID MITCHELL AND A NEW AFTERWORD BY CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
Ursula K. Le …
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
4 stars
Ted Chiang's first published story, "Tower of Babylon," won the Nebula Award in 1990. Subsequent stories have won the Asimov's …
Invisible Planets by Ken Liu, Cixin Liu, Hao Jingfang, and 5 others (Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, #1)
4 stars
Award-winning translator and author Ken Liu presents a collection of short speculative fiction from China. Some stories have won awards; …
The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings, #1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien
4 stars
The Fellowship of the Ring is the first of three volumes of the epic novel The Lord of the Rings …
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer, Eliot Schrefer
4 stars
Two boys, alone in space.
After the first settler on Titan trips her distress signal, neither remaining country on Earth …
This was marketed as YA gay romance, and it sort of kind of is, but that's like saying Interstellar is a family man movie without mentioning anything else.
This is a rollercoaster of a scifi horror/thriller epic about finding meaning in life/death. It haunted me for like a month after reading.
Monstrous Regiment (Discworld) by Terry Pratchett
4 stars
In the twenty-eighth Discworld novel the Discworld goes to war.It began as a sudden strange fancy... Polly Perks had to …
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
4 stars
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of "King Lear." Jeevan …
4 stars
Wind: To match one's body with one's heart
Sand: To take the bearer where they wish
Song: In praise of …
4 stars
In her most exuberant, most fanciful novel, Woolf has created a character liberated from the restraints of time and sex. …
The Giver by Lois Lowry (The Giver, #1)
4 stars
It is a school edition used in many schools across the US while it a school edition all of the …
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
4 stars
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap …
