Speculative fiction encompasses works that don't neatly fall into science fiction or fantasy. It is broadly defined as any work of fiction containing supernatural, fantastical, or futuristic elements which can include genres ranging from sci-fi to horror. However, it will always contain an element of "what if the world was this way?" Think The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Perfect for the philosophical reader!
New Suns
By Shawl, Nisi
Anthology of contemporary stories by emerging and seasoned writers of many races"There's nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns," proclaimed Octavia E. Butler. New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color showcases emerging and seasoned writers of many races telling stories filled with shocking delights, powerful visions of the familiar made strange. Between this book's covers burn tales of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and their indefinable overlappings. These are authors aware of our many possible pasts and futures, authors freed of stereotypes and clichd expectations, ready to dazzle you with their daring genius Unexploited brilliance shines forth from every page. Includes stories by Kathleen Alcala, Minsoo Kang, Anil Menon, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Alex Jennings, Alberto Yanez, Steven Barnes, Jaymee Goh, Karin Lowachee, E.
Publisher: n/a
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9781781085783
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Paperback
The Ghost Bride
By Choo, Yangsze
One evening, my father asked me if I would like to become a ghost bride...Part 19th century novel, part magical journey to the Chinese world of the dead, Yangsze Choos debut novelThe Ghost Brideis a startlingly original historical fantasy infused with Chinese folklore, romantic intrigue, and unexpected supernatural twists. Reminiscent of Lisa SeesPeony in Loveand Neil GaimansNeverwhere,The Ghost Brideis a wondrous coming-of-age story from a remarkable new voice in fiction.Oprah.coms Book of the Week,Indie Next List pick,Good Housekeeping August Book Pick,Glamour Magazine Beach Read,The Bookseller Editors Pick,Library Journal Barbaras PickChoos clear and charming style creates an alternatereality where the stakes are just as high as in the real world, combininggrounded period storytelling with the supernatural.
Publisher: n/a
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9780062227324
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Hardcover
Who Fears Death
By Okorafor, Nnedi
Read Nnedi Okorafor's posts on the Penguin Blog. An award-winning literary author presents her first foray into supernatural fantasy with a novel of post- apocalyptic Africa. In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means "Who Fears Death?" in an ancient African tongue. Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny-to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture-and eventually death itself.
Publisher: n/a
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9780756406172
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Hardcover
Trail of Lightning
By Roanhorse, Rebecca
While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dintah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.Maggie Hoskie is a Dintah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last - and best - hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much larger and more terrifying than anything she could imagine. Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel to the rez to unravel clues from ancient legends, trade favors with tricksters, and battle dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology. As Maggie discovers the truth behind the disappearances, she will have to confront her past - if she wants to survive. Welcome to the Sixth World.
Publisher: n/a
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9781534413498
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Hardcover
The Fifth Season
By Jemisin, N. K.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, masquerading as an ordinary schoolteacher in a quiet small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Mighty Sanze, the empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years, collapses as its greatest city is destroyed by a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heartland of the world's sole continent, a great red rift has been torn which spews ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries. But this is the Stillness, a land long familiar with struggle, and where orogenes--those who wield the power of the earth as a weapon--are feared far more than the long cold night. Essun has remembered herself, and she will have her daughter back. She does not care if the world falls apart around her. Essun will break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
Publisher: n/a
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9780316229296
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Book
WAR GIRLS
By Onyebuchi, Tochi
Two sisters are torn apart by war and must fight their way back to each other in a futuristic, Black Panther-inspired Nigeria.The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky. In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to protect them from the harsh, radiation-heavy climate. Across the nation, as the years-long civil war wages on, survival becomes the only way of life. Two sisters, Onyii and Ify, dream of more. Their lives have been marked by violence and political unrest. Still, they dream of peace, of hope, of a future together.And they're willing to fight an entire war to get there.Acclaimed author, Tochi Onyebuchi, has written an immersive, action-packed, deeply personal novel perfect for fans of Nnedi Okorafor, Marie Lu, and Paolo Bacigalupi.
Publisher: n/a
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9780451481672
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Hardcover
Never Let Me Go
By Ishiguro, Kazuo
From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love.As a child, Kathy-now thirty-one years old-lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham.
Publisher: n/a
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1400043395
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Hardcover
1Q84
By Murakami, Haruki
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi drivers enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q is for question mark. A world that bears a question." Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. As Aomames and Tengos narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwells - 1Q84 is Haruki Murakamis most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.
Publisher: n/a
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9780307593313
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Paperback
More Happy Than Not
By Silvera, Adam
Happiness shouldnt be this hard... When it first gets announced, the Leteo Institutes memory-alteration procedure seems too good to be true to Aaron Soto; miracle cure-alls dont tend to pop up in the Bronx projects. Aaron cant forget how hes grown up poor, how his friends all seem to shrug him off, and how his father committed suicide in their one-bedroom apartment. He has the support of his patient girlfriend, if not necessarily his distant brother and overworked mother, but its not enough. Then Thomas shows up. He doesnt mind Aarons obsession over the Scorpius Hawthorne books and has a sweet movie setup on his roof. There are nicknames. Aarons not only able to be himself, but happiness feels easy with Thomas. The love Aaron discovers may cost him whats left of his life. But since Aaron cant suddenly stop being gay, Leteo may be the only way out.
Publisher: n/a
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9781616955601
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Audiobook
Mr. Fox
By Oyeyemi, Helen
Winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for FictionOne of Granta's Best Young British NovelistsFrom the prizewinning young writer of What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, coming February 2016, a brilliant and inventive story of love, lies, and inspiration.Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently.Mary challenges Mr. Fox to join her in stories of their own devising; and in different times and places, the two of them seek each other, find each other, thwart each other, and try to stay together, even when the roles they inhabit seem to forbid it.
Publisher: n/a
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9781594488078
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Hardcover
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
By Yu, Charles
*This ebook includes photos, illustrations, and a bonus short story, which add to the ever-expanding world of Minor Universe 31. Photos and illustrations appear as hyperlinks in text. National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award winner Charles Yu delivers his debut novel, a razor-sharp, ridiculously funny, and utterly touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space-time. Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That's where Charles Yu, time travel technician - part counselor, part gadget repair man - steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he's not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It's called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he's the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him - in fact it may even save his life. Wildly new and adventurous, Yu's debut is certain to send shock waves of wonder through literary space-time.
Publisher: n/a
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9780307379207
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eBook
The Bees
By Paull, Laline
The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut set in an ancient culture where only the queen may breed and deformity means death.Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the beloved Queen the only religion. But Flora is not like other bees. With circumstances threatening the hive's survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw but her courage and strength are an asset. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect pollen. She also finds her way into the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous.But when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all - daring to challenge the Queen's fertility - enemies abound, from the fearsome fertility police who enforce the strict social hierarchy to the high priestesses jealously wedded to power. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce maternal love that will bring her into conflict with her conscience, her heart, her society - and lead her to unthinkable deeds.Thrilling, suspenseful and spectacularly imaginative, The Bees gives us a dazzling young heroine and will change forever the way you look at the world outside your window.
New Suns
By Shawl, Nisi
Anthology of contemporary stories by emerging and seasoned writers of many races"There's nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns," proclaimed Octavia E. Butler. New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color showcases emerging and seasoned writers of many races telling stories filled with shocking delights, powerful visions of the familiar made strange. Between this book's covers burn tales of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and their indefinable overlappings. These are authors aware of our many possible pasts and futures, authors freed of stereotypes and clichd expectations, ready to dazzle you with their daring genius Unexploited brilliance shines forth from every page. Includes stories by Kathleen Alcala, Minsoo Kang, Anil Menon, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Alex Jennings, Alberto Yanez, Steven Barnes, Jaymee Goh, Karin Lowachee, E.
The Ghost Bride
By Choo, Yangsze
One evening, my father asked me if I would like to become a ghost bride...Part 19th century novel, part magical journey to the Chinese world of the dead, Yangsze Choos debut novelThe Ghost Brideis a startlingly original historical fantasy infused with Chinese folklore, romantic intrigue, and unexpected supernatural twists. Reminiscent of Lisa SeesPeony in Loveand Neil GaimansNeverwhere,The Ghost Brideis a wondrous coming-of-age story from a remarkable new voice in fiction.Oprah.coms Book of the Week,Indie Next List pick,Good Housekeeping August Book Pick,Glamour Magazine Beach Read,The Bookseller Editors Pick,Library Journal Barbaras PickChoos clear and charming style creates an alternatereality where the stakes are just as high as in the real world, combininggrounded period storytelling with the supernatural.
Who Fears Death
By Okorafor, Nnedi
Read Nnedi Okorafor's posts on the Penguin Blog. An award-winning literary author presents her first foray into supernatural fantasy with a novel of post- apocalyptic Africa. In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means "Who Fears Death?" in an ancient African tongue. Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny-to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture-and eventually death itself.
Trail of Lightning
By Roanhorse, Rebecca
While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dintah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.Maggie Hoskie is a Dintah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last - and best - hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much larger and more terrifying than anything she could imagine. Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel to the rez to unravel clues from ancient legends, trade favors with tricksters, and battle dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology. As Maggie discovers the truth behind the disappearances, she will have to confront her past - if she wants to survive. Welcome to the Sixth World.
The Fifth Season
By Jemisin, N. K.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, masquerading as an ordinary schoolteacher in a quiet small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Mighty Sanze, the empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years, collapses as its greatest city is destroyed by a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heartland of the world's sole continent, a great red rift has been torn which spews ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries. But this is the Stillness, a land long familiar with struggle, and where orogenes--those who wield the power of the earth as a weapon--are feared far more than the long cold night. Essun has remembered herself, and she will have her daughter back. She does not care if the world falls apart around her. Essun will break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
WAR GIRLS
By Onyebuchi, Tochi
Two sisters are torn apart by war and must fight their way back to each other in a futuristic, Black Panther-inspired Nigeria.The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky. In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to protect them from the harsh, radiation-heavy climate. Across the nation, as the years-long civil war wages on, survival becomes the only way of life. Two sisters, Onyii and Ify, dream of more. Their lives have been marked by violence and political unrest. Still, they dream of peace, of hope, of a future together.And they're willing to fight an entire war to get there.Acclaimed author, Tochi Onyebuchi, has written an immersive, action-packed, deeply personal novel perfect for fans of Nnedi Okorafor, Marie Lu, and Paolo Bacigalupi.
Never Let Me Go
By Ishiguro, Kazuo
From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love.As a child, Kathy-now thirty-one years old-lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham.
1Q84
By Murakami, Haruki
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi drivers enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q is for question mark. A world that bears a question." Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. As Aomames and Tengos narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwells - 1Q84 is Haruki Murakamis most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.
More Happy Than Not
By Silvera, Adam
Happiness shouldnt be this hard... When it first gets announced, the Leteo Institutes memory-alteration procedure seems too good to be true to Aaron Soto; miracle cure-alls dont tend to pop up in the Bronx projects. Aaron cant forget how hes grown up poor, how his friends all seem to shrug him off, and how his father committed suicide in their one-bedroom apartment. He has the support of his patient girlfriend, if not necessarily his distant brother and overworked mother, but its not enough. Then Thomas shows up. He doesnt mind Aarons obsession over the Scorpius Hawthorne books and has a sweet movie setup on his roof. There are nicknames. Aarons not only able to be himself, but happiness feels easy with Thomas. The love Aaron discovers may cost him whats left of his life. But since Aaron cant suddenly stop being gay, Leteo may be the only way out.
Mr. Fox
By Oyeyemi, Helen
Winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for FictionOne of Granta's Best Young British NovelistsFrom the prizewinning young writer of What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, coming February 2016, a brilliant and inventive story of love, lies, and inspiration.Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently.Mary challenges Mr. Fox to join her in stories of their own devising; and in different times and places, the two of them seek each other, find each other, thwart each other, and try to stay together, even when the roles they inhabit seem to forbid it.
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
By Yu, Charles
*This ebook includes photos, illustrations, and a bonus short story, which add to the ever-expanding world of Minor Universe 31. Photos and illustrations appear as hyperlinks in text. National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award winner Charles Yu delivers his debut novel, a razor-sharp, ridiculously funny, and utterly touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space-time. Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That's where Charles Yu, time travel technician - part counselor, part gadget repair man - steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he's not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It's called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he's the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him - in fact it may even save his life. Wildly new and adventurous, Yu's debut is certain to send shock waves of wonder through literary space-time.
The Bees
By Paull, Laline
The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut set in an ancient culture where only the queen may breed and deformity means death.Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the beloved Queen the only religion. But Flora is not like other bees. With circumstances threatening the hive's survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw but her courage and strength are an asset. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect pollen. She also finds her way into the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous.But when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all - daring to challenge the Queen's fertility - enemies abound, from the fearsome fertility police who enforce the strict social hierarchy to the high priestesses jealously wedded to power. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce maternal love that will bring her into conflict with her conscience, her heart, her society - and lead her to unthinkable deeds.Thrilling, suspenseful and spectacularly imaginative, The Bees gives us a dazzling young heroine and will change forever the way you look at the world outside your window.