Read any good science fiction books with disabled characters lately?

[kestrell]

I'm thinking of writing about images of disability in science fiction books which have been published since I wrote my thesis on the subject in 2005.

Peter Watts's _Blindsight_ came out a few months after I submitted my thesis, so that is one, but I would mostly like to hear about recent books.

So, hit me with your recommendations!

Comments

[cvirtue]

I don't know if you looked at this one already or not.


Full Metal Alchemist
It started print serialization in 2001, a not-great anime version came out in 2003, a better one in 2009, and a completely terrible live-action in 2017.

Protagonist has a prosthetic right arm after losing his original arm due to a magical accident.

[kestrell]

Cool! I'm definitely enthusiastic about prosthetics, especially as, and that's always a thread when I talk about sf and disability.

[alexxkay]

The character who lost an arm got off light. In the same accident, his brother lost his entire corporeal body, and now inhabits a suit of armor. Arguably one big prosthetic.

[ambyr]

I think you meant 2005, not 2015, since Blindsight came out in 2006? Anyway, assuming that 2015 was a typo, I'll start with 2005...

Books I didn't like but that have significant disabled characters:

Kay Kenyon's Bright of the Sky and sequels includes a blind character as a secondary protagonist, Sydney.

Jacqueline Koyanagi's Ascension has a protagonist with a chronic pain condition.

Claire O'Dell's A Study in Honor has a protagonist who is an amputee.

Books I liked with significant disabled characters:

Kelly Robson's Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach has a protagonist who is an amputee.

River Solomon's An Unkindness of Ghosts has an autistic protagonist. So does Maggie Shen's An Excess Male (well, a secondary protagonist).

And a short story: Alex Well's "Angel of the Blockade" has a blind protagonist.

[kestrell]

Thanks for alerting me to my typo, and for providing a great list.

[bibliofile]

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach has a protagonist who is an amputee and who replaced their limbs with many tentacles.

Mishell Baker's Arcadia series has multiple characters with physical and/or mental disabilities. The protagonist of the first book, Borderline (2016), is a double amputee with borderline personality disorder.

Richard Powers's The Overstory (2019) focuses on several characters over time. One of them has significant physical disabilities; another is a veteran with PTSD and related mental health issues, IIRC.

The graphic novel series Polarity, by Max Bemis & Jorge Coelho, is about the experience of bipolar/manic depressive disorder.

Goldenland past dark is a 2013 novel (from ChiZine) about disability and physical difference, centers around a circus in the 1960s.

but wait, there's more (at least, of books that I've read myself)

[bibliofile]

In the rebooted Ms. Marvel comics, my LibraryThing tags tell me that Volume 7, "Damage per second", includes hacks for physical disabilities. I don't recall the details, alas. Written by G. Willow Wilson.

Earth girl (2013, Pyr) by Janet Edwards is a YA SF book about how humans can travel instantly to other plants -- unless you're handicapped in some way. The protagonist is allergic to planets that aren't Earth, so she's stuck there with the other broken humans. However, students do travel to Earth for stuff like archaeological digs, which the protagonist joins.

WWW : wake (2009) by Robert J. Sawyer features a girl who's been blind since birth. Tech to give her vision also lets her see the Web. I remember that parts of this book were mildly annoying, but that sometimes happens with Sawyer's work, for me. It's the first book in a trilogy; I haven't read the other books.

That's all I've got, for now.

[jesse_the_k]

There are tons of great short stories that come to mind.

2015's Accessing the Future collection
http://press.futurefire.net/p/accessing-future.html

Uncanny Magazine's special issues:

Disabled People Destroy Fantasy
https://uncannymagazine.com/issues/uncanny-magazine-issue-thirty/

Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction
https://uncannymagazine.com/issues/uncanny-magazine-issue-twenty-four/

Marissa Lingen's This Will Not Happen To You is horrific post-fungal coping
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/this-will-not-happen-to-you/

A.T. Greenblatt's Heavy Lifting is a thriller about folks who scavenge old robots; the best waldo-operator uses crutches
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/heavy-lifting/

Wait, I'm just rereading both issues -- go, read them!

Lots of Nisi Shawl's recent writing has disability smack in the center.

Fiction from WIRED magazine: The Future of Work: the Third Petal is part of what I hope is their next novel. Shawl focuses on the interdependence of a neighborhood where the main character works as a personal care assistant. https://www.wired.com/story/future-of-work-third-petal-nisi-shawl/

The Things I Miss the Most is a heartbreaking tale of assistive tech for the brain that breaks. https://uncannymagazine.com/article/the-things-i-miss-the-most/

The Deep End is in Shawl's 2008 collection, Filter House, available on Bookshare
https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/56101
Discusses embodiment along many axes, including race, disability, chronic pain.

Marissa Lingen is another disabled author who writes about disability: essays, reviews &c at her blog
http://www.marissalingen.com/blog/?s=disability&submit=Search

Okay, those were the top of mind items. Enjoy!

[duskpeterson]

After racking my brain, I'm beginning to wonder whether I began writing disability fiction just so that I could have something to read.

I don't know whether this is already in your thesis, because the series started in 1996, but the Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner is historical fantasy with very little actual fantasy in it. It reads like an alternate universe story, set in an alternative version of eastern Mediterranean countries during the Renaissance era. The series has an awesome major character who loses a hand in the second volume.

I am having the worst time locating a link for you, because every single blurb spoilers the first volume in the series, including the blurb for the first volume. So very frustrating. Here's the old blurb for the first volume, "The Thief," which doesn't contain spoilers.

"The king's scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king's prison. The magus is interested only in the thief's abilities.

"What Gen is interested in is anyone's guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses."

End of blurb. Here's the first five volumes packed into one e-book at Bookshare, with the spoilery blurb. The sixth volume is coming out in October. The NLS has each of the first five volumes in braille and talking book. And of course the series is at Amazon, but beware spoilers.

[kestrell]

Thanks! I'll make a point of not reading any of the blurbs or synopses. I forget what book this was for, but I recently read the snopsis of a book I had already read, and it had a major spoiler right there in the synopsis, which was also long enough to be less of a synopsis and more of a detailed summary.

[jesse_the_k]

On the chance that you're not familiar with eir work, Hugo-winning fan writer bogiperson maintain scores of comprehensive themed lists, including

DISABILITY AND BODY POSITIVITY FOCUSED SFF ANTHOLOGIES – A COMPREHENSIVE LIST

http://www.bogireadstheworld.com/disability-and-body-positivity-focused-sff-anthologies-a-comprehensive-list/

[kestrell]

Thank you! I've really been out of the SF and disability network for a long while, so there are many more resources than there were when last I investigated the subject.