Have you taken the reading pledge challenge yet? No? I didn’t — seems silly to limit myself to some arbitrary number of books. I read voraciously and across many genres, although sci-fi is my guilty pleasure and a goto place for when I’m feeling blue.

Science fiction and fantasy are interesting genres. People have such strong opinions about them: “I only read literary fiction.” or “I consume only non-fiction.” And yet, what is literary fiction but a socially-approved book? A classic? Shakespear had written a lot of fantasy books — Macbeth had witches, A Midsummer Night’s Dream had spells and magic, The Tempest was set on an enchanted isle, Hamlet had ghosts. Go back farther in time and read a few Greek plays — gods, witches, medusas, magical beasts of all kinds… And what’s the Epic of Gilgamesh if not a fantasy novel? 

Fantasy is a great way of transporting a reader into another realm and showing real emotions and complicated social dilemmas without getting trapped in a politically incorrect or culturally inappropriate minefield. Fantasy allows us to talk about our prejudices and absurdities of some of our beliefs by taking away trigger words and situations. What a powerful genre.

Science fiction takes fantasy one level up by adding real science, albeit pushed to the very edge of possible, to an emotionally charged story. We as humans remember stories. Wouldn’t a high school physics or math class be more memorable and exciting if the curriculum was presented as a collection of great stories? You might think it not possible, but you’d be wrong. Science used to be told as a story, a description of reality. And only recently have we moved away from these rich tales and into the dry world of scientific journals. But pick up a book by Robert Sapolsky or Oliver Sacks and see what it’s really like to read about science by people who can talk emotionally and who use real stories to make points. I cried reading The Primate’s Memoir — I bonded with Robert’s baboons. I laughed and cried and was outraged by the clinical stories as told by Dr. Sacks…what a beautiful writer, a scientist-poet. I’m reading a book about octopus cognition right now, and yes, I’m crying at the death of a cephalopod. I’m also learning an incredible amount of interesting science…

When you read my stories, I hope you get moved by the emotional throughline. But I also hope you learn some cool science. So go ahead and grab a book. If you don’t like one, try another. There are many options to choose from!

Click the link and claim your book(s).

I have a new book in this collection: Becoming Animals, a fully-illustrated story about a girl with extraordinary abilities to connect brain-to-brain with animals. The story got five 5 star reviews on Reader’s Favorite and all 5 star reviews on Amazon.

And one more thing: when you download some books, you can also enter to win $50 gift card! So don’t wait! Get yours now!

And one more thing… If you like any of the stories you read, please leave a review — being an independent author is hard. Most of us can write, but few can market our work. So help — tell all your friends and their friends about your new author discovery; share this link and give them these books for free; give a shout out to the writer — we love to be told that you like our work!

Thank you for reading!